Her Longed-For Family

by Jo Ann Brown

“Oh, I thought you might want to bring them yourself. We could use some help with making a stable to put in front of the altar.”

  Color slapped his face, and he looked out the window beyond the stairwell. Was he trying to avoid her eyes? “I will help where I can, but I don’t want to make promises I cannot keep. If I am needed at the mines, I will be unable to help you. It would be better if I have Howell drive the children and help you at church. He is a good lad.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate you finding someone else when you will be busy with your guests here.” She said the words automatically, but not the ones she wanted in order to ask further questions. What about driving the children from the mining village to Porthlowen had set him on edge? And why was he trying to hide the truth?

  * * *

  Jacob sensed Carrie’s disappointment, and he yearned to tell her that the idea of him handling any vehicle filled with passengers made his stomach roil with guilt and shame. What if something went amiss as it had when he had driven out with Virginia on that ice-slicked road? Recently, a cart from Cothaire had lost a wheel on the road between the mines and the cove. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

  “However,” he said, as if his thoughts remained sanguine, “I do hope you don’t mind if I pay a visit to watch at least one of the practices.”

  “That would be delightful. Gil and Joy will be there, and, as you know, Gil is always eager to see you.”

  Only Gil? he wanted to ask, but refrained. Carrie had been wonderful helping him with Warrick Hall and teaching him what he needed to know to fit in with the Beau Monde. He needed to respect her desire to spend time with the children and her family.

  “They are in the parlor,” she continued when he said nothing. “Do you have time to see them?”

  “Go ahead. I have to check one thing, and I will meet you there.”

  When she nodded and went down the stairs, he curled his fingers into a fist on the banister. Frustration burned inside him like a torch. He ached to tell her the real reason why he could not bring the children to the Porthlowen church, but he could not endure the thought of her regarding him with the disgust that twisted his gut.

  He was still waiting for an answer to his supplication. He had lost his way since the night Virginia died. He could see that now, but he had no idea how to find his way to the life God expected him to live. Would he stumble through the rest of his days without being able to come to terms with the past?

  The sound of the children’s happy voices drifted to Jacob, and he stepped away from the banister and his dark thoughts. Going to the room where he had discovered Carrie working, he sent the maid to the kitchen with a message for one of the footmen. She curtsied and rushed off to do as he bid.

  By the time Jacob reached the parlor, Lawry, one of the recently hired footmen at Warrick Hall, was waiting with a crate from the attic. He motioned for the footman to follow him into the parlor.

  Carrie sat with Joy on her lap and Gil at her feet. The picture of a happy family in front of the hearth. When had that last been seen at Warrick Hall?

  Lawry set the box on the floor and handed Jacob the pry bar balanced on top of it.

  Nodding his thanks before Lawry took his leave, Jacob smiled at Carrie and the children. “Who wants to see what is in here?”

  Gil let out a squeal and jumped to his feet.

  “What is it?” she asked, putting her arm out to block Gil from running to the box.

  “It is marked toys. I found it in an area near the eaves which we have only begun to explore. As most boxes in that area have been labeled accurately, I assume this one is, as well.” He slipped one end of the pry bar beneath the lid.

  Pressing, he gritted his teeth when the top refused to move. He shoved again, and the top rose with the squeal of nails reluctantly pulling out of the wood.

  “Wait,” Carrie said as Gil tried to slip past her.

  Grinning, Jacob said, “You are as curious as the children are about what is in the box, Carrie.”

  Relief ironed out the threads of stress in her forehead. He wanted to apologize for upsetting her, but doing so would require him to explain the reasons he acted as he did.

  “Aren’t you?” she fired back.

  “Yes!” The word became a shout of triumph as the last nail gave way, and the top came loose. It spun into the air before falling onto the crate. “Stay away. I will get whatever is inside out.”

  Gil started to protest but halted when Carrie pointed to the rough edges and reminded him about a splinter he had gotten earlier in the fall.

  Jacob leaned the lid against the wall. He knelt by the box and pulled out the straw on top. It was not, he was glad to see, filled with mold. If there truly were toys in the crate, they might not be ruined.

  He felt fabric and brushed the straw away to reveal two handmade dolls lying side by side. What child had last played with them? His uncle and his father? Or had they been packed away even longer than that?

  “What have you found?” Carrie asked.

  “Two dolls.”

  Gil’s button nose wrinkled. “Dolls are for girls!”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to look at these?” He drew the dolls out.

  One was female and the other male. Their faces were painted on leather aged to a deep tan. From the man’s hat, he guessed they had been made more than a generation ago. Both wore cloaks, the woman’s once must have been a bright red, but had faded to a shoddy pink. The man’s had weathered time better and was as deep a green as Miss Ivy wore. Their clothes were simple, as befitted peddlers. Their wares hung from their clothing, as well as a string stretched between their leather hands. Tiny pots and loaves of bread looked as real as any sold at a kitchen door.

  Gil cooed with excitement when Jacob handed him the male doll. He began clicking the pots together, but dropped the doll to the floor when Jacob lifted out a handful of tin soldiers. The flat figures once had been brightly colored, but most of the paint was gone. Of the dozen Jacob set up on the floor, only one had a face.

  That did not matter to the little boy. He began lining the figures up in a row. When Jacob handed him a tin horse, he giggled with anticipation. He picked up a soldier and held it on the horse. The platform at the base of the soldier’s legs kept him from straddling the horse, but Gil’s imagination clearly had taken care of that problem.

  “Is there anything in there for Joy to play with?” Carrie asked.

  “How about this?” He pulled out a brightly painted wooden top.

  When Carrie set Joy at the edge of the rug, he spun the top. The baby bounced on her bottom with glee. She put her hands out to it, then pulled back when the top slowed and fell on to its side. Her face screwed up, but he was unsure if she was disappointed it had stopped or frightened. Hoping it was the former, he twirled the top again. She giggled with renewed excitement.

  He pushed aside the remaining straw. “There is a Noah’s ark along with some picture books and, of course, blocks with the alphabet on them.” He set the toys on the rug, then picked up the crate and carried it out of the room.

  Suddenly, he yelped. Two of the fingers on his right hand looked like a hedgehog with splinters poking out of them. He tried to pull the longest one out, but the fingers on his left hand were too clumsy.

  Slender fingers reached past his at the same moment that a tendril of dark hair glided along his cheek. “Let me,” Carrie murmured as she tilted his hand to get a better view. “Oh, my! You grabbed those splinters by the handful, I see.”

  “I never do things by halves.”

  “I have noticed.” She stepped away and asked him to sit by the window where the light was best. Sending Wherry to get a needle from one of the maids, she thanked him when he returned moments later.

  Jacob’s hand was throbbing from the splinters, but that pulse centered in his throat
when Carrie sat beside him on the window bench, took his hand, and settled it on her lap. Grateful that she could not see his expression as she leaned over his fingers to remove the slivers, he breathed shallowly. Each breath was scented with a delicate fragrance from her hair.

  “Ouch!” he gulped.

  “I am sorry,” she said. “There are only a few more. Do you need a pause?”

  “Go ahead.”

  She bent over his hand again. In less than a minute, she said, “There. That was the last one.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome.” She raised her head.

  His uninjured hand curved along her face as he gazed into her soft blue eyes. A man could melt into such eyes and lose himself forever. She was lovely, and her heart was giving, always leading her to think of everyone else around her before she thought of herself.

  He tried to ignore a tugging on his sleeve, but it grew stronger. When a thread snapped, he tore his gaze away from hers to see Gil pulling on his shirt.

  “Ouchie?” asked the little boy. “Kiss and make it better?”

  How tempting it would be to answer that question with a resounding yes! A kiss from Carrie would make him forget about the pain in his fingers. He drew away, knowing a kiss would complicate everything else between them. It would suggest a promise he could not make to her or any other woman. Not when he had not come to terms with the part he had played in Virginia’s death.

  He forced a smile and held out his finger to the little boy, making sure it was one that had not been sliced by a sliver. When Gil gave it a loud kiss, Jacob thanked him. He turned to say the same to Carrie, but she had already set herself on her feet and moved away.

  He should be grateful that at least one of them had the good sense to recognize the danger of him giving into his craving to hold her.

  But he was not.

  Chapter Nine

  Jacob paced in the parlor. He could see the road leading through the wall surrounding the estate house and across the moor toward Porthlowen. A closed carriage had appeared along it almost fifteen minutes ago.

  How long did it take for four people to emerge from a carriage and to be brought to where he waited? Without his lessons with Carrie, he would have gone out to greet his family right in front of Warrick Hall. She had told him that would require him to have the household servants flanking him in order for his family to be welcomed properly. As he did not want to interrupt the work continuing throughout the house, he had decided to wait and have his guests escorted to him.

  Had something gone amiss? Unlikely, because Wherry was as well versed as Carrie in the proper way to welcome guests. The footmen she had engaged were well trained, so they would not loiter or forget to bring his guests to the parlor.

  He went to the window and peered out past the draperies like a naughty imp peeking through the newel posts at his elders when he was supposed to be in bed. The carriage was drawn up by the main entrance. Mud splattered it, and scrapes along the sides revealed that the family’s long journey from Cumberland had included narrow roads edged by unkempt hedgerows.

  Letting the draperies fall into place, Jacob knew Carrie had been right. She should not be present when Jacob welcomed his family to Warrick Hall. His stepmother and her nieces would be exhausted from their journey, and they would want to look their best when they met the daughter of an earl.

  Even so, he wished she was standing beside him as he waited for his family to be shown into the refurbished parlor. She would have directed the conversation so that he made no social solecisms, and she would assure that his family had a warm welcome.

  But that was not the only reason he would like to have her by his side. When she was not nearby, his life seemed dull and colorless. She walked into the room, and every hue of the rainbow burst forth. It might be her laughter or her pretty smile or the love she gave the children or even the effort she had put into helping him and Warrick Hall be what his family expected. An aura of gentle warmth surrounded her.

  Muffled voices came from the direction of the entry hall. Jacob gave the room one final glance. The large mirror Carrie had discovered behind the cradle hung over the fireplace. The shelves along one wall were filled with books that had been aired, so the musty odor had vanished. The stench of strong pipe smoke was gone as well from the furniture that had spent every possible moment on the stone terrace behind the parlor. The three strong footmen had helped him rescue the settee and upholstered chairs from a sudden downpour on several occasions.

  The furniture had been placed on the rug to hide scorched marks and other stains that could not be removed. Lamps glowed warmly on tables scattered throughout the room, making the space cozier. Everything was exactly as Carrie had asked for it to be arranged. He could not imagine how anyone would find fault with it, even his stepmother.

  He halted that thought. Beverly might be exacting, but she meant well. She had been more pleased than he was at the announcement that he was the heir to a baron who had recently died. At her insistence, he had left Cambridge in the middle of the term to go up to London to be invested with his title and the family estate before coming to Cornwall. She might not have given birth to him and to Emery, but she loved them deeply.

  His promise to his father to look after his family and provide for them rang through his mind. He had failed to protect Virginia. He would not fail his family.

  The door opened, and Jacob drew in a deep breath. He released it as Wherry stepped in.

  With a bow that must have made his old bones creak, the butler said, as formally as if he were announcing guests at Almack’s, “Mrs. Warrick, Mr. and Mrs. Warrick, Miss Bolton.”

  His effusive stepmother rushed past Wherry, who regarded her with the same dismay as a dowager finding a burglar in her bedchamber. Beverly paid him no mind as she embraced Jacob.

  “My dear boy, we have missed you!” She wore a dark traveling outfit, which gave her light brown hair a ruddy glow. More silver among the strands glittered in the lamplight than the last time he had seen her. She was a woman who was politely called handsome because her nose was too long for her face, and her eyes tended to squint. She was too vain to wear spectacles as he did.

  “It has been less than six months since the last time you saw me,” he replied.

  “It seems a lifetime.”

  He smiled, accustomed to her extravagant exaggerations. “It is good to see you.”

  Beverly kissed his cheek, then eyed him. “You look thin, Jacob. Are you getting enough to eat?”

  Emery laughed. “Do you really need to ask that? I doubt he has eaten or slept much since he got here and found out how much work the mines needed. Every letter he has written to us has been filled with explanations of the multitude of tasks he faces.” Clapping Jacob on the shoulder, he chuckled again. His younger brother was growing wider around the middle, and a balding spot peeked through his black hair. “And it has sounded as if you are enjoying every minute of your time in Cornwall, big brother.”

  “I have.” He was astonished to realize it was the truth. Even before Carrie had come to play such a large part in his life, he had been fascinated with the stark moors and the vast sea. Problems at the mines and working to make the mining families’ homes more comfortable were tasks he enjoyed because his mind was challenged to find solutions. And the time he was able to spend with Carrie and the children was an extra blessing he had not expected.

  “You will give us a tour of the mines, won’t you?” Emery asked. “After what you have written to us, I am curious to see these great gashes in the earth myself.”

  “Gash? I would not describe a tin mine that way. They look more like a small hole leading to a bottomless pit.”

  “You cannot be thinking of going into the mines.” Helen Warrick was a younger version of her aunt, though she smiled far less often than Beverly did. S
he took every situation seriously. As Emery did not, they were a good pair.

  “We have come to Cornwall,” his brother said, “and I intend to see the source of its greatest income throughout history.” He winked at Jacob. “Besides, if my older brother, who always has hidden his nose in a book, is willing to go underground, how can I not do the same?”

  Helen opened her mouth, and Jacob guessed she was about to remonstrate with his brother, giving him a list of reasons why he was wrong.

  Before she had a chance to say a single one, Beverly drew the other young woman forward and said, “Allow me to introduce Miss Faye Bolton.” She did not nudge him with her elbow, but the look she gave him suggested that she had. “Faye, this is my stepson Jacob, Lord Warrick.”

  Jacob would have known that she was Helen’s sister without any introduction. Like his sister-in-law, she had a thin face and large, luminous brown eyes. Unlike her, Miss Bolton did not have a hawkish nose. Slender and tall, she moved with the grace of a willow, but did not say more than a quiet greeting in a voice that was pleasant on the ear. She remained by his stepmother’s side, her eyes lowered demurely.

  I wonder if she has had as much fun as I have learning proper manners. Jacob silenced the thought that would have rewarded him with a frown if Carrie heard him say it aloud.

  Your only thoughts should be on the comfort and needs of your guests. Carrie’s voice, filled with both gentle amusement and frustration at his many questions, popped into his head.

  Yes, my lady. Again he was struck by the yearning to laugh, and again he submerged it.

  “Welcome to Warrick Hall, Miss Bolton.” He took the hand she held out to him and bowed over it as Carrie had taught him. When he straightened, he saw surprise and delight in Beverly’s eyes.

  “Thank you, my lord.” Her voice was soft and wispy, pitched to intrigue a man.

  Quickly releasing her hand, he turned to greet his sister-in-law. Helen had been watching, wide-eyed, as he bowed over her sister’s hand. With a wink at his brother, he copied the motions he had made with her sister.