by Lenora Bell
“No, I came to apologize. I realize now that I should have found a less public way to confront Father. Challenging him to a duel was reckless and wrong and cost you so much pain.”
For the very first time, his mother’s careful mask of aristocratic composure slipped away.
Was she going to cry? Edgar reached for his handkerchief and realized he’d left it with Lumley. There was no precedent for this moment.
He’d never seen his mother’s face twisted with emotion. Not even when his father had hit her.
She lifted her eyes to the ceiling, obviously fighting back tears. “I’ve had many years to think this through, Edgar. And I’ve come to the conclusion that you did what you had to do.”
“It was wrong to challenge him so publicly.”
“Perhaps, but someone needed to make him pay for what he’d done. I didn’t like it, Edgar. I hated the scandal. But the things he did . . . I should have fought harder. I should have been strong enough to protect my children. Sometimes I think I should have . . . I should have been the one to challenge him.” Her hands tightened into fists. “I fantasized so many times about putting a bullet through his heart. But I never did anything.”
Now Edgar was the one struggling not to cry. “It wasn’t your fault. He was stronger than you.”
“I should have taken you and India and left. But I stayed.”
Edgar sank to his knees in front of her chair and caught her thin blue-veined hand in his. “I don’t blame you. And I don’t blame myself anymore. I’ve decided to stop wallowing in the past. I’m moving forward. I’m seeking the light. And there is light to find, I know it. I’ve seen it.”
His mother laid her hand on top of his. “Miss Perkins, I presume?”
Edgar smiled. “Her name is Mari. It rhymes with starry.”
The dowager gave a small snort. “I can see there’s nothing to be done. You’d better marry the girl.”
Edgar gaped at his mother. Those were the last words he’d ever expected her to say. “What did you say?”
“Marry that girl. She’s got more spirit in her little finger than all the debutantes in London put together.”
“She does, doesn’t she?”
“Then what are you talking to me for? Go win your fiery Miss Perkins.”
“That’s just it. She’s not Miss Perkins.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was raised in an orphanage, and she just found out that she’s the legitimate offspring of Mr. Lumley, of Lumley’s Toy Shop.”
“Legitimate, you say?”
“And an heiress with a considerable fortune. Also, her mother was highborn, though Lumley won’t divulge the family name.”
“Well.” The dowager nodded. “That does change things. She may even pass muster.”
Edgar bristled. “She’s far superior to any other woman.”
His mother patted his arm. “Of course she is.”
“The only question is whether she’ll have me. Maybe she doesn’t need me anymore. She’s independent now, an heiress. It’s not too late for her to make some sort of debut in society. She’s only twenty. She would attract suitors, Lord knows.”
“Are you trying to tell me that my son, the Duke of Banksford, might lose out to some minor baronet or the like? Pure twaddle!”
“Mother, I have to let her make up her own mind, I can’t pressure her.”
“Have you been intimate with the girl?”
“Yes,” he admitted. It wasn’t exactly a topic one expected to discuss with one’s mother.
They’d consummated their relationship, but he didn’t want to trap her into marriage by using that, if she didn’t want to marry him.
He’d been careful. There was no reason to think she could be with child.
“Then it’s a special license,” his mother announced. “You’ll be married within the month. I’ll see to everything. Go now.”
“Mother, I can’t simply assume that she wants to marry me.”
“You’ll never know whether she wants to marry you or not unless you ask her. You’re a fool, Edgar. As stubborn as an ox.”
That sounded more like the mother he knew. “What if she only thinks she loves me? She’s so young. She has her whole life ahead of her. I might be a millstone around her neck.”
“Edgar. Listen to yourself. You’re talking about what happened with you and that Sophie woman. This is completely different.”
Maybe that was true. Mari kept telling him to trust that she knew her own mind. If he asked her to marry him, and she said yes . . . he would believe that she meant it.
“You’re right, Mother.”
“I generally am.”
“I have a ring.” He pulled the diamond band from his pocket.
“Oh that won’t do,” said his mother. “Too vulgar. Wait here a moment.”
She left the room but then returned almost immediately. “Take this instead.” She held something that glinted gold in the lamplight. “My wedding ring. I removed it the very same evening that he . . . that he shot you.” Her jaw clenched. “I never wore it again. I loved that ring when he gave it to me. I know you might find this difficult to believe but there was a time, a long, long time ago, when we were happy together.”
Edgar had never heard her say anything like that. All he’d seen was the conflict. The drinking. The silent suffering.
“He changed so swiftly,” she said. “The devil took him. Here.” She shoved the ring forward. “I want you to have this.”
He accepted the ring. It was a simple gold band with a brilliant red ruby in the center, ringed by small diamonds.
It was perfect. The ruby would match Mari’s hair.
“She said she would return to the house tonight, to tell the news to the children in person,” said Edgar.
“Then home you go. And Banksford?”
“Yes, Mother.”
She drew herself up. “Don’t you dare come back until I have a wedding to plan.”
Anything broken may be mended. While we breathe there is yet hope.
He and his mother had actually talked to one another as people, not as symbols of past hatred, past fear.
Mari had been right about everything.
He climbed into his carriage with hope soaring through his heart.
He had a goddess to propose to tonight.
The only problem was that he was merely a duke.
Chapter 32
“What’s wrong?” Mari asked when Robertson answered the door at Number Seventeen later that evening. The butler’s face was even more somber than usual.
“The children are missing again, Miss Perkins. And they’re not hiding in any of their usual haunts.”
“We’ve searched everywhere.” Edgar strode toward her, his face lined with worry.
“It’s my fault,” wailed Mrs. Fairfield, following at his heels. “I shouldn’t have brought their former nurse here. They think she abandoned them yet again.”
“No, it’s my doing,” said Edgar, his eyes bleak. “I came home and I told them your news, and then I was called back to the foundry, and—”
“What did you tell them?” Mari asked urgently. “Edgar, what did you tell them?”
“I told them that Lumley was your father and that you were an heiress and that you wouldn’t be their governess any longer.”
Mrs. Fairfield gaped at him. “What’s that you said?”
Mari staggered. “Edgar. I was going to tell them the news of my birth in my own way.”
“Miss Perkins? What’s this?” asked Mrs. Fairfield. “You’re an heiress?”
“I’ll tell you the whole story later, after we find the children,” she said.
“They’re not in the park,” said Edgar. “Nor any of the nearby parks. I even went to the church of St. Mary-le-Bow, because Sophie had written a poem about it. No one has seen them.” His eyes glittered with tears. “Where are they? Mari, we have to find them.”
She nodded reassuringly. “We’ll find them. Don’t worry.
Have you searched the nursery?”
“Of course, dear,” said Mrs. Fairfield. “That’s the first place we looked.”
“Not for the twins,” Mari explained. “I mean for a note. I don’t think they would just leave without telling anyone. Not anymore.” She trusted them not to do that. Even if they were hurt by her news.
“You’re right,” said Edgar.
They climbed the stairs together.
“I should have let you tell them, only it was weighing on me so, and I thought . . .” Edgar cast his gaze away from her. “I thought if I told them early, they might persuade you to stay, for a time.”
“I never told you I was going anywhere, did I?”
He looked taken aback. “But . . . you have a new family now. You don’t need us.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Mari.
“You said you’d found your family. That you didn’t want a husband.”
There he went again, making her heart skip a beat. “I said I didn’t want a respectable husband, if you’ll recall. Now stop talking foolishness. We have to find the children.”
They searched the nursery, turning over toys, and thumbing through books.
“Edgar.” She pointed at the blackboard. “Look. Hidden in plain sight.”
The message was scrawled across the blackboard in Adele’s girlish handwriting.
We’re going to Lumley’s Toy Shop. We need Miss Perkins more than he needs her. Signed, Adele and Michel Rochester.
“I need you, too,” she whispered. The twins loved her and she loved them. She had so much love to give. And now she realized that she deserved affection in return. “Right, then,” she said, sniffing back her tears. “Best foot forward. No time to waste. Back to my father’s shop.”
“But didn’t you just leave there?” asked Edgar.
“We dined in a restaurant several streets away from the shop. We must have missed the children’s arrival.”
In the carriage, Edgar slipped his arm around her and Mari rested her head on his shoulder.
It was enough right now to be back in his arms.
To know that the children loved her. Whatever happened, she wanted to be in their lives in some way.
The ride was brief to High Holborn Street, but the carriage rolled to a halt before they reached the shop.
Edgar alighted. “What’s happening?” Mari heard him ask the coachman.
“Blockade,” the coachman replied.
Mari stepped down from the carriage. The air was crisp and cold and there was a smell of smoke on the air.
“What’s the matter?” she asked Edgar.
The coachman pointed at smoke billowing in the distance. Mari noticed, for the first time, that there was a snarl of carriages and carts, all barred from making their way farther on Holborn.
“Go back,” a man shouted at them. “It’s a fire.”
At the words, a sinking fear gripped Mari. “A fire?”
“Where?” Edgar shouted back.
“Lumley’s Toy Shop, I think,” called the man, shaking his head. “Would be a shame for all those toys to be lost.”
Mari’s heart stopped.
Edgar raced to the constable who was blocking the way. “Let us pass,” he cried. “My children are in Lumley’s Toy Shop.”
“No one’s getting through, sir. The street’s blocked except to the fire brigades, when they ever decide to arrive.”
“The fire brigades,” Edgar muttered. “I don’t trust those bumblers to fill my bathwater.”
He addressed Mari. “Stay in the carriage where you’ll be safe. I’m going to the foundry to fetch my fire engine. It’s the quickest way to put out the blaze. Grafton will still be there. He’ll help. We’ll be back before you know it.”
“Go,” she said. “Hurry, please.”
“It’s a stone building, Mari. There’s time.”
The coachman helped him unhitch one of the horses from the carriage. He leapt onto the horse and galloped away into the night.
Mari shivered with cold and fear. She couldn’t just sit there, waiting for him.
The carriage might not be able to pass through, but she could, if she made herself less visible.
She removed her velvet bonnet with the blue plumage and stepped down from the carriage.
“I need your cloak,” she said to the coachman.
He surrendered it without a protest.
She shrugged into the long blue greatcoat, pulling the collar up over her cheeks.
And then she darted into the shadows.
She must reach the toy shop. She must save the children.
Chapter 33
The toy shop wasn’t burning.
But it would be soon, if the fire at the bookseller’s next door wasn’t brought under control.
The sound of the flames crackled and popped in Mari’s ears.
A window shattered. She could see books burning inside the stone building.
She didn’t think the children were in any immediate danger. Surely her father had been able to remove them to safety when the fire broke out next door. Unless he hadn’t found the children in the shop.
What if they’d fallen asleep in the shop and he hadn’t noticed them? The thought chilled her, despite the heat emanating from the fire.
Edgar had better hurry.
She searched the length of the street. The fire brigade was just arriving with its engine drawn by three horses. Onlookers were gathered in knots outside of the houses across the street from Lumley’s. She walked among them, searching for the children.
“Do something,” Mari yelled at the men of the fire brigade, who were milling about purposelessly.
“Not our building, miss,” one of them replied.
“What did you mean, not your building?” she asked.
“Our company didn’t insure the bookshop. We’ll wait and make sure the flames don’t spread to one of our buildings.”
“They’re going to spread if you don’t put them out.”
The man shrugged. “Another brigade will be here soon.”
Mari stalked down the street, so furious she could barely see straight. Edgar was right. The fire brigade system needed to change.
“Miss Perkins,” a thin little voice called.
She stopped walking and spun around.
Adele flung herself into Mari’s arms. Mari wrapped her arms around her, crooning softly. “Sweetheart, you’re safe.”
Michel and her father came next, hand in hand.
“We were so worried,” said Mari. “So worried. Don’t ever leave again, do you understand?”
“I thought you were the one who was leaving,” said Adele.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Where’s the duke?” asked her father.
“He’ll be here any moment. He thought your shop was burning and he’s bringing his fire engine from the foundry. He’s right, you know. These fire brigades are hopeless.”
They watched from a safe distance as the fire brigade formed a line on either side of their decrepit old engine and the men on one side pulled down on their levers, while the men on the other side pushed up. But no water came out the end of the hose.
To Mari’s dismay, the battered old hand pump engine shuddered, emitted a groaning, scraping noise, and stopped working altogether.
Next, the men formed a bucket line and began passing buckets of water but it was maddeningly slow, and wasn’t doing anything to stop the fire’s progress.
The scene was chaotic and confusing, with some men advocating for calling a different fire brigade, and others calling for more buckets.
Her father watched the blaze with worried eyes. “That’s Mr. Brookfield’s bookshop. I feel terrible for him.”
“Why is that other fire brigade simply standing around watching?” she asked.
“They’re from another insurance company,” said her father. “See? The foreman has blue livery with the gold sun on it. They won’t lift a finger until the fi
re threatens to spread to the buildings insured by their company.”
Mari shook her head, disgusted by the whole thing.
The children watched, wide-eyed as the flames burned inside the tall stone building, licking through the ground floor. The fire could easily spread next door.
“Should we take the children away?” Mari asked her father.
“No.” Michel shook his head. “I want to stay and watch Father fight the fire.”
“He’d better hurry,” said Mari’s father.
Finally, Mari glimpsed Edgar’s gleaming engine, pulled by one sleek chestnut horse, barreling down the road toward them. Grafton rode beside the engine on another horse.
“There he is,” cried Mari.
The fire brigade tried to form a blockade to prevent Edgar from dismounting, but everything was too chaotic. There was too much shouting, and smoke and flames and men running everywhere.
“It’s not Lumley’s,” said Grafton.
Thank Heaven. He was right. It was the bookstore next door. But he’d seen no sign of Lumley or the children. He had to be certain that they were safe.
He tied a handkerchief firmly around his face. “Is anyone inside that bookstore?” he asked one of the brigade men.
“No, the bookseller left in time.”
The flames were starting to spread into the second story, licking out the windows. He and Grafton had ridden as close to the water main as possible, while still being able to reach the fire with their hose.
“Let’s go,” Edgar said to Grafton. “They’re not making any headway with those buckets. Not when it’s reached the second story.”
He leapt down and located the foreman of the Hand in Hand fire brigade.
Grafton stayed behind to unhitch the horses and remove them a safe distance, locking the forecarriage of the engine in place with a pin to prevent it moving.
It was Edgar’s job to convince the fire brigade foreman to give him the socket to connect to the water main, because each parish had different ones.
“Give me the socket. You’re not making much progress with those buckets,” said Edgar.
“You can’t fight this fire with no license, no company,” said the man, glowering at Edgar.
“I don’t have time for your politics. My children could be inside that toy shop. I’m not going to let the fire spread.” Edgar grabbed the man’s collar. “Now give me that socket or I’ll take it by force.”
