Mrs Sommersby's Second Chance

by Laurie Benson

  The warm tea was comforting, but for the first time in her life she didn’t think she could take another sip. She pushed the cup and saucer away.

  ‘You’ve been inside the Foundling Hospital when you worked on the fundraising committee,’ Juliet stated, eyeing Clara’s discarded cup. ‘What would it have been like for him growing up in there?’

  ‘He would have been left there by his mother because she was unable to keep him. If she intended to return for him in the future, she would have left a small token with him that could be used to identify him as her child since the Hospital changes the children’s names.’

  ‘So, his real name is not William Lane?’

  She shook her head at Charlotte’s question. ‘No. He has no idea what it is or the day of his birth.’

  ‘How very sad. How did they manage to take care of all the infants in the Hospital? That is a lot of hungry mouths to feed.’

  ‘He would have been given to a wet nurse while he was an infant and lived with her family in the country until he was five. Then they would have taken him back to the Hospital where he would live with hundreds of other children until he reached the age of fifteen.’

  ‘Then would they just release them into London with no contacts and no prospects?’ Juliet asked with wide eyes.

  ‘No, for the boys they would either begin military service or they would become an apprentice of some sort. Lane had received an apprenticeship with a London bank.’

  ‘He had such a different childhood from us. I can see why you feel that he deserves a family of his own.’

  He did deserve to experience what it would be like to be part of a family. Her heart ached for not being able to give him that.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Lane had been riding in Hyde Park when he passed a flower border alongside the bridle path of Rotten Row and the scent of roses drifted up on the warm breeze. This was normally his favourite time of year in London. The Season had ended and the streets and parks were less crowded with the carriages of the ton, whose members had left town to spend their summer in the country. It was mornings such as this when the sky was clear and the air pleasant that Lane preferred to go for a ride or walk before he would settle in at the desk in his study for a day’s work. Today’s ride should have put him in good spirits with the ideal weather conditions. But the minute he smelled the scent of roses, his heart constricted in his chest and he cursed himself for deciding on this ride.

  Two weeks had passed since he left Bath—two very long weeks. And although he tried daily not to think about Clara, this morning all it took was one whiff of her familiar scent to darken his mood and make him chastise himself for not being able to put the past behind him.

  Now he was wondering if the weather in Bath was as pleasant as it was in London and, if it was, would she spend most of the day with Humphrey outside. Not only did he miss her, but he missed her dog as well. He really was a fool to be in love with a woman who had let him leave town without trying to stop him. He had been right to devote all of his time to work. It was much safer for his heart that way.

  Out of frustration at his inability to forget her, he took off at a gallop down the sparsely populated dirt path and out of the park. Even though he had to slow down on Piccadilly, it didn’t take him long to turn into the courtyard of his residence and jump down from his horse. He had racing reports to go over and log into his ledger. He would have coffee brought up to his suite of rooms from the Albany’s kitchen. That rich smell would surely dispel the scent of roses that he could swear he still smelled.

  Just as he handed the reins of his horse over to one of the stable hands who were stationed outside the three-storey building that housed apartments for some of London’s most eligible and well-to-do bachelors, he heard someone call his name. Turning, he spied Lord Andrew Pearce walking towards him on the pavement. The man was tall and built like a mountain. Although he had been nothing but genial to Lane when they had spent time together with Hart, who was a mutual friend, from the sheer size of him he was not someone you would want to cross.

  ‘You saved me a trip inside,’ Lord Andrew said as he approached Lane and gestured to the brick building in front of them. ‘I was asked to deliver this here to you.’ He handed him a small brown-wrapped parcel no bigger than the size of Lane’s palm. Lane didn’t recognise the handwriting, but assumed it must be from Hart.

  Lord Andrew looked up at the building with a nostalgic expression. ‘This place was good to me before I settled into married life.’ The expression on his face cleared and he looked back down at Lane and adjusted the brim of his hat over his light brown hair. ‘Not that I regret a day that I’ve spent with my wife. Best decision I’ve made. Tell me, does Brewster still play his violin at five in the morning? I can think of many a day that I wanted to shove the instrument down his throat and I am an early riser.’

  ‘He does and Lord Allum tried to do just that last week. I take it you never told the man about your old neighbour’s violin habits.’

  Lord Andrew gave a careless shrug. ‘It might have slipped my mind.’ A flash of humour crossed his face and reached his hazel eyes.

  ‘Convenient for you, not so much for Lord Allum.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’ He shoved both his hands into the pockets of his brown frock coat. ‘Give my best to Roberts and Jeremy,’ he said, regarding two of the porters. ‘It was good to see you again, Lane.’ With that he tipped his head, turned and strolled back towards Piccadilly.

  As he entered the building, Lane’s curiosity got the better of him and he shook the parcel as he made his way down the corridor to his set of rooms. Nothing shifted. Nothing rattled. He turned it over in his hand and once again puzzled over the unknown handwriting.

  After unlocking his door, he was greeted by Burrows, his butler, who took his hat and gloves and went to see about arranging coffee for Lane. Since the day was warm, he slipped out of his green-linen frock coat and tossed it over the chair beside the sofa in his parlour. On warm days like this he would work in just his shirtsleeves and white waistcoat. A gentle breeze was blowing in through the window, making it a comfortable place to spend the day. He had intended to get right to work in his study, but instead he dropped down on the sofa as his poor mood was proving hard to shake. Resting his head back on the sofa, he stretched his legs out and crossed his booted feet at the ankle and tried to crowd his mind with thoughts so he would no longer be imagining Clara walking Humphrey, which is what she was probably doing at this hour.

  Picking up his head, he looked over at the parcel that was beside him on the green-damask seat of his canapé sofa. Hart had made distracting people an art form. Perhaps the arrival of this package was fate’s way of reminding him that he needed to get back to his old life—a life where Clara did not exist.

  He picked it up and turned it over. His name was neatly scrawled on the front. It wasn’t Hart’s hand, but perhaps he had had someone else forward the contents to Lane. His curiosity was most certainly sparked as he untied the string and unwrapped it. To his surprise, he uncovered a rectangular red-leather jewellery box. No one had ever given him jewellery before. What in the world was Hart up to?

  Sitting up, he opened the box and found a folded piece of paper covered the contents. Under it was a small silver circle the size of a shilling, resting on the white-satin lining. A small hole had been drilled near the top of it. The currency and image had been rubbed away and were replaced by one line of swirly script. He had seen tokens like this before. Some people gave them as love tokens. Taking it out of the box, the metal felt smooth in his hand and he rubbed his thumb over the etching. His finger stilled when he read the line of script.

  William

  His heart started racing and he flipped it over, but there was nothing on the other side. The denomination had been rubbed off and it was just a smooth, plain surface with a few scratch marks on it. He turned it over in
his palm so his name appeared face up once again.

  Hope started to blossom that it might be from Clara—that maybe, just maybe, she still thought about him. She had told him once that she would miss him. Maybe after all this time she still did and this was her way of letting him know.

  With his one hand, he flicked open the folded paper he had placed on his lap and scanned the handwritten contents to find the name scratched at the bottom. It was Clara.

  His heart skipped a beat and for the first time in his life he had to clear his vision to read his correspondence.

  Dear Lane,

  I hope with all my heart that this letter finds you well. I realise I am taking the risk that this might never reach you, but it is a risk I must take since I am not able to deliver this to you in person.

  Lord Andrew Pearce is Charlotte’s husband and he has informed her that he is an acquaintance of yours. Knowing him to be a man of honour, I am certain that he will deliver this to you unopened.

  You once told me that the one thing you wished for most in the world was to know if your mother had given you a name when you were born. I hope this token clarifies that for you. It was pinned to your blanket when she gave you to the Foundling Hospital all those years ago.

  I hope you see that this means your mother had every intention of returning for you some day. If she hadn’t, she would never have left it as a way to identify you. She wanted you back, William. She must have had no choice but to leave you.

  I hope this token gives you some sense of peace.

  Yours,

  Clara

  His vision had blurred with unshed tears. His mother had named him. His name really was William. All these years, he had never wanted to use it and it was truly the one thing that was his. And this token was the only connection he had to the woman who bore him—a woman who, he finally knew, had wanted him back. He had been wanted.

  As he clutched the token in his palm, knowing that his mother had once held it in her hand, a tear scorched a trail down his cheek. It was the first time since he was a child that he had allowed that to happen.

  There were so many new questions running through his mind about this woman who had given birth to him. But the most pressing question was how in the world had Clara ever managed to get this?

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  June was Clara’s favourite month. The weather was warmer, her favourite roses were in bloom and the days were longer. Except this year, she would have preferred shorter days so she could have spent more time in bed, asleep. It was only while she was sleeping that she didn’t feel the daily pain of missing Lane. Aside from being with Humphrey, tending to her roses was the only bit of joy she could find lately.

  On this particular morning, she had spent time in her garden cutting roses with Juliet, who was in town with her husband looking for a house to buy. Now that her niece had left, she was arranging a bunch of pink and yellow roses in a green Sèvres vase that rested on the harpsichord in her drawing room when Humphrey attempted to gnaw on the leg of the instrument.

  ‘Humphrey, no.’ She used her firmest voice and he stopped what he was doing and looked up at her with his big dark eyes. ‘You have already destroyed my favourite slippers. You will not be attacking my furniture as well. Go play with your bone.’

  Humphrey tilted his head, his black ears flopping with the movement, and looked back to where she was pointing with her clippers to the bone that Darby had brought up for him from the kitchen. He let out what could only be described as a sniff and then went back to chewing on the wooden leg.

  ‘No!’ She nudged him gently with her foot.

  Finally, the little scamp walked away, but not before letting out a few yaps in protest first. He wasn’t even gone for five minutes before he starting barking again and ran to her side to tug at the bottom of her white-muslin dress with his teeth.

  ‘Humphrey, stop! You will rip my dress.’

  He let out a series of more barks and, if the commotion brought Mrs Collingswood to her door, complaining that he was disturbing the woman’s nap again, she would not allow her dog out in the garden for the rest of the week.

  ‘Humphrey!’

  He finally stopped barking and ran away. A peaceful stillness descended on the room and she took in the soft sounds coming through the open windows of the birds chirping in the distant trees and faint voices carrying on the wind. This was what her life had sounded like before that dog came into it.

  After a few minutes, the bucolic sounds became too peaceful. She snipped another stem and stuck the yellow rose into the vase, listening for any sound behind her. If Humphrey was this quiet, it might mean that he had found something else to chew. As she turned around to see if he had perhaps left the room, she spotted him standing near the door with his tail wagging. Her entire body froze. Crouched down in the doorway, Lane was rubbing Humphrey behind his ears and watching her intently with his lovely blue eyes. At the very sight of him, it became difficult to breathe.

  His eyes remained on her as Humphrey continued to lick his hand before he gave the dog a final pat on the head and stood up and adjusted the cuffs of his navy-linen coat. Humphrey let out a series of happy barks as he took a few steps back. All the while his tail continued to swish from side to side and, like Clara, his attention did not waver from the man in front of him.

  They stood twenty feet apart and it was as if neither of them wanted to take a step forward for fear of breaking this perfect moment. Slowly he walked towards her and the highly polished leather of his black boots shone in the sunlight. Clara had to blink a few times to make certain she wasn’t imagining things.

  He stopped about a foot away from her and seemed to study her as if he was savouring this moment of seeing her once more. She didn’t think they would ever be in the same room together again. She didn’t think if he ever came back to Bath that he would seek her out. The shock of being this close to him ran through her body and she placed her hand over her ribs in the hopes of steadying her heart that was thundering in her chest.

  ‘I don’t even know how to begin thanking you for what you did for me.’

  The token. Of course, that was why he was here. It had nothing to do with his feelings about her. He knew she was all wrong for him. For all she knew he had already found some woman to replace her—someone younger.

  ‘How did you get in here?’

  ‘Lady Juliet let me in. She was leaving your home just as I was about to knock. She told me that there was a chance you would not agree to see me and that she thought it was important that I did.’

  It was impossible to take a deep breath even though she was trying.

  ‘Why would you not have wanted to see me?’

  Because my heart cannot take the additional pain of having you leave me twice. And you need to leave again...for your own happiness.

  She was saved by Humphrey, who sprang up from where he had been lying next to Lane and raced out the door. The smell of the evening roast from down in the kitchen was drifting into the room and she knew where he was headed. Needing a reprieve from Lane’s masculine presence, she walked over and closed the door to the room.

  ‘I take it you received the package I sent,’ Clara stated on her way back to standing near him, knowing that was the only thing that could have brought him back to her door.

  ‘I did. Lord Andrew delivered it as you requested. How did you know where I lived?’

  ‘You had mentioned it the last time I saw you.’

  He took a step closer so they were less than two feet apart. ‘Clara, there are no adequate words to express how grateful I am to you for what you have done for me...how important that token is to me.’

  Taking her hand in his, he brought it to his lips and kissed it. The brief touch spread a rush of warmth throughout her entire body. Needing to protect her heart, she pulled her hand out of his and clasped both her hands toge
ther in front of her.

  ‘I hope that token helped you find some peace in answering some of the questions you had.’

  His attention was on her hands. ‘It did.’

  ‘Would you care to have a seat?’ She gestured to the gilded sofa and held her breath, afraid he would say he was too busy to stay.

  Thank heavens he nodded and followed her to the sofa. Even though he was raised as an orphan, he possessed exceptional manners and waited until she was seated before he sat down beside her.

  ‘I have to ask, how were you able to find it? How did you even know it existed?’

  She fiddled with the white muslin of her dress that covered her knee because it was becoming too painful to look at him. ‘I didn’t know for certain, but I knew there was a chance your mother had left something with you.’

  There was an intensity in his expression when she looked up at him, as if he were paying close attention to every syllable she uttered. ‘Years ago, I had been on a fundraising committee at the Hospital. I’d been through the building a number of times and know the procedure for how the children are taken in. I was shown tokens that were left with some of the children who had been admitted that week. Not all look like yours. I’ve seen scraps of cloth and single playing cards. All sorts of things, really. And not every mother leaves something. I only hoped that your mother had.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. How did you even find it? How do you know it’s mine?’

  ‘I knew the year of your birth. The information that was taken when you were admitted was sealed in a billet with that token and your new name. It took some time going through all the billets for 1782 and 1783.’

  ‘I was told that information about me would never be released.’

  ‘It’s not supposed to be.’ She looked away, embarrassed to admit the next bit. ‘We might have circumvented the rules.’

  For the first time since he arrived a hint of a smile was on his face. ‘We?’