With a nod, Mrs. Jenkins slipped into the kitchen, leaving them alone. Papa pulled a chair up next to her and grasped her hands. “I’m sorry, Madeline.”
“You always…s-say that,” she stammered, “and th-then…the next day…”
“I know, I go back to my brooding. Don’t you think I realize I’ve been a trial to you? But things will be different. I mean it this time.”
She shook her head. He’d claimed that, too, before.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” he said softly. “I don’t blame you. But I swear to you, if I’d realized how much you’d taken upon yourself…”
When she said nothing, he sighed. “No, that’s not true either. I did realize. Somewhere in my sunken spirits, I knew you were the one keeping us afloat. I just couldn’t muster myself to care.” He squeezed her hands. “Well, I’m mustering myself now.”
“Oh?” Her tears were spent, but anger still roiled in her belly. “Why now?”
A guilty look stole over his face. “Your headmistress told Mrs. Jenkins about you and Lord Norcourt.”
Her breath caught in her throat. What had Mrs. Harris said? How much did Papa know? Did he know about the party? Sweet Lord, did he know she’d gone there with Anthony?
He went on grimly. “That’s when I learned you’ve been friendly with the man. Yet I hadn’t a clue about it. I’d had no idea what was going on with you. I found that more chilling than anything.” He hung his head. “You spoke the truth about one thing—I had no right to give up. On you. On your future.”
“On yourself,” she prodded, the last of her tears drying on her cheeks.
“Perhaps that, too.” His voice grew anguished. “But once I heard about him, I remembered that you asked about his childhood and wouldn’t tell me why you wanted to know. So when you went missing, I started to worry…”
She had to tell him about Anthony. And she honestly didn’t know how.
“I haven’t been much of a father to you of late, I know that,” he whispered, his grip on her hands almost painful, “but I mean to change. I don’t care what has happened between you and—” He swallowed. “If you took up with Lord Norcourt, there won’t be a word of reproach from me. God knows, you’ve had good reason to seek comfort outside this house. But I can’t—”
His breath caught. “I can’t stay out of that, dear girl. I need to know if the man has taken advantage of you. You must tell me. I don’t care what happens with Sir Randolph; I just want to make sure that Lord Norcourt does right by you.”
“He wants to marry me, Papa,” she said softly. “He wants to marry me and protect you from Sir Randolph.”
Her father looked stunned, which pretty much mirrored how she’d felt when Anthony first offered for her.
“But there’s a problem involving his niece,” she went on, “so I told him we should wait. He doesn’t want to wait. After our interview with Sir Humphry this afternoon, he wanted to come directly here and ask you for my hand in marriage. I wouldn’t let him. I wanted to speak to you first.”
With a still-dazed expression, her father sat back against his chair. “I see.” He rubbed his chin, then glanced at her. “Apparently a great deal has happened without my knowing it.”
She nodded, a little ashamed. She still thought she’d been right not to tax him with her plans, but she couldn’t get Anthony’s words out of her head. You only confide what you think we can handle.
“Well then,” Papa said, “it’s time you tell me what I’ve missed. I have a right—” He caught himself. “I have a need to know. So start at the beginning, will you, dear girl? And take it slow. My brain’s been in a fog for a while, but I won’t let that stop me from trying to understand this time. Tell me it all.”
So she did. While Mrs. Jenkins prepared supper for them and silently went about the place doing her usual housekeeping duties, Madeline and her father talked. It took two hours—and a few false starts—to tell him everything. It had been a long time since she’d felt free to share problems with her father. She tried not to find too much hope in his rational response to her tale, especially when he lapsed into long silences, but at least he was listening. At least he was no longer shutting her out. That was something, wasn’t it?
Of course, she didn’t tell him about sharing Anthony’s bed. He was her father, after all. But he now knew the rest of it. When she was done, they were no closer to a solution than before, yet she felt as if the vise tightening around her chest for months had suddenly loosened. She could finally breathe.
“I’m right about his niece, aren’t I, Papa?” she said at the end. “Isn’t it better for us to wait?”
“I don’t know.” A weary frown beetled his brow. “’Tis a vexing situation indeed. I can’t see the Bickhams inflicting the same punishments on her, but you’re right that she shouldn’t be there. And Sir Randolph will certainly use any association between his lordship and me to gain what he wants.”
“Neither of you will solve this dilemma tonight,” Mrs. Jenkins said, the first time she’d interrupted them since they’d begun their long talk. “You’re both exhausted.” She glanced kindly at Madeline. “Nothing can be done until the morrow anyway, can it, miss? Isn’t that when you’re to meet his lordship?”
Madeline nodded, not terribly surprised that Mrs. Jenkins had listened to every word. She’d become so much of the fabric of their family that it seemed right she should know their darkest secrets, too.
“Fine,” Mrs. Jenkins went on in her motherly fashion. “Then you might as well sleep on the matter. Everything looks brighter in the morning, I always say.”
Papa arched one eyebrow at Mrs. Jenkins. “Are you this cheery with everyone, woman? Or do you only inflict your homilies on us?”
“Papa…” Madeline began.
“Oh, I save them all up for you, Dr. Prescott,” Mrs. Jenkins said with an airy smile. “Men like you who dwell too much on their trials can use a cheery homily now and again.”
“Rubbish,” he muttered, but he then took Mrs. Jenkins’s suggestion and urged Madeline to retire. She was only too eager to comply.
She wasn’t sure when he retired, but for once she didn’t lie awake listening for it. And for the first time in a long while, she wasn’t awakened in the middle of the night by his moving about.
Instead, she was awakened the next morning by the sound of urgent voices outside. Swiftly she left the bed, pulled on her wrapper, and went to see what was going on.
Papa was arguing with a footman in livery. “I insist that you leave the letter with me, young man. I’ll give it to her as soon as she rises.”
“But his lordship said it was to be put into her hand alone,” the anxious fellow fretted. “I can wait if you don’t wish to wake her.”
“I’m awake, Papa,” Madeline said, recognizing the livery. She pushed forward. “Have you brought me something?”
“Are you Miss Prescott?” the man asked.
She nodded.
He handed her an ornate envelope with a wax seal. “My master said I was to give this directly to you.”
She eyed him curiously. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I believe Lord Norcourt got your direction from the hackney coachman.”
Yet he hadn’t come here himself. After all his insistence that he be allowed to meet her father, the appearance of a letter instead distressed her. Her hand trembled as she opened the missive.
Dearest Madeline,
I’ve gone to Telford. I wanted you to know so you wouldn’t await me at my lodgings this evening. Our tangle can only be resolved if I assess your father’s situation thoroughly, which requires finding out how bad the case is against him and seeing what I can do to improve matters. I intend to speak to the vicar as well as the local magistrate. It may be a few days before I return, but do not fret. You can trust me to be perfectly discreet.
With all my love,
Anthony
The precious words “with all my love” were overshadowe
d by her alarm. “Discreet!” she cried as she held the letter to her heart. “How can it be discreet to ask such questions there? His uncle will know of it within an hour of his arrival, and then there will be hell to pay.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Papa asked.
She handed him the letter to read. “I have to go after him, Papa. I have to stop him before he hurts his niece’s chance of escape from those dreadful people.”
Her father looked up from the letter, one eyebrow raised. “He calls you ‘Madeline’ and signs it ‘with all my love,’ but I see no mention of marriage.”
“We have bigger concerns, Papa!” She turned to the footman. “How long has he been gone?”
“A few hours now, miss. He left before dawn.”
“There’s no time to waste,” she told her father. “I have to go to Telford.”
Papa frowned. “You won’t catch up to him.”
“I have to try!”
“We don’t have the money,” he pointed out. “Do you know how much a trip to Shropshire will cost? To catch up to him, we’ll have to travel post, and there will be meals and inns…It’s a two-day journey at least. Unless you’ve been sticking your pay from the school under a mattress, we can’t manage it.”
She groaned. He was right about that.
“I don’t even think Mrs. Jenkins could cover it, though I’m sure she’d be willing to loan you—”
“A loan, yes! I’ll borrow the money!”
“From Mrs. Jenkins?”
Anthony’s words yesterday came to her. Your employer fell over backwards this morning to keep me from “taking advantage” of you. She cares about you. “No. From Mrs. Harris.”
“You’ll have to tell her everything then: about the scandal and your reasons for going to that party, the whole thing.”
“I know.” She squeezed his hand. “It’ll be fine. She’ll understand.”
He nodded thoughtfully, then turned for the door. “Well, if we’re to be off soon, we’d better dress ourselves and go talk to her.”
“We?” she whispered.
“If you think I’m letting you trot off to Shropshire alone, girl, you’re mad.”
She caught her breath. “But you haven’t been back since—”
“I know.” He brushed a lock of her hair back from her cheek. “I have to face it sometime. This is as good a time as any, don’t you think?”
What she thought was that her world had taken such a strange turn in these past few days that she was still reeling. She was terrified that Papa’s seeming recovery would be overset by a trip to Telford, or that Anthony’s interference there would ruin his niece’s life and make him resent her for it.
Only one thing kept her from falling apart: Anthony’s words to her yesterday. Sometimes you have to give up control and allow the people who care about you to help you.
She was about to take that advice with a vengeance. Lord help her.
Chapter Twenty-six
Dear Cousin,
You’ll disapprove when you hear that I just loaned money to Miss Prescott and her father. You would have done the same if you’d heard their tale. As it turns out, nothing is as it seems with either her or Lord Norcourt, so I was happy to help them. Think what you will, but I believe you and I were wrong about them. A reputation isn’t always the measure of a man.
Your daft relation,
Charlotte
Two days later, as Anthony stood before the white-painted door of the elegant brick cottage, his palms began to sweat inside his gloves.
He hadn’t meant to come to this particular door. But after his arrival in Telford midmorning, he’d been told the vicar was in a nearby village performing a funeral service and wouldn’t return until evening, so he’d been left with time on his hands. After conversing with the magistrate, then discussing the Prescotts’ situation with their neighbors, he’d headed toward the inn where he was staying.
That’s when the sight of a school had arrested him. Although classes for that term had ended, he’d managed to learn from a clerk where the headmaster lived, and now he stood here with his hat in hand, unsure whether to knock.
Would Jane want to see him? Or hate him? Would she resent him for intruding on her now-settled life? She must feel some resentment, or she wouldn’t have agreed to be a witness for her father in the guardianship case.
He sighed. Perhaps this was a mistake.
He started to turn away, but was nearly mowed down by two strapping lads carrying a large carp. They stopped short, the eldest giving him the same survey Anthony had been subjected to all afternoon. “Good day, sir. May we help you?”
Jane’s children? Could it be? He glanced at the fish. “Seems to me that you two are the ones in need of help.” The fish looked easily twenty pounds, quite a handful for boys who could be no more than eight and eleven.
The younger boy puffed out his chest. “We caught it ourselves, we did. It’s a great big thing, don’t you think? Mother will be so proud.”
A lump caught in his throat. “I’m sure she will. Let me help you.” He took the smaller boy’s end, and the three of them entered the house, with the youngest racing ahead to announce their arrival.
“Mother! We caught the big carp!” he cried, as his brother and Anthony tramped through a parlor toward a kitchen.
“If you boys forgot to wipe your muddy boots again, I swear I will—” The woman stopped short as she entered and saw Anthony.
He would never have recognized her. Gone was the frail wraith with pinched cheeks and sad eyes. This woman was plump and hearty, if a bit harried, with a smile that reminded him of his mother and a halo of curls so unruly they encased her head in a brunette cloud.
“Jane?” he asked, wondering if perhaps he’d got the wrong house.
With a wary frown, she wiped her hands on her apron. “Do I know you?”
“I hope so, cousin.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh my word. Anthony?”
“Unless you have another cousin I don’t remember.”
To his surprise, she rushed over and grabbed him in a hug, no small feat since he was still holding one end of a carp. She drew back, her features alight, and said, “Anthony! I can’t believe it! Oh heavens…Jack! Come help Christopher with this fish, will you?”
The youngest hurried over to take Anthony’s end. This time when Jane hugged him, he hugged her back, tears stinging his eyes. She squeezed him exactly as Mother used to squeeze, with the pure affection of a dear relation.
Then she jerked back to hold him at arm’s length, laughing and crying all at once. “Lord, let me look at you! I can’t believe you’re grown.” She dashed away a tear. “Of course you’re grown. What a silly goose I am! You look wonderful, too.”
“So do you,” he said past the thickness in his throat. He nodded to the lads. “Are they yours?”
“Yes, my youngest two.” She dragged out a handkerchief to wipe her eyes. “This is Jack and Christopher. My oldest, Nicholas, is in Shrewsbury with his father, and Rachel and Alexandra are upstairs.” She turned to her boys, who were watching in awe. “Come now, lads, and shake your cousin Anthony’s hand.”
“We can’t,” said young Jack. “We’ve got the fish!”
“Is this your cousin Anthony who rode the goat?” asked Christopher.
Anthony laughed, feeling a weight lift from his chest. “Yes, I’m that Anthony.”
“Heavens, Christopher, what a thing to say! Go put that fish in the kitchen, will you? And wash up. And put those boots out by the pump.” They headed out as she added, “Oh, and go call the maid in to prepare us some tea!”
“Yes, Mother!” the boys called as they tramped off.
She turned to him with a rueful smile. “I’m sorry, you’ve caught us all at sixes and sevens. Which isn’t unusual around here, I’m afraid.”
“No, no, it’s fine. I should have given you fair warning.”
“Indeed, you should have,” she chided. “I could have had a feas
t prepared.”
“I wouldn’t want you to go to such trouble. Especially under the circumstances.”
That dashed the smile from her lips. Taking a seat on a settee, she patted the place beside her. “Come tell me what brings you to Telford after all these years.”
He sat next to her, still hardly able to believe how cozy her cottage was and how well she looked. “First, I need to apologize. I should have come a long time ago.”
“It’s all right,” she said softly. “I knew why you didn’t.”
Her voice held such a wealth of compassion that he knew instantly he was forgiven. And that struck his conscience sorely, for he didn’t deserve it. “Oh, God, Jane, I’m so sorry I never answered your letters or tried to see you—”
“Shh,” she murmured, “you wanted to put this place behind you. I can’t blame you for that.” She bumped her shoulder against his. “I’m just glad you’re here now. I’m glad Mama and her madness didn’t drive you off forever.”
“As always, you’re the soul of generosity.” Idly, he rubbed the scar on his wrist, hardly aware of doing so until she caught his hand.
“Let me see,” she murmured, then examined his wrist.
“It’s not bad, really. After so many years, you can scarcely see the mark.”
She bit her lower lip. “I’m sorry you had to suffer it at all.”
“You’ve nothing to be sorry about. You were pure kindness to me. Don’t think I didn’t notice how often you put yourself in harm’s way to focus my aunt’s ire away from me. I was always grateful even if I couldn’t tell you. I thought of you as a kindred spirit.”
“In more ways than one.” She lifted her gaze to him. “I suppose I should thank you for that episode with the penknife.”
“Oh? Why?”
“That was what made Mama stop tying me to the bed at night, too.”
He froze. “You? What do you mean?”
“Did you really think you were the only one?” she said, half-incredulous. Then she shook her head. “Of course you did. I always regretted that we couldn’t talk about it, with Mama never allowing us to be alone together. Not that I’m sure we would have, given how mortified she made us feel about her reason for binding us…” She broke off with a blush.
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