by Cheryl Bolen
“I should not have brought up such a topic. Forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. From the moment I first saw you and the children, I surmised that if you had money, you wouldn’t have been exposing your children to such brutal cold last evening. Then when I discovered you were going to the coaching inn – without a single valise – it became clear to me that you were in serious financial difficulties. It’s my privilege to be able to help you.”
“It’s very embarrassing to me, but at the same time, I feel as if you’re my savior.” What the devil had come over her? She was blathering away like a school girl suffering from a deprivation of pride and want of common sense.
“I’m gratified that I can help. It assuages my conscience. You see, I’m feeling quite low. I promised a comrade of mine who died in battle I would help look after his wife and children, but I was too late to be able to help them. Helping you and Susan and Eddie makes me feel less of a failure, though I still feel beastly about not being able to help them.”
He really was a genuinely likeable man. “When you said you were too late to help your friend’s family, did you mean they . . . died?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. At least I hope that’s not the case. I was too late to find them because I believe they . . . moved.”
“Perhaps after you’ve seen your family you’ll be able to return to London and find them.”
“I shall try.” For the first time since she’d met him, a somberness seeped through into his cheerful barrier. He left the table, moved to the fire, and stood there warming himself, eyeing Charlotte. “I appreciate you being candid with me.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “About not being able to feed my children?”
“Yes. I know it wasn’t easy for a proud woman like yourself, a woman of good breeding.”
Her lashes lowered, and she spoke only barely above a whisper. “It was terribly embarrassing.”
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. A man has the means to seek employment in order to feed his family. A woman who’s been brought up as a lady does not have an occupation or the means by which to even seek an occupation.”
She nodded. “The only skill I could have offered was that of a governess, but having children prohibits me from doing that.”
“Your year of mourning is up?”
“Yes.” She found that she was getting cold and got up from the table to go stand by the fire beside him.
“Then you’ll remarry. Because you’re pretty, you’ll have not the least difficulty attracting a husband.”
She fixed him with an angry glare. “One doesn’t marry for such mercenary reasons.”
“No, of course not. You must allow yourself to love again.” His voice lowered. “You deserve to love again.”
Then he did a most peculiar thing. An exceedingly unexpected thing. He moved closer to her, clasped two strong hands on her shoulders, and lowered his head to kiss her.
Chapter 5
It wasn’t until she twisted away from him that Philip realized how depraved Mrs. Leeming must think him. He was as disappointed in himself as she must be in him. Grimacing with tightly shut eyes he croaked out a shaky, “Forgive me.”
Her back was to him. All he saw now were the tendrils of blonde hair on her graceful neck, the dainty shoulders hugged by the soft violet muslin of her gown, the forlorn, defeated shake of her head. One moment ago he’d soared with joy as he’d kissed this beautiful woman.
Now he felt like a predator.
“I have no right to ask your forgiveness when I’ve betrayed your trust, but I swear to you I’m a gentleman. I don’t know what came over me.”
Still, there was no response.
“Would it be too much to ask you to try to forget my unpardonable conduct?” he asked. “If you could forget, then we could go on as if it had never occurred, go back to where we were before. I thought we were all getting along jolly well.”
She slowly turned around to face him. God, she was lovely, so much so that she almost stole away his breath. Her cheeks were rosy, he suspected from embarrassment.
“I don’t think I shall be able to forget it,” she said, “but I should very much like to accept your apology with the hope that such an action not be repeated.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
“Shall I ring for more hot water? Do you not think we need more tea?”
“An excellent idea.”
She crossed the room to ring for a servant.
He was still befuddled over his impetuous action. Even more befuddling, he’d never associated Mrs. Leeming with lust. Not last night when he’d noticed how extraordinarily beautiful she was. Not when he’d thought of wanting to lie in bed with her. Not when he’d told her she needed to love again. Not even when he’d kissed her.
This was not a woman one lusted after. This was a woman one married.
And Lord Philip Fenton had no intentions of marrying.
He supposed he had been too long away from well-brought-up women and loving families. Being around Mrs. Leeming and her delightful children awakened in him all those relationships of which he’d been deprived for the many years he was on the Peninsula.
True, she elicited in him a profound physical craving for intimacy. He wanted to touch this woman. He wanted to hold this woman. He wanted to kiss this woman.
After she ordered the water, she went back to sit at the table. He remained standing at the fire. An awkward silence followed.
“Until yesterday I still wore my husband’s wedding ring.”
“Even though it’s been more than a year?”
She nodded.
“Oh, dear God. You sold the ring yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“I believe it’s what your husband would have wanted.”
“Yes, I think so, too. That’s what I told myself. It would make him happy to know that ring he gave me was continuing to take care of us . . .” Her voice cracked. “After he was gone.”
“Does is not occur to you that selling the ring is the final step in letting go of that marriage? It’s a sign that there will be another happy marriage for you.”
She shook her head somberly. “I never considered there would ever be another marriage.”
“Likely because you were still wearing the ring. I suspect there were many reasons why it was time for you to sell that ring.” He eyed her. “How old are you?”
“Four and twenty.”
He laughed. “Many women are marrying for the first time at so youthful an age. Believe me, a lovely woman like you will be sweeping men off their feet. You’ve got a long, happy, prosperous life to look forward to.”
“Happy is something that no longer seems attainable to me. Especially now.” She glared at him.
And he felt despicable.
The pounding of children’s feet and sounds of youthful voices lifted in merriment moved closer down the corridor until Eddie burst through the doorway.
“Mama! Mama! Mr. Podge permitted me to harness one of our horses.”
“He permitted me to name the horse Smokey,” Susan said, her voice almost as excited as that of her brother.
“But how, my darling,” Charlotte asked Eddie, “did you manage to harness a horse? You’re not nearly tall as they are.”
“He stacked up some very large wooden boxes for Eddie,” Susan answered.
Charlotte brushed away a thick lock of blond hair from her son’s forehead. “However did you know how to do it correctly?”
“Mr. Podge taught me. He said I did it as good as he could.” He looked up at Mr. Fenton for approval.
“I knew you’d be an apt student.”
“What does apt mean?“
“It means very good,” Mr. Fenton answered.
She might be very vexed with him, but she could not deny he was good with the children. She prayed he wasn’t just being good with them in order to seduce their mother. She had foolishly trusted him last night, but this mor
ning he had destroyed that trust.
In all likelihood Mr. Fenton was a good man. But he was a man, and men had carnal needs. He had demonstrated that this morning.
She watched as he and the children talked about what had transpired in the stables, her thoughts spiraling into a place she hoped she’d never have to go.
For Charlotte Hale had nothing left. Certainly nothing material. She now had come to realize she’d lost her pride. Her respectability would fall next. For if she had to use her body in order to get food, lodgings, and transport to the Duchess of Fordham, she would. That’s what despair does to one.
And for that, she hated Mr. Fenton.
There were few things more trying for children than dreary winter days that kept them indoors. No one understood this better than Philip. As the youngest in his family, he had no doubt driven the others mad with his incessant complaints of boredom. Bless Georgiana. She had always contrived to entertain him with her storytelling or the questioning games she invented to keep him occupied. Perhaps he could now stave off the boredom for the Leeming children as Georgiana had done for him.
“I say, Miss Leeming and Master Eddie,” he began, a mischievous gleam in his eyes, “I am wondering which of you has the best powers of observation.”
Eddie’s lower lip worked into a pout. “I don’t know what obsavation is.”
Susan whirled around to face her brother. “It means to see things, stupid.”
Mrs. Leeming glared at her daughter. She seemed to be doing a lot of glaring today, and it was all his wretched fault. “Do not ever call your brother such a thing. Apologize.”
Now Susan’s lower lip stuck out. “I’m sow-wy I said you were stupid.”
Mrs. Leeming still glared.
“What I was saying,” Philip continued, “was we shall play a game to see which of you can . . . can pick out things the fastest. Allow me to explain. Let’s say I ask you to find something that has silver. The first of you who finds something with silver receives a point.”
“I see silber on that clock!” Eddie shrieked, pointing to the mantel.
“He hasn’t started the game yet, stupid.”
“Susan!” her mother scolded.
“I’m sowwy.”
“Eddie’s younger than you. You’re supposed to be helping him, not belittling him.”
The lovely little girl looked truly contrite this time as she solemnly nodded.
Philip turned to the mother. “Do you think you can tally the scores?”
She nodded.
“Mama can remember sums better than most people remember names. Everyone remarks upon it,” Susan said.
His eyes met the mother’s. She looked away quickly.
“Well, shall we begin?”
He was thusly able to entertain the children for the following hour, until they ran out of objects in the parlor, and the children clamored to move into the bedchamber. “I don’t know if your mother would approve of that,” he said, his gaze moving to her.
“I’m afraid if we don’t, we’ll have a mutiny on our hands, Mr. Fenton,” she said with good humor.
So they spent another hour in the bedchamber. The children adored the game, and Eddie was not handicapped in the least by being a year younger than his sister—a fact of which Susan had regularly reminded him.
When he was quite certain he’d run out of items, he declared the game finished. “Now,” Philip’s gaze met their mother’s, “it’s time to declare the winner.”
“Is there to be a pwize?” Eddie asked.
“Yes, indeed there is. The winner receives a shilling.”
Both children exclaimed, then whirled to their mother, both inquiring at once to see if they had won.
“This is most extraordinary,” she said.
The children watched with trepidation.
“Each child has seven-and-forty correct answers.” She looked up at him, mirth in her pale blue eyes. “Whatever will we do, Mr. Fenton? However will we select a winner?”
He put index finger to chin. “Let me see. We could have each child guess a number between one and ten, and who gets closest wins. Eddie can count to ten, can he not?”
“Course I can count to ten.” The lad looked mad.
“Or,” Philip continued, “we could do eenie, meenie, miney, moe to determine the winner.”
Neither child looked pleased.
“Or . . . we could award each child a shilling.”
Two youthful faces brightened as Philip whipped two shillings from his pockets and gave one to each.
“In my whole life I ain’t never had a shilling,” Eddie said.
“Ain’t isn’t proper English,” his mother scolded.
“And I haven’t, either,” Susan said.
Philip couldn’t have been happier had he won a fortune at the faro table.
He was even more touched when Susan crossed the chamber and presented her shilling to her mother. “I know you’ve been needing this, Mama.”
It quite melted his heart to see Mrs. Leeming’s eyes mist as she thanked her daughter but kindly refused the offering.
“Can we play another game?” Eddie asked.
“It’s time for dinner,” Philip said.
“And you can’t expect Mr. Fenton to play with you children day and night—and you can’t expect him to award you shillings for every game. You’ll take all the poor man’s money.”
“I don’t think Mr. Fenton’s a poor man,” Susan said.
Susan was a clever little girl.
By the time they finished dinner it was totally dark. They gathered around the fire as Philip retold the same stories Georgiana had told him when he was a lad. Mrs. Leeming had gathered her children around her beneath a blanket, and once more he longed for such pure, joyous physical contact.
What jewels she had in her children! How blessed was the man who would win this lovely woman and those adorable children.
He longed, too, for his own family. Especially Georgiana. She was barely older than he, but she’d always been the nurturer. And when their mother had fallen ill when he was in the Peninsula, it was Georgiana who had been the one to nurture her back to health. He loved them both very much and longed to be with them again.
The children grew drowsy and went to sleep, draped over their mother. He put index finger to lips. “I’ll help you carry them to bed.”
They put them in the big feather bed in the cozy chamber where the maid had built a wood fire. Then he and Mrs. Leeming returned to the parlor.
“You might as well stay here for a while,” she said as she resumed her seat on the sofa in front of the fire. “I hate to send you out on this nasty night.”
He sat on the opposite end of the sofa from her.
She sighed. “It looks as if we’re to spend Christmas Eve at the Inn. And probably Christmas.” Her voice was forlorn. “Not what I had hoped for.”
“I daresay not what anyone had hoped for—except the innkeepers. If their larder isn’t depleted, they should be most happy.”
Her lids closed as she grimaced. “What would we do if they run out of food?”
“I always say not to cross a bridge until you come to it.”
“How can you always be so optimistic?”
“It beats being glum, madam.”
“Easy for you to say. You admitted you’ve never been in want of money. I, on the other hand, like to contemplate catastrophes ahead of time in order to counter them in some way, if possible. I should think a man with military training would do the same.”
He smiled. “Ah you have me there, madam. A poor officer I must sound.”
They sat in silence for a moment, watching the flames flickering. “Allow me to pour your wine, madam.” He proceeded to do so.
A moment later he laughed to himself.
“Why, may I ask, are you laughing, Mr. Fenton?”
“It’s really shabby of me, but I was recalling your words. Terribly shabby of me really.”
“What words?”
He shook his head. “When you said you liked to contemplate catastrophe. I realize you don’t actually like to contemplate catastrophe, but you must admit it did sound awfully silly—not that I’m trying to make light of the graveness of your perilous situation. It’s just the sound of I, sir, like to contemplate catastrophe.” In earnest, he was trying to cheer her, but he sensed he was failing miserably.
She then surprised him. An ever-so-slight smile hitched across her firelit face.
“Do you, sir, take nothing seriously?”
“Very little, actually. Life’s too full of sadness. I prefer joy.”
“I must confess, except for Eddie and Susan, my life sorely lacks joy.”
“Then it was fate that I happened to be driving along Chappell Street last night. I have appointed myself to be the Usurper of Gloom of . . . may I know your Christian name, Mrs. Leeming?”
She hesitated a moment. Was she afraid he would try once more to take liberties?
Finally, she said, “Charlotte.”
“I shall be the Usurper of Gloom for Charlotte Leeming.”
She smiled. “And the Bearer of Joy to Eddie and Susan.”
Curiously, she had not added their surname. “I hope that I can be. So . . . before you married, what brought you joy?”
The tension within her uncoiled and she pursed her lips. The transformation that came over her was not unlike that in his subalterns after a general inspected the troops. “I vastly enjoyed the assemblies at Almack’s.”
So she had been on the fringes of the upper classes.
“And I derived an equal amount of pleasure from my subscription to the lending library.”
His brows lowered and he quizzed her teasingly. “You were not a devotee of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels, were you?”
“Pray, sir. Give me more credit.”
“Whew! I cannot abide foolish women. And if I’m to be snowed in for God only knows how long, I prefer to be with one possessed of a semblance of intelligence.”
“It is hoped I can satisfy that meager requirement, Mighty Usurper of Gloom.”
So she possessed a sense of humor after all.
“And were you a good dancer?”
