Where the Heart Chooses

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1

The house in which I grew up was an old Georgian manor in the panhandle of Maryland. It had managed to withstand the ravages of both the War of Independence and the War Between the States and had been kept up by each succeeding generation of Sebrings, who had too much pride in our home to allow it to fall into disrepair.

It sat on one hundred and ten acres of the most beautiful farmland in the state, or perhaps we felt that way simply because Shadow Brook was our home.

Sometimes, when I knew Nigel would be away for extended periods, I would take our son to visit.

Quinton enjoyed the time we spent there. We rode together, and he climbed the trees in the orchard and swam in the small pond where my brothers had taught me to swim and where I, in turn, taught my son.

He loved the house, with its vast maze of rooms, but most especially the room that was entered through a door hidden under the staircase on the second floor. Within that room had once been kept the family’s treasures, the Bible with its record of births, marriages, and deaths, the original land grant from Lord Baltimore for services rendered, letters from at least eight presidents, a copy of the Declaration of Independence carefully framed to protect it. Now they were in a climate-controlled vault, and what remained in the room were the silver punch bowl and eight goblets that had been crafted by Paul Revere, as had the lead soldiers earlier generations of Sebring boys had played with.

There was also a miniature portrait of the blond, blue-eyed man who had founded our family.

Barnabas Sebring sailed to the Americas in 1634, when Charles I granted Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, the region that was to become Maryland, and he was my son’s great-to-the-eighth degree grandfather.

Barnabas’s great-great grandson ran General Washington’s spy ring in the central portion of the United States. According to family legend, if Nathan Hale had worked under Horatio Sebring, he never would have told a stranger of his mission and wouldn’t have needed to speak his famous last words.

From that time until the present, Sebrings had served their country, covertly for the most part. Because I was a woman did not mean I was excluded.

I was named for my godmother. She and my mother had been girlhood friends in Baltimore, and that friendship had continued even after Portia Fitzgibbons married into the British nobility and became Lady Portia.

She was Mother’s matron of honor when Mother married Anthony Sebring in 1920, and when I was born in 1935, she was my godmother.

So when Father asked a favor of her, she was more than willing to accommodate him.

I learned of his plans for me when I came home from Wellesley for the spring break my senior year.

Mother had been running me ragged, and now I came quietly down the stairs from the second floor of Shadow Brook. I was dressed in jodhpurs, and I wanted to take my mare out. However, if I ran across Mother, I knew she would find something else she felt I simply had to do.

There was the sound of a throat being cleared, and I jumped and then breathed a sigh of relief.

“Portia.”

“Good afternoon, Father.”

“I see you’re dressed for riding.”

“Yes. Penelope needs some exercise, and so do I after all the time away at college.”

“If you can spare me a moment, would you come into my study, please?”

“Certainly.” It was phrased as a polite suggestion, but I knew an order when I heard one.

“Close the door.”

“Father, what’s this about?”

“Lady Portia has graciously offered to sponsor your debut in London.”

“Next year—”

“This year. As you’re aware, the queen has abolished the tradition of presenting girls. Every parent is going to have their daughter curtsy before her, even if they’re underage. It will be a madhouse. That’s why you’ll be presented this June.”

“But—”

“Lady Portia has seen to all the arrangements, and your mother has been in touch with Dior. He has your measurements, and he’s agreed to have your wardrobe ready for a fitting as soon as you can get to Paris.”

“My graduation?” I was to graduate from Wellesley with honors in History.

“Is in May. As soon as the ceremony is over, you’ll fly out from Friendship International. Now, your mother tells me you have some reservations to being presented at Court.”

“I’m a little old for that, don’t you think, Father?” I’d turned twenty-one the previous November. “And I had hoped to get started on my master’s. There are also the advanced courses in Russian I wanted to take…”

He waved aside my objections. “You could pass for eighteen, and you won’t need that degree. As for Russian, you already speak it like a Bolshevik. I would much rather you delay your plans a few months, possibly a year.”

He wasn’t a capricious man, nor one who felt a woman’s place was in the home, barefoot and pregnant. I waited to hear his reasons.

“You’ll meet people who are in the government. A connection with them will prove most beneficial to the family. The Country.” And yes, that was with a capital C—he revered the land of his birth more than God.

Father had served in the OSS during the War. Now he worked primarily for the State Department.

My three brothers also worked for the government. Anthony, the oldest, had finished a stint in the military and joined the National Security Agency, while Bryan, who had been the baby until I was born, and Jefferson, who was the middle brother, had both chosen the CIA.

“I imagine this will give me a certain cachet with that community?”

“Yes. And keep in mind it will make the utmost sense for your parents to give you a Season as a…mmm…graduation present.”

“Very well, Father.”

His smile was a mere stretching of his lips as he offered me a glass of aged scotch. “Welcome to the family business, Portia.”

I touched my glass to his and took a sip.