“You’d be famished too if you’d not eaten a good English meal in over a month!” He pulled a chunk of crusty bread from a fresh loaf and sopped up gravy. When he could speak again, he said with a grin, “Two slices of beef and I’m already feeling human again. No! Don’t say it. I know. It will take a shave and a bath before I can present as human, but I wanted to get here as soon as possible.” He looked out at the cricket game in progress. “I don’t see Jamie. Where is my birthday boy?”
Lily Banks told him about the visit of the Duchess of Kinross and the presentation of the microscope, adding after she had tied and adjusted her jacket, baby put to her shoulder to gently rub his back to settle his stomach, “He’s in the study with Mr. Humphrey, peering at all sorts of queer objects through a lens. Poor Miss Talbot has come to see Mr. Humphrey specifically, and Jamie has taken all his time, so has yet to show himself.”
“Then get them out of there, Lil. I didn’t gift him a microscope so he could monopolize your lodger’s time and attention. Not when Humphrey is wanted elsewhere. And I don’t want Jamie neglecting his food and his obligations. Did his brothers eat their dinner at the table with the rest of the family?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then why not Jamie?” Dair asked quietly.
“He did. We all started our meal, then were interrupted by the Duchess’s carriage. But poor Mr. Humphrey did not have the opportunity to finish what was on his plate once Jamie saw what was in the mahogany box.”
“Lil, he should have come back to the table. He’s the eldest. He needs to set the example. And don’t say because it’s his birthday he can be shown leniency. He does it every time he can get away with it. He should not have had access to the microscope until after he’d finished his meal with the family. And he should have been made to wait until Humphrey had eaten his fill. That’s just good manners. The poor chap’s stomach must be growling!”
“Yes. Yes, of course. You’re right,” Lily Banks murmured and scrambled to her feet. “You know how he is when he gets distracted… He’s so terribly clever. Much more clever than the rest of us.”
Dair poured himself another tumbler of ale.
“Being clever is not enough. He needs to know how to use his cleverness in the right way. He still needs to be mindful of others. And he needs to spend time out of doors, enjoying fresh air, sunshine and cricket, like every other boy his age.”
“He prefers the study…” When Dair made no reply and drank down his ale, Lily added quietly. “I’ll have him fetched at once…” When she went to put the baby back in his basket he began to fuss, so she just stood there, flustered, wondering what to do with him.
Without a second thought, Dair put out his arm, took the grizzling infant and held him to his chest, a large hand spanning the tiny back to keep him firm and upright, the baby’s wet chin resting on his shoulder. Sensing she was still there, he said quietly,
“Don’t take it to heart, Lil. I’m tired… I’ll stay the night, if it’s not too much of an inconvenience—”
“Never. Your room is always made ready.”
When he smiled and nodded, Lily Banks disappeared inside the house, leaving a heavy silence at the table. Rory wished the two older Banks women, who were seated at the furthest end of the terrace, heads together talking, would turn and notice the new arrival. She hoped Jamie and Mr. Humphrey were not long in coming. She put her teacup on its saucer and lifted her gaze to the sight of the small bundle cuddled against the Major’s chest, while he continued to eat ravenously, using his fork as best he could, with only one hand free, to cut as well as scoop up the vegetables on his plate. He held the infant unselfconsciously, as one adept at doing so, and as if his embrace were the most natural and most comforting place to be.
There was something wonderful about a big handsome man holding such a tiny, vulnerable little being with one large protective hand. It brought inexplicable tears, tears Rory quickly blinked away. She mentally admonished herself for being sentimental, that even this small domestic scene involving the Major had the power to provoke such an emotional response in her.
She turned her gaze to the lawn and watched the cricket match in progress. Her brother, in the outfield, sleeves rolled to the elbow, had a hand up, shielding his eyes from the sun. One of the Banks brothers was batting. Another was bowling. The three boys were doing tumbles on the lawn with only a halfhearted interest in the game. Rory suspected the adults were completely dominating the match, so the children had lost interest. She looked away, to see if the Banks women still had their heads together. They did. She returned her attention to the table, and was startled to find the Major regarding her steadily. He must have had his eyes on her profile for some time, such was the intensity in his gaze, and when she did not look away he said flatly,
“Before you dare to ask what you are thinking, Miss Talbot, the answer to the burning question is no, this brat is not mine. Nor are his three elder brothers. They have a father and their mother is a devoted wife. Only Jamie belongs to me.”
“Thank you for being frank, my lord,” Rory replied levelly. Despite a heaviness of heart, she was affronted by his presumption. “But I do not thank you for thinking you can read my mind. It will surprise you to know that what I was truly thinking was what a wonderful job Mrs. Banks has done in raising her sons, mostly on her own; what with her husband the intrepid explorer, and you, an officer, leaving her alone for extended absences. I was also thinking how lovely it must be to have other family members around at such times. Not having uncles or aunts or parents, and only one grandparent, it was such a pleasure for Harvel and me to sit at a table with a large happy family group. It reminded me of the few times we visited my godparents at Treat—”
“Miss Talbot, I apologize if I offended—”
“My lord, you should wait until I have finished my diatribe before you decide if you owe me an apology or not,” Rory interrupted, the sparkle back in her blue eyes when he promptly closed his mouth and glanced away. “As we are being frank, then let me be also. Even though it is none of my concern, if Jamie has a gift for science, and his natural inclination is to spend his time peering into lenses and classifying insects and plants, and whatever else catches his interest, then his mother is wise to let him do as he pleases, rather than force him to do what pleases you. I have never met your son—”
“—and yet you presume to know him?”
Rory smiled crookedly. She wanted to say that though she did not know the son, she was confident she understood the father’s proclivities. Instead she said, a little less stridently than before, “No. Not him. But if you cast your mind back to your tenth birthday, as I have done, can you remember what you were eating? I surely cannot. But I am confident you remember what you were doing…”
Dair did not hesitate to answer. He shifted the baby to his other shoulder, again holding him there with a splayed hand, and said bluntly,
“I was outdoors skimming stones on the lake. I preferred—I prefer—to be outdoors. Anywhere but a book room. Such stuffy rooms give me the headache. Charlie and I were waiting for our father to join us. He was in his study; a place he rarely left. He’d been watching Charlie and me from his study window… When he finally joined us he gave me a birthday gift I will never forget. The next day he departed for London. We never saw him again. And before you make comment,” he added with a thin smile, “I am not forcing Jamie out-of-doors because that is what I did at his age, or what I think he should be doing. He needs to be reminded he is one of five brothers, and on this of all days. Between you and me, his mother, his grandparents—even Lily’s husband—all indulge him more because of who he is, rather than because he is clever. My great-grandfather was Charles the Second, so he has royal blood in his veins, however polluted, and one day I will be Earl of Strathsay. That’s a heady mix for his mother’s family, whose antecedents never rose beyond their position of servant these past three hundred years. But it does not remove the stain of his illegitimacy.”
> Rory cocked her head and said pensively, “Perhaps that bothers you more than it does them…”
This forced from him a reluctant laugh. “Yes, perhaps it does…” He glanced over at the two older Banks women. “Lil’s mother was the family wet nurse, then nursery maid; her father was a gardener on the estate… That is, until the unthinkable happened—”
“You fell in love with Lily Banks.”
Dair put down his fork, pushed his plate away and took up his tumbler. He drained the cup. She sensed he was about to confide something in her, but the sudden commotion at his back forestalled him and the moment was lost. He scraped back his chair, Lily Banks scooped up her baby, and a tall thin boy ran up to be crushed in his father’s embrace.
There wasn’t a dry eye on the terrace at this loving reunion between father and son; even Rory was quick to dab tears away before anyone noticed.
The hubbub brought the older Banks women scrambling off the wall and bustling to the table. They embraced Jamie’s father. Mother Banks took Dair’s handsome face between her hands and heartily kissed his forehead before enveloping him in a crushing embrace. Dair laughed when she scolded him for not alerting them to his presence, nodded obediently when she enquired if he had enough to eat, and grinned when she said it was just as well because she did not want him dying of hunger after surviving all those years as a soldier. She had a vested interest in his welfare. After all, she had been his principal source of nourishment from birth until two years. Whereupon Lily Banks told her mother to hush, and that she made the same observation every time Al (for that was what Lily called the Major) came to visit after one of his long spells away. And this last spell had been all of five weeks.
Dair took the attention in his stride, laughing and grinning and shaking his head at the women, before drawing his son to sit on his knee to tell him all about his birthday.
“I do always say it, too,” Mother Banks confided to Rory as she eased herself onto a chair as a pinch-faced maid put a fresh cup of tea before her. “But I ask you, Miss Talbot, why shouldn’t I say it? I’m proud his lordship has grown into a mountain of a man. What wet nurse wouldn’t be? He was not a big baby. There was a time, just after he was born, when his father worried he wouldn’t survive. But I told the Earl I’d get his heir through his first year, and I did. Truth told,” she added in a confidential undertone, pulling her shawl closer about her round shoulders and leaning in to Rory’s chair, “I’m not surprised he was such a scrawny baby. Starved, of nourishment and affection. The Countess was a cold woman in every sense. Loathed the begetting, the birthing, and the feeding of children. That’s God’s honest truth!”
“Mother! Miss Talbot is unused to such conversation. She is a lady,” Lily Banks whispered fiercely, an eye to the Major, who was holding his son’s hands and attentively listening to the boy’s wide-eyed recounting of his visit with the Duchess of Kinross in the opulent interior of her carriage. “I dare say she is not only embarrassed, but offended, too. Poor Miss Talbot came here to speak to Mr. Humphrey about pineapples, not hear your stories about Al as a baby. Forgive my mother, Miss Talbot. Mr. Humphrey should be here directly. I don’t know what is still keeping him…”
Rory smiled and swallowed and hoped her face was not the color of beetroot; Mother Banks’s eye-opening revelations would have knocked her brother off his seat with shocked mortification. He certainly would have used them as a prime example of why he had not wished his sister exposed to the crude sensibilities of the Banks family. But watching the Major and his son interact, the obvious love they had for each other, indeed the entire Banks clan’s great affection for Lord Fitzstuart, and his affection of them, was a balm to her finer feelings. For how could she truly be offended by Mother Banks’s truthfulness when couched with the warmth of feeling she had for the Major? Besides, her own behavior was wanting, for if she had stared at Lily Banks’s beauty when she first saw her, she stared twice as hard now at the beautiful boy with the mop of dark red curls who had his father’s dark eyes. Oh, Jamie Banks would break hearts just like his father when he was old enough…
“Miss Talbot…?”
It was the Major. He brought her out of her abstraction, an arm about his son’s shoulders. “Jamie, this is Grasby’s sister, Miss Talbot. You remember Lord Grasby—he accompanied us to Mr. Pleasant’s shooting box…”
“Grasby? Yes, I remember Grasby.” The boy made Rory a quaint little bow and said solemnly, “How do you do, Miss Talbot?”
“I am very well, Jamie. May I call you Jamie?”
The boy smiled. “Everyone does.”
“I should like to see your microscope one day, if you will allow me.”
The boy’s eyes lit up. “Would you? Mr. George Adams of Fleet Street made it,” he said with awe. “He makes the best microscopes. It’s brass and has three Lieberkuhn objectives, so I have both a compound body and a simple magnifier. And it all comes apart and fits into this big wooden case…” He looked up at his father. “May I show her, Papa? May I?”
“Of course. But not today. Miss Talbot must leave us now, and you need to eat the rest of what you left on your plate. But before you finish off your nuncheon,” he added, picking up Grasby’s frock coat, “please take this to Lord Grasby and tell him not to wait. I’ll bring Miss Talbot to him.”
Rory was about to enquire why his lordship was terminating not only her visit but her brother’s involvement in the game of cricket, when the Major turned away to speak with a rotund gentleman in bagwig and spectacles who had just stepped onto the terrace from the house. Their conversation was brief and then the gentleman followed Jamie down the terrace steps to the lawn. Rory watched his progress and sat up when three figures on the edge of the lawn came into view. Jamie was still holding her brother’s frock coat; Grasby had his back to the cricket game, hands on his hips, while the third figure was slightly bent forward with his hands clasped, as if in supplication, yet he was the one doing all the talking. It was one of the footmen from the shallop, and by his stance, and her brother’s arms akimbo, she was certain the servant was giving Grasby an earful of complaints, courtesy of Lady Grasby.
FIFTEEN
D AIR PUT OUT his hand to Rory. “Come. Let me help you up.”
She removed her feet from the footstool and he kicked it out of the way with the toe of his boot. Helping her to her feet, he held her hand until she was steady and leaning on her stick.
“Did you come by carriage?”
“No. My grandfather’s shallop.”
“By river? How pleasant for you. The return journey should give you ample time to have a full and frank discussion with Mr. Humphrey about your pineapple flower—your first, I believe?”
“You remembered the flower?”
“You dropped a treatise on gardening at my feet, and you were so excited. If it is possible for blue eyes to shine, they were shining then. I gather the plant does not flower often?”
“Crawford and I have waited two years to see one. A flower means a pineapple fruit is not far away.”
“Then it is rare and something to be animated about. I hope Mr. Humphrey’s advice is useful. Now please give your stick to Mrs. Banks.” When she hesitated, he smiled. “You’ll get it back.” Done as requested, he took a step away, still holding her hand, and looked her up and down, gaze pausing at the point of her beribboned bodice that highlighted her small waist. “If I’m not mistaken, under those fetching flowered petticoats are a set of light-weight panniers?”
“Yes. But—”
“No buts, Miss Talbot. I am now going to pick you up. As I do so, please bunch up your petticoats to collapse the panniers. It will make my task that much easier. Mrs. Banks will then return your stick, which you will hold without accosting me, and I shall then carry you to your barge. Understood?”
“Yes. But—”
He didn’t wait to hear her excuses. He effortlessly lifted her and she quickly did as he asked, Lily Banks coming to her aid to brush down the layers of light co
tton over Rory’s stockinged shins. She was then handed her stick. Hurried farewells and thank-yous exchanged, Dair strode off across the terrace towards the trees that provided privacy between the south wall and the Physic Garden. But he had not gone more than fifty paces when he stopped under the shade of a spreading oak.
“Miss Talbot, if I am to deliver you to your barge without incident, you need to be supple in my arms. Not a plank of wood, for that is what I am carrying at the moment.”
“I can walk!”
“You can. But not in your present state. Mrs. Banks mentioned you have blistered your feet. I’d wager you’re stubborn enough to still walk, just to spite me. But don’t think of yourself, think of your brother. In the time it would take you to walk back to the barge, I fear Grasby may have jumped overboard and be lost to the tangle of Thames reeds. I gather her ladyship is aboard your vessel?”
“Yes. And most reluctantly, too. Harvel and I left her and Mr. Watkins alone for quite some time…”
“Thank you.”
Rory tilted her head to look at him. His face was so close she could see the individual hairs of the beard covering his cheeks and jaw. It was black, like the hair that fell across his brow… Like the hairs on his chest… With the light browning to his skin he did indeed look the pirate.
“Thank me? For what, pray?”
“For not bringing her ladyship and Weasel up to Banks House.”
“Oh, they’d not have come within a hundred feet of the place! Oh! That was—”
“—the truth. I’m surprised Grasby gave you permission to do so.”
“He didn’t. But he could not stop me.”
Dair Devil Page 18
