Colonel Forrester, seated beside him, rose to his feet and clapped him on the back. “The MP’s dining room?” he suggested as Jamie also stood up. “Or perhaps we should duck out altogether and go have a decent meal for a change? The Criterion, perhaps? All this talk of statute revision is so trivial—we can surely give the debates on it a miss. They’re mind-numbingly dull.”
Jamie, relieved he wasn’t the only one who thought so, gave a nod. He wasn’t the least bit hungry, but even so, the Criterion had a better chance of distracting him from thoughts of Amanda than debates over statute revisions ever could.
But the moment the two men left the Chamber and entered the Members’ Lobby, Jamie’s dinner plans were interrupted by a tap on his shoulder, and he turned to find a clerk beside him, holding a letter. “Lord Kenyon? This came for you an hour ago. From Lord Galbraith.”
“Galbraith?” Jamie echoed in surprise, taking the letter.
“Yes, my lord. The clerk who delivered it said to tell you it’s about your sons.”
Alarmed, shaken out of his dazed state, his own troubles forgotten, Jamie tore open the envelope, broke Galbraith’s seal, and unfolded the letter, then scanned the contents and muttered an oath of both exasperation and relief. “Oh, for God’s sake.”
“Nothing wrong, I hope?” Forrester asked him as he refolded the letter.
“Just the usual,” he muttered wryly. “You know my sons.”
Forrester chuckled. “The scamps are in trouble again, eh?”
“They arrived at Galbraith’s offices in Fleet Street unescorted. He’s dealt with the situation, however, and he’s taking them to dinner, then bringing them here.”
Forrester chuckled. “Given their nanny the slip, have they? No harm done, I trust? Well, well,” he went on as Jamie shook his head, “if that note came an hour ago, they may be here already.”
“Probably,” he agreed and shoved the letter into his breast pocket. “I shall have to forgo dinner with you, my friend.”
“Of course.” Colonel Forrester gestured to the corridor nearby. “I’ll walk out with you. If they are here, perhaps I can share your taxi home? The Criterion is on your way to Upper Brook Street.”
“Certainly.”
But when the two men entered the Central Lobby, Jamie appreciated that finding his sons and procuring a taxi to take them anywhere wasn’t going to be easy, for the Lobby was crowded with men making their way to various exits. Some were MPs, evidently as bored by statute revisions as Jamie and his companion, others were peers streaming through from the Lords, which had just adjourned for the evening. But as Jamie scanned the room, he did not see either his sons or Galbraith amid the crowd.
“Do you see them?” he asked his companion.
The Colonel shook his head. “It might be best to wait over here by the reception desk, and let them find us.”
The two men adopted this plan, but they had waited only a few minutes before Rex and the boys emerged from the throng.
The twins knew they were in trouble, for the moment they saw him, they hung their heads in their best woeful fashion, shuffling forward on either side of Rex as if headed for a firing squad.
“Well, gentlemen,” Jamie said, straightening away from the wall beside the reception desk as they stopped in front of him, “you must really enjoy polishing silver. At the rate you’re going, I fear you’ll be doing it every morning for the rest of your lives.”
They didn’t reply, a wise move on their part. “I’m sure you’ve worried Samuel half to death,” Jamie went on. “You vanished on his watch, you know.”
“We left him a note,” Colin mumbled.
“About that,” Rex put in, “Samuel knows the boys are with me. I telephoned the house at Upper Brook Street before I left the newspaper office.”
He looked at his brother-in-law. “Back from France, I see. Thank you for bringing the boys to me. You didn’t ask your taxi to wait, by chance?”
The other man shook his head. “We let it go. We didn’t know how long you’d be. If you need to stay, I can take the boys home.”
“No, I’ll take them. You’re welcome to share the taxi with us.”
“If we can manage to find one. The queue was miles long when we came in.”
“The Lords just let out. It should be easy enough to secure a taxi if we wait a bit.”
Rex nodded, and Jamie returned his attention to the boys. “In the meantime,” he said severely, “you two can tell me what you thought you were doing, coming across town by yourselves. If you wanted a tour of the new offices, I’m sure your uncle Rex would have been happy to take you, had you just asked nicely.”
“That wasn’t why we went there,” Colin said. “We wanted to see Lady Truelove.”
Jamie groaned. “Not that business again.”
“She didn’t answer our letter, so this time, we thought we’d go in person to ask her advice.”
“I wish you two would stop trying to find me a wife,” he said with a sigh, wishing he could have told them he’d already found her himself. But Amanda had not allowed him that. Perhaps she was wiser than he.
“We don’t care about that, Papa,” Owen said.
Jamie blinked. “You don’t? Then why did you go to see Rex—I mean,” he corrected when his brother-in-law gave a pointed cough, “why did you go to see Lady Truelove?”
“As to that, Jamie,” Rex put in hastily, “you’ll be relieved to hear that finding you a wife was not their intent.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No. In a stunning reversal of feeling, the boys have decided they actually want—brace yourself for the happy news—a nanny instead.”
“Not any nanny, Uncle Rex,” Colin said. “We want the nanny we had.”
“I stand corrected,” Rex said, and grinned at Jamie. “Seems to me there’s a simple solution to all of this. Why not just marry the nanny? That way, the boys get a new mother, and you get a nanny who can’t ever quit. And you get a wife thrown into the bargain. Perfect all ’round, I say.”
“Don’t,” Jamie said, his voice fierce enough to cause the teasing gleam in his friend’s eyes to vanish at once. “You don’t know the first thing about it, so don’t interfere.”
“I seem to have touched a nerve. Sorry, Jamie. I was only teasing.”
Jamie sighed, rubbing his fingers over his forehead. “Never mind,” he said, lifting his head. “It’s just—”
He stopped, for coming toward him, moving with the unsteady gait of a blatantly drunken man, was Lord Notting, flanked by two companions.
As he watched the other man approach, a picture of Amanda’s pain-filled eyes flashed through Jamie’s mind, and suddenly the fog that had been enveloping him for two days dissipated, and a cold, blinding, snow-white rage took its place. It was a feeling akin to what he’d felt seventeen years ago when his father had called Sarah Dunn a whore and had hit him for the last time, but it was stronger and deeper, because he wasn’t a skinny youth of fifteen anymore. Jamie also knew that at this moment, the Earl of Notting was in a very dangerous place.
Walk away, he told himself. Walk away, now.
He didn’t move.
“Ah, Lord Kenyon,” the other man greeted him, and perversely, Jamie was pleased that it was now too late for walking away. “Lord Galbraith. And Baron Knaresborough and Mr. St. Clair as well? My, my, a real family party.”
“Notting,” he said shortly and gave a curt nod to the other man’s companions.
“We have a mutual friend, I understand,” Notting said, smiling.
“Do we?” Jamie countered, his voice as icy as his anger, and he was never more grateful for his “poker face,” as Amanda called it, than he was right now. “I wasn’t aware I had any friends with such bad taste.”
The other man’s smile faltered, but only a fraction. Then he laughed as if Jamie had been joking. “Indeed, we do. Amanda Leighton.”
In his peripheral vision, he saw Rex stiffen, clearly recognizing the name. But then, who
wouldn’t?
“I could hardly believe it when I saw her the other day,” Notting went on, clearly enjoying himself by teasing Jamie, unaware of just how precarious a hold Jamie had on his control at this moment. “She was here at Westminster with your sons, and she conveyed the great honor of introducing them to me.”
He managed to make the honor sound like theirs rather than his, and involuntarily, Jamie’s lip curled a little with contempt. He didn’t bother to check it.
“Amanda Leighton, a nanny?” Notting shook his head. “My, my, who’d ever have thought that?”
“That’s not her name,” Colin said. “You’ve got it wrong. It’s not Leighton. It’s Seton. Mrs. Seton.”
Notting didn’t argue the point. Instead, he gave the boy a pitying glance. “Is that what she told you?”
Colin started to speak again, but Jamie put a hand on his shoulder to silence him, and in the awkward breach that followed, Colonel Forrester, standing nearby, gave a cough. “Well, well,” he began, but Notting cut him off.
“It was quite a shock, of course, seeing her after all this time. Even more shocking to find she was your . . . ahem . . . nanny.”
“Go home, Notting,” Jamie said, smiling softly. “You’re drunk, and I’m tired.”
It was a warning, and it was ignored.
“But then,” Notting went on, “perhaps it’s not so shocking, really. If she’s calling herself by another name, perhaps you didn’t know who you were really hiring. Or perhaps,” he added, laughing, “you did. Amanda’s still a beautiful woman. Her first freshness is gone, of course, but—”
Jamie stiffened, his control slipping, and as if sensing it, Rex laid a hand on his arm. “We really need to be going, old chap.”
Jamie shrugged, feeling Rex’s hand slide away. “Who told you she was my nanny?” he asked Notting.
“Why, Amanda did, of course.”
“That’s not true,” Colin cried. “I told you that, you codfish.” Twisting his head to look up at his father, he went on, “He’s the man I was talking about, Papa. The one who offered her a job.”
“Guilty as charged,” Notting admitted. “I did offer Amanda a job. But not,” he added, laughing, “as a nanny.”
“That’s enough,” Jamie cut in before Colin decided to ask what job Notting had been offering. The cur might actually tell him, and Jamie didn’t know if he could keep hold of his control if that happened. He wasn’t, he found, the least bit surprised by the idea that Lord Notting was the man from the other day. In fact, he realized, that notion had been a vague, half-formed theory in his own mind from the moment Amanda had explained what had occurred. There was one thing, however, that needed to be made clear here and now.
He moved closer to Notting, as he gently but firmly pushed Colin behind him, out of harm’s way. Just in case.
Rex, thankfully, had known him a long time. He took his cue and moved in front of Owen.
Adopting a confidential manner, Jamie leaned in until he could speak directly into Notting’s ear. “Understand this, you pathetic excuse for a man,” he murmured. “If you approach her, if you speak to her, if you ever come anywhere near her again, I will thrash you within an inch of your life. Touch her, and I will kill you.”
“Touch her?” Notting murmured in reply, sounding amused. “I’ve already had that pleasure.” He laughed, taking a step back. “I did offer her another go the other day, I admit, but I didn’t realize you were now in possession. Enjoy her, Kenyon,” he added, grinning as he clapped Jamie on the shoulder. “God knows, I did.”
The words were barely out of his mouth before Jamie’s fist came flying, slamming into Notting’s face with bone-jarring force. Witnesses, no doubt, would see it as a rash act borne of temper, but for Jamie, it had been a deliberate one, with both intent and purpose, and as the pain of the impact shivered up his arm, he happily accepted all the other consequences he knew would follow in its wake.
Notting’s head swung sideways at the blow, he staggered and fell, but he wasn’t out cold, unfortunately, for with the help of one of his companions, he managed to get to his feet. His lip was bleeding, Jamie noted with satisfaction, and in a day or two, he’d probably have one hell of a black eye.
Notting touched his fingers to his lip, stared at the blood on his fingertips, then scowled at Jamie. “You’ll regret this.”
“Regret it?” Jamie grinned. “I relished it. Go, Notting, or I’ll happily relish it again.”
A gleam of fear came into the other man’s eyes, and Jamie widened his grin, hoping for any excuse to continue the fight, but in the other man’s moment of hesitation, others quickly intervened, depriving him of the chance. Colonel Forrester stepped between them, and Rex wrapped his arms around Jamie’s shoulders, holding him back. Notting, the coward, retreated, turning away, making for the exit as quickly as he could without breaking into a run.
“God, man, what have you done?” Colonel Forrester muttered, turning around to look at Jamie in horror as Rex eased his hold and stepped back.
Colin’s astonished voice intruded before Jamie could reply. “Papa, you hit him. You bloodied his lip and everything.”
“Yes,” he agreed, flexing his hand, savoring the pain. And damned satisfying it was, too.
“Jamie, I hope you know what this means.” Colonel Forrester put a hand on his arm. “You struck a fellow peer, a Member of the House of Lords, in an unprovoked attack.”
Jamie wouldn’t have described it as unprovoked, but he didn’t quibble. Instead, he tugged at his cuffs, glaring at Notting’s back as the swine ducked out the door of St. Stephens and vanished, his companions following in his wake. “I dispensed justice.”
“Justice?” Colonel Forrester spluttered. “By brawling inside the Houses of Parliament? Good God, man, you’ve just thrown your entire political career onto the rubbish heap and ruined your future.”
“Yes,” he said, flexing his hand again. “Believe me, I know exactly what I’ve done.”
Oblivious to his friend’s stunned expression, indifferent to the stares and murmurs of the men all around him, Jamie turned to his sons, who were staring at him in understandable shock.
“Why, Papa?” Owen asked. “Why did you do it?”
“It was because of what he said, wasn’t it?” Colin asked before Jamie could reply. “About Mrs. Seton.”
“Yes.” It hurt Jamie to look into their faces because he knew that he’d just made an irrevocable choice that, if it succeeded, would affect them throughout their lives. At school and at university, and even beyond it, their peers would tease them, fling obscene words at them that now, in their youthful innocence, they didn’t know. When that happened, they might feel compelled to respond by doing what he had just done. But though he hated that they would have to face that sort of pain and violence because of his choice, he also knew the courage and fortitude that came with facing those things. He knew that some things in life were worth pain, worth sacrifice, worth fighting for. He wanted his sons to know that, too.
“But, Papa,” Owen said, “you’ve always told us it’s wrong to hit people.”
He knelt down in front of them. “It’s usually wrong, but not always. There are exceptions. This was one of them. But you must remember that it is an exception. It is not the rule. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Papa,” they said in unison.
“Good.” He retrieved his hat from where it had fallen to the floor nearby and started to stand up.
“But, Papa,” Colin said, tugging on his sleeve to stop him, “how do you know when it’s an exception and when it’s not?”
“You’ll know, son,” he said, and put on his hat. “Trust me, you’ll know.”
“Is it true what Colonel Forrester said?” Owen asked. “That you just ruined your future?”
“Probably. But . . .” Jamie paused, putting a hand on each boy’s shoulder. “A woman’s honor is more important than a man’s future. Remember that, my sons. Always remember that.”
Chapter 18
Amanda tried to tell herself being a parlor maid wasn’t so bad. In sheer physical terms, dusting bookshelves, making beds, helping with laundry, and serving tea was easier than watching over two energetic, mischievous boys all day, but Amanda, who’d always welcomed hard work that challenged her brain, knew before the end of her third day as a parlor maid that for her, domestic service was going to be unutterable boredom.
She was determined to do her best, however, for she was truly grateful to Mrs. Finch for the post and well aware that her situation could be much, much worse.
Leaving Jamie and the boys had been the hardest decision of her life, but it had also been inevitable. For the past two months, she’d enjoyed the illusion that she was sheltered from the slings and arrows of ruin and disgrace, but like a shimmering city on the edge of a desert horizon, it had been a mirage.
Jamie and the boys had driven away her unbearable loneliness. They had made her feel as if she had a family, a rock to cling to, a safe haven.
The night she had spent with Jamie had been the most glorious experience of her life. His touch and his caress had been a balm to her wounded soul. His arms around her had made her feel cherished and protected. And for those few extraordinary hours in his arms, she had been untainted, without shame and without regrets.
That night had been a dream, a blissful, beautiful dream. But as with all dreams, one eventually had to wake up, and in the early morning hours afterward, when she’d opened her eyes to the sight of him still sleeping beside her, she’d known the dream had come to an end.
She loved him, but he wasn’t in love with her. He was still in love with his wife, and she could never give him the happy perfection of his first marriage. And even if that was not the case, even if he were to fall in love with her somehow, Amanda knew love could never be enough.
Even Jamie’s strong arms could not hold back the condemnation of the world. His position, his money, his influence, even his affection and tenderness, could not make pure what another man had sullied.
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