by Edith Layton
“And I believe we ought to go and let you get on with it, Cole,” Mrs. Haverford said quickly, seeing that her companion was now about to take up a position in a nearby chair so as to watch the interview with the unfortunate young unemployed governess, which was to take place in a very short while, as it went forth. Then, as her son shot her an undeniably grateful look, she drew her companion along with her as they left the earl’s study, however unwilling that old female seemed to be as she went with her.
Thus when Miss Dawkins finally arrived at the earl’s town house, only ten minutes late despite her difficulty in walking, she discovered, after the lofty butler took her pelisse and her bonnet and most of her courage, and showed her into the earl’s private study, that he was quite alone.
The earl, rising to greet her, quite forgetting her inferior status, found that though she’d obviously been shedding weight she didn’t seem particularly deprived, since she was in glowing good looks. In fact, her color was so high it was almost as if twin spots of rouge had been rashly applied to her cheeks, and her eyes positively glittered with light.
He sat again and motioned her to take a seat in a chair he’d placed to the side of his desk.
“How do you do, Miss Dawkins. I’m glad you answered my cryptic summons,” he said calmly.
She only nodded.
“I apologize for putting it so curtly,” he said abruptly when she ventured no greeting in return, “but then, I couldn’t very well put it charmingly. Not after our last conversation, for then I didn’t think you would’ve come. So I tried to put it in the least seductive manner possible,” he said, becoming a little annoyed at her silence, since he’d paused sufficiently for her to comment after each statement he’d made.
“Oh, you succeeded,” she finally said in a lower, huskier voice than he remembered.
He frowned, wondering now if her high color wasn’t due to more than cosmetics, and if her silence weren’t the sort of protective muteness a person affects when she knows she can’t trust a spirits-loosened tongue. It certainly wasn’t a chilly enough morning to account for that bright flush upon her cheek.
“But I’m sorry to say,” he went on, deciding that he would try to give her the money and then send her on her way after all, for although he still didn’t know her game, it looked as though Old Cold Comfort was right, as he’d been right originally, and the chit was no better than she should be, “that the post I thought I had secured for you when I sent you the note has fallen through. Once again, I’ve something else to offer you, though, and it won’t be a wasted trip if you don’t insist that it be,” he said, opening a drawer, preparing to write her a bank draft, when she suddenly arose.
“Oh no,” she cried in agitation, “I can’t, I could not, indeed, you don’t know how much I wish I could, if only for the children’s sake, but I can’t, I won’t be your mistress, your lordship, not today. But perhaps in a week or two…” She wavered on her feet as she seemed to contemplate something very confusing, and then she said weakly, “Though I can’t promise that either, I’m afraid. It is very warm in here, I think,” she whispered in a panicky voice, and she turned to go. Then she seemed to stumble, before she fell to the floor in front of his desk.
When he reached her and drew her into his arms, raising her head and supporting it, he realized he could scent nothing on her person but a faint lilac perfume, and nothing at all of the aroma of juniper berries, or malt or hops or grain, or any of the several spirits he’d thought he would detect. But in the space of a few moments as he attempted to rouse her, he could feel the intense dry heat emanating from her body, and realized suddenly to his shame both why she had seemed so distracted and why she’d looked to be in such high good health, for the girl burned with fever.
He bore her up in his arms and strode out into the hallway. He asked the butler to fetch the housekeeper to show him which bed to lay her in, and then ordered a footman to summon the doctor. His mama appeared from the hallway, a hundred questions apparent on her distressed countenance, and Miss Comfort, at her side, gazed upon the girl in his arms as though she was doing something unspeakably vulgar there.
The housekeeper spoke of a room close by his mama’s, and he was about to bear Miss Dawkins there, when she stirred in his clasp and opened her eyes and then struggled to be set down. He stood her on her feet carefully, taking care to keep his arm about her shoulders.
“You’re not well,” he said slowly and distinctly, as she gazed fearfully at the strangers that crowded about her. “You must stay here with us for a while, until you feel more the thing.”
“Oh no, I cannot,” she cried. “The children, I must get back to the children. Oh, my poor children, they’ll be all alone, they’ll worry after me.”
The earl opened his eyes wide and his hand tightened on her shoulder, but then he said gently, “I’ll send to them, you cannot go now.”
But, “The children!” gasped Miss Comfort. “Miss Dawkins, is it? Unemployed governess. Ha, what did I tell you!”
Before the earl or his mama could hush the exultant old woman, Miss Dawkins, shaking her head to clear it, turned to gaze at the speaker.
“Ah!” she cried then in great fright, drawing back. “Oh no, only let me go from here. What do you want of me? Ah, please, let me loose, for see, it’s Mother Carey who seeks to imprison me!”
Blind terror showed in Miss Dawkins’ eyes before they closed again and she sank again into the earl’s waiting arms. As he lifted her, to follow the housekeeper to the chamber being readied, he heard Miss Comfort ask wonderingly, “Who is this Mother Carey she takes me for?”
“A notorious whoremonger,” the earl replied, tossing the remark over his shoulder as he ascended the stair.
“Oh, Cole,” moaned his mama, as her companion grew livid with indignation before she checked, and then cried out triumphantly.
“Aha! See? Just as I said!”
5
The carriage was pulled down the street by a team of blooded horses who stepped proudly and held their noble heads almost as high as their liveried driver did. The coach bore a crest upon its shining sides, and its polished surface threw back the light of the sun so brilliantly that it was jarring to see that the reflections caught and held upon its gleaming exterior were only those of some of the lowest streets in the slums of town.
The elegant conveyance was not a common sight in such a district, and so perhaps only because two sizable stalwart footmen clung to the rear step, and an uncommonly aggressive-looking young tiger shared the high seat with the driver, the coach attracted no more than envy from those that beheld its passage. Since there was obviously no profit to be taken from merely seeing such a vision, those that noted its passage tended to dismiss it after a few blinks, and some muttered comments about “nobs out for a bit of fun.”
For the coach, with all its fittings, proclaimed that it was the property of a nobleman of high rank in the realm, with all the might and rights and funds that such a position commanded. In this England of 1815, in this impoverished corner of London, this meant that the fortunate gentleman who sat within its velvety depths had countless choices: he might do anything here, from purchasing children to selling his soul, with little expectation of interference from any other mortal man. It was only wasteful, then, the Earl of Clune thought wryly, that all he was about to attempt to be was a superior sort of removal man.
Miss Dawkins, the doctor had said, must be easy in her mind if she were to have any fair chance at recuperation. It was, the fellow had said with a shake of his head for the limits of his art, yet too early to ascertain whether she had contracted a dangerous mortal pneumonia, or an inflammation of the lungs, or merely congestion that rest and medication might soon put right. Therefore it was fortunate that she’d obviously had a good start in life with proper care and nourishment before she’d come to her present state of health, or her current living conditions. He’d added this last bit, along with an odd look to Miss Comfort, when she’d helpfully suppl
ied that piece of residential information, even interrupting him as he’d been attempting to inform the earl and his mama of the young woman’s condition to do so. But he insisted the evidence of such a superior upbringing was unmistakable. It had been a strong young heart he’d laid his ear to, the feverishly warm skin was clear and clean, and it was rich red blood that caused the blush she’d borne all through his examination.
For, as he’d then patiently explained to Miss Comfort, there was no question the lass would have little chance at survival if she’d originally sprung from such poverty. There was no truth, he’d sighed, to the fallacy current among the upper classes that held the poor were more vigorous, and, growing weedlike, were naturally less susceptible to diseases than their betters were. If Miss Comfort wished to see that for herself, he added bitterly, she might visit the infirmary he ran in the poorer section of town one day, or better still, come with him now to potter’s field, to see the amazing number of all of those supposedly thriving slum-bred rudely healthy babes and their mamas, and their siblings and papas, where they all slept arow, in hundreds of rows, forever.
And again, no, he’d stated, grinning as though extraordinarily pleased with Miss Comfort’s next question, even though by then he’d have had every right to be annoyed with her constant interjections, he believed what the girl claimed was true. Because, although he couldn’t swear to it of course, since he hadn’t carried out that intimate an examination (not having been told of the necessity for such), he very much doubted that the child had ever borne a child, or had ever even been in that happy state of expectation. Then in reply to her further doubts on the subject, he’d laid down his hat as though preparing for a lecture, and lowering his voice confidentially as though speaking to a colleague, he’d informed Miss Comfort that he based his opinion upon sound observations. There was, for example, he’d explained, the fact that he hadn’t observed any of the usual signs of such a past history, such as enlarged or darkened nipples, for example, or stretched marks on her…
And then the earl cut him off in mid-sentence before the horrified Miss Comfort became his next patient. The earl had to struggle to conceal the same delight that the doctor showed at his foolproof method of ending importunate inquiries, and as Miss Comfort gasped for air at the indelicacy of the discourse and resorted to her salts, he escorted the chuckling physician to the door.
But the good doctor had told him privately and seriously as he’d left that there was no question but that the girl needed to be made more comfortable in her mind if ever any of his broths and potions were to have even a chance to be of any benefit to her.
Miss Dawkins seemed as appalled as Miss Comfort was when the earl entered her bedchamber. But that may have been because Miss Comfort had been reduced to hovering in the hall, having been banned from the sickroom because of the fright her imagined resemblance to a procuress produced in the patient. For the earl’s mama only nodded with satisfaction as he came in. Then she continued telling the young woman sitting in the guest bed, wrapped in one of her own dressing gowns, that it was useless to argue against staying on with them, since she and her son were convinced they were entirely responsible for the sad pass she’d come to. And to deny this, she said haughtily, was to imply that the noble Haverford family did not honor their debts. The earl smiled at how suddenly top-lofty and regal his mama, who still grumbled whenever Miss Comfort reminded her that she ought to call her eldest “Clune” instead of “Cole” in front of strangers, could become when trying to prove a point. But a look into Miss Dawkins’ eyes, glittering with fever and glassy with her attempts to sit upright and speak sense, robbed the moment of all its humor for him.
She’d had only two wishes, and when he’d sincerely assured her that they’d immediately be seen to, she’d finally allowed herself to lie back against the pillows, and then let her trembling hand be guided around the glass that held the sleeping draft, and obediently drank it all down. Then, with the repeated echoes of his promises in her ears, she closed her eyes in repose at last.
Only two wishes, the earl mused as he was driven to his destination to do her bidding. Even Aladdin had presumed to beg three. The first was that “my children,” who were, as she’d explained, an assortment of infants she’d been looking after who dwelt in rooms near to her in her lodging house, be advised of her fate and assured that she’d return to them as soon as she was able. That, the earl was prepared to send a footman to accomplish.
But then she’d spoken almost shamefacedly of the box in her room that contained her treasures, and he’d known he must perform the errand himself. They were “rubbishy treasures,” she’d admitted with the ghost of a smile, trinkets and mementos signifying nothing in worldly terms, but they were hers and all she had and she didn’t want to lose them or leave them to the discretion of strangers who might paw through them after invading her empty room. And so she wished they might be given to the children to keep safely until her return. It wasn’t only because she’d not, perhaps because of her feverish state, named him a “stranger” that the earl was being driven to a district wherein even his thoroughbred nags disliked to set their hooves. It was because in that moment she’d reminded him of his own lost treasures that he hadn’t preserved as carefully as she attempted to keep hers, although it might have been that he’d loved them twice as well. His had been, he recollected even now as precisely as if he’d just opened the lid of the old ornate bonbon tin he’d carefully hoarded them in over the years, a wonderful trove. He could still list them, even as he could see them still in his mind’s eye so perfectly he could almost touch them as he’d so often done when he’d lifted them out to finger in wonder at his luck and taste in finding them, for each had its story and reason for being, as much so as any human thing had.
There had been: a brass button from his father’s regimental coat (for his mama had all his medals); a bent and burnished half-coin which bore the imprint of a half-face, the old golden profile. he was sure, of the Roman ruler of the long-vanished centurion who’d carried it on his travels to the barbaric isles of Britain; a singularly lovely tiny thread-waxing reel, with, to be sure, some nicks on its flowery enameled front, an odd thing for a boy to value, until you turned it over and saw the only slightly damaged enameled view of Venice, where that boy dreamed of going one day; a faceted steel marcasite shoe buckle, taken for diamonds when it was found in the road, kept for its glitter when its face was washed, in the innocent hopes that one day its mate would be found so they might be presented to mama as a gift; a small warped gilt frame that had lost its portrait somewhere in history; and other similar choice items, as well as a staggering assortment of unique natural found objects—feathers, shells, oddly shaped nuts, bizarre glinting stones.
They’d been actual treasures, he’d thought when he’d been fourteen, and even now, in his voluptuous coach, tended by all his servants, the eighth Earl of Clune continued to regard them as such.
Those fifteen years ago, when he’d realized that all hopes were dashed and that he would have to leave the home he’d known since birth, he’d taken some comfort from the fact that the box would go with him. Nothing else except his memories would. The manor, the home farm, the stables with whatever few cattle remained, the furniture, the art on the walls, the draperies, carpets, and furnishings even to the bed in which he’d slept since he’d been breached, all, all would remain, save for his dog, and he allowed to go only because he’d had no more pedigree than the chap who’d purchased everything the family had to sell in order to go on as a family together.
“Face it, Roberta,” the seventh Earl of Clune had said impatiently to his mama as she sat before his desk, “Paul is gone, you’ve four children to feed and educate, and no man to help you. The manor can’t support you, the sale of it can, and nicely too, in the cottage at Weyhill. It makes perfect sense, your solicitors were right, Paul left you nothing but the children. I recommend your putting the place on the block immediately, with all its contents. Unless,” he’d said ea
sily, too easily, so easily that even her young son, sitting quietly in a corner of the study, looked up from contemplation of coming personal disaster at his words, “unless of course you’re willing to try something else, something more venturesome perhaps, some other kind of arrangement?”
Mama had been lovely then, the earl thought now, remembering again the rage which had warred with the shame he’d felt at the earl’s words, and the look he’d surprised for a moment on the heavy, broad face of the older man. Mama had never been beautiful—no woman so tall, however shapely and graceful, so dark, however pure her skin, with such marked features, however classical, could be called “beautiful” in the same way petite, pink, curved, and fair-haired ladies like the earl’s own lady-wife, the Countess of Clune, could be considered so. No, “handsome” was the word they’d used for her, but it scarcely mattered what they called her, for it wasn’t the first time Colin had seen men look at her the way the earl had done. But those usually were sidewise glances, cast warily from men in markets and in the fields.
The Earl of Clune, distant head of their family, looked at her just so that day they came to him for advice or possible aid, but he did so straightly and without disguise. Then for the first time Colin realized that nobleman did not necessarily mean gentleman, and knew also why his mama had so feared this visit, this last desperate attempt to save her home. He also, in that revelatory moment, knew why, though he was sure he hadn’t entirely then, he’d insisted, as her eldest son, on the right to accompany her to High Wyvern Hall, the earl’s home.
The earl’s half-open heavy-lidded eyes had lowered at last, as though against his will, under the force of the lady’s angry stare. Then, looking about his sumptuously furnished study, as though for something he sought, in an effort to deal with his rare moment of defeat and embarrassment, the earl saw her boy Colin’s face. And then gave a bark of genuine laughter.
