The Hero Least Likely

by Darcy Burke

  Tension gripped his entire body. He’d let his incomplete thoughts get ahead of him and he’d spoken too much. “Nothing.”

  “Did someone put you into a tub of ice, Giles?”

  Whether it was her soft tone or the easy use of his Christian name, he might never know but something about her innocent question broke through the wall he’d tried so hard to erect to protect himself. “Yes.” He let out a deep breath. “But it was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “I’d say that it does if it makes you not be able to enjoy a most delicious treat,” she said. “Is it fair to assume this was done by the nuns at the orphanage?”

  How did she know he’d lived at an orphanage? Seth. He’d probably told her. Giles mentally shrugged. “Yes. The Sisters thought it’d help drive out the evil spirits that had inhabited my mind and made me act a fool.” He frowned. “I guess it didn’t work. I still say foolish things.”

  “No, you don’t,” she said.

  “I assure you, I do.”

  She shrugged. “Well, if you do then I must be going deaf because I don’t notice them.”

  He knew she was just trying to make him feel better and he’d be lying if he didn’t admit it had worked. Slightly. “Thank you. But spend more time with me and I’m bound to say something you’ll think is foolish.” He clenched his fists. Why had he just suggested she spend more time with him? That was the last thing he needed. Was it not enough he was already attracted to her? Must he make his torment worse by suggesting they spend more time together?

  “We all do that.”

  He started. “Do what?”

  “Say foolish things.”

  She laughed, but not in the way she normally did. It sounded like it was forced and not really full of humor. “When I was a girl, I had these two playmates I mentioned before—both boys. One day I was outside looking up at the birds, like I imagine you’d rather do than be chatting with me.” She flashed him a smile. “Anyway, while I was on my back, staring up at the sky, the brothers came over and one asked what I was doing. I told him to be quiet that I was trying to watch for birds and I didn’t want them to know I was there.

  “He scoffed and said that if I keep laying there the birds might think I’m dead and make me their next meal. I remember being horrified at the thought and before I could give much thought to my words, I asked if they thought birds made ‘humaning’ a pursuit. I then only made it worse by explaining that while birding is when we humans watch birds, humaning was the bird equivalent and suggested that birds flew around trying to see different varieties humans: tall, short, light hair, dark...” She buried her red face in her hands. “I have never been so mortified in my entire life. Even now, retelling it, I am just as mortified.”

  “Don’t be,” he said, his heart on the verge of bursting. Nobody had ever shared such a humbling experience with him—excluding Seth’s confession to having been wrongly accused of drawing his private parts. “I’m sure they forgot soon enough.”

  “They didn’t,” she said with a shaky laugh. “About two years later, the younger of the pair invited me to go with them to a menagerie. While there, the older brother asked if I’d come to look at the animals...or if I’d come so they could look at me.”

  Giles winced on her behalf. “Boys are cruel.”

  “They can be,” she agreed. “They can also be sweet when they want to be.”

  He wasn’t so sure of that but didn’t want to argue. “You’d better finish off your ice before it melts.”

  Lucy looked down and stirred her spoon around the cup. “There’s only a little left.” She lifted the spoon half-filled with the cold, creamy substance and pointed it in his direction. “Are you sure you don’t want to try a taste?”

  Emboldened by her confession and statement about how he seemed to allow the nuns to keep him from enjoying ices, he leaned toward her. “Actually, I think I do.” Then before he—or she—could change his mind, he sucked the offered refreshment off her spoon.

  TWENTY

  “My lord, you have a visitor.”

  Giles opened the drawer under the front of his desk and swept all the papers on top of his desk inside, then shut it. “Send him in.”

  A second later Seth strolled through the door of Giles’ study, made his way straight to the pair of empty chairs that faced Giles’ desk and plopped down in the one on the left. “Ouch!”

  Giles couldn’t help but grin. “I don’t think they’re meant to be comfortable.”

  “Well, they’re not.” He moved his upper lip in a way that exposed the entire front of his teeth and wrinkled his nose.

  “Would you like to do something other than paint today?” While he enjoyed painting and drawing, many of the other boys he’d grown up with hadn’t and he thought perhaps Seth might wish to do something else.

  “What else do gentlemen do all day?”

  Giles shrugged and poked out his lower lip. “Read the newspaper. Answer correspondence. Meet their friends at White’s—”

  “What’s White’s?”

  “It’s a club for gentlemen.”

  “Can we go?” Seth asked, nearly bouncing off his chair.

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  “It’s not for gentlemen your age.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they talk about—” he waved his hand in a circle through the air— “things.”

  “Things?”

  “Things,” Giles confirmed.

  “What kinds of things?”

  “Gentlemen things.”

  Seth’s green eyes nearly quadrupled in size and his jaw dropped. “They talk about their pizzles?”

  Giles choked on his own tongue. “No,” he said banging his hand against his chest with so much force he knew he’d have a bruise there later.

  “Then what do they talk about?”

  Giles regained his breath. “Horse racing, cards, politics. Nothing of interest to a young lad.” He scoffed. “Or me.”

  Seth crossed his arms. “You’ve never heard anything there that held your interest?”

  “No.” Of course he hadn’t been completely honest when he’d told the boy what was spoken about. Even the pizzle comment was accurate in a way. There were some men, none who Giles wished to make further acquaintances with, who discussed their private parts and those of certain ladies they’d bedded. He’d found their talk and the images it put into his head uncomfortable at first. Now, it was just their talk that made him uneasy. He had no problem with imagining himself and Lucy doing any of the things he’d heard about.

  “Giles?”

  Giles snapped to present, blinking. “I’m sorry, lad. What did you say?”

  “I asked what we’re going to do today.”

  “Hmm.” Giles put his feet on the desk and crossed his ankles. “I take it you’ve little desire to read again today?”

  Seth’s lips twisted. “No, my lord. I’ve read more in the past fortnight than I have in my entire life.” He looked around the room. “Do you have any games?”

  “Yes. I have about a dozen decks of cards around here somewhere and a chess set. Which would you prefer?”

  “Chess.”

  “Very well.” At least he knew where the chess set was. He didn’t know how to play it, mind you, but he knew where it was. He stood and went to the far corner of the massive bookshelves. He’d stored the blasted chess set on the very top so he wouldn’t have to see the thing and as he came up on his toes, he almost wished he hadn’t. He stretched his fingers until they collided with the hard wood of the edge, then slid it down. “Can you pull that end table over here?”

  Seth did as he was bade while Giles moved his wing-backed chairs so one was on either side of the makeshift game table.

  Seth took his seat first and started unpacking the pieces. “What are the rules?”

  “I don’t know. I thought you did.”

  “No. I’ve never played.”

  “Neither have I.”


  Seth laughed, then froze. “You’re serious?”

  Giles nodded, then in unison they both started laughing. “Sorry, lad. I don’t play games.”

  “Ever?”

  “Not unless I’m forced,” he said with a grimace as a painful memory of the dinner party his mother had hosted popped into his mind.

  “But you’re a baron, I thought the lot of you knew how to play all games. That it was taught in the schools you attended.”

  “It probably was. But I didn’t attend school,” he reminded Seth.

  “That’s right. I’m sorry.” Seth idly spun a chess piece that looked like a horse. “Were you not allowed to play games at the orphanage?”

  A sharp bark of laughter escaped Giles’ lips. “No. Father Thomas said if we needed something to occupy ourselves with, we should memorize the Bible.”

  Seth’s eyes widened. “Did you?”

  “Some.” He drummed his fingers along the edge of the table. “Do you know any games?”

  “Draughts.”

  “Do we need cards?”

  “No, just a board like this one—” he gestured to the chess board— “and two different color circles.”

  “Circles?”

  Seth shrugged. “I don’t know what they’re called.”

  Giles didn’t, either. “These pieces are two different colors.” He pointed to the ivory and onyx chess pieces. “Do you suppose we could use these?”

  “I suppose so.” He counted under his breath. “There are too many pieces. We only need twelve of each.”

  Giles picked up four of each color and put them back in the wooden box that held the game pieces. “There. Now there’s twelve of each.”

  Seth wordlessly started collecting the black pieces.

  Giles picked up the white ones and noticed that Seth was only putting his on the black squares so Giles put his on the white ones.

  “No, they need to go on the black squares.”

  “But mine are white.”

  “I know, next time we’ll use the white squares if you want, but this time they all need to be on the four black squares of the first three rows.”

  Shrugging, Giles did as Seth instructed, then waited while the boy explained the rules.

  Move your piece over the other person’s pieces. That sounded simple enough.

  It wasn’t.

  At least not at first. Apparently, you could only “jump” your opponent’s piece at a diagonal, not straight forward. Not to mention, moving backward wasn’t allowed.

  A half hour later and Giles’ luck had turned around and he was on his way to winning when suddenly Seth caught him unawares again. But not with a new rule this time. No, it was something completely different that came out of his mouth: a question.

  “Giles, do you know where babies come from?”

  The piece that Giles had decided earlier was shaped like an unnaturally thin phallus slipped from his fingers and hit the board with an echoing pop. “Yes.” He picked up his piece and for the second time wished he’d tossed that one out while ridding them of unneeded pieces. “Do you?”

  “No. Not really.” He ran one of his thin fingers along the edge of the chess board. “I have an idea, but I don’t know.”

  A sickening tightness formed in the pit of Giles’ stomach. Father Thomas had given him a brief explanation when he was a few years older than Seth. Not too many facts, mind you. Just the mechanics of what went where and what the results would yield. To be honest, he’d learned far more from sitting in White’s waiting for Sebastian to join him than he had from Father Thomas. But he still knew the mechanics at least.

  Seth was too young yet to know. Wasn’t he? Perhaps he wasn’t. Father Thomas was loathe to talk about it with Giles and said he was only doing so because someone had to since Giles was still responsible for one day securing an heir. To all the other boys, he’d explained as often as he could how the best thing to do with their lives would be to become monks. Oddly enough, only one did. He blinked to staunch his meandering thoughts. Seth had come to him for an answer. Why he hadn’t gone to Simon, who would one day be his papa, with such an important matter, Giles wasn’t sure, but whatever his reason, Seth had come to him and he couldn’t not help him.

  Clearing his throat, he said, “If you’ll tell me what you think you know, I can tell you if you’re right.” It was the best he could offer. The lad was still only eleven and hadn’t started changing yet. His mother might kill Giles if he told Seth everything he knew. At least this way, he was just confirming facts.

  Seth hummed and tapped his fingers on the edge of the chessboard as he pondered Giles’ offer. “A—all right.”

  “Seth, if you’ve changed your mind and you’d rather ask your mama or Simon, I understand.”

  “No.” He bit his lip. “Unless you don’t want to talk to me about this.”

  “Of course I do. I was merely surprised that you’d ask me.”

  “Oh, well, that’s because I know you won’t lie to me or laugh at my lack of knowledge.”

  “No, I won’t.” He moved his piece and took one of Seth’s men. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  Seth moved his next piece. “Well, the woman has the babies.”

  “Yes.” Giles moved another piece and captured another of Seth’s, leaving him with only two men.

  “But there needs to be a man.”

  “Yes,” Giles agreed.

  “That’s the part I don’t understand.”

  Giles shifted uncomfortably. “You mean his role?”

  Seth nodded. “When we lived in Bath, one of the ladies I knew started getting bigger.” He held his hands out in front of him to indicate just how she was getting bigger. “When I asked her why her stomach was growing she said she and her husband were expecting a baby.” He picked up one of his pieces, then set it back down and met Giles’ eyes. “My mama’s never been married.”

  Giles was at a loss of what to say. Seth was right, of course. Lucy had made it no secret to him that she’d never married. Father Thomas’s warnings of fathering children out of wedlock and awful repercussions resounded in his head. He pushed those thoughts away. That was the last thing Seth needed to hear. “You’re right,” Giles started quietly. “On both scores. A man does need to be present and your mother wasn’t married.”

  “Then how—” He broke off with a sigh. “I suppose not every woman I’ve ever known who’s had a baby was married.” His voice was low and quiet as if he were trying to make sense of everything he knew.

  Giles swallowed hard, praying the right words would come to him so Lucy—or even Simon—wouldn’t murder him for having this conversation. “Sometimes there is more to a situation or someone’s reasoning than we might know.”

  “I know, but—” He shook his blond head. “I still don’t understand. Even if she never married, but a man had to be present. Then who is the man?”

  “I don’t know.” Fortunately, it was the truth. For if Giles had known, he might have been tempted to tell Seth.

  Seth twisted his lips, put his elbows on his knees, then leaned his chin against his palms as if he were about to get lost in deep contemplation. A moment later, he sat straight up. “Do you think it could be a lord?”

  Giles wasn’t sure whether he should admire or be irritated at the lad’s obvious longing to be a nobleman’s bastard. “I don’t know.”

  Seth took to his feet and started walking around the room. “It makes sense now.”

  “What makes sense?”

  “Why Mama doesn’t like lords.”

  Giles frowned. “She doesn’t?”

  “No. She usually snarls when she sees or hears of one.”

  No wonder she’d chosen Simon. Giles never had a chance. “Did she ever say why she detests them so?”

  “No. But if one is my father and he didn’t marry her, then it would make sense, wouldn’t it?”

  Indeed it would. “I suppose,” he forced carelessly. Or as carelessly as he could, consider
ing he wished there was a way to prove to her he was different before she married his brother.

  “Now, I just need to find out which one.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  Seth stopped his pacing. “Because I want to know.”

  Giles couldn’t argue with that logic, feeble and petty as it might be. “Why don’t you ask your mother?”

  A loud snort rent the air. “She won’t tell me any more than she’ll tell me how a man puts a baby in a woman.”

  “Perhaps when you’re older...”

  “I suppose,” Seth muttered, falling back into his chair. “Was it my turn or yours?”

  “Seth, have you ever asked her?”

  “Not exactly. I tried to help her find a husband before she told me to stop because no respectable man would want her.”

  That wasn’t true. Giles wanted her. Then again, was he really considered respectable? “Did you stop?”

  “Yes.” He lowered his lashes. “You don’t think my father is like those men from Shrewsbury do you?’

  It took Giles only a second to take his meaning. “No.” Honestly, he didn’t know, but it was bad enough not knowing who his father was, painting him as a rapist only made it worse.

  Seth moved his piece.

  “Is your curiosity satisfied, then?”

  “Not completely, but well enough for today, I suppose.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Three Days Later

  Lucy was beside herself with worry. She’d gone out in the morning to purchase provisions and the last of the fabric for her new gown with the wages she’d been paid only to return to a vacant apartment. A quick search of the library that was closed for the day filled her chest with panic. Seth wasn’t there, either.

  She didn’t even know where to begin to look nor did she know what danger might be out there waiting for him. In the weeks they’d been living in London, they’d either been in the library or with one of the Appletons. Never alone. No matter. She needed to find him and assure herself that he was all right. Who knows what kind of trouble a boy of his age might find for himself.