Daniel's True Desire

by Grace Burrowes

Several times.

  “I admire honesty in any member of my flock,” Daniel replied, “and will take Master Digby’s comments in the constructive spirit in which they were intended. So you like horses, do you, Digby?”

  The boy flew into raptures about the blessed day when he had his own pony and riding to hounds and joining the cavalry and taking the best, best care of his steed.

  Because Daniel was a fool who missed his nephew terribly, he asked the next question certain to keep the boy prattling on.

  “What will you name your loyal mount, Master Digby?”

  “Something Latin, for he’ll be a very fine pony. Do you teach Latin?”

  Most vicars did, and history and maths, among other subjects. Daniel’s pupils in Little Weldon had been few and plodding, but this boy’s parents looked lamentably hopeful.

  “I have been known to conjugate a few verbs and decline the occasional noun.”

  “Do you know about the Second Punic War?” Digby asked.

  A budding military scholar, then.

  “Digby, enough,” Mr. Haddonfield said, setting the boy down and keeping hold of his hand. “Vicar, we’ll call on you, if you don’t mind. Digby has an active mind and is in want of tutelage in a number of subjects.”

  As Mr. Haddonfield sauntered off with his little family, Lady Kirsten affixed herself to Daniel’s side, wrapping her arm around his.

  “Smile politely,” she murmured. “Not the genuine smile you indiscriminately shine on all and sundry. Contrive to look pained that you must escort Bellefonte’s shrewish sister to her conveyance, or the good folk of Haddondale will keep you here all day. It’s ten yards from here to freedom, Mr. Banks. Fix bayonets and charge.”

  Mr. George Haddonfield and his lady were visiting with his sisters beside the larger coach. Digby waved, and Daniel waved back.

  “Did you spend time with the child because you like children,” Lady Kirsten asked as Daniel handed her up into the sleigh, “or because the boy helped spike the guns of the curious?”

  Daniel unfolded the lap robe and draped it over her skirts, though clearly, Lady Kirsten was not to be put off.

  Ever.

  “Both,” Daniel said. “He seems a bright boy.”

  “And you’re a bright man. I was particularly pleased to sing the closing hymn. Well done, Mr. Banks.”

  The closing… Ah. “A favorite of mine, among many.”

  Daniel walked around to the other side of the sleigh and climbed in beside Lady Kirsten. She obligingly flipped the woolen blanket over his knees, while the driver maneuvered the sleigh out from behind the earl’s coach and onto the track around the square.

  “What did you think of my sermon?”

  “As Digby said, deceptively gracious. I will enjoy watching you take your flock in hand, Mr. Banks.”

  She was a member of that flock, though Daniel wished much luck to any fellow who sought to take her in hand.

  “Have you a schoolmaster in Haddondale, my lady?”

  “We have a dame school only. The vicar is expected to provide instruction to the gentlemen’s sons, in exchange for proper compensation, of course.”

  George Haddonfield, as the son of an earl, was solidly of the gentlemanly persuasion.

  “I have only the predictable experience as a teacher,” Daniel said. “Digby seems a delightful child.”

  To Daniel the term delightful child was redundant, and yet little boys were the last company he wanted to keep in Haddondale.

  Vicar-ing had occupational hazards, one of them being an inconvenient tendency to recall Scripture at inopportune times. Suffer the little children to come unto Me, flitted tauntingly through Daniel’s head.

  “How will you spend your Sunday afternoon, Mr. Banks?”

  Normally, Daniel would eat, have a nap, then read next week’s Bible passage, so the Scripture could germinate into a sermon as the week progressed.

  “I’ve an important letter to write,” he said. “A certain young gentleman needs to know how I go on, and I’ve neglected my correspondence for too long.”

  The idea—the conviction—had popped into Daniel’s head, a surprise and a revelation. He’d left Danny to Letty’s devices for several months. The clean break had been made, punctuated by two short visits in which Daniel had failed utterly to make the shift from papa to doting uncle.

  Resulting in much awkwardness on all sides and a blooming sense of defeat on Daniel’s part.

  Time to make another try, then. Doting uncles wrote to their nephews, if only to inquire as to how the boy’s Latin was coming along.

  * * *

  Papa, whom Danny was now supposed to call Uncle Daniel, had always said that unhappiness passes. Sitting between Lord Fairly, whom Danny did not know what to call, and Aunt Letty, who was Danny’s mama, though he was supposed to call her Aunt Letty, unhappiness grew inside Danny until he nearly burst with it.

  Nothing had gone right since Danny had left Little Weldon months ago.

  “I hate it here.”

  Lord Fairly kept driving, as if he hadn’t heard Danny over the trotting of the horses, but Mama—Aunt—adjusted the lap robe around Danny for the eleventh time since leaving the church.

  “Did you say something, Danny?” she asked.

  Danny grew even more miserable, for Mama had aimed that bright, anxious smile at him she so often wore.

  He scrambled to find something nice to say, because “I miss Papa” would only make her eyes get shiny.

  “Hic, haec, hoc,” Danny said. “It’s Latin for—”

  “Huius, huius, huius,” the viscount said, in rhythm with the horses splashing through the muck.

  Old habit had Danny offering the dative, “Huic, huic, huic!”

  And the viscount obliged with the accusative, “Hunc, hanc, hoc.”

  So Danny concluded the song—Papa had said it was a song without a tune of its own—with the ablative. “Hoc, hac, hoc!”

  A shaft of glee pierced the dismal morning, for Papa had always been proud of Danny’s Latin ability and had traded the lines with him in exactly the same way. Papa and Danny had played French games too, alternating the names of objects in a room until Danny had run out of terms he knew.

  “Hi, hae, haec,” the viscount sang out as they turned up the lane toward the stable.

  The bubble of glee inside Danny burst. “I don’t know the plural. Papa hadn’t taught it to me yet but said it was as easy as the singular.”

  That look passed between the adults. That look they shared whenever Danny blundered and forgot to call Papa “Uncle Daniel.”

  “I meant Uncle Daniel.” Papa, Papa, Papa.

  “No matter,” Mama—Aunt—said. “You know a prodigious amount of Latin for a boy your age, and if you’d like to resume your studies, it’s easy enough to arrange. Would you like that?”

  More of her fierce, determined brightness.

  “Yes, Mama.”

  The next look was harder to decipher, but Danny suspected his blunder had spread the unhappiness from him to both adults, probably even to the horses. Blunders—plural, for he ought to have called the unhappy lady beside him Aunt Letty rather than Mama.

  Though she was his Mama.

  Danny mostly liked these people. They were kind, and the viscount was an ally of a sort Danny didn’t know how to describe. Papa had been that sort of ally when Olivia—Danny had no trouble calling her Olivia rather than Mama—had been very cranky.

  Which was often.

  Danny did not miss Olivia one bit. She’d been angry all the time, she’d said mean things about Papa, and she’d even been mean to Mama.

  The gig came to a mucky halt in the stable yard. The viscount handed Mama down, then reached up for Danny, just as Papa had used to.

  “Come along, lad. Her ladyship will alert the garrison that we�
�re back from our devotions, and you can visit Sweetness with me for a moment.”

  Sweetness was the viscount’s mare. She was nearly as big as Papa’s horse, Beelzebub, but she was white, while Zubbie was black.

  The viscount set Danny down in the slush of the stable yard while Mama strode off for the house. Something in the set of her shoulders made Danny feel bad.

  “I miss Beelzebub!” The words were out, not what Danny had meant to say, but the truth—Papa would have been disappointed in him if he’d lied—for he did miss even his Papa’s horse.

  His Uncle Daniel’s horse.

  The viscount scooped Danny up, as if he were a very little boy, and took off in the direction of the stable while a groom took the gig around to the carriage house.

  “We fellows must stick together, right, Danny?”

  Papa had often said the same thing. “Yes, sir.”

  “Well then, as a loyal member of the We Fellows club, I’m suggesting you give her ladyship time. You were very patient with her this morning and she’s trying hard. I thought she’d about smother you with the lap robe. I’m surprised you didn’t leap from the carriage and run howling to join the Navy.”

  “I’m for the church, sir.” Danny had known this ever since he’d come to live at the viscount’s large, pretty, cold house. A boy couldn’t slide down the banisters in such a house for fear of breaking some vase or mirror or other delicate, expensive ornament.

  “You’ll be very good at vicar-ing,” the viscount said, “for you’re a very good boy.”

  The viscount was the opposite of Papa. Papa was dark; the viscount was fair. Papa had Danny’s brown eyes, while the viscount had funny eyes—one blue, one green, which Danny hardly noticed anymore.

  “Thank you, sir. Pa—Uncle Daniel said I must try hard to be good, because her ladyship has missed me for a long time.”

  They stopped outside Sweetness’s stall, and once again, Danny found himself affixed to the viscount’s hip. Back in Little Weldon—a four-word phrase that had come to mean “when I was happy”—Danny would have gone right into Beelzebub’s stall, and Zubbie would have bowed hello to earn his treat.

  “Danny, my boy, you are wise beyond your years,” the viscount said. “Her ladyship has indeed missed you.”

  The mare hung her head over the half door. She was a good horse, and clearly, the viscount loved her. He passed Danny a hunk of carrot he’d produced from some pocket or other, and Danny held it out to the mare.

  She hesitated, her horsey glance passing over Danny with silent wisdom. You are not my master, that look said, but to please her master, she nibbled the carrot from Danny’s palm anyway.

  “I miss Zubbie,” Danny said again, his throat aching. He wiggled down to his feet, lest he bury his nose against the viscount’s greatcoat and wail like a baby. “I miss him a l-lot.”

  The viscount hunkered beside Danny. “He probably misses you too.”

  “Yes, s-sir.” Papa, Papa, Papa.

  Danny did as Papa had taught him and stuffed his hand into his pocket and made a very, very tight fist. He used that fist to hold on to all the words he mustn’t say, all the feelings he ought not to mention.

  “You need a visit with your pony, Danny, my lad.”

  “Yes, sir.” I am not your lad.

  Danny had longed for a pony for forever, but he didn’t want to visit Loki now. He didn’t want to make fists in his pockets; he didn’t want to worry that he’d said the wrong thing and made Ma—Aunt—her ladyship unhappy and the viscount anxious.

  “Come along,” the viscount said, rising and patting Sweetness’s nose. “And please remind me to wipe my boots thoroughly before we get to the kitchen, or her ladyship will ring a peal over my head that makes the church bells pale.”

  The viscount extended a gloved hand to Danny, but for once, Danny ignored it.

  Did they think he’d run off to join the Navy between the stable and the house? Did they think he couldn’t even walk, like some little baby who toppled to the nursery floor without warning?

  Danny marched faster, the viscount trailing behind him across the mess and mire of the stable yard. Both of Danny’s pockets held tight fists, and he didn’t watch where he was going, which was why his good Sunday boot landed smack in the middle of a half-frozen horse dropping.

  Bad words welled up behind the lump in Danny’s throat, nasty bad words about horse droppings, about attending service at the wrong church, about missing Papa.

  “Are we in a hurry, Danny?” the viscount asked in that kind, easy voice that Danny positively hated.

  “I never want to be a horse,” Danny said.

  “Horses can gallop,” the viscount replied. “They’re very handsome, but they do have trouble scratching certain parts.”

  Handsome did not matter. Pretty did not matter, except that beauty was a chance to admire the Creator’s work. Honesty and kindness mattered—Papa had said so many times.

  But Danny could be only half honest.

  “If I were a horse, then I could be bought and sold at any time,” Danny said, narrowly missing another pile of manure. “I’d have nothing to say to it. I would hate being a horse. I might miss my old master until I wanted to die, and if I were a horse, I couldn’t do anything about it.”

  The viscount’s steps paused, but Danny barreled on.

  His fists were swinging at his sides now, and if he spied another horse dropping, he’d stomp on it, on purpose, even wearing his good Sunday boots.

  For Danny was not only unhappy, he was—Papa had said to be honest, and this honesty set something awful and irresistible loose inside Danny—furious.

  Four

  Kirsten’s startling insight came as Mr. Banks assisted her down from the sleigh. All around them, melting snow dripped from eaves and tree limbs, a wet, happy undercurrent to sparkling sunshine and slushy footing.

  She’d not be sharing a sleigh with Mr. Banks again for some time, alas.

  “Down you go,” Mr. Banks said, his hands secure at her waist. Kirsten grasped his shoulders, the same as she would have done with one of her brothers—the footing was uncertain, after all—and he swung her down, his grip solid until she had her balance.

  “I’m happy,” Kirsten said, the most ungainly expression of sentiment ever to bleat forth from her usually annoyed mouth. “I mean, I’m glad you got off such a subtle and sound scolding to those fellows. I’m impressed.”

  She was glad Mr. Banks had been kind to George’s little stepson too. Glad the new vicar had been well received by the parishioners, glad he’d felt no duty to linger among them, shaking hands, bowing, and currying favor.

  Glad he’d chosen instead to accompany Kirsten back to Belle Maison in the sleigh.

  “You’re proud of me, then?” The notion seemed to amuse him, and some of Kirsten’s pleasure in the sunny, drippy day dimmed.

  “Has no one been proud of you, Mr. Banks? Does the Bible proscribe an honest pleasure in another’s accomplishments? If it does, then I am doomed to perdition, for I am proud of both my sisters and my brothers.”

  Kirsten was doomed to perdition of a sort anyway. Before she could say as much, old Alfrydd came out to lead the horse away. The sleigh’s tracks cut through the slush right down to wet, muddy earth.

  “You may have your pride in me, my lady, and my thanks for it. Shall we say good morning to Beelzebub?”

  Kirsten’s irritation melted away like spring snow on a sunny morning, for, apparently, the vicar was bashful.

  Well then, yes. They should do whatever allowed Kirsten a few more minutes of Mr. Banks’s exclusive company, for when Kirsten was with him, she was not grumpy. Not grumpy, not grouchy, not sour, not shrewish, not any of the cranky, accurate, loving appellations her siblings leveled at her so often.

  Kirsten took Mr. Banks’s arm—he needed a new coat, for this one was lo
ose on him and worn at the elbows—and he sauntered into the stable with her. His gelding whickered softly, ears swiveling in the direction of his master.

  “Greetings, Beelzebub, on this fine day. You wonder why I did not saddle you up for a trip to the kirk, don’t you?”

  Another whuffle. Across the barn aisle, Kirsten’s bay mare didn’t so much as look up from her pile of hay.

  “Beelzebub is very handsome,” Kirsten said. “Did you fear to make a bad impression on the congregation by cantering up to the church on such a fine steed?”

  The vicar tugged off his gloves and passed them to Kirsten. “I feared we’d pull a shoe in this footing—the off hind could use another nail or two—and the trip down from Oxford entitles a horse to some rest. Another Sunday will arrive soon enough.”

  Next commenced a scratching of ears and chin, a caressing of a muscular horsey neck, and a patting of a sturdy equine shoulder. The sight of the vicar’s hands on his horse provoked curious sensations in Kirsten’s middle, novel sensations she did not exactly enjoy.

  “You’ll have hair all over your coat,” Kirsten said, for horses started shedding as early as January, and the mess only grew worse as warm weather approached.

  “So I will,” Mr. Banks said, digging his fingers into the beast’s chest, “but Beelzebub misses Danny, and allowances must be made.”

  “Is Danny his former groom? Another horse?”

  A final caress to the gelding’s ear, and Mr. Banks withdrew his hand. “Danny is my…my nephew. His situation is complicated, and I’d rather not burden you with it.”

  The horse made an attempt to nip at Mr. Banks’s sleeve, but the effort was halfhearted, and the gelding soon turned his attention back to his fodder.

  Kirsten passed the vicar his gloves, nearly every finger of which had been darned.

  “I am a grouch,” she said, though the word stung a bit. “Soon I will be a grouchy spinster and the scourge of the nieces and nephews bound to appear in great numbers ere long. Nonetheless, I’m a grouch with an excellent sense of discretion, Mr. Banks, and I’m loyal to those I care about.”

  She cared about him, in other words. Kirsten neither examined nor elaborated on that admission, for already, amazingly, wonderfully, it was the truth.