The Memory of Your Kiss

by Wilma Counts

  Greetings and small talk over, drinks in hand, they toasted each other and absent friends, then Richardson said, “All right, Quintin, what is on your mind? I have a distinct feeling that you did not just feel a sudden urge to have a drink with us.”

  “Nor did I,” Zachary said, setting his glass down.

  “Something regarding Lucas?” asked McIntyre. “Don’t tell me someone is spreading tales. I’ll call the blighter out.”

  “No, it is not Lucas who may be in danger, but another child—the Earl of Paxton,” Zachary said. “As you know, he is my ward. What you may or may not know is that Percival Laughton is next in line to the title.”

  “Percy Laughton?” Gordon said in disbelief. “I knew him in school. Such a weasel. Aren’t the laws of primogeniture just wonderful?”

  “So what do you want from us?” Richardson asked.

  “Right now, not too much. Perhaps more later, though, and I wanted to alert you to that possibility. Just keep your eyes and ears open—I want to know the instant he returns to town, then I’ll hire a Bow Street Runner to track his every move.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” McIntyre said. “What do you think, Gordo? Want to hang around the gaming hells a while?”

  “Why not?” Gordon replied. “Debauchery in a good cause. Can’t leave London until after Prinny’s big show at Carleton House anyway.”

  Richardson refilled their glasses. “While you two are down in the stews, Harrelson and I will hobnob with the upper echelons of that lot he was with on the continent. See how badly dipped he might be.”

  McIntyre affected an abused expression and said in a loud aside to Gordon, “Why do they always get the plush assignments?”

  “Hey. You volunteered,” Harrelson said.

  “Regardless of who does what,” Zachary said, “I’m grateful.”

  “Life being what it is, any of us may one day need the kind of help we can give you now,” Richardson said.

  The others all nodded.

  Zachary looked around the group, his gaze settling on Harrelson. “I would not have Lady Paxton any more worried than she already is—so if we could keep this just among us?”

  They all readily agreed and conversation drifted to more mundane matters, then the others left for their evening appointments and Zachary returned home for one of his least favorite tasks: examining account books.

  His parents had gone out, so he could not use them as an excuse to procrastinate. He looked in on Lucas and spent a happy half hour playing with him before settling into the library and those infernal books.

  He was not surprised to find that the Paxton earldom was one of the richest concerns in the United Kingdom—he had seen that much in the cursory glance he’d had earlier. Neither was he surprised at the diversity of its enterprises—previous earls had been capable stewards of their holdings. But he kept running across what he thought to be anomalies. None was in itself a huge issue, but taken together, they amounted to a tidy sum of several thousand pounds.

  Tomorrow he would ask his father to confirm or refute his findings.

  CHAPTER 20

  After her meeting with Zachary, Sydney felt a sudden urge to spend time with Jonathan. She was confident that her son was adequately protected. Bessie Watkins, the maid charged primarily with his care, had been a Paxton employee for more than twenty years, and she was very fond of the child. Watkins was diligent in having a footman accompany her and Jonathan whenever she took him to the park. Her bedchamber was next door to Jonathan’s and the maid bragged that she was a light sleeper. As in most London homes that had nurseries, this one was located on an upper floor and had bars on the window. Although these were primarily to prevent a child’s fall, they would surely deter an intruder as well. Still, she wanted to reassure herself, so she went to the nursery and entertained him with a picture book. She loved hearing him laugh and try to imitate her imitations of cows mooing and dogs barking as he slapped enthusiastically at the pictures.

  With Geoffrey visiting a school friend in the country for a few weeks, evening meals were all-female affairs. Usually Sydney gave this fact of her life little attention. Tonight, however, she noticed—and realized she missed just hearing a male point of view on various topics. Neither the younger girls nor Aunt Harriet and Celia were much interested in the political news of the day, though they eagerly followed plans for the grand celebrations of the allies’ triumph over Napoleon. Sydney had even less patience than usual with the adolescent chatter and giggles of Marybeth, Amy, and Anne. Aunt Harriet and Celia readily joined in the conversation centering on fashions and the adventures of Childe Harald in a new poem by Byron that seemed to have touched nearly every female heart in London.

  After dinner she spent an hour in the music room playing the pianoforte as the three young girls practiced the steps a dancing master had taught them earlier. And even later, in her own sitting room, she tried to focus her mind on the words of Mrs. Radcliffe’s latest novel. Finally, she admitted that her sense of dissatisfaction and ennui stemmed from that visit with Zachary in the afternoon. Images of Zachary, nuances of expression, variations of tone in his voice and laugh, kept intruding. She welcomed the interruption as Aunt Harriet and Celia, who were off to a ball, came to bid her good night.

  “Don’t you two look extraordinarily pretty tonight?” Sydney asked. “Celia, I knew that green silk was going to make up beautifully. Lieutenant Harrelson will not be able to take his eyes off you! Aunt Harriet, you should wear that shade of rose more often.”

  “You don’t think it is too showy for an aging widow?”

  “I keep telling her she really is not in her dotage yet.” Celia adjusted the lace at her mother’s neckline. “I think Admiral Crowley’s friend Captain Thompson will be there tonight.”

  Celia and Sydney exchanged knowing looks at seeing the older woman blush.

  “Sydney, I do wish you were coming with us,” Aunt Harriet said. “There is no rule against your attending a ball, you know.”

  “Actually, I wish now I were going, but I sent my regrets, so—” She shrugged. “You two have a good time.”

  When they had gone, she gave up and let her mind concentrate on matters that had been struggling for attention all evening: Lord Hoffman’s letter and Zachary’s visit. Zachary had told her not to worry about Percival Laughton, but such advice was impossible to follow. Still, just knowing Zachary had taken an interest in that situation calmed her apprehension considerably.

  From there her mind drifted to what he had said of Lady Ryesdale. Up to now, Sydney had studiously avoided that topic. She had felt deep sympathy for her husband’s mistress when Henry was dying. She even felt she had achieved an unusual degree of equanimity about that relationship, but with Henry gone, she had allowed herself to put the whole issue at the bottom of a storage barrel of things that mattered. She need never deal with that sense of betrayal again.

  And now Zachary had brought it bubbling to the surface.

  She could not help relating to Lady Ryesdale’s—Louisa’s—predicament. Sydney tried to imagine herself denied access to Jonathan. The very thought of such was almost physically painful. There, but for the grace of God, go I. That old saw leapt unbidden to pull her to a full stop. Louisa was at the mercy of the man who was guardian of her heir-to-a-title son. Lady Ryesdale’s situation was not unlike her own! William’s plight was some strange and horrifying variation of the Bible story of Solomon deciding the fate of a child. Where to find a Solomon when you needed one?

  She sighed. Tomorrow she would consult the Fairfax sisters. She could do at least that much for that other mother.

  Zachary’s examination of the Paxton ledgers was raising as many questions as it answered. He had quickly learned to distinguish between entries in Henry’s or the steward’s handwriting and those in Sydney’s. To his dismay, the entries he found most disturbing were in Sydney’s script. Without disclosing what it was that caused his concern, Zachary asked his father to look at certain entries a
s well as the overall picture. Using a magnifying glass and shifting from ledger to ledger, the elder Quintin scrutinized the items Zachary pointed out to him.

  “Interesting,” he said. “Some rather creative manipulations here. But to what end? Do you suspect thievery?”

  “No. I did think of that early on, but it simply makes no sense. It would be like stealing from oneself. And it is not as though Paxton as a whole is losing money.”

  “But you think there could be greater profit?”

  “Possibly. Or, the discrepancies are accounted for in something I am not seeing.”

  Horatio Quintin put his magnifying glass down on his desk blotter and leaned back in his chair. “Have you thought of just asking her?”

  “Now there’s a novel idea,” Zachary said. “But I wanted to be sure I was not jumping to an outrageous conclusion.”

  “I think your instincts are right, son. I must say, though, overall, Paxton concerns have been handled very well in the last several months.”

  “I thought that, too,” Zachary said, but he could not put from his mind that something peculiar was going on here.

  In this frame of mind, he returned the books to Paxton House. He thought Sydney seemed nervous as she received him in the library again.

  “I hope you found all in order.” She took the books from him and turned to lay them on the desk.

  “Actually, I did not,” he said.

  “W-what?” She stopped in mid-motion.

  “I have some questions.” He pointed at a long couch before which there was a long low table of inlaid oak. “If you would be so kind as to indulge me?”

  “But of course.”

  Now she really did sound nervous, but she brought the books to the table and sat on the couch. He sat beside her, keenly aware of her nearness. He caught the scent of her perfume—the same scent she had worn in Bath. He took from an inside jacket pocket a piece of paper with his notes.

  “Here, here, and here,” he said, leaning over the table to show her particular entries, “there should have been more profit given the prices and volumes noted.”

  “But they do show earnings,” she argued, “and the figures are balanced in the end.”

  “Sort of.”

  “What do you mean ‘sort of’?” she challenged.

  “I mean,” he said in what he hoped was a patient tone, “there are some rather vague expenditures here. What does ‘housing’ mean? Certainly not Paxton Hall in Windham, nor this house. And ‘schooling’? For whom? That of Henry’s sisters and your own siblings? If so, why is tuition at Geoffrey’s school and salary for a governess listed elsewhere? ‘Supplies’? For what? And under properties, we have this strange listing, etc. What is it, really? It is an outrageous sum.”

  “Not really.” She sounded defensive. “I-I can explain.”

  “I hope so.” He leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. “Begin, please, with those ‘housing’ and ‘schooling’ entries in the ledgers labeled for mills and mines.”

  She seemed to brace her shoulders. Her voice was low, but firm. “They are worthwhile expenditures.”

  “For what?”

  She spoke rapidly, as though she thought if the words came fast enough he wouldn’t pay attention to them. “Improved housing for workers and—and schooling for their children.”

  “Am I hearing you correctly? You are taking funds that rightly belong to my ward and giving them to mill workers and miners? Are they not being paid adequate wages at the customary rate?”

  She thrust her chin higher and spoke more firmly. Her eyes sparkled with a mixture of defiance and determination. “They are paid at the same rate as most others in their kinds of jobs. But that does not mean they are in any way adequate.”

  “According to whom?”

  Her voice became even more vehement. “According to any caring, right-thinking member of the human race. Housing is provided as part of their wages, but it should be adequate shelter. We found people living in basement flats with dirt floors that turned into rivers of mud during a rain storm!”

  Zachary absorbed this, then asked, “Schooling?”

  “For the children.”

  “Children of mill workers and miners?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?” she challenged. “It is to our advantage to have an educated work force.”

  “And where did that bird-witted idea come from?” he demanded. “Since when did one need an education to dig coal or throw a shuttle on a loom?”

  She appeared to be trying to control her annoyance as she pressed her lips together. Then she said in a rather tight voice, “Put that way, one might train animals—monkeys, say—to perform those tasks.”

  “Look,” he said, turning to face her more directly, “I respect the English working class as much as the next person. God knows they are the very core of our army—and the navy too—but they do not require literacy to perform their tasks. Soldiers and sailors are not quoting Shakespeare and Chaucer as they load rifles or fire cannon.”

  The set expression on her face hardened even further. “People are not merely attachments to the machines they operate. They have souls too.”

  “True, but their souls are not their employers’ concern.”

  She reached impulsively to lay her hand on his forearm. “Oh, but they are, Zachary. Don’t you see? We cannot—we must not—treat people like draft animals.” Her eyes implored his understanding. Then she seemed to check her enthusiasm; she removed her hand and averted her gaze.

  He was moved by her plea and surprised at the sheer power of his sudden physical response to her touch. Here was the girl he had admired so in Bath. Fighting the impulse to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless, he coughed and said, “Uh—did Henry share this rather unusual view?”

  “N-not at first,” she admitted.

  “But you managed to persuade him, eh?”

  “I admit that I initiated our contact with Mr. Robert Owen, but then Henry and I met with him and Mr. Owen showed us what he was doing in his Lanark mill. Both Henry and I liked what we saw.”

  “Owen? Owen. I know I have heard that name. Ah, yes. The social reformer. Associated with Jeremy Bentham, is he not? ‘The greatest good for the greatest number’?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  Zachary shook his head. “Those radical reformers are bent on destroying the social fabric of this nation. The French example was not enough for them. But that is beside the point.” He pointed at the ledgers. “What I see here is but an extension of your attempts to rescue street urchins. I truly wonder why Henry would ever have agreed to such.”

  She clasped her hands tightly in her lap and he could see that she was trying to control her anger. But why? The Sydney he had known in Bath would have rung a peal over his head.

  Finally, she said, “Henry agreed for two reasons. First, it was simply the right thing to do.” She paused and her next words were quieter. “Henry liked to play. He loved his sports. But he took care of Paxton people.”

  “All right. That is an admirable practice for a lord of the realm. The second reason?”

  “Money.”

  “Money?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Profit, if you will.” She opened one of the books. “As I said the other day, these books go back only three years. This early entry from the first of those does show a decided loss, though not a great one. Then we improved housing and after that we offered the schools. We also refused to allow children under ten to work in our mills or mines at all. Those ten to fourteen could work for us, but for only six hours a day and only if they attended classes six hours a week.”

  “No wonder you lost money. I wager you lost workers, too, when the younger children of a family were not allowed to work.”

  “We did,” she admitted. “Several families, actually. But it was not difficult to replace those workers. And people work harder when they see real hope for a better future for their children. Our la
test figures here more than justify what you so casually labeled a ‘bird-witted idea.’” She pushed the book over to him.

  He almost smiled at seeing at last a spark of that earlier Sydney. He took a few minutes to study the particular entries she pointed out. She sat rigid and tense as he did so. Then he gave her a rueful look. “All right. I stand corrected—for now, at least. And so long as this trend continues, I shall withhold my objections.”

  She relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief, but quickly tensed up again when he said, “Now—about that mysterious acquisition of property.”

  Her gaze was frank and open, but she emitted a nervous laugh. “Oh, dear. I do hope you will not be too vexed or fly into the boughs.”

  Feeling mesmerized by those gray-green eyes in which he saw a strange combination of apprehension and amusement, he could not help smiling. “Come now. I demand nothing less than a full confession.”

  She began to speak rapidly. “Surely you can see that the Paxton earldom can afford a bit of charity work.”

  “This sum goes beyond ‘a bit of charity work.’ Far beyond.”

  “I know. But it is for such a good cause and it is only this one time, you see, that it is quite so high and it will not be necessary again. I promise.”

  “Sydney, stop. You are babbling, my dear. Just tell me what it is.”

  “It’s a house. In Spitalfields.”

  “Spitalfields! Good Lord. Why would you buy property in that area?”

  She took a deep breath and explained. “Penelope and Priscilla Fairfax needed a larger facility to serve more children and this was right next door and available and—”

  He held up a hand. “And it needed renovation and then they needed extra staff and then—”

  She gaped at him. “You knew about it?”

  “No. I am guessing.”

  “You—you won’t insist we give it up or sell it, will you? I shall happily take a reduction in my personal allowance, but, please, do not say Fairfax House must cut back or sell its addition. They do so need the space.”