A Rake to the Rescue

by Elizabeth Beacon

  ‘I’ll be fat as a farmyard goose before you two are done,’ he complained half-heartedly. He was sipping a cup of his mother’s favourite China tea when hasty footsteps told them their young guest had found his way back to the kitchen like iron to a magnet.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Toby Champion announced as if that was the most important fact in the world right now and, for him, it probably was.

  ‘Are you, my lamb?’ Cook said indulgently. Magnus wondered how the lad had got into her good books so quickly. ‘I’ll have to see if there’s something in the larder as won’t spoil your dinner, then.’

  ‘Have you eaten it all?’ the boy accused Magnus as if they were more or less the same age and he had stolen a march on him.

  Magnus managed a manly shrug. ‘I ate the lemon biscuits, but Cook’s larder is never empty, even though my little sisters and our mother eat more like wrens than hungry human beings.’

  ‘Wrens have to eat their own weight in food every day to stay alive,’ Toby announced as he ate a griddle scone so fast they must have imagined it.

  ‘Really? And to think we understood you through all those crumbs,’ Magnus said, and the lad screwed up his face as if thinking about glowering at him, but he must have decided there were better things to do with his mouth than pout.

  ‘Mama will be cross if she catches me eating before dinner again, although I can’t see why because I will still be hungry,’ he explained past the next one.

  ‘So, you eat as much as you can before she stops you?’ Magnus replied, and the lad nodded as he wasted no time getting on with yet another scone.

  ‘Toby Champion, I despair of you,’ the boy’s mother announced breathlessly from the doorway Cook had left open to let the heat out and fresh air in.

  ‘I was starving, so I ran instead of walking like you told me to, but I didn’t go anywhere I wasn’t supposed to,’ the boy explained earnestly. He had refused a plate in the boyish belief his mother wouldn’t realise he had been eating if he didn’t have one. Magnus could remember having that delusion at a similar age and his mother hadn’t believed him either.

  ‘I doubt leaving your mother in the middle of nowhere could be considered looking after her under any code of gentlemanly conduct I ever came across,’ Magnus reproved mildly and wondered why he had almost hated the boy at first sight. Toby Champion was a more intense version of the horrid brat most boys were at the same age, but there was nothing sly or calculating about him and he didn’t bear a grudge. He must have got his character from the maternal side and only his restlessness and golden looks from his father. Magnus had never liked Brandon Champion, even before he ran off with a schoolgirl, but he had no reason to dislike his son other than the desolation he’d felt the day they first met, when Mrs Champion demonstrably had a very lively child in her life and he did not.

  ‘Does that mean I can’t play with the puppies tomorrow?’ Toby said with what looked like genuine tears in his wide blue eyes.

  ‘Don’t fall for his tricks,’ Mrs Champion warned all the same. ‘Stop pretending you’re an abused waif this minute, Toby, or I really will pack you off to your great-grandmother to be taught not to cozen your elders and mind your manners.’

  ‘No, I really and truly hate her,’ the boy said with a mulish look of appeal in Magnus’s direction and he tried not to feel flattered. ‘She’s an old witch.’

  ‘Tobias Champion! How dare you speak so rudely of a lady who put up with you for a whole day before she decided you are impossible? Heaven knows she must like you to endure your bad manners and wicked tricks as long as she did.’

  ‘She didn’t try to kiss or hug me after I let the rat out of the trap in her drawing room, though, did she?’

  ‘Considering you somehow managed to carry it all the way from the larder to the drawing room without being caught, I can’t say I blame her and I would not have let you kiss me either. And she did invite her friends especially to meet you, you horrid brat. Now they think me a terrible mother as well as a failure as Lady Porter’s only grandchild,’ Mrs Champion said with a sigh.

  Magnus almost felt sorry for her until he saw humour in her fine grey eyes behind that glassy disguise. She didn’t blame her son for creating chaos, nor seem to mind what her starchy grandparent thought of them now they were safely out of her way. Evidently Mrs Champion was as glad to leave such a grimly correct and old-fashioned household behind as her son had been. Why on earth hadn’t he realised what an unusual female she was at first glance? he wondered. He felt as if a veil between him and the rest of the world had been ripped away when he finally accepted Delphi didn’t love him and never had. It was almost exhilarating to put a full stop and carry on with his life, or it would be if not for the ache of having his little daughter ripped away from him as well.

  ‘I am sorry, Mama,’ Toby Champion said and even managed to sound it.

  Magnus fought to control a chuckle at a mental image of a room full of elderly ladies screeching like starlings, then having strong hysterics all at the same time. Mrs Champion eyed her son sternly, then sighed and shook her head.

  ‘Why do you never think about the consequences before you do things, Toby?’ she asked. ‘I despair of you ever being a proper gentleman if you can’t at least pretend to respect your elders.’

  ‘I respect you and Grandpapa, and I am only seven and three-quarters, Mama,’ he said with a roguish smile, and somehow Magnus knew she was trying not to laugh as well. ‘Great-Grandmama says it must be your fault I am growing up a monster and since she is so old she must be right.’

  ‘Checkmate,’ Magnus muttered facetiously.

  ‘Stay out of our game unless you know how to lose,’ Mrs Champion ordered softly and Magnus badly wanted to know her first name. It felt ridiculous to keep calling her Mrs Champion in his head, especially when it was so full of outrageous thoughts that needed to know what to call her in the throes of passion. ‘And not necessarily,’ she warned as if the game wasn’t up yet. He was glad he had a table between his sex and the rest of the world as all the games he would really like to play with her lined up to make him a lusty fool who ought to know better. ‘You were born a little monster, young man, so Lady Porter is wrong for once,’ she went on blithely, apparently without a clue Magnus was having very mature thoughts about her while she dealt with her son.

  ‘It must be my father’s fault, then.’

  ‘How can it be? He didn’t live long enough to meet you.’

  ‘I’ve got bad blood, she said so. Don’t you remember? She said you should have listened instead of running off with Papa as soon as her back was turned. And after she had ordered you never to see him again as well, Mama? Well, really.’

  Mrs Champion flushed like a peony and Magnus relished the image of a much younger, more romantic and easily swayed version of her as a girl he wished he had known before Champion got to her. Under all that grey stuff she had a fine figure and without the glasses she would be quietly lovely and compelling, even before he added in a sense of humour nobody had ever accused Delphi of possessing. No, he was being condescending and ridiculous towards both of them now. For the benefit of his own sanity he should avoid the company of all ladies under the age of sixty he wasn’t related to from now on. This one could be another Helen of Troy under all that poplin and depressed hair, but he told himself he could still slide past her with only a sideways look and a gruff good day if they met again. He shot her a furtive glance to check she wasn’t a beauty, despite her efforts not to be. No, she was still a lady of character rather than spectacular good looks. That was what the kinder chaperones called their more workaday charges, wasn’t it? Yet character was not proving anywhere near as dampening to his baser male instincts as he wanted it to be.

  ‘There was nothing wrong with your father’s blood, love,’ she told her son as if she had no idea Magnus was far too wrapped up in the feel of her arm brushing against his as she sat
in the only other chair at the table not in the direct line of Cook’s well-floured rolling pin. ‘And if I always did what your great-grandmama says you would not exist, my son. You should thank your lucky stars your mama turned a deaf ear to her fell warnings about your papa and you still owe me a good reason why you ran off after promising not to in front of Mr Haile. I have a witness this time, so you can’t pretend you never did.’

  ‘I was hungry,’ the boy explained as if that was a special circumstance she should understand. Magnus nodded solemnly to confirm growing boys needed feeding at regular intervals throughout the day before he stopped to think he might be undermining her authority. ‘See, even he agrees,’ the lad said.

  Magnus didn’t want to argue with a lady of so much character while he was still fragile round the edges. Maybe they could have a stimulating argument over the fish course at dinner tonight when he was feeling more the thing. Or a debate on the rights and wrongs of playing verbal chess with her offspring he couldn’t imagine his child ever playing with Delphi. Now he was finding his former lover dull next to this woman again, in thought if not looks, and that would never do. And the hank of richly chestnut hair escaping her repressive widow’s cap looked a lot warmer to the touch than Delphi’s immaculate blonde locks ever had.

  ‘I know how it feels to be as hungry as a hunter,’ he argued as he held on to the conversation with the half of his attention he had to spare from imagining all that heavily soft and silky hair loose about her shoulders, ‘or I did before Peg found enough food to last me until dinnertime. Those good manners we talked about should have trumped the most urgent of bodily needs, though, my lad, so please don’t try to drag me into any more arguments with your long-suffering mama.’

  ‘That’s what Lady Aline said Mama was, long-suffering. I like her,’ the boy said and managed to sound wistful and deprived all at the same time, saw it wasn’t working and gave a triumphant grin when he beat Magnus to the last of the griddle cakes before his mother could forbid it.

  ‘So do I. She is a sister in a million. I am very fortunate in my relatives,’ Magnus lied because his elder brother didn’t look like much of a gift now and nor had his late father. He wondered what on earth Aline was doing at Carrowe House to meet Mrs Champion and her son in the first place, especially when she had disliked Gresley for a lot longer than him. She was supposed to be fixed in Worthing for the summer, so she and their mother and younger sisters could breathe sea air and have a well-deserved rest away from the dust and noise while alterations to Develin House were finished. So why was Aline staying in a ruinous house she couldn’t wait to get away from in the company of a brother she had never even pretended to like?

  ‘I don’t suppose you have a great-grandmother, then, do you, sir?’ the boy said as if he thought them a very dubious item.

  Magnus only just managed to turn a bark of laughter into a cough under Mrs Champion’s sternly reproachful gaze this time. ‘No, even my grandparents had the tact to depart this vale of sorrows before I was old enough to be an embarrassment to them,’ he admitted and contrasted his own family with Mrs Champion’s lack of one and realised how blessed he was after all. His father had been a devil and he wasn’t too sure about his elder brother now Delphi had cut him out of her life like a canker because of Gres, but he had close family who loved him, despite his sins, and a new sister by marriage he would always be proud to own up to. All Mrs Champion and Toby had was her absent-minded father and a grandmother well worth avoiding. Fleeing to a far-off country with a babe in arms must have been her way of avoiding Lady Porter taking over her life and her baby son’s and he couldn’t blame her for not wanting to bring him up in such a stifling household. They would both have been bent out of shape if she had and he liked them the way they were.

  ‘You can have mine if you like,’ Toby Champion said generously. ‘I don’t want her and she was horrid to Mama. I’m glad she had the vapours when I let the poor rat out of the trap. I do like Grandpapa, though. He’s funny and he knows lots of interesting things and he doesn’t shout at me, or squeal like a screech owl, or make Mama cry.’

  Toby obviously noticed more than he pretended to about the adults around him and must have hated knowing his mother was near to tears. Magnus was sure she would do her best to hide them from her son as well, so the Gorgon must have made her very miserable indeed for even a hint of them to sneak through her guard.

  ‘All good things in a parent,’ Mrs Champion agreed airily, but Magnus could see she was embarrassed about him knowing the old besom had brought her close to tears. How could such a young mother not cry from sheer weariness from time to time and he had added to her miseries that day at Dover, had he not? Feeling guilty as hell now, Magnus stared into his empty coffee can and wondered why the fool now standing in the Honourable Magnus’s once fashionable shoes seemed so intent on making ladies cry.

  ‘My father liked nothing better than making us cry, but I doubt yours would have done, Master Toby. From the little I remember of him as a boy he was more likely to be in trouble as well,’ Magnus said to distract them all from what sounded a disastrous visit to a bad-tempered and tyrannical old woman.

  ‘You knew my papa, sir?’ the boy said with awe.

  ‘A little, although I know your uncle Marcus far better.’

  ‘Do you think he might like me?’ the boy said wistfully.

  His mother looked as if the lack of a genial uncle and pack of lively cousins in his life was a gap it had never occurred to her to worry about until now and Magnus almost wished he hadn’t changed the subject. ‘I can’t see why not,’ he said. ‘You are quite likeable in a grubby sort of way when you’re not causing mayhem and you don’t actually smell. Sir Marcus Champion would probably think you an acceptable sort of nephew, since he’s not very fussy, and your cousins might even like you.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ the boy pointed out as if their first meeting with each other still rankled.

  Chapter Eight

  Magnus wondered how to explain even to an advanced seven-year-old that he hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to like anyone the day they met. The boy’s emotions and perception hadn’t had time to catch up with his enquiring mind yet and Magnus could hardly tell him what he felt that day even if they had. ‘You scared me half to death by diving under my horse’s belly as if he was a staid donkey who wouldn’t hurt a fly. I was furious with you for taking such a terrible risk for no good reason.’

  ‘There was a puppy,’ Toby Champion muttered as if he already knew it was a poor excuse for being so heedless, so at least his mother had drummed that much sense into his dog-obsessed head since Dover.

  ‘There will always be puppies, lad,’ he said in the hope of reinforcing her efforts. ‘Next time you could throw yourself in the way of a fresher horse that won’t do as he’s bid quite as readily. Lucky that mine came down only inches away from your head instead of smack on it and you should remember horses are living creatures and it isn’t in their nature to kill. A gentleman should consider their well-being as well as his own before he launches into such reckless action. It will be devilish hard to get about when you’re older if you’re not a competent rider and treating a horse well is the start of being one. Your uncle Marcus is a very fine horseman indeed and he might be persuaded to teach you some of his skills if you seem a sensible sort of lad who wouldn’t dream of dashing under a horse’s belly when it was in full motion.’

  ‘You won’t tell him I did that, will you, sir?’

  ‘Not if you promise never to do it again.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Toby said and looked so serious Magnus almost believed he would think before he acted next time. He hoped he wasn’t there to be terrified if he didn’t.

  ‘Then I won’t tell him.’

  ‘You could teach me to ride properly, Mr Haile. Although you shouted and cursed me, you still got your horse to miss me by no more than an inch, so I didn’t get hurt,’ Tob
y said as if he might hero-worship Magnus if he wasn’t careful.

  Magnus didn’t feel like anyone’s hero. The very idea of being on a pedestal made him squirm when he thought of the failures in his life so far. Sir Marcus Champion was a far better man for his nephew to look up to.

  ‘You didn’t tell me the horse came so close to landing on you, Toby,’ his mother said, looking very pale and shaken as her son admitted the unvarnished truth about his misdeeds for the first time.

  ‘I apologise,’ Magnus said shortly.

  ‘What for, not killing my son?’

  ‘No, for cursing him at the time and frightening you now. I admit I was furious with him and strongly tempted to dust his backside until I came upon you and it was easier to leave him to his mother.’

  ‘I’m quite tempted to do it myself right now,’ she admitted with a shaky smile that said, Thank you again for not killing him and a stern look at her son that said, Why didn’t you say how reckless you had been instead of trying to shift the blame?

  Magnus felt a dangerous sort of liking for her threaten. She was brave and even a little bit reckless herself, but her responsibility for such a curious and over-confident son must fall heavily on her shoulders. He wondered again why she hadn’t called on Mark Champion to help her get her son to adulthood without killing himself in the pursuit of scientific discovery or a puppy. Pride, he suspected, mentally reviewing his own past encounters with Lady Porter and concluding the woman had a lot to answer for. She must have made her granddaughter feel unloved and unwanted when she was sent home by her father. Little wonder Mrs Champion decided not to ask for her help when her son was born, given Lady Porter’s false pride and coldness sent her into Brandon Champion’s arms in the first place. Out of the frying pan into the fire, he concluded and wondered why her father had never put his child before his so-called duty. The man was a hereditary baronet; he must have a grand enough estate somewhere to keep his mother in ridiculous style. Sir Hadrian should evict the old besom from that chilly house in Grosvenor Square and spend the money on his daughter and grandson instead. But Magnus’s admiration for Mrs Champion raising her son alone could undermine his feelings for a very different woman even more if he wasn’t careful. He didn’t want to go on loving Delphi now she had kicked him aside with such cold revulsion and admitted Gresley was her first and apparently last love, but he refused to replace her with another woman who didn’t want him either.