Hazelhurst: A Regency Romance (Families of Dorset Book 4)

by Martha Keyes

  Louisa looked slightly apprehensive as Tobias and Anne reentered the drawing room for an introduction, hardly meeting Tobias's eyes as they approached her. She stood, babe in arms, holding him tightly against her in a nervous and protective gesture.

  "Louisa," Anne said, "allow me to introduce you to my husband, Mr. Tobias Cosgrove."

  Tobias made a small bow and donned a smile. Did the woman think he was an ogre, come to expel her from the house in a fiery rage? "I am very pleased to meet you, Mrs..."

  He realized that Anne had never told him the woman's surname.

  "Hackett," the woman said.

  Tobias narrowed his eyes for a moment. "Hackett," he said absently. The name sounded familiar, and it was uncommon enough, but he couldn't put a finger on where he knew it from. It would likely come to him later at some odd moment.

  "I am told," he said, craning his neck a bit to see into the bundle of blankets, "that this little babe is quite out of the ordinary way and that seeing him will wreak havoc upon my hitherto stony heart."

  Mrs. Hackett smiled and looked down admiringly at her baby, relaxing a bit at his words. She shifted the blankets around the baby's head and then, her eyes still on the infant, moved to put him in Tobias's arms.

  Tobias stuttered, unprepared for such a thing, but he awkwardly put his hands out, all the same. He had no desire to hurt the woman's feelings by refusing the infant, but truth be told, he had never held a baby before.

  Anne moved toward him. "Here," she said. "Hold him like this." She moved Tobias's arms into a cradling position, and Mrs. Hackett set the baby inside.

  The bundle was warm and soft, and Tobias glanced at Anne with a smile before looking down to the baby. His eyes were closed, and one hand balled in a fist, which rested next to his head. His lips jutted out in a tiny little pout, his chest rising and falling peacefully.

  "I have never held a baby before," he admitted, finding it difficult to look away from the boy.

  Anne laughed lightly, and Tobias looked up at her, smiling as he realized the reason for her laugh. "I am sure that comes as a great surprise, for even having no experience with babies, I think you will agree that my natural skill is quite evident."

  He winked at Anne and then looked back down to the baby whose lids fluttered for a moment before relaxing into slumber again.

  "You were right," he said, smiling at Anne. "Who would have thought that such a little human could inspire visions of heroic journeys and fighting dragons, if only to guard his peaceful slumber?"

  Anne put a hand on his forearm, peeking into the blankets. "I think fighting off a dragon might cause enough of a stir to wake little James."

  Mrs. Hackett scoffed lightly and then coughed twice for her pains. "You might be surprised, my lady. He will sleep through any din you can create unless you depend upon him sleeping. Then even the slightest movement, the quietest noise can wake him and send him into a fit of shrieking such as you have never heard."

  Tobias eyed the baby warily, raising his shoulders to hand him off to his mother. "Perhaps we should be off to the village, then."

  Mrs. Hackett smiled at Tobias as she took the baby in her arms. "Someday, Mr. Cosgrove, you will hold your own babe in your arms, and you will come to find that even such shrieking cannot alarm you, so accustomed have you become to the cries. And yet somehow, at the same time, you would willingly die fighting the most horrifying dragon in existence just to spare your child pain, so great is the love you have for that child." She looked up at him, and there was a sheen over her eyes. "You see why I am so grateful to you both for taking us in, even if only for these few hours."

  Tobias grimaced his understanding. "We will help ensure the baby's safety and your own, Mrs. Hackett. We will leave you in the capable hands of Mrs. Pinborough while we carry out our errand. I hope we shall return with happy news for you and James."

  He and Anne separated in the upstairs corridor to don another layer of clothing before venturing outside. When the door of Hazelhurst closed behind them, Tobias offered Anne his arm, and they began their journey down the lane and into the village.

  "Thank you," Anne said, glancing up at him.

  The gratitude shining in her eyes had a similar effect upon him as looking at James had—he would sacrifice much to see Anne look at him in such a way. She had a way of making him feel needed in a way he had only had glimpses of in his life up to now.

  "For what?" he said on a chuckle. "Nearly dropping the baby?"

  Anne smiled. "Everyone has to learn how to hold an infant for the first time. Now it will come quite naturally to you." She shook her head. "But that isn't what I meant. I meant to thank you for making Louisa feel comfortable. She was very anxious—I am sure you noticed—but you set her at her ease immediately." She looked up at him again, the warmth in her eyes making his heart sputter. "It is a gift of yours. I doubt anyone can feel anything but welcome in your company."

  He shook his head, but for some reason her praise made his throat catch. He cleared it determinedly. "I am glad if that is the case."

  "May I confess something?" Anne said, and he could hear the smile in her voice without even looking at her.

  He narrowed his eyes and looked at her warily but then nodded.

  "I was very wrong about you," she said, her smile fading slightly as her expression became more intent. Her eyes scanned his, and he swallowed.

  "I thought that I was marrying a comic or a jester when I married you,” she said. “Someone incapable of taking life seriously. But I have come to see that there is a purpose behind your lightheartedness—as if you feel called to lighten others' loads."

  He sighed thoughtfully, watching the way Anne's dress moved to and fro with each step of her feet. "I just never wanted to be like my father. It became apparent to me when I was very young that he set people on edge, myself included. He can be very agreeable when everything goes according to his wishes, but the moment he is crossed, he becomes dashed unpleasant. His temper is unpredictable, and I saw how cordially disliked he was by even the people he called his friends."

  "The determination not to become like one's parents can be a very strong motivation."

  He glanced at Anne. There was experience behind those words. "You are a great credit to your parents."

  Anne smiled weakly but shook her head. "I am a great disappointment to my father. What he fails to realize is that my mistakes are a direct result of my resolve not to follow in his footsteps—to avoid the unhappiness I grew up experiencing and witnessing.” She let out a gush of air. “But that only led me into folly."

  She was speaking of her marriage, surely. Tobias hardly knew anything about it—only that the man had disappeared and turned out not to be who he had claimed to be. But her feelings on the matter were a mystery to him. Did she miss the man? Had she loved him? Was she nursing a broken heart behind her calm façade?

  It was hard for Tobias to imagine what kind of coward, what kind of man could take advantage of someone as kind and good as Anne.

  He put out a hand, assisting her as she walked around the edge of the large puddle which covered the road as it turned toward the village.

  "You paid dearly for believing the best of someone," he said. "I can't imagine that is easy to recover from."

  "No," she said. "And yet, I would still rather be the cheated than the cheater. It is easier to mend a wounded heart than to soften one of stone."

  Tobias looked at her beside him, her face so peaceful and soft despite the pain she must have experienced. She had a clear conscience, and she seemed to think that worth the pain. Her former husband—or whatever he had been—could hardly say the same, and Tobias couldn't help but feel that the man would be well-served if he lived his life sorely regretting what he had done. Surely he deserved whatever pain life had in store for him.

  But Tobias was struck by Anne's words. It is easier to mend a wounded heart than to soften one of stone.

  She had assumed that his humor was in service to other
s, and it certainly had been an asset through the years. But Tobias couldn't deny that it was more than that—or perhaps less than that. His humor protected him. Was it not another way of encasing his heart in stone, ensuring that he took nothing so seriously that it could harm him? The thought of letting anyone through, of willingly letting someone into his heart at the risk of having them treat it cavalierly, as Anne had experienced—he drew back from such a prospect instinctively.

  His humor had a distinctly selfish element to it. It had borne him through a life deficient of the praise or demonstrative love from his parents that he had craved when he was younger.

  "Is that the Turner house?" Anne's voice broke through his thoughts, and she pointed to the only two-story home in the village, puffs of smoke emerging from its chimney.

  Tobias nodded. "Yes, indeed," he said, stopping to face her. "I must prepare you for Mrs. Turner, I think." He couldn't stop a smile. "She is...somewhat gregarious."

  Anne's brows went up. "Shall we not be home in time for dinner after all, then?"

  Tobias grimaced. "I should think it more likely that we will be obliged to ask Mrs. Turner to put us up for the night once she has finished her story-telling."

  "Oh dear," Anne said, her hand coming up to cover her laugh. "We shall have to be quite clear that our errand is a brief one or else Louisa will believe we have abandoned her."

  Tobias shrugged. "Perhaps she would prefer being abandoned at Hazelhurst to living with the Turners in this cottage." The cottage was well enough, but it couldn’t compare to Hazelhurst by any stretch of the imagination.

  "Very true," Anne said. "Well, the longer we delay, the later we shall arrive home, and I have every intention of returning home for dinner, for, if memory serves me, Cook is making her famous apple pie tonight."

  "Hmm. I think I haven't had the pleasure of tasting it before."

  "Well," Anne said with an arch look as she approached the door to the Turner home, "perhaps if you ate dinner at home more frequently, you would understand just how pressing is my desire to arrive home in time to eat it fresh." She sent a teasing smile up at him through her lashes. "Though I cannot pretend that I have lamented having to eat the entire thing myself before now. It shall be a great trial to share it with you tonight."

  "And with Louisa, too," Tobias said significantly, rapping on the door three times.

  Anne looked struck by the comment, and Tobias felt inclined to press the issue. "And James looks like he has a formidable appetite, too, you know." He clucked his tongue. "I think you must steel yourself to the possibility that there will be none at all left for you once our guests—and the man of the house, of course—have been served." He shot her a look full of feigned pity, patting her shoulder. "Poor Anne."

  She made as if to swat at his arm, and so it was with laughs on the lips that they were greeted and shooed merrily into the house by Mrs. Turner.

  12

  Mrs. Turner was indeed gregarious, as Anne discovered very quickly. As Anne familiarized her with Louisa's situation, the woman tsk tsk'd and frowned sympathetically, interrupting Anne to express a willingness to take the stranger and her baby in as soon as she realized that such was the intent of Anne and Tobias's visit.

  "I should gladly take in all the babies in the world if given the chance," Mrs. Turner said, "for each one brings a slice of heaven into the home. Mrs. Newsom is very near to her time of confinement, you know, and I told her that, with her husband as vicar, they have enough heaven in their home and would do well to share some with the rest of us, but no, she insists that the babe stay with them, though I can tell you that she may be singing a very different tune when she discovers what it is to have four children in the home, for three children and an infant besides is enough to try the patience of even a saint like Mrs. Newsom."

  Anne made a mental note to visit Mrs. Newsom who, the last time she had seen her at church, had looked somewhat weak and overwhelmed by the task of keeping her children quiet and duly reverent, all with a growing belly.

  Mrs. Turner was very curious to know more of Louisa's situation, and Anne struggled mightily against the guilt she felt as she recounted Louisa's misfortunes, knowing that she was not being completely transparent with Tobias.

  He had asked her how she came to know of Louisa's predicament, and Anne had told only part of the truth, leaving out the identity of Louisa's husband. She and Tobias had never spoken of Anthony, of her past marriage, and it hardly seemed that the proper time to broach the subject would be at the same time as she was requesting him to assist a woman victimized by the same man.

  So she had taken the coward's way out. And she hated herself for it.

  And yet, every time she thought on the sweet, blue eyes of baby James, she felt that she was doing the right thing by assisting them, whatever it took. Louisa was a victim, just as Anne had been. And yet Louisa and James had none of the resources which had buffered Anne from the direst effects of her situation. Anne had had family and position to fall back on.

  Abandoned by even their parish, Louisa and James were alone in the world.

  Until now. Anne and Tobias arranged to have Louisa and James conveyed to the Turners once they arrived back at Hazelhurst, and they made an escape through the front door while Mrs. Turner instructed her daughter on preparations for their guests.

  "And you so certain that we would be detained here all night," said Anne as they shut the door behind them and began their walk down the lane, the sun setting on the horizon and bathing the village in golden and orange hues.

  "And so we should have if I had not very strategically orchestrated our exit just now." He shot a conspiratorial smile at her. "Apple pie," he said, wagging his brows. "I am determined to have it fresh, as you said."

  Anne glanced at the position of the sun as the bottom of it dipped below the horizon. "I think you might have to run if you wish for that, for it must be nearing six o'clock, and we will still be obliged to dress for dinner when we arrive home. Though I can tell you," she said significantly, "that I intend to dress as quickly as possible."

  One of Tobias's eyebrows quirked up. "Is that a challenge? You think that you can beat me to the pie?"

  "I am quite confident of it, Tobias," she said. She indicated the little curls which peeked under his top hat. "I can't imagine that such curls are achieved without a great deal of effort and, while I hesitate to offend you, they are looking sadly crushed and limp. No doubt your valet will need extra time to revive them before sending you down to dinner. I understand that Spears is very particular indeed."

  Tobias reared back in mock offense, coming to a stop in the middle of the road. "These," he said, removing his hat and tousling his curls, "are entirely natural, I will have you know."

  Anne looked at him skeptically and then reached a hand to the piece of hair, rubbing it between her fingers. She drew her lips into a thin, displeased line. "Just as I suspected. Pomade."

  Tobias threw his head back, scoffing. "A blatant lie!"

  She raised her brows at him. "Is it? Then what do you make of this? Whoever arrives at the drawing room first, dressed for dinner, wins the pie, to be enjoyed in full view of the other person."

  Watching through narrowed eyes as Tobias positioned himself to begin running, Anne put up a finger in the air. "With the condition that you cannot run to Hazelhurst."

  He stood up, looking defeated. "Why not?"

  She held out her skirts. "I think you must agree that it is hardly a fair race. This dress is simply not made to allow for long strides."

  His lips jutted out in thought, and he rubbed his jaw, a mischievous smile stealing across his face.

  She looked at him warily. "What?"

  "I think it very unfair indeed that both of us are to be needlessly deprived of a freshly baked apple pie because of naught but a dress."

  Anne sighed. "And yet it would be an unfair advantage for you to run ahead. And hardly chivalrous, I might add, leaving me to walk the rest of the distance alone."r />
  He nodded decisively, the same mischievous smile creeping up one side of his face. "I agree wholeheartedly. And so..." he reached toward her, scooping her up into his arms amidst her scandalized cry, which was drowned in laughter.

  He began running down the lane.

  "Tobias!" Anne cried, breathless from the unexpectedness of it and the misgiving she felt as she watched the ground moving below her.

  "This," he said, breathing heavily through a grin, "is the only fair solution."

  He sidestepped to avoid the large puddle, but the belatedness of his maneuver landed his foot on the slight but muddy incline at the edge of the water, and they slipped, falling sideways and into the brown, murky water.

  Anne cried out as they fell and again as she felt cold water hit her face and chest, seeping into her dress. Tobias, too, cried out—or shrieked, rather.

  Anne scrambled up onto her elbow, cringing at the pain in her hip and arm which had broken her fall.

  Tobias was wiping at his forehead with the back of a hand covered in mud before looking to her, guilt and trepidation in his expression, though it was clear that they were warring with his desire to laugh. "You aren't hurt, are you?" he said, biting his lip to stop a smile as he scanned her from head to toe.

  Anne stayed silent as the grave, holding her arms up in the air and watching as brown water and a few dabs of mud dripped from them, making soft plopping noises as they fell into the pool below.

  Tobias's mouth twisted to the side, and his shoulders began to shake.

  Anne watched him in disbelief and consternation. "You are incorrigible! And unforgivable!" But his muted amusement began to burst through in spurts of laughter.

  Feeling the need to do something to shake him from his state, she stuck a hand into the pool below and scooped a handful of mud from within, cringing at its sliminess and then throwing it.

  Splat.

  Tobias went still, and the mud slid down his cheek under wide, startled eyes. He put a hand to the mud and then pulled it away to inspect it in the dusky light of twilight. He looked to the mud and then to Anne and then back to the mud and back to Anne.