Timeless Passion: 10 Historical Romances To Savor

by Rue Allyn

  “Where’s your label, little man?” Katie asked the other boy. “Did you lose it on the train?”

  Bob looked a bit worried, as if he’d been accused of doing something wrong.

  “It’s no matter,” Katie said, “we’ve got your brother here to tell us who you are.”

  Bob rewarded her with a shy smile.

  “They look like fine boys, Mrs. Mallory,” Katie said, mainly for the benefit of the children. It must be very hard on them to leave their own homes and their parents and everything they knew.

  Katie checked the ration books, counted the gas masks, and herded them toward the door. Hammond had parked at the foot of the steps, and he was leaning against the car, enjoying a cigarette in the afternoon sun.

  “You’ll have no problem at all with this lot,” Mrs. Mallory said brightly.

  Katie got the feeling she’d been saying that rather frequently this morning. She went down the steps with her band of little brothers, glad that she wasn’t going to be alone with Hammond on the journey back to Farrenden Manor.

  • • •

  Michael heard the noise in the hall. They sounded like extremely excitable young people, with their rough London accents and their noisy boots. He heard strident little voices talking about ack-ack guns and dog fights. Katie must have told them he used to be a pilot — little Irish chatterbox that she was, she wouldn’t be able to keep anything to herself. Not like English girls. He sighed. The end of peace and tranquility.

  He sighed again, deeply, when he heard them pretending to be Spitfires. People were in love with bloody Spitfires, he thought bitterly. Michael’s flying career was over when the Spitfires came on the scene. He had flown a Hurricane, and he missed her like a favorite horse. She was a wonderful plane, and he could make her do anything he wanted. With his own bare hands, he had filed the heads off the rivets all along her fuselage just to make her go a little bit faster — and she thundered through the sky like a shooting star. He used to feel on top of the world when he was inside the cockpit. He supposed she was smashed to smithereens in somebody’s cornfield now.

  He knew what would happen if he went out there to introduce himself. The youngsters would be curious about the wheelchair. They’d want to know all the details of the accident. Children weren’t the least bit shy about that sort of thing. They had to be taught not to ask.

  He could hear them asking questions now. Is the house haunted, they wanted to know. God knows how many times Michael had fielded that question. Every second visitor longed to find a headless knight in the butler’s pantry or a blood-stained wench in the upstairs loo. Sometimes he thought he ought to make one up just to make himself popular with guests, but these days he was far too jaded to try.

  Suddenly he heard an almighty crash. Michael immediately knew what it was. The bloody little hooligans had knocked over Charlie, the suit of armor that stood in the corner of the hall by the umbrella stand. His face twitched with annoyance. It was not the first time Charlie had fallen over by any means, but it was the sheer timing of the incident. Those wretched children had been in his house only four minutes and they were already destroying the place. He could hear hysterical shrieks of laughter after the initial shock of felling Charlie had worn off. Where was Katie, and why didn’t she keep them under control?

  • • •

  “Is he damaged?” Katie said in alarm, gazing down at what looked like a metal corpse lying on the hall floor.

  “Don’t think so, Miss. He’s meant to take the knocks, isn’t he? Looks tough as old boots to me.” Roy gave the helpless suit of armor a sharp kick, and the sound of reverberating metal echoed around the entrance hall.

  Katie heard an angry bark of displeasure behind her, and nearly leaped out of her skin.

  “Why are you all making so much noise? I’m trying to work. I have letters from the Ministry of Agriculture that require my immediate attention!”

  Katie turned sharply. It was amazing how his lordship’s well-oiled wheels enabled him to creep up on people.

  “My humble apologies, sir. We had a bit of an accident. We’re trying to sort it out now.”

  “Looked more like you were putting the boot in, to me,” Michael said, turning on Roy. “Why don’t you pick on someone who can put up a bit of fight? Not much of a challenge with Charlie, is there? Well, boy, speak up! What kind of a coward are you?”

  Great, thought Katie. He’s got off on the wrong foot with Roy already, and we’ve only just come through the door.

  Roy folded his arms over his chest in a provocative manner. “I ain’t no coward, Mister, and I’ve got a good right hook, make no mistake. What did you call him? Charlie? You ought to put him out for the old iron man, in my opinion.”

  “Which nobody asked for, did they?” Michael interjected, sharply. “Kindly remember that you are a guest in my house, and I’ll thank you not to be so rude about my parents’ treasured possessions.”

  “Yes, for goodness sake, Roy, this is his lordship you’re talking to!” Katie reminded him.

  “He should be melted down and made into something useful, like a machine gun,” said Roy.

  “Who should be melted down? Do you mean him?” The smallest boy, Bob, was pointing his finger at Michael.

  There was a horrified pause, while everyone pondered this last remark. Alfie obviously wanted to laugh, Katie was sure of it, but he managed to contain himself. Michael’s icy blue eyes stared at Bob, and Katie hoped desperately that he didn’t turn on the little boy and shout him down. It was an innocent misunderstanding from a child.

  Then Michael gave a snort of laughter. “Well, perhaps I will see active duty again if I manage to get myself melted down and made into a machine gun!”

  Even Roy seemed to think that was funny.

  Katie gave a tiny sigh of relief. She realized they hadn’t stopped for the pleasantries yet. “This is Roy Luckens, from Stepney, your lordship. And over here we have Alfie Nicholls, and twins, Bob and George Kilby.”

  Michael stuck out his hand to shake Alfie’s, the child standing nearest to him. “Delighted to make your acquaintance, young man. I’m Michael Melt-me-Down Farrenden, peer of the realm.”

  “What’s a peer of the elm?” George asked.

  “It’s a toff, that’s what it is,” said Roy.

  “Yes it is,” Michael agreed and extended his hand in Roy’s direction. After a moment’s surly hesitation, Roy unfolded his arms long enough to shake Michael’s hand. Katie waited patiently while Michael finished the routine with all of them.

  “Now children,” she said, when the handshaking ritual was over. “This is a valuable suit of armor. If we break him we will all have to contribute our pocket money for about the next fifteen years to mend him. So this must never happen again. Roy, Alfie, you get over on the other side and I’ll help you lift him up.”

  They hauled Charlie into a standing position again, and Katie adjusted his visor, with unnecessary care.

  “How’s that, sir?” she murmured.

  Michael could sense her embarrassment. He gave a short sigh. “He always did look a little drunk and disorderly, I suppose.”

  The children lost interest and started circling the hall, pretending to be Spitfires again, gunning each other from time to time with great enthusiasm. The roaring noise they made as the four of them pretended to take off was indeed almost as deafening as a real RAF scramble.

  “For heaven’s sake, Miss Rafferty! What’s the matter with them?”

  “Nothing, sir, they are perfectly normal healthy children. They need to work off their energy, that’s all. They’ve been cooped up on a train and trying to sit still in the village hall all morning.”

  Michael looked at them in dismay. The two younger ones were circling the room with their arms outstretched, the older boys were standing on the tapestry chairs gunning at each other with much gusto and wild staccato sound effects. “When do they get tired? What time can you put them to bed?”

  “About eight o’c
lock, I suppose. They’re not babies.”

  “Eight o’clock!” he glanced at his wristwatch. “That’s not for another seven hours!”

  “I know. I’ll feed them lunch in a minute. Then I’ll take them outside for a run round the estate. I thought they might enjoy a walk by the river, as long as none of them fall in and drown.”

  “Oh, drown as many of them as you like. I don’t mind.”

  “Sir, that’s an awful thing to say. Their parents have entrusted them to us, and I am sure they are each very precious to them.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I thought I’d give them their tea at five o’clock in the kitchen, followed by some as-yet-unscheduled activities, and eventually it will be bath time. After that I’ll read stories to the little ones and put them to bed.”

  “Good God,” said Michael, and turned his pale blue eyes upon her, “how grueling! However long do we have to put up with them?”

  Katie shrugged. “Until the end of the war.”

  Michael rolled his eyes in horror.

  • • •

  At bedtime, Katie dealt with the inevitable fight about who would get the best bed. The one by the window was deemed “preferred,” and Alfie expressed an immediate interest in it. The twins thought it looked big enough for them to share, even though there were enough beds for everybody to have one each, and Roy thought that he should have first dibs, being the oldest, the biggest, and the toughest.

  Roy won, of course, no contest.

  Alfie looked very put out. Katie couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for him. “Don’t worry, little man, you won’t be up here much during the day. Not with the whole estate to explore — and look! This bed has a nice little bedside lamp.”

  That seemed to mollify him, and Katie soon realized why. His suitcase, which was very small but weighed a ton, was almost entirely filled with books and magazines. He had only one other change of clothes, a very ragged pair of pajamas, and a moth-eaten teddy bear with one eye. Katie had a feeling he’d packed the case himself.

  Katie concentrated on getting the little ones unpacked, sorting through their clothes to see if their mothers had packed everything they needed. Katie couldn’t understand why Bob didn’t have a suitcase. George had a case with all his clothes carefully marked G. Kilby. Surely Mrs. Kilby must have packed a similar suitcase for his brother, with clothes carefully labeled B. Kilby?

  “Did you leave your suitcase on the train, Bob?”

  “Dunno. Maybe.”

  “But you did set out from London with one?”

  “Not sure.”

  “How can you not remember something like that?”

  “Dunno. I can always wear George’s clothes, Miss. He won’t mind and we are the same size.”

  “I suppose you’ll have to, for tomorrow at least. Though George doesn’t have that many clothes to lend you.”

  Bob’s haircut was another mystery. It was awful. George had a conventional short back and sides like a little mini-adult. Bob’s hair looked like it had been chewed off with nail scissors. It was choppy and clumpy round the back. Katie began to wonder if favoritism existed in the twins’ family. Some parents singled out one child for special privileges, although she thought it was more unusual in the case of twins.

  “I don’t know what we’ll send you to school in, come Monday. I’ll have to talk to his lordship about it. He might possibly agree to pay for a school uniform; I hope we can get something before clothing goes on ration.”

  “There’s always the black market,” Roy said, sitting on the edge of his bed, trying out the springs.

  Katie looked up sharply. She hadn’t expected a twelve-year-old to be quite so worldly wise.

  “My mum had a couple of contacts, if you’re prepared to keep quiet about it,” Roy continued. “But it will cost you.”

  “Thank you, Roy. I’m sure you are trying to be helpful, but I think we’ll stick to abiding by the law if we can,” said Katie, going over to the window to check that the blackout curtains were properly in place. “Speaking of which. I have a list of some basic dos and don’ts that his lordship wrote up for us. I think we’d all better have a good look at it. Especially as things didn’t go so well when we first arrived. You must be very careful of that suit of armor, for a start.”

  “Charlie!” Roy snorted, despairingly.

  “What did the old geezer call himself — Michael Melted Down Farringtale?”

  “Farrenden,” Katie corrected. “Like Farrenden Market.”

  “Fancy having a whole village named after you.”

  Alfie chipped in. “More than one, Roy. There was a Great Farrenden and a Little Farrenden and a Farrenden Saint Mary — I saw them on a map.”

  “Proper toff he is and no mistake,” Roy observed. “Never met one in a wheelchair before.”

  “Toff on wheels.”

  “Sounds like a good name for a comic strip,” said Alfie. “You any good at drawing?”

  “Nah. I’m useless,” Roy said, groveling about in his rucksack. “Football. That’s what I’m good at.”

  Roy pulled out a shabby, battered old soccer ball, with not quite sufficient air inside it, and before Katie could stop him he kicked it with great force at the wall and shouted, “Yes! Goal! He’s scored again for Tottenham!”

  “Not in here, you don’t, young man.” Katie hurled herself forward and grabbed the ball before it rolled under one of the beds. “I’m confiscating this until tomorrow.”

  “That’s mine, Miss. Give it back!”

  Katie held it aloft, with the practiced skill of a person with a lot of younger brothers and sisters. “Tomorrow, Roy. Now get into that bed and start sleeping. Then tomorrow will come quick as a flash.”

  “I ain’t sleepy, Miss.”

  “I don’t imagine that you are, Roy, but it’s been a long day and I think you should all do some pretend sleeping until the morning. You never know. Real sleep might just creep up on you.”

  It’s creeping up on me, she thought. She was dog tired. Even the concrete bed seemed like an inviting prospect just now. “Last one into bed is a rotten egg!” she called, and watched them scramble in.

  “It’s Alfie. He’s a rotten egg!” Roy said, in triumph, and Alfie rolled his eyes.

  Then Bob’s voice came from over in the corner. “There ain’t no ghost, not really, is there, miss?”

  “No. I never allow any ghosts to get past me,” Katie promised. She turned out the light, and closed the door. She sent up a quick prayer to the saints. She’d need to become one to deal with this lot.

  Chapter Four

  To Katie’s surprise, Michael joined them at breakfast. Mrs. Jessop rolled his chair to the head of the table — looking very much as if she was acting against her better judgment — and Katie rushed around setting a place for him, wondering what on earth a huffy English lord would like for breakfast.

  He buttered a piece of toast, very precisely, and said nothing. He pretended to read his newspaper while he ate. He was dressed, immaculately as ever, in a suit of clothes in Prince of Wales check. Inside the open collar of his shirt, he wore a silk cravat, knotted rather loosely, revealing the masculine lines of his neck. He cleared his throat and frowned at his newspaper as if something on the front page had offended him.

  Katie told herself not to stare. She tried to concentrate on helping Bob and George with their boiled eggs and cutting up their bread into soldiers for them until she realized Michael was studying her.

  Roy noticed too, and chirped up. “She looks like Rita Hayworth, don’t she?”

  Michael looked at him sharply and opened his mouth, but he seemed a little lost for words.

  “Don’t you think so, Mister?” said Roy. “Dead ringer for her if you ask me.”

  Katie could have died of embarrassment. Rita Hayworth, indeed!

  A pink tinge of color rose in Michael’s cheeks.

  Alfie stepped in. “Maybe Mister Lord doesn’t know a lot about films.”

  �
�He knows about Rita Hayworth,” Roy insisted. “He’s got a picture of her inside the lid of his shaving kit.”

  Michael dropped his piece of toast, and mortified horror crossed his face. Alfie and the twins had a bit of a giggle, but the look on Michael’s face silenced them.

  Katie didn’t know what to say, but she knew she had to salvage the situation, and fast.

  She turned on Roy. “It’s very rude to touch other people’s things!” She turned to Michael and tried to placate him. “I’m so sorry sir, I didn’t realize. I had no idea he’d gone into your washroom — ”

  “What the blazes were you doing with my shaving kit?” Michael said, cutting her off, leaning forward to speak to Roy.

  Katie noticed that he didn’t deny ownership of the picture.

  “I thought I needed a shave,” Roy announced, importantly.

  “You needed a shave!” Michael exploded. “That’s absurd when your chin is as smooth as a baby’s bottom.”

  Roy scowled. He did have the face of a surly cherub, without a whisker in sight. “I’m shaving twice a week, and that’s a fact,” he insisted.

  “I may have to write to your Auntie Madge, Roy,” Katie began, knowing that tact was required with twelve-year-old boys, “to send you up a razor.”

  Michael snorted, but Katie sent a pleading look in his direction.

  “Sir, he probably will be needing one before long, wouldn’t you say?”

  Michael glanced at Roy, and paused. Then he looked at Katie, and frowned.

  Katie hoped she hadn’t overstepped the mark. It was so important that everything go smoothly this morning. If his lordship went into one of his sarcastic tirades, if Roy behaved like a little East End tough, if it scared the other children on their first day … who knew where it would lead?

  “Well, possibly,” Michael conceded at last. “A blunt one, perhaps.”

  Katie didn’t like the postscript, but Roy looked triumphant. He stuck his soft, chubby chin out in front of him, wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and took a big, provocative bite out of his toast and marmalade.