Watching Blade teach Tommy to aim his bread to a specific duck made Caro’s heart sing. Their boots were getting muddier by the minute and neither of them seemed to care. Blade had been right. Where Caro would have scolded and fussed and ended up with a sullen boy who no longer wanted to feed the ducks, he had discovered a fitting punishment, a manly punishment, and both of them were as happy as grigs.
The boy needed a male role model. One he could look up to. One who would take him in hand. A doting mother was not enough. Her joy dimmed at the thought of someone else being important in her boy’s life. Selfish. Wrong.
Tonbridge must have seen the lack, too. It was why he had suggested school. Still, she could not bear the idea of letting Tommy go. He was all the family she had. But if she loved him, she had to think of what was best for him.
‘You would not have to send him off quite yet if you married again.’ Merry’s sly suggestion.
Ach, how could she even let such a thought enter her mind? She could not marry. That ship had sailed years ago. A husband would expect to know the details of his wife’s past and, unlike expectations for young men, wild oats sowed by a woman were looked on askance by decent people. A lump rose in her throat. Tears she would not shed, though they were never for herself. They were for the harm she had caused an innocent child.
She blinked and discovered Tommy standing in front of her looking worried. Mr Read was almost upon her, too.
She’d been so involved in her own selfish thoughts, she hadn’t realised they were on their way back.
Tommy, his face pink from exertion, put a hand on her arm. ‘Is something wrong, Mama?’ He glanced down at his filthy boots and rubbed one on the back of the stocking on the other leg. ‘I promise I will clean them.’
She managed a smile. ‘Nothing is wrong, my son. Nothing at all.’
Blade gave her a sharp-eyed glance. ‘Getting cold, are you? The air is chilly. Time for a brisk walk. Once around the pond, ma’am.’
Grateful he had not challenged her about her self-indulgent moment, she rose to her feet. ‘The wind is slightly cool.’ She took his proffered arm and they began a steady perambulation with Tommy skipping along beside them.
‘Were the ducks suitably pleased with their lunch?’ she asked her son.
‘They have no manners,’ Tommy observed. ‘Sometime the bread sank to the bottom and they never even got it, because they were fighting.’
A salutary lesson. ‘Much like people sometimes,’ Caro said. One of the reasons she had always dreaded sending her boy to school. She had heard such stories of cruelty. And they would be cruel if his schoolmates ever learned of his background.
Tommy frowned and she realised her words had been a little sharper than she’d intended. Her son was becoming far too sensitive to her moods, for he took her hand. She gave it an encouraging squeeze to let him know everything was all right.
Tommy looked up at Blade. ‘Why don’t you wear your uniform any more?’
Blade’s expression shuttered. His jaw flickered as if he was restraining words he knew ought not to be spoken. ‘I am no longer a soldier.’
‘Tommy,’ she admonished. ‘That’s—’
‘It is a perfectly valid question,’ Blade said quietly, stopping to face the boy and crouching down to bring himself to Tommy’s eye level. ‘The war is over and I resigned my commission. I hope that does not mean we cannot be friends any longer.’
The twinkle in his eyes, his gentleness, warmed Caro to her toes, even though it was directed at Tommy. Only because he was being kind to her son. It had nothing to do with how the warmth transformed his face from stern and fierce to something utterly charmingly devastating. And the clench in her lower abdomen was all to do with her appreciation of his kindness.
Read stuck out his hand.
Tommy shook it with all the aplomb of the gentleman she was trying to bring him up to be. ‘Oh, no, sir,’ the lad said. ‘We can still be friends.’ He frowned. ‘Don’t you want to be a soldier any more?’
‘I do not,’ Mr Read said firmly but kindly, rising to stand.
‘Well, I am going to join up the moment I am old enough. Just like my papa. He was very brave. Mama said so.’ His gaze dropped to Mr Read’s pinned left sleeve. ‘Did it hurt?’
Mr Read’s expression froze for a second.
Caro drew in a sharp breath, but before she could speak an admonition, Mr Read answered calmly, ‘It hurt a great deal.’
Tommy grimaced in sympathy. His gaze dropped to the floor. ‘It hurt when I fell and scraped my knee. Mother said I was brave when I let Beth clean it and put a bandage on.’ He glanced up with a look of misery on his face. ‘But I wasn’t. I cried.’
‘There is nothing wrong with a man shedding a few tears when he is in pain,’ Mr Read said, lifting an eyebrow.
Tommy’s eyes rounded. ‘Did you cry, too?’
‘I did.’
Caro felt a terrible pang in her heart at his words. But she also felt admiration at his honesty. Not too many men would admit to such a thing to another male, even if he was a little boy.
‘Beth gave me one of her bullseyes and kissed it better,’ Tommy said cheerfully, clearly not realising the importance of this manly conversation.
Mr Read gave a low chuckle and something deep in Caro’s abdomen tightened when his gaze, full of wicked amusement, met hers over Tommy’s head. ‘Nothing like a bullseye and a kiss from a pretty nurse to take away a fellow’s pain.’
The man was incorrigible. He was flirting with her. Again. She should be shocked. But she wasn’t. She felt breathless and hot.
They arrived back at the bench. Tommy looked around. ‘What shall we do now?’
‘Do you know how to play cricket?’ Mr Read asked.
Tommy shook his head.
‘Then it is likely time you learned. Go and watch the other boys over there for a while and see if they will let you join their game. But be honest with them. Tell them you’ve never played before.’
Tommy looked worried. ‘You won’t go anywhere?’
‘We’ll stay right here, I promise,’ Caro said, sitting down.
Her boy wandered diffidently across the grass and stood watching for several minutes.
One of the lads approached him and said something and the next moment Tommy was part of the game. The lesson Mr Read had taught him while throwing the bread suddenly made sense.
She glanced at him in surprise. ‘You meant that to happen.’
He leaned back against the bench, a small smile turning up the corner of his mouth. ‘I did nothing. It was all up to your son.’
Who right now looked extremely pleased with himself, half-crouching in imitation of the other boys.
‘You would make a wonderful father,’ she said, thinking out loud.
He looked startled. Opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it and closed it again. When he finally spoke his voice was casual. ‘He needs the company of other fellows his age, that’s all.’
‘So Tonbridge has been saying.’
‘And what is worrying you this fine day?’ he asked. ‘Apart from your son.’
Her shoulders stiffened. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘Beth. She mentioned that Cook being ill was one more trouble you did not need.’
Inwardly, Caro let go a sigh of relief. He wasn’t talking about her biggest worry. ‘Katy and Flo have been offered permanent employment. They will be leaving us soon.’
‘Surely that is a good thing?’
‘Of course it is, but when they leave at the end of the month the Haven will be empty. Despite our success with these girls, no new ones have come to seek our aid. I thought once others saw how well these girls were doing, more would seek our aid.’ She’d even approached some of the girls on the street. ‘This was my
idea. It will be difficult to ask Tonbridge to continue to support the venture if there is no need for it. Perhaps we should have located it in a larger town.’
He looked thoughtful. ‘How many women do you have room for?’
‘Up to five, but it depends on whether they have children or not. The more children the fewer places.’
‘Children?’ He sounded startled.
‘When women who do not have the support of family have children, they are most often forced to give them up. The children go to orphanages or workhouses. It is very hard for them.’
She glanced at his face and his expression was grim, but when he said nothing she continued. ‘I am not saying that these places are bad, but if a way could be found for the women to support themselves and their children, if that is what they want, I believe it would be...better.’
‘You speak from experience, of course.’
She swallowed a gasp.
‘It must have been difficult when your husband died and left you to struggle alone with a child to bring up.’
She felt weak with relief, but managed to gather her thoughts. ‘If not for Merry’s help, I might not have managed.’
‘I think it is one of the best ideas I have ever heard.’ Something in his tone made her look at his expression more closely. Beneath the grimness was pain. Had he suffered something similar? She knew little about his circumstances other than he was an earl’s natural son. Also that perhaps he harboured some bitterness towards his mother. She opened her mouth to question him and thought better of it.
‘Perhaps if you spoke to the vicar,’ he continued as if unaware of her curiosity, ‘he might know of women who are desperate for the sort of help the Haven offers.’
‘I have. Merry has. As has Tonbridge. The Haven is accepted but not well liked among the notables of Skepton. They see it as encouraging wickedness rather than helping those in need. And yet I know there are women out there who are desperate for the sort of help we can offer.’
‘Let me put the word out around the local inns and such, places you cannot go.’
Surprised, she stared at him. ‘You would do that?’
‘Of course.’ He gave her a self-deprecating grin. ‘After all, my livelihood depends on the success of the Haven.’
A pragmatic answer, but she sensed it was not entirely the truth, that there was some other emotion beneath the smile. A deeper caring that she might not have suspected if it wasn’t for his kindness to Tommy. Beneath the rakish charmer. Beneath the efficient soldier. Beneath the person he showed to the world, there resided a good and kindly man. One she could respect without reservation.
Her heart gave a happy little hop.
As they walked home and he purchased a sprig of lavender to pin on her coat, she knew she was falling for him. Something she had sworn she would never do again.
But this time it was different. He was different.
Or was she seeing only what she wanted to see?
Her son’s future relied on her being a respectable woman. Respectable women, even if they were widows, did not engage in flirtations with handsome soldiers.
* * *
‘You did what?’ Ned ceased his combing of Apollo’s mane, much to the horse’s disgruntlement, expressed by the impatient stamp of a hoof.
The well-trained Ned returned to his task, but his expression didn’t look any less grim.
‘I said you would join me and Mrs Falkner and the other ladies of the house at the assembly two days hence. You like dancing.’
‘I liked to be asked,’ Ned said in his irascible way.
‘I am asking now.’
Ned fumbled in his pocket and came up empty. Blade handed him a lump of sugar.
A grunt was all the thanks he got, but Apollo crunched happily on the offered treat.
‘What are you about, Captain?’ Ned glowered at him. ‘She’s a decent woman. Not your usual sort at all.’
So that was the problem. ‘I am doing my job, Ned. Mrs Falkner wants to go to the blasted assembly with the other women in the house and it is my job, whether I will it or no, to accompany her.’ His very great pleasure to accompany her, he acknowledged to himself. Not something he needed to tell Ned, however. ‘Knowing how much you like to show off your manly attributes to the ladies, I...er...offered your services also. What other motive would I have?’ Not a question he should be asking of Ned, who knew him all too well.
‘I see the way you look at her. Like you’d like to gobble her up.’
‘You, my old friend, have bats in your belfry.’
Another grunt.
‘Well, will you do it, or do I have to tell Mrs Falkner what a disobliging fellow you are?’
‘You haven’t been to a ball or an assembly since...’ His gaze dropped to Blade’s mangled appendage. ‘They’ll notice.’
‘I have a plan for that. Ned, stop havering and tell me one way or the other.’
‘Yes, damn you. I’ll come to your benighted dance as long as that wench Beth is going, too.’
Blade did not admonish him for the use of the word wench. Ned was impossibly shy and his gruffness was a form of self-defence. ‘You must dance with all the lasses from this house, not just Beth.’
‘If’n she’ll dance with me at all.’
Another male seeking comfort where it would never be offered. ‘She’ll dance with you. Mrs Falkner will see to it.’
‘Not the same.’ Ned exited Apollo’s stall and latched the gate. ‘And another thing.’ He sat down on the bench beside Blade. ‘Someone’s been asking questions about your Mrs Falkner.’
If only she could be his. Blast, where had that stray thought come from? ‘Who? And who has been giving him answers?’
‘It seems he knew better than to ask them of me, but he collared that varmint of a grocer’s boy.’
‘The grocer’s boy who stands at the back door flirting with Beth, you mean?’ An unnecessarily cruel dig, but Ned needed a bit of a push sometimes.
Ned shot him a glower that said he knew what Blade was up to. ‘Him. The gent who’s been asking questions is a middle-aged codger with a large belly and a niggardly purse.’
There was a familiarity to that description. He’d seen a man like that somewhere. Recently. ‘What sort of questions?’
‘Who lives in the house? Where they came from and such like.’
‘And what did this rival of yours tell him?’
Ned’s eyes narrowed, promising retribution. ‘Whatever he knew.’
‘Which is what?’
‘Not much, I’m thinking. The names at least. The connection to Tonbridge and his missus.’
‘Countess.’
‘Ah, well, he weren’t having no countess when he was playing at being Lord Robert, were ʼe?’
‘What else?’
‘That Mrs Falkner has no family to speak of. Turns out he delivers the letters from the post office to save Beth trekking to the post office every day. Happy to do her a favour, he is.’ His expression soured. ‘And Mrs Falkner don’t get no letters except those franked by Tonbridge.’
‘Blasted observant, this grocer’s boy.’
‘T’were more about the skill of the questioner, I’m thinking.’
‘Do you have a name for me, Ned?’
‘Butterworth. And fat as butter he is. Staying at the Green Man.’
‘Horse? Carriage?’
‘Arrived by stage two weeks ago. The tapster there thought he might be in trade, but he’s not been seen at any of the markets. He did rent a horse three days ago. Brought it back wet and covered in mud. Said he went for a ride in the country. Took ill with the ague and was in bed for a couple of days.’
Might he have been the fellow who had opened the carriage door? If so, why would he not have of
fered assistance? And why was he asking questions?
‘Thank you, old chap.’
Ned hunched a shoulder. ‘Don’t thank me, thank the grocer’s boy.’
Blade grinned, despite his consternation. ‘Have I or have I not provided the opportunity for you to dance with Miss Beth?’
Ned shuffled some wisps of straw around with the toe of his boot.
‘Anything on the other front?’ Blade asked.
‘Hothead talk. Rumours of an uprising in Scotland. Gossip about men practising up on the moors with pitchforks and ancient rifles.’
Could things be getting so serious? ‘See if you can find a name or a way in. Even a meeting place.’
‘Just so long as it don’t get me arrested under this new Act of theirs.’
‘It won’t. Tonbridge will see to it.’
Ned wandered off to fetch oats for the horses.
Clearly at some point this Butterworth fellow merited a closer look.
* * *
A great deal of excitement rippled through the house. Flo and Katy had been granted a half-day holiday from their employment in order to ready themselves for the evening’s festivities. Not that the time had been granted purely for their sakes. Their employer had a hopeful daughter of her own and intended to spend the afternoon at home ensuring she was turned out in prime style.
Skepton’s marriage mart relied on these events, just as London’s beau monde relied on Almack’s.
Caro looked at her ladies with a critical eye. Modesty was the watchword of the evening. Though these country affairs were not nearly as formal as those of high society, it was important that they represent the Haven creditably. Beth looked lovely in a pale-blue muslin that showed off her dark hair. Flo and Katy were in Pomona green and lemon respectively. Katy twitched at her skirt. ‘Ellen Fitch has three rows of lace at her hem.’
Whereas Katy and Flo had only one.
‘All the lace in the world won’t make Miss Fitch look any prettier,’ Mr Read said, coming into the hallway from the kitchen. He must have entered the house through the back door. He looked absolutely gorgeous in his crisp white linen and black evening clothes. Better than he had ever looked in his regimentals, though he had looked exceedingly handsome in those, too. Not that Caro should have been noticing, then or now.
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