Rock Hard Daddy: A Single Dad & A Virgin Romance

by Rye Hart

  “I reckon he would if someone gave permission,” Harold said quietly. “My boys will be clearing away the weeds and overgrowth. Come spring, if you want flowers, Larkin Dart is the one to go to.”

  Dennison sat back for a moment before letting out a sigh. “My apologies,” Laverly said. “I had no cause to be insolent to you.”

  “Didn’t sound like insolence, Your Lordship. Sounded like a man who’s had enough of his life for one day.”

  For a lifetime, Laverly thought, saying nothing.

  A man was standing by his cottage when they pulled in. “I thought I heard horses,” he called. “Who’s there?”

  “Harold Griffin. His Lordship has been calling on his tenants, now that he’s home from the war.”

  “Your Lordship,” Dart said. “Welcome. Will you come in?”

  Dart, a spare man with thick dark hair liberally sprinkled with white, was well known to Harold, who had descended from the wagon to assist Laverly. Laverly, impatient to get the visit out of the way, stepped out of the wagon as he had at the previous cottage and jumped down. But the wagon had come to rest on a sloped part of ground that did not support Laverly as he descended. Laverly felt himself fall, heard Harold’s shout, and was sprawled in the dirt before he could grab onto the sides of the wagon.

  “Here, sir, lean on my shoulder and we’ll get you up in a trice.”

  Laverly felt Harold’s presence on his right, but he was confused. There was another man on his left. He felt a lean hand grip his shoulder, and the next thing he knew, the voice that belonged to Larkin Dart said, “On three, Harold?” and Laverly felt himself lifted to his feet.

  “How did you do that?” he demanded.

  “Do what, Your Lordship?”

  “Know how to support me and how to raise me up? I was told you are blind.”

  “So I am. But I’m not crippled nor deaf,” said Dart in a tranquil voice that robbed his words of any sting.

  “I couldn’t do what you just did. If someone falls, he’ll have to scramble to his feet; I can be of no assistance.”

  “Sir, that’s simply not so,” Dart answered him.

  “How did you do it?” Dennison asked again, eager to know the man’s secret.

  “What are you out here chattering away for when I’ve got—oh, beg pardon, I didn’t know,” the female voice, lively and amused, faded away to silence.

  “Bella, my dear, this is His Lordship, the Duke, home from the wars. We’re coming inside for some of that tasty walnut cake of yours and some ale, if His Lordship will honor us?”

  “I’d honor Lucifer himself with my presence if he could tell me how to do what you’ve done,” Laverly said. “I am blind.” He said this bitterly, angrily, tossing the three words out from his lips as if he were spitting out an offensive taste.

  “Come inside,” Dart said. “Bella can explain more than I can. I owe what I am to her.”

  “Perhaps to my walnut cake,” Bella murmured in a resonant voice that carried well while still managing to sound as if it were confiding wonderful secrets. Laverly wondered what she looked like; she sounded rather fetching. Not a well-bred beauty, certainly; she was a country girl who baked cakes and tended to flowers, not someone he would have flirted with at Almack’s. But there was spirit there. He’d always liked spirit in his women; he’d liked it as much as beauty and wit. Not that it mattered much He could like as much as he wanted, but a blind man, even a Duke, was not a prize on the marriage market.

  The cottage smelled of lavender. He could see nothing, but he had a sense of hominess. He suspected that Miss Bella Dart was a vigorous housekeeper, despite that casual speech pattern that invoked mirth and tranquility.

  They sat down at the table. Laverly could hear Bella as she moved about the room, pouring ale and cutting slices of cake.

  “I used to be a schoolmaster,” Dart began. “My wife, my children and I formerly lived in Scotland. But I developed a lung complaint and we thought it best to move back here to where my wife was from and where she had family that could help her if something happened to me. Unfortunately, my wife fell ill and died seven years ago, when Bella was just a young girl.”

  “As opposed to the decrepit crone I am now,” Bella called out from across the room.

  There was a smile in Dart’s voice. “As opposed to the strong-minded young lass you are now,” he corrected, then went on with his tale. “I came down with a fever three years ago, in the spring. When the fever was gone, so was my eyesight.”

  “Doubtless you have some bit of it remaining? Perhaps you can discern shapes or the outlines of forms, light and dark, that sort of thing,” Laverly asserted.

  “No,” Dart said simply. “Nothing. When I came round and realized that my sight was gone, I felt ruined. I couldn’t see anything. All that I knew, all that anyone knows, is based upon what we see. Things that we don’t even realize. The look of the flowers that come up in the spring, time was, I could tell the time of year by what was blooming in my wife’s garden. The clouds that foretell rain, the expressions on people’s faces. Our eyes are our books to life, sir, and speaking as one who loved his books in another time, I was bitter. I had left a profession that I loved because of my health. To have my eyesight robbed from me because of a fever seemed as if God were using me for a roll of the dice. I do not pretend that I took this change with the accepting spirit of a righteous Christian.”

  “Quite understandable,” Laverly agreed.

  He heard the sound of food being placed in front of him; the clatter of the plate as it met the table, the sloshing of the ale in the glass as it joined its companion.

  “Thank you, Bella,” said Harold.

  “You’re welcome, Harold. Tell me what you think. I let father do a bit of seasoning on a whim and I think it tastes rather better for our notions. Can you guess what’s in it?”

  As an innkeeper, Harold was well used to the diverse ingredients that made up a menu. “Flour and sugar and walnuts,” he said promptly.

  Bella laughed. “You’d have known that before tasting it. Milk, too, and eggs. But what else? My lord, have you any idea?”

  “It’s very good,” Laverly said. It was indeed tasty. The cake was dense and flavorful, with the walnuts giving it an appealing texture.

  “Can you not guess what else I put in it?”

  “I beg your pardon, Miss Dart, but I am not accounted a cook, rather an appreciator of the cook’s offerings, and I appreciate this.”

  “Cinnamon,” Harold guessed.

  “No,” she replied, laughing.

  “Bella, I doubt if they are acquainted with your experiments. You must divulge.”

  “Very well. I soaked the walnuts in maple syrup. Then my father added nutmeg to the batter before I baked the cake. He added just the right measure to mix with the nuts.”

  “Very tasty,” Laverly conceded.

  “Not all of our experiments have been so successful,” Dart chuckled. “But we’ll spare you our mishaps. When Bella first decided that she would not leave me to be a miserable, cantankerous wallower in self-pity, she determined that I would simply have to use my other senses to make up for what I no longer had in sight.”

  “A premise more easily adopted by one who has not lost her sight,” said Laverly.

  “Oh, but you don’t know my Bella. She covered her eyes with a handkerchief to discover what I could no longer see. She determined the structure of the house and the placement of the furniture. We spent a solid week bumping into one another. She did no cooking; we only ate what we could eat cold. When she had contrived to understand the inside of the house, she went outside, tumbling into the dirt as often as not. But when she was finished with her experiment, she had devised a way to teach me to see with my other senses.”

  “Most ingenious,” Laverly said in neutral tones. It sounded preposterous to him.

  “You asked me how I was able to offer you aid when you fell,” Dart explained. “That was how. When Bella fell, it was up to me to hel
p her get to her feet. There were times when I fell as well and we were obliged to make our way upright.”

  Laverly drank deeply from his ale. It was full-bodied and layered in flavor; he wondered if the enterprising Bella Dart brewed her own ale as readily as she created her own recipes and her own strategies for mitigating physical limitations.

  “And now?” Laverly challenged. “Do you no longer fall?”

  “If he does, he gets up like a man, sir. On his own,” Bella answered for her father.

  Chapter Five

  “I daresay he does not fall for fear of his daughter’s tongue,” Laverly fumed when they left the Dart cottage and were back on their way to Laverly Hall. “Doubtless, if he should err, she consigns him to making his own supper and then forcing him to eat the noxious concoction.”

  Harold let Laverly express his views and didn’t intervene. If he thought the call had been a failure, he did not say so. They were nearly back to the Hall by the time Laverly had run out of accusations and insults relating to the effrontery of an unnatural daughter who subjected her father to such conditions.

  “What should she have done, sir?” Harold finally asked. “Bella is a good girl. It was no pleasure for her to take on her father’s blindness, but she did it for a purpose.”

  “If I were a father, do you think I should permit a daughter of mine to humiliate me in such a fashion? Falling about the grounds like babies. What a sight that must have been. What if one had been badly injured? A broken leg is no easy matter for a blind man. Bad enough not being able to see, but to be immobile as well.”

  “It seems to have turned out for the best. And no doubt you’re hungry and will be better for a good meal.”

  Laverly entered the house warily, unsure of his footing and now, more than ever, conscious of how fragile one’s upright position could be. The thought of being on his back again and at the mercy of someone else to raise him up made him exceedingly cautious as he groped his way around the furniture into the dining room.

  “There His Lordship is,” Lucy announced as if he’d been missing. “We’ve made a hearty meal for you, sir.”

  Hearty it was, and the Griffin brood were painstakingly deliberate as they served each course. Lucy knew how to season her food. The mutton was moist, the vegetables cooked in a delicious sauce that was awash in flavors, the bread soft and still warm from the oven. There was a compote of dried fruit, and cheeses that she’d brought with her from the inn. The ale, Laverly noted, was not as robust as what he’d had at the Dart cottage, but then, Bella Dart no doubt added some mysterious ingredient, the identity of which he was better off not knowing.

  His compliments were profuse and genuine, but when the family left him to his table to finish his meal, he felt the vastness of the room which had seated dozens of guests at suppers during his youth. He detected, in the pervasive odor of lemon, that the Griffin women had plied their cleaning in the dining room and there was no evidence of the musty smell that had been there the night before. A bevy of women armed with cloths and cleaning oils could, he realized, work as speedily as an army attacking a despised enemy. Their zeal argued well for the condition of their inn, and soon, he knew, they must return to it. This mission to return the Hall to its supremacy among the estates in the county was commendable, but it took them from their daily tasks. He would pay them well for their labors and the two who would stay as servants would be recompensed fully for their service so that they could provide their parents with their earnings.

  The family, except for a daughter and son introduced as Bess and Martin, left at dusk, promising to be back on the morrow to continue their work. The women had made his bedchamber fit for occupancy and Martin escorted him upstairs while Laverly gripped the carved railing of the staircase. Promising to ring if he needed anything further, Laverly dismissed him, assuring him that, with the basin handy and a change of clothes nearby, he would fend for himself.

  The odor of lemon that pervaded the room was a pleasant one, although he found himself recalling the fragrance of lavender that had been redolent in the Dart cottage. In any case, either was better than the mold and dust that had been the only inhabitants of the room before the Griffins had advanced upon it. What rigorous housecleaning could not alleviate, however, was the loneliness of his position. As a bachelor, his entertainments were by nature circumscribed, but his blindness diminished those social contacts as well. He could not make his way through a room without help; how could he woo an heiress? He did not, to be sure, need to marry well; the Laverly wealth was both extensive and well managed. But he could not marry beneath his station and that meant that he needed, despite his blindness, to cut a figure in society. A fine spectacle he’d be, falling on the floor, spilling his punch, and risking untold humiliation at social events.

  His mind drifted back to Larkin Dart, who had been able, despite his blind state, to raise Laverly to his knees as competently as if he had the same vision as any other man. Dart had credited his daughter with the transformation, and despite the unconventional methods, her success was apparent. Harold had been fulsome in his praise of the Dart cottage and its well-maintained state; Laverly could not see the late-blooming flowers or the newly painted door, but he had sensed order and comfort within its walls.

  He found his way to his bed, relying on memory and the furnishings in the chamber. Knowing that there were servants within reach of the bell, and aware that the Hall was divesting itself, with the aid of the Griffins, from its abandoned state, Laverly was able to drift into sleep.

  He was pleased, the next day, when Harold followed Martin into the room. “Sir, I’ve come to shave you. Young Pargetter has come by to begin clearing the stables. Should Martin work with him, or should he tend to you?”

  Laverly needed a valet more than most, given his physical limitations, but he deferred to Harold on this. Harold thought that it was best if Martin began to train in His Lordship’s service. “He’s willing and quick to learn,” Harold said.

  “Does he speak?” Laverly joked. Martin seemed to be a lad of few words.

  “I do, sir, if you wish me to.”

  “An admirable quality, then. Yes, Harold, if you can begin to train your son, we’ll proceed that way. I declare that you would likely prefer to be starting your morning off in your own business rather than with my whiskers.”

  After the shaving and dressing, Laverly asked Harold to stay behind while Martin was set to work on Laverly’s clothing, which had spent a quantity of days in his trunk rather than his wardrobe.

  “I’ve given some thought to your suggestion yesterday,” he began. “I should like to give Miss Dart’s experimenting a try.”

  “Very good, sir. Shall I tell her to come up to the Hall?”

  “I think we had best invite her to come up for an appointment,” Laverly considered. “She is not a woman unmindful of her due.”

  “She’s spirited, sir, that’s for sure,” Harold agreed.

  “I shall tender an invitation. Will you see that it is delivered?”

  Laverly labored long over the wording and the writing; he did not wish to scrawl his pen like a child just learning his letters and the task. The note consisted of a brief request to meet with him at two o’clock that afternoon, and took more time to compose than he had expected. But he sealed the message and handed it to Harold with a feeling of accomplishment.

  When the hour of her expected arrival approached, Laverly directed Martin to bring Miss Dart to the freshly cleaned library when she arrived.

  He rose when the door opened.

  “Miss Bella Dart, sir,” Martin said, closing the door behind him.

  The fragrance of lavender marked her approach. It was a bewitching aroma; clean and fresh, quite different from the heady perfumes that ladies of the ton drenched themselves in.

  “Miss Dart, I have considered what your father said, and if you would be willing, I would like to employ you in the same task that you performed with Mr. Dart.”

  “May I si
t?” she asked.

  He felt his cheeks flush. Of course he should have thought of that; regardless of her station, he could not treat her as he would a stable lad or a parlor maid. She was not obliged to accept his offer and he knew that, with Miss Isabella Dart, any man, be he gentleman or laborer, had best not regard her as inferior.

  “Certainly. My apologies. Will you accept my offer?”

  “I may do so.”

  “I assure you, my terms will be generous.”

  “I assure you, my conditions will be demanding,” she countered.

  “Bella, you presume—“

  “Indeed, I do not, sir. You want a service which I can provide, but you cannot require me to render it. If I am to provide what you need, I must not be treated as a humble servant. I must be given the same respect that you would give to a fencing master or a commanding officer.”

  Laverly rose to his feet. “You are impertinent!”

  “Yes, I daresay I am. Do you accept that condition or do you not?” she inquired calmly.

  He considered a moment before resigning himself to answer. “I must.”

  “Yes,” she answered, that hidden mirth bubbling in her voice as if the world and its ways were a matter of endless amusement. “You must.”

  Respect was not her only condition. She expected him to obey her, however humbling the instructions. She would not tolerate excess of temper or lack of spirit, she told him. He was an officer under Wellington and she expected him to go into battle against his blindness with the same vigor that he had turned against the French. If he cursed at her or showed her intemperance, she would consider the contract ended.

  Laverly swallowed the words which rose to his mind and curtly agreed.

  “Very well,” she said. Then there was silence. “I have risen, my lord; will you not rise?”

  “I did not know,” he retorted.

  “You must learn to listen. The sound of my dress rustling as I stood up should have alerted you. You are young and healthy; you will call upon your other senses to come to your aid just as you would call upon your bayonet or your revolver in battle. They will not fail you. I will come back tomorrow morning at nine o’clock and we will begin.”