The observation was certainly an echo of something the boy had been told. Justin could almost hear Sarah’s calm voice underlying the childish one. “I know,” he said. “I knew him once. A long time ago.”
“His daughter died, and his mind’s unbalanced,” Andrew said.
Again the adult phrases had obviously been learned by rote. Justin wondered if the child understood half of what he’d been told. What he had just parroted was in such direct contrast to his physical reaction to his grandfather.
“Shall we go in?” Justin asked.
“I think Sarah will be angry with me,” Drew said softly.
“I think you may safely assume that.”
“But you’re coming, too?” Andrew asked.
A difficult interview all around, the earl thought. But in for a penny, in for a pound, he supposed. It was too late to desert Andrew now. They would see this through together, and when he was sure Sarah understood what was going on, he’d begin the process of disengaging the hold her son’s small fingers had already taken around his heart.
She had simply humiliated herself, Sarah acknowledged for the hundredth time. And in doing so, she had accomplished nothing. Nothing that would help Andrew. Or Justin. And certainly nothing that could possibly be of any benefit to herself. The earl of Wynfield had made it quite clear that he had no intention of accepting her proposal, no matter in what terms it was couched.
Couched. What an appropriate image, she thought bitterly. She had offered her inheritance and her body to Justin Tolbert and both had been summarily turned down. Not just turned down, she remembered. He had laughed at the idea of allowing her to bear his sons.
She had made a fool of herself. First by her offer of financial assistance, presented in terms that anyone with half a brain might have seen through. As Justin certainly had.
She didn’t need a factor for her father’s estates. She needed a mentor for Andrew. Someone who would teach him all the things he would have to know if he were ever to become an accepted member of society. Someone whose regard in that society was so high it might carry poor Drew to acceptance there as well.
But it had taken her the last two days to acknowledge that her own needs, as urgent and as basic as breathing, had really been what had sent her to Wynfield to embellish her original offer. And two days to admit that she had gotten exactly what she deserved—Justin’s scorn of her maneuvering. He had seen through her “generosity” as if she had been made of glass.
“I have broke my head,” Andrew said.
She looked up from the estate books she had been pretending to peruse as those endless recriminations circled through her mind. Whatever the truth of Drew’s statement, she realized, her eyes resting with dismay on his face, he had certainly suffered injury. “Andrew,” she whispered.
She rose and hurried around her father’s desk. She had almost reached the little boy when she realized he was not alone. The earl of Wynfield stood in the doorway behind him. The shadows of the hallway had hidden him until he stepped forward into the light. Although his face was not marked, it seemed as white and stiff as the child’s.
“I believe the hurt is not so severe as that,” Justin said.
His tone was deliberately light, probably for Andrew’s benefit, but she didn’t like the strain in his face or what was in his eyes. She studied them a long moment, but he said nothing else. And offered no other explanation.
Finally she followed her first instinct and dropped to her knees on the thick Oriental rug in front of the little boy. She touched the cut on Andrew’s chin and ran trembling fingers over the discoloration under his eye. “What happened?” she asked.
“I hit my head on a rock,” Drew said.
He captured her fingers in his own and carried them to the back of his head, placing them carefully over the lump.
“Is it as big as a goose’s egg?” he asked.
It was obvious he was hoping for an affirmation, so she obliged. “I think it might be,” she said. “And you hit it on a rock?” she asked carefully, knowing that didn’t begin to explain the injuries to his face.
“When I fell,” he said. “The nice lady said for you to put a vinegar...” He hesitated, searching for the missing word, before he looked up at the earl for aid. “A vinegar poultice,” Wynfield supplied, his eyes on Sarah’s, whose gaze had followed the child’s to his face.
“It will take out all the ache,” Andrew said decisively.
“Do we have a vinegar one of those?”
“I expect we have,” Sarah said, her eyes still on Justin.
The earl’s mouth was tightly compressed. She had seen that expression before, and it had portended bad news. This was how he had looked when he told her his regiment had been posted to Spain. There was more here than either of them had explained.
“But you haven’t told me about your face,” she said, her eyes coming back to Andrew even as her mind tried to fathom why Justin looked so stern. So coldly controlled.
Andrew glanced up at the earl and some silent masculine communication took place between them. Drew took a breath, the depth of it lifting his small shoulders, almost in surrender.
“Those boys,” he said. “The ones from the village.”
“They hit you?” she asked.
“The big one. He doesn’t like me.”
Sarah’s eyes again found Justin’s, but his expression gave her no clue as to what had really happened.
“Have you done something to him, Drew?” she asked.
The child shook his head.
“Called him names?”
Again, the slow negative motion.
“Then perhaps he’s jealous that you have more than he. More advantages. Sometimes people who have little feel that way about others who are more fortunate,” she suggested.
Drew nodded.
“Do you suppose Mrs. Simkins might manage the poultice?” the earl said.
Surprised, Sarah looked up at him.
“We need to talk,” he advised her bluntly.
Without Andrew, she realized.
“I’ll take him to the kitchen,” she said.
Justin nodded, his face still set in the same grim lines it had held since the beginning of this interview. Obviously, something had happened that he believed she should know about. Something Andrew had said or done to precipitate the boy’s attack? she wondered.
Of course, speculation accomplished nothing. It seemed Justin would be more than willing to tell her the bad news. He had brought Andrew home, apparently for that very purpose. And the sooner she got this over with, the better. Sarah rose from her knees and put a guiding hand on the back of Andrew’s head.
“Ow,” he said, dodging the touch of her fingers. “You forgot my head is broken,” he accused.
“I’m sorry, Drew. We’ll ask Mrs. Simkins to see to it. Will you wait here?” she asked the earl, already directing Andrew around him and into the hall.
He nodded, but he didn’t move as they passed him, Andrew skipping ahead of her, obviously little the worse for wear after his ordeal. She could only hope she would endure half so well the one that would be awaiting her when she returned.
The earl of Wynfield leaned tiredly against the frame of the doorway in which he was standing. His eyes examined the office where Sarah had been working. It seemed strange to think of her in this setting. He had always associated Sarah with sprigged muslin dresses and dance cards. Not with ledgers and ink-stained fingers. Of course, if she really managed her father’s properties, then those were a necessary part of her life now.
And Longford seemed to be prospering under her supervision. Everything he had seen as he’d brought Andrew home appeared prosperous and well cared for. In direct, and painful, contrast to his own holdings, he acknowledged. Judging by his encounter with poor Brynmoor, that was all due to Sarah’s direction.
“You wanted to talk to me?” she said.
She had stopped behind him in the hall, he realized, maybe waiting for him t
o go into the office. He found himself resistant to that idea. For one thing, he didn’t want to move. The agony in his leg had subsided to a grinding ache and he didn’t want to exacerbate it. He needed all his wits about him in order to make Sarah understand what was going on without totally insulting her. He also didn’t want to sit across the desk from her. That proximity would be painful as well, but for other reasons entirely.
“About Andrew,” he said, turning to face her. “It might be better if we talk inside.”
Her eyes seemed very blue, almost luminous in the dimness of the hall. “All right,” she said.
He stepped aside, and she slipped through the doorway. She didn’t touch him as she brushed by, but suddenly there was an evocative hint of rose water in the air.
She walked over to the desk and stood behind it. Justin remained where he was. She waited a moment, obviously expecting him to come inside the office, but when he didn’t move, finally she spoke. “There was more to what happened today than he told me,” she suggested.
“I’m afraid so.”
She sat down, her eyes meeting his. “Then why don’t you tell me,” she said. “That’s obviously why you came.”
He wondered if it were. Meg would have brought Andrew home. And he hadn’t been forced to respond to the child’s wishes in the matter of his conveyance.
“I believe your son is in danger,” he said.
She didn’t answer at once, her chin lifting minutely as Drew’s did when he was being challenged.
“From the village boys?” she asked, but then she spoke again before he could answer her question. “They’re children. They don’t understand.”
“They understand too well. That seems to be the problem,” Justin said. “Someone has taken the trouble to give them a very clear understanding of the circumstances of Drew’s birth.”
Her eyes widened, and then they fell. However, that was only for a moment. When she raised them again, they seemed to be calm and assured. “You believe he is being victimized because of the circumstances of his birth?” she asked.
“Because he’s not of their class,” Justin said. “Because of his size, perhaps. The difference in his clothing and theirs. But certainly, primarily, because of what they have been told about his parentage.”
Her lips, which had been tightly held together through that listing, moved, almost loosening before they tightened again.
“Being different in childhood is an incredible burden,” Justin continued. “Drew’s is heavier than most.”
She said nothing in response to that, either, but her eyes didn’t falter again.
“Meg Randolph says those boys are dangerous. She’s in a better position to know that than I am, of course, but from what I have seen...” He paused, not wanting to cause her to overreact.
“You think they’ll do him serious harm.”
“I think it’s possible.”
“What do you suggest I do?” she said. “Send for the magistrate? Pack Drew off to school? Keep him prisoner? Flog him if he leaves the house again?”
There was an edge of bitterness to the questions. And Justin had no answers, of course, so he didn’t attempt to make any.
“Andrew is an outcast,” she said deliberately. “He will never be anything other than an outcast unless someone... unless someone other than I or my father takes a hand in the matter. I can physically protect him, perhaps, but it isn’t in my power to change his situation.”
It was in his. Justin fully understood what she was trying to tell him. He had the power, she believed, to change Drew’s life. To protect him not only from those children, but from the rest of the world, which would certainly always look askance at who, and what, Drew was. And even the power to strengthen him against Brynmoor’s contempt. To mold this child, who so obviously longed to be molded, into a man.
And, at the same time, he had the power to put an end to his own painful situation. All he had to do was to say he would live here at Longford. Agree to exist under the same roof with the woman he had once loved. And her bastard son. A son she had borne to another man. A man she had fallen in love with so quickly it was obvious that. what Justin felt about her had made no impact on her own emotions.
A simple choice. Save Drew. Save his own heritage. Restore his family’s name. And all Justin must give up in order to achieve those things was his pride. And a long-ago summer dream of what his life would be. His life with this woman.
But of course, his life had already changed so greatly as to be unrecognizable. He was no longer—and never would be again—the man who had sailed to Iberia five years ago. He was forced daily to acknowledge how very different he was from that man. His awkwardness reminded him. The debilitating pain. His inability to push his body beyond certain boundaries.
The old dreams were ashes. There were, however, some things that could be salvaged from what the flames of war had devoured. His land and its people, who were, like Meg Randolph, depending on him to make things right again. And the life of an innocent child, who had slipped small, trusting fingers into his.
He would never have Sarah. There had been nothing in her manner to indicate that there was anything left of what she might once have felt for him. If, indeed, she had ever felt anything at all. Granted, she had indicated she would sleep with him if he demanded it. Sacrifice or duty—and done for Andrew’s sake, rather than her own. Or for his. And of course, knowing that, it was a demand he would never make.
Thoughts and images moved through Justin’s head as rapidly as summer lightning. Star. The differences between his neglected and abused lands and the richness of these. Meg Randolph’s earnest face assuring Andrew that the new earl didn’t intend to leave because he still had things to make right here.
And overshadowing all the others, Drew’s hand sliding into his. The small, warm body riding trustfully in the saddle before him and shrinking back fearfully against his leg when confronted by his own grandfather. Drew’s eyes, looking up to assure Justin that Brynmoor wouldn’t hurt him.
“Have them draw up the necessary papers,” he said harshly. “You’d better do it quickly before your bridegroom is clapped in Newgate. And don’t let Drew out of your sight,” he ordered, his tone more suited to the battlefield than to an agreement about marriage settlements.
“Then...” Sarah’s voice faltered, her eyes stunned.
“You’ve made yourself a bad bargain, Sarah, but if you need to hear it, then yes. I shall leave it to you to tell Drew.”
Without another word, the earl of Wynfield turned away from the doorway and disappeared into the shadows of the hallway, leaving Lady Sarah Spenser alone and openmouthed with shock.
Be careful what you pray for, they warned, because you might get it. And, Sarah thought, despite everything, even the harsh terms in which the response to her prayers had been expressed, she just bad.
Chapter Six
“Keep your left up,” the earl of Wynfield instructed, his voice carrying through the crisp, late-November air. “And keep your chin down.”
Obediently, Andrew ducked his chin and raised his left. His feet danced and his miniature fists stabbed the air as his small body circled the earl, who was moving far more slowly.
“That’s it,” Justin declared.
He put his hand on Drew’s shoulder, seeming to lean some of his weight on the child. Contentedly, the boy slowed his pace, matching it to the limping one of the man he clearly adored.
They were coming up from the stables. Sarah had heard their voices through the office window, which, despite the cold, she had opened earlier in anticipation of their arrival. At the sound, she had risen from her desk to look out on them.
Justin had forbidden Andrew to leave Longford without his permission, a restriction that, as far as she knew, the child had obeyed. Of course, there was no longer any reason for him to travel through the woods where he had been attacked. After all, the object of Drew’s previous quests was no longer there, but was installed now at Longford ins
tead.
Sarah looked down at the gold band on her left hand. She wondered how many people knew what a sham this marriage was. Her abigail, certainly. Peters, the earl’s valet. If they did, then eventually all of the servants would. And there was nothing she could do about that below-stairs gossip, as humiliating as it was.
When her gaze came back to the window, the two of them had disappeared from sight. Andrew would almost certainly stop by the office for a visit, but the glimpse she had caught of her husband was probably the only time she would see him today. The only sight of him she would have, if the normal pattern of their relationship was followed.
As soon as their vows had been exchanged, she had authorized Mr. Samuels to write drafts for whatever sums the earl requested. She didn’t want Justin to have to come to her for money. Not for what was needed to pay off his debts or for what he had begun infusing into his longneglected estate.
Although he slept at Longford, as per the terms of their agreement, most of Justin’s days were spent at Wynfield Park, where he worked from dawn until dusk. The improvements he had made were remarkable, and it was only because he was willing to devote so many hours and so much energy to the task, of course, that he had achieved such a turnaround in so short a time. And again, his name was on the tip of every tongue in the district.
Lately, more than one of those wagging tongues had expressed concern to Sarah that her husband might be working too hard, given the fact that he. had been invalided out of service only a few short months before. She had been unable to comment on those ayowals of dismay for the simple reason that she seldom saw Justin in order to form any opinion on the state of his health.
They didn’t share meals. Or conversation. Or anything else, she thought. Nothing but a mutual love for Andrew. She supposed she should be grateful they had that in common. It had, after all, been the purpose of this arrangement. Whatever Justin felt about her, he had not let it influence his attitude toward the little boy whom he mistakenly believed was her son.
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