Daniel's True Desire

by Grace Burrowes

  “Nobody impresses you except for Shakespeare, and even he must be at the top of his form.” Had Kirsten’s beaus impressed Kirsten, or had she merely wanted to be impressed?

  She left her tuffet and flopped down beside her sister. “I flirted with Mr. Banks. I feel like an idiot.” A sad, bewildered, lonely idiot. If Kirsten were smarter, she’d muster disdain for him and his soft, sweet, passionate kisses.

  “He did not flirt back, I gather. Disobliging of him. Vicars can be awful flirts. Recall that fellow with the beard we had five years ago. Perhaps Mr. Banks doesn’t know how, or perhaps Mrs. Banks has soured him on anything approaching warmth where the ladies are concerned.”

  Mr. Banks had kissed Kirsten back, for a few glorious, intriguing moments. Those few moments preserved her from fury with him—and the Almighty—because those tender, beguiling moments had confirmed that her sentiments were returned.

  On the third try, she’d chosen a good fellow to lose her heart to, but she’d chosen him at the wrong time. One set of vows too late.

  A sorry sort of progress.

  “London will at least distract you,” Susannah said, patting Kirsten’s hand.

  “London will keep me busy. That’s not at all the same thing.”

  “Then don’t go.”

  As soon as Susannah said the words, Kirsten mentally shoved them aside, for they had the same painful, dangerous allure as memories of Mr. Banks’s kisses. Kirsten had been all but determined to avoid London before.

  Now she’d tasted forbidden fruit and must remove herself from temptation. She knew this, not because she was pious and virtuous, but rather, because a fool should not be made to suffer unnecessarily.

  “If I remain in the country, there will be talk,” Kirsten said. “Della doesn’t need talk for her first Season.” Every debutante occasioned gossip, and Della, lacking the Haddonfield fair coloring and height, would come in for plenty of unkind speculation.

  “Della doesn’t need me, Lady Warne, Leah, and you to escort her, Kirsten. Nita won’t be here to oversee the household, so you could credibly claim that role. Come up for the last few weeks of the Season, and nobody will think anything of it.”

  “You’re saying whether I’m in Town or here in Kent, Della will have to endure gossip.” The very thought of London and fittings and waltzing made Kirsten feel weary and mean.

  “I’m saying you shouldn’t have to fuss and coo over Mr. Sedgewick’s heir when his proud parents show him off at the fashionable hour.”

  Oh, that. Arthur—quick off the mark, was Arthur—already had two sons.

  “The Sedgewick heir is just a baby,” Kirsten said. “One hopes the poor boy inherited his mother’s chin rather than his father’s.” And that, oddly, was both a sincere hope and the extent of Kirsten’s sentiments regarding the child.

  “He’ll inherit his grandfather’s title eventually, and thus will be forgiven a receding chin, or three chins. Think about staying here at Belle Maison, Kirsten. You’ve faced down the tabbies for enough Seasons, and Della will have all the support she needs.”

  “You’re being nice, Suze. I’m not sure how to respond.”

  Remaining at Belle Maison would spare Kirsten much, but also keep her in proximity to the lamentably married Mr. Banks. How could she have not known he was married? Though Susannah hadn’t known, which was some comfort.

  More likely Susannah hadn’t cared. Mr. Shakespeare was a formidable rival, though he’d been estranged from his spouse too.

  “You should respond to my show of support by following my example,” Susannah said, picking up her sonnets. “You be nice to you too.”

  “I should go to London.” Away from Mr. Banks, and his regard, and his lovely, sad eyes and wrinkled, mended cravats. Besides, Nicholas would never allow Kirsten to remain at Belle Maison. Della’s come-out was a responsibility owed her by her entire family.

  “You should for once do as you please,” Susannah said, turning a few pages. “I think Mr. Banks would give you the same advice. Besides, if you’re here, then I can claim I’m repairing to the country to visit you every few weeks. I like that notion.”

  “I like you.” Kirsten truly did like her sister. Lovely.

  She also truly liked Mr. Banks, which was…difficult, sad, and inconvenient.

  But, somehow, also lovely.

  Eight

  “Have you discussed this with Danny?” Fairly asked. He and Banks hadn’t much time to sort the situation out, because Letty would come flying into the stable if the boy didn’t soon present himself in her ladyship’s private parlor.

  “Do you think me daft?” Banks shot back as they strode out of the stable yard. “I’ve spoken not a word to Danny about changing households. I haven’t even told him I’m providing instruction to other boys, though that was normally part of my day in Little Weldon.”

  Part of Banks’s income, in other words. Most vicars supplemented their stipend with some tutoring.

  Fairly assayed a grand understatement. “Letty won’t like it.”

  Banks stopped amid a garden where daffodils were trying to push up along east-facing walls and the occasional precocious tulip was sending a tightly furled green bud skyward.

  “Letty doesn’t have to like it, my lord. You don’t have to like it. I’m not even sure having my own son among my pupils is a scheme I will like.”

  “Banks, Danny might be your son according to every soul in Little Weldon and the dictates of your own pure heart, but Letty will not thank you for referring to the child that way.”

  “Papa!” Danny came churning into the garden. “Papa, wait for me! Hibbs says Loki will be right as rain!”

  Banks had the grace not to smirk, but he did catch the boy up and affix him to his back, where Danny settled in with the ease of long familiarity—and strong preference.

  “You are thankful, then, that your pony will be fine,” Banks said, “but I haven’t heard you apologize to the viscount.”

  “I’m practicing,” Danny said. “Lady Kirsten said apologies go better if you practice them. Hullo, sir.”

  “Hullo, Danny. I’m glad you are right as rain. Her ladyship and I were very worried.”

  Fairly tried to sound severe because Letty had been beside herself when the child had turned up missing. When his pony had been discovered gone from its stall, she’d grown troublesomely quiet.

  “I knew she’d worry,” Danny said. “I will apologize, because I was bad. I missed Papa.”

  “Danny,” Banks murmured.

  “Well, I did, and I don’t like it here at all, but I’m sorry Mama worried and sorry I took Loki without permission.”

  A very grudging sort of sorry and a very sincere I-don’t-like-it-here. This could not end without somebody in tears, again, and yet with Banks on hand, the child had finally been honest.

  Danny hated it under his mother’s roof. Fairly had needed to hear the words to admit that happy little boys did not throw their porridge every other morning. Happy little boys didn’t answer in two-word replies, one word of which was “sir” or “ma’am.” Happy little boys did not ghost about the nursery, pale and quiet, gaze ever straying to the windows.

  Even the pony hadn’t set the child to rights.

  “Papa has a nice house in Haddondale,” Danny said, “and the earl’s stable is as tidy as the viscount’s. Lady Kirsten kissed my bandages too.”

  Danny shot out a skinny wrist, revealing fresh white linen.

  “We’ll have no talk of bandages before her ladyship,” Fairly said. “No talk of coming off your pony, no talk of cuts, bruises, or Lady Kirsten’s kisses.”

  “You want me to lie to Mama?”

  Banks swung the child down, for they’d reached the back terrace. Danny took the vicar’s hand as naturally as Fairly might have cuddled his own infant daughter in his arms.

  Ye
s, Fairly wanted the boy to lie. Letty would have enough to deal with if Banks remained set on his scheme to take Danny away.

  “You will not tell a falsehood, Danny,” Banks said gently. “Out of compassion for your mother, you will also not flaunt your injury, nor will you dwell on the fact that another lady took care of you and comforted you. You will tell the truth as kindly as you can.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A very different “yes, sir” from the ones muttered in Fairly’s direction. Between one moment and the next, Fairly’s allegiance shifted, or rather clarified.

  Letty would smother the boy with her guilt and love, wrap him in moral and figurative cotton wool, earn his undying resentment, and possibly spoil him. She’d mean only the best, while making a bad situation worse. Banks knew how to be a parent to this boy, and Danny sensed this.

  Maybe, given the chance, Letty would admit she knew it too.

  “Then let’s not put off the inevitable,” Fairly said. “You will change your clothes, Danny, and we’ll have an apology from you to her ladyship.”

  “What’s my penance to be?” Danny asked, looking as serious and dear as the man holding his hand.

  Again, Banks stepped into the awkward moment with the casual ease of a confident horse splashing through a puddle.

  “You must consider, Danny, what will make amends to all whom you’ve trespassed against. An apology is a start, but only you know if that is all you can do to repair the damage you’ve done.”

  “I will think on it, sir, and ask Loki his opinion.”

  “Excellent idea.” Banks gently cuffed the boy on the back of the head. “Be off with you, then, but expect her ladyship will fuss over you. I’ll not leave without saying good-bye.”

  Danny scampered away more energetically than he’d done anything in the last six months save throw his porridge.

  “I had not realized that the purpose of punishment was to assuage the miscreant’s conscience,” Fairly said. “I thought we were routinely birched to inure us to injustice.”

  Or indoctrinate them into the English vice, about which Banks probably knew nothing.

  “Before one can appreciate injustice,” Banks said, “one must first have an instinct for justice. Penance restores our honor to us, while a birching merely feeds our self-pity.”

  “You should write a book of aphorisms on the rearing of children,” Fairly said. “Your outlook is compelling, for all it flies in the face of convention.”

  But then Banks’s entire situation was unconventional, especially for a churchman.

  “Oh, a book. Of course,” Banks said, striding off toward the nearest door. “I’ll publish a book to wild acclaim, and then Olivia will come forth and announce that Danny is not my son, my sister the viscountess is a fallen woman, and I misrepresented the situation to my bishop and my entire congregation for years.”

  Every garden had its serpent.

  “Banks, you can’t run off to Peru if Danny is to become one of your scholars,” Fairly said. The boy did not need to be subjected to another round of battledore between households. Fairly’s nerves weren’t up to that strain, either.

  “No running off,” Banks said. “And no more confusing the boy. We revert consistently to the terms of address he’s known for most of his life. I am Papa; her ladyship is Aunt Letty, for those are the terms the world must hear from Danny and we should not have deviated from them even among ourselves.”

  Haddondale had been good for Letty’s brother. He’d put on a bit of weight since Fairly had last seen him and recovered some of his former energy.

  A lot of his former energy.

  “You fight that battle with Letty,” Fairly said, allowing Banks to precede him into an informal parlor. “She has loved hearing Danny call her Mama.” Though upon reflection, Fairly realized that Danny avoided that form of address if he could manage it.

  “Not a battle, Fairly, a discussion,” Banks said. “We’re reasonable adults and we’ll have a reasonable discussion.”

  * * *

  Olivia Maitland Banks had been a beauty when she’d emerged from her papa’s shabby schoolroom more than a decade ago, and she was lovely still, provided she avoided direct sunlight. Around her eyes, faint lines showed, and her mouth had acquired the first hint of a pinch.

  Bertrand knew better than to allude to either flaw, for Olivia was vain, bless her.

  “You chose the vicar over me because he’s a handsome devil, didn’t you?” Bertrand asked as they strolled his back garden.

  She had chosen the vicar years ago, though perhaps she was unchoosing him now.

  “Daniel is quite good-looking and always will be,” Olivia said. She paid her husband no compliment, for she would have used the same tone to assess a plow horse’s soundness. “He takes no notice of his appearance, though, and would never use it to his advantage. For a wife, that’s an ideal circumstance. All will envy her, but her fellow won’t stray. Daniel married me in part to rebel against his saintly papa, who thought we were too young. Under no circumstances would Daniel have betrayed the wife he’d chosen over his father’s objection.”

  Bertrand did not contradict Olivia, but Daniel Banks had been prudent even as a boy. Marrying to defy his papa had likely not occurred to him. Olivia would never admit it, but she simply admired her husband’s integrity—probably hated him for it too.

  Olivia hated passionately, which had fascinated Bertrand as a younger man. Her antipathy still held his interest, but also made him cautious.

  “You couldn’t sue him for adultery anyway,” Bertrand said, using his handkerchief to dust off a marble bench near the sundial. “Though he could sue you.”

  To end a marriage through divorce on the basis of adultery took three different legal proceedings, one of them resulting in an Act of Parliament. Bertrand had consulted with his solicitors on the matter the previous day, for having Olivia by his side had rekindled some spark that had been missing from his life.

  She was complicated, brilliantly selfish, and pretty.

  “Daniel would have to give up his vocation if he sought a divorce,” Olivia scoffed, settling on the bench, “and he hasn’t the money or the influence. He’s quite, quite stuck with me.”

  Which meant Olivia was stuck with her vicar. Bertrand took the place beside her—they were beyond his asking permission for such a liberty—and possessed himself of her hand.

  “As long as Banks has you, I cannot have you, not legally. Do you enjoy my suffering, Olivia?”

  Not the agony a young man endured, though the memory of that thwarted passion fueled some of Bertrand’s possessiveness. Olivia had been wrong to marry the damned churchman, despite Banks’s good looks and honorable character. Witness, the vicar remained a penniless, if handsome, saint, while Bertrand could shower Olivia with the material security she craved.

  “I do enjoy your suffering, Bertrand. I’d enjoy making Daniel wretched even more.”

  Bertrand was not wretched; neither did Olivia’s remark entirely amuse him. “How could Banks be anything but wretched, my dove? He no longer has the child upon whom you claim he doted. He’s left the pulpit back in Little Hogwallow for some pocket pulpit in Kent, and at any moment, you can denounce him to his bishop for falsely presenting the boy as his son. If I were Banks, I’d be nervous.”

  Very nervous, for Olivia had grown thoughtful in recent days, and that boded ill for somebody.

  “Daniel could always try to have our marriage annulled,” Olivia said, twitching at silk skirts of a lovely pale blue that complemented her coloring exquisitely—expensive skirts but worth the investment.

  An annulment was only slightly less scandalous than a divorce, though a damned sight less complicated, if grounds existed.

  “No, he cannot try to have the marriage annulled,” Bertrand replied, “not if he wants to keep wearing that collar, which you’ve assur
ed me he does. He isn’t a wealthy lord, to manufacture grounds or bribe the appropriate bishop, either. Are you planning to blackmail him? Your silence regarding his subterfuges about the boy in exchange for his complicity in your situation with me?”

  England was a big place, and Bertrand had handsome holdings in Northumbria. He could present Olivia as his new wife, late of…Cornwall, say, and no one would be the wiser. His solicitors assured him such unions were commonplace among those with the means and resolve to undertake them.

  And Bertrand was certain Olivia had been plotting some particularly exquisite misery for her handsome, saintly spouse.

  “Daniel is a good vicar and a tiresomely virtuous man,” Olivia said, smoothing her skirts the way a dowager might stroke a favored cat. “He lied to protect the boy, but he would not lie to ease his own situation. I must think on this further.”

  Bertrand patted her hand, though much more of this thinking on Olivia’s part, and she’d have enough clothing to open her own modiste’s shop.

  “Olivia, my dear, London is situated between Kent and Oxford. Sooner or later, somebody will recognize you here, enjoying my hospitality when you’re supposed to be up north. You’ll be an object of pity if people conclude you’ve been thrown on my cousinly charity, and you’ll be an object of scorn if they understand your husband has set you aside.”

  Pity and scorn would be as wormwood and gall to her. Life in Northumbria should appeal to her by comparison.

  She snatched her hand away.

  “The bumpkins from Little Weldon hardly frequent Mayfair, Bertrand. You plague me for your own entertainment.”

  Every morning, the markets of London were thronged with farm wagons bringing in produce from the countryside, and nobody gossiped like the country folk when sharing a pint with their town cousins.

  “My apologies for troubling you, my dear. My regard for you makes me impatient.”

  Then too, Bertrand wanted to know her plans. Any prudent man, however smitten, would want to know Olivia’s plans if those plans in any way involved him.