“I have gas too,” Frank said, suiting actions to words despite Cook’s hovering presence. Frank had a God-given gift when it came to flatulence, though he never demonstrated his talent in Lady Kirsten’s presence.
Matthias abruptly rose and shoved at his glasses. “I’ll be in the stable. If you think we’re all moving to the vicarage, you’re daft. By Swan Upping, you’ll be packing for Eaton, where floggings are regular and biscuits don’t exist.”
He stomped out the back door, though a skinny little fellow like Matthias didn’t have much of a stomp.
“What’s wrong with him, Tom?” Frank asked. “He’s become a wretched grouch who can’t do his lessons.”
“Maybe you should sit on him,” Fred suggested, his tone genuinely helpful.
“Something is sitting on him,” Thomas said. “He gets up at night and goes down to the schoolroom. I’ve no clue what he’s about there.”
Matthias worked at his lessons, for Digby and Danny had followed him too. By the light of a single meager candle, Matthias stared at his slate and peered at his books, holding them so close to his nose it was a wonder he could read them at all.
“Mattie’s not stupid,” Danny said, “but he’s surely not happy either.”
And that bothered them all. A few months ago, Thomas alone might have spared a care for his troubled brother, but since then, they’d become friends and fellow scholars, and if one of them suffered, they all felt his pain.
“We’ll help him,” Digby said. “We’ll get Ralph to help, and Vicar, and Lady Kirsten. Mattie’s not stupid, and we’re his friends, so we’ll help him.”
Thomas hoisted his mug of milk. “We’ll help him.”
They bumped mugs, just like the fellows Vicar had told them about who drew their swords and pledged great oaths, swords in the air.
“We’ll help him,” Frank echoed, “but we won’t let his biscuits go to waste either.”
* * *
A child. A brother or sister for Danny, a cousin to Letty’s children. A child, the most tangible, glorious, irrefutable, troublesome evidence of a man and woman’s intimate regard for each other.
Joy beat through Daniel on the heels of incredulity. He and Kirsten might become parents together—
Of a bastard child, if Olivia were alive.
“So why the special license?” Kirsten asked, crossing the room to open a window. The afternoon had grown warm enough that fresh air in the classroom was warranted.
“I’m not sure,” Daniel said. “A hunch. I’m reluctant to tell you what my hunch is based on.”
“Just say it, Daniel. We are all but man and wife, and weathering life’s vicissitudes together is one of the privileges of the wedded state.”
This was Lady Kirsten Haddonfield, purveyor of blunt truths, also the woman who’d saved Daniel’s life. He simply said what had haunted him for the past week.
“I fear Olivia is alive.”
Fear was one word, but rage and dread came into it too. Snippets of Scripture had plagued Daniel all week. Thou shalt not commit adultery figured prominently among them. Thou shalt not kill made the occasional appearance as well.
Kirsten might—had she been the helpful sort—have laughed heartily and told Daniel he needed more rest. She might have shrugged, she might have laid her hand to his forehead to see if fever plagued him.
But Kirsten was the honest sort. “Why do you think a woman dead and buried is yet alive?” She crossed her arms and took a perch on the table that held the terrarium, six pots of seeded acorns, and a globe.
Nowhere for Daniel to sit beside her, so he leaned against a corner of his desk.
“A vicar hears all the stories that touch on the graveyard,” he said. “Death is not that difficult to fake. People do it all the time, to elude debts, the law, spouses of whom they’ve grown weary, or intolerable apprentice situations.”
Kirsten reached into the terrarium and lifted out the toad of the week. Each Monday after lessons, Daniel took the boys on a biology walk. If a toad crossed their paths, the toad was subjected to the hospitality of the terrarium for one week, then released on Friday.
In honor of the Conqueror, who’d known a thing or two about being held hostage, the toad—for his week of captivity—was always named William.
“You thought you saw Olivia in Town,” Kirsten said, running a finger over the toad’s brown speckled head. “Or somebody very like her.”
“I felt that I saw her.” Daniel wondered if they’d have a boy, because a woman who could pet toads surely had the mettle to raise boys. “My body recognized that woman as the same person who’d taken shameless advantage of me, my sister, and Danny.”
“Cold shivers?” Kirsten asked. “An awful feeling in the vitals, a sense that you couldn’t get your breath? That’s what I felt the first time I spotted Arthur Morton with his new wife—and the entire ballroom was watching me from behind their fans and snuffboxes.”
The toad gave a toady chirp, perhaps of pleasure, while Daniel’s world became a shambles.
“There’s more,” Daniel said, envying a dratted toad. “Fairly has made inquiries, and nobody recalls a woman falling ill in Bertrand Carmichael’s home earlier this year. Carmichael has, however, taken in a ladybird who is difficult to please. I sent a missive to Fairly asking that he obtain the ladybird’s description.”
Kirsten lifted the toad to her cheek, as if she’d confide in it. “And?”
“A note arrived earlier today confirming that she is blond and blue-eyed.”
“Half the women in England are blond and blue-eyed.”
The other half were not. “I lived with Olivia for years, Kirsten, and she is devious enough to do this. She sowed discontent among the women of the parish, disparaged me behind my back, treated Danny ill, and all with a sweet expression at the church steps and an air of pious industry in the manse. She is not to be trusted.”
Daniel rose, because the desk made a hard, awkward perch, and the present tense in reference to Olivia was hell all over again.
“And if she is alive,” Kirsten said, “she is your lawfully wedded wife. We’re back where we started, Daniel.”
No, they were far worse off, for they’d consummated their love with the most wonderful and disastrous results possible.
“Olivia is my wife, if she is alive.”
The words made him ill, sick of heart, mind, soul, and strength.
Kirsten gave the toad a final caress to its knobby brow and put it back among the dead leaves, twigs, and pond muck.
“I love you, Daniel, and if the situation involved only you and me, I’d march into London, find this woman, and have my brother institute divorce proceedings. She’s committing adultery with Mr. Carmichael, and for that you could divorce her.”
While a woman could not divorce a wandering husband on the same grounds. Daniel had come across that fact in last night’s research in the Belle Maison library.
“The situation involves Danny and possibly another innocent,” Daniel said. “Divorce will cost me my ability to support any family at all.” Also his vocation, and what did one do, as a vicar without a pulpit?
Kirsten rose and smoothed her hand over her waist. “If you don’t pursue a divorce, our child will be a bastard, unless of course I can locate some fellow in the next eight months willing to take on used goods. Della’s and Susannah’s prospects demand I at least consider that course in conjunction with a remove to parts distant.”
Her family had the means to send her to parts very distant, while Daniel had only the living from his present post and a few pounds in reserve.
Insight kicked Daniel hard in the gut, for Letty had given up her son to be raised by others. When faced with the same prospect—even when faced with returning the boy to his very mother—Daniel’s whole being rebelled.
“I cannot allow you to mar
ry another man, who would raise my child as his own.” Daniel could not consider it, not for the child, not for Kirsten, not for himself.
Kirsten’s countenance had lost all animation. She was once again the testy, withdrawn, self-reliant creature whom he’d met at the end of a long, frigid ride.
“Daniel, this is not your fault nor my fault, but most of all, this situation is not the fault of the child we’ve conceived. I love you, but this child deserves my entire consideration in the conundrum we face. I will not make a bigamist of you.”
The boys would be back any moment, and Kirsten was hoisting sail to leave the classroom, and possibly to leave Daniel’s life.
Though he was tempted to remain silent, Daniel gave her the rest of it.
“It’s worse than that,” he said. “If I marry you, I become a bigamist in expectation of further blackmail from my—from Olivia. She carried on her scheme with Letty for years, and once this child arrives, she’ll never let up.”
There, the entire ugly, sordid, hopeless truth lay between Daniel and the woman he loved. Had Olivia walked through the door that instant, Daniel would have done her a serious injury.
At least. And he would have enjoyed the violence, despite vengeance being the Almighty’s exclusive province.
Kirsten remained where she was, two yards and a world of impossibilities away, a crease furrowing her brow. She took two steps toward the door, came past the desk assigned to Danny, and put her arms around Daniel.
The sensation of her embrace was homecoming, torment, Daniel’s every hope, and his last prayer.
“You were my first miracle, Daniel,” she said, smoothing her hand over his cravat. “I’d resigned myself to being the crotchety auntie, the outspoken relation nobody really wanted to invite for a visit. Then you came along, undaunted by my lack of charm, unwilling to be put off by a few graceless comments. I love you.”
He kept the embrace loose by force of will. “I love you too.” Wholly, entirely, forever.
“Then we learn that we’ve very likely conceived a new life. That’s another miracle, and I will never be anything but grateful for it, as much as I fear consequences to the child.”
Endless, miserable consequences.
Now came the “but,” the pragmatic rejection, the letting go. Kirsten was strong enough to make the right, selfless choice for their child. Daniel kissed his beloved one last time before those words were spoken.
“Say the rest of it,” he whispered. “Say the difficult words you’ve always been relied on to say, Kirsten, for if those words are good-bye, I cannot utter them.”
“You are a good man,” she said, giving Daniel more of her weight. “You’re brilliant with the boys, devoted to Danny, sincere in your vocation, and deserving of some happiness.”
Which he’d never have without her. “And?”
“And we simply need another miracle, Daniel, or something very close to it.”
* * *
“Lady Kirsten is your sister, and Banks is my brother,” Fairly said. He’d ridden the distance to Town at Letty’s demand and at the prodding of his own conscience.
“Banks is your brother by marriage,” the Earl of Bellefonte replied, leading an enormous gelding from its stall. Nicholas did not sound happy to be the repository of Fairly’s confidences, but then dear Nicholas was seldom happy when confined to Town.
Fairly had accosted him in the mews behind the Bellefonte town house, which meant Lady Kirsten’s sisters need not know of his visit.
“You’re sure this Olivia person is alive?” Bellefonte asked, securing the horse into cross ties.
“I sent a boy with a talent for sketching to lurk in Carmichael’s garden,” Fairly said. “He made a likeness, and Letty positively identified the woman as Olivia Banks.”
Bellefonte slung an arm over the horse’s withers and leaned against the horse, whose dimensions looked merely normal next to the earl.
“This is messy,” Bellefonte said. “Kirsten has had enough of messes.”
That Bellefonte would be protective was a foregone conclusion. “Banks has had enough of messes as well.” To say nothing of Letty, the boy, and Fairly himself.
Possibilities hung in the air, some of them gratifyingly violent.
A door scraped open down the barn aisle and Ladies Susannah and Della came bustling in, attired for riding.
“Damn.” Bellefonte’s curse was muttered loudly enough for only Fairly to hear it.
“Kirsten has had enough of you fellows arranging her life,” Lady Della said, as if she’d overheard the entire exchange. “Enough of others selecting her suitors and generally meddling. What mischief are you two getting up to?”
“Don’t think to dissemble,” Lady Susannah added. “Or we’ll tell Leah and Letty.”
Fairly watched as Bellefonte, in the time it took a horse to swish its tail, sorted through options. Charm, guile, bluster…
Not with these two.
“We have reason to believe Lady Kirsten and Mr. Banks are facing a contretemps with few good options,” Fairly said. “We’re open to suggestions, but this is perhaps not the place to air them.”
Bellefonte released the horse from its cross ties. “My thoughts exactly. I can hack in the park anytime, but familial discussions of fraud, death, bigamy, and mayhem only come along once a week or so.”
His lordship put the gelding back in its loose box, settled an arm around each sister, and escorted them to the garden, where refreshments were ordered and the countess summoned to join the discussion.
* * *
“Divorce is not a miracle,” Daniel said to the woman in his arms. “Divorce will cost me my calling, and with it, my ability to provide for you and the children. Divorce will immerse your entire family in scandal, to say nothing of the consequence to your sisters and to the children.”
Daniel included his scholars among that number, for they expected him to set a standard of attainable honor, the same as he expected of himself.
Kirsten drew away. “Two jilted fiancés immersed me in scandal, and five years later, I’m yet able to find meaning in life and take joy in my blessings. Scandal is preferable to hypocrisy, blackmail, and inflicting illegitimacy on a child.”
The door opened, revealing five small boys prepared to resume their study of the Acts of Union. Ralph stood behind them, trying to look as if he hadn’t overheard a single word. Matthias alone was unaccounted for.
“Gentlemen,” Lady Kirsten said, “I trust you enjoyed your biscuits. I’ll leave you to glean what wisdom you can from Vicar’s lectures about the past.”
She quit the room at a brisk flounce, serenaded by William’s soft croaking.
“Ralph, the boys were discussing the Acts of Union,” Daniel said, intent on following his hurt, angry beloved wherever she got off to. “You’ll aid them in that pursuit.”
Nobody moved to take a seat, nobody left the doorway, through which Daniel intended to charge at a dead run.
“You should clean your boots, sir,” Digby said.
“Clean my—?” Daniel advocated boot cleaning to facilitate contemplation of a misstep.
“He’s right, Papa,” Danny said. Danny never called him Papa in the classroom, only sir. “Or go for a walk in nature.”
Another of Daniel’s famous prescriptions for upset fellows.
“Or go for a ride on Beelzebub,” Thomas suggested helpfully. “A gentleman never upsets a lady.”
For pity’s perishing sake. Scolded by a lot of children, and they were right.
“I know you mean well,” Daniel said, “but you don’t understand. The situation is complicated.”
The William of the Week croaked, which appeared to be all the support Daniel would get.
“Her ladyship was a trifle upset,” Ralph ventured. “To be expected when the nuptials are in the offing. Come on,
you lot. To your desks.”
The nuptials were apparently not in the offing.
“Tell Beelzebub to be a good boy,” Danny added kindly.
“I’ll do that,” Daniel said, marching for the door. “I’ll do exactly that.”
When Daniel reached the garden, Kirsten was nowhere to be seen, so he trotted to the stable, where again, her ladyship was not to be found. The head groom, the only human life in sight, was leading Loki to the trough.
“Alfrydd, have you seen Lady Kirsten?”
“I have not, Mr. Banks, but Master Matthias has come for a visit and the boy is in quite a taking.”
Confound this day. Matthias had been in a taking for weeks. “If Lady Kirsten should ask to have her horse saddled, please detain her until I join her. Where’s the lad?” For Daniel was Matthias’s vicar as well as his teacher, and would not abandon the boy to his misery.
“Master Matthias be in the mare’s stall, but I’m pretending I haven’t seen him. Crying his heart out again, poor lad.”
“Please do not let Lady Kirsten leave without speaking to me,” Daniel said, heading for the barn.
Alfrydd saluted, though Daniel knew very well that Kirsten would go where she pleased and do as she pleased. He first looked for Matthias in Freya’s stall, but the pony was contentedly munching hay and spared her visitor only the briefest uninterested glance.
Which left—Buttercup?
Across the aisle, the earl’s preferred riding horse was recumbent in the straw, a skinny boy affixed to her neck like a particularly large, unhappy cocklebur. Doubtless the mare missed her earl, or perhaps she was simply a kind equine soul.
“I hate being a scholar,” Matthias wailed softly. “I hate Fridays, and I hate the stupid lessons. I hate my stupid self.”
If the horse noticed Daniel, she might well stand and step on her visitor. But then she’d tolerated Matthias’s intrusion on her solitude placidly enough.
“Matthias, I’m coming in,” Daniel said.
“Go away! I hate you too!”
Platitudes about hatred eroding the soul of the one who carried it sprang to Daniel’s lips, but of what use were platitudes when a heart was breaking?
Daniel's True Desire Page 28
