The Promise
Page 37
Rebecca left her husband’s side and reached for Nicholas’s hand. “You are not intruding. My heavens, that’s what friends are for. When I think of all the years that James and I were alone in Philadelphia! If it weren’t for the hospitality of our friends—especially at the holidays—how lonely we would have been!”
Nicholas brought the young woman’s hand to his lips. “Your kindness is touching, Rebecca, and you know how hopeless I am about denying you anything. But I’ve spent more than my fair share of holidays with that beast you call your husband. Besides, I understand you have some rather joyous news that you’ll be wanting to share with young James…”
The prettiest of blushes colored Lady Stanmore’s cheeks, and she glanced back at her husband.
“I am slightly better at keeping state secrets, my love.” Stanmore reached out and took her tightly into his embrace.
Nicholas stood and watched as his friends slipped into a world that included only the two of them. The bond that linked their hearts and their souls was so pronounced, so obvious…and Nicholas frowned at the unwanted ambivalence pulling at his own heart. As happy as he was for them, he could feel something else squirming about inside of him.
He looked away, forcing the frown from his face. Only a fool, he told himself, would be envious of a life that he has been avoiding like the plague.
He already had his overcoat on and was pulling on his gloves when the two became aware of him again. Nicholas couldn’t help but notice the protective touch of Stanmore’s hand on Rebecca’s waist, the intimate entwining of her fingers with his.
“Come anyway.” Stanmore spoke this time. “Come after the Christmas, if you must wait. You know my family likes to have you with us…though God only knows why. Seriously, though, I know James will be anxious to tell you about his term at Eton, and Mrs. Trent will love to fuss over you.”
Nicholas nodded. “I’ll do that. That is, if my mother and sister don’t go through with their threat of coming across from Brussels for a visit. From the tone of my mother’s most recent letter, the brat Frances has become too much for her to handle alone. The latest threat is to leave her in England so that she can finish her schooling here.”
“Well, that is very exciting news,” Rebecca chimed in.
“Not for me.” Nicholas shook his head and took his wide brimmed hat of soft felt from the doorman. “I know nothing about how to deal with sixteen-year-old children who talk incessantly, without the least semblance of reason…and still think themselves mature beyond measure.”
“There is a season for everything,” Stanmore countered as he and his wife followed Nicholas toward the door. “It is all part of the great scheme of life. Marriage. Children. Moving the focus of our attention from ourselves to those we love. As Garrick said so eloquently at Drury Lane the other night, ‘Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer.”
Any other time and Nicholas might have made some lighthearted retort about hump-backed, wife-murdering kings; but as he looked at Rebecca and Stanmore, the words knotted in his throat. Somehow, even the words ‘happy and carefree bachelor’ seemed difficult to conjure at the moment.
Nicholas leaned down and placed a kiss on Rebecca’s cheek. “Merry Christmas.”
Outside, the snow was coming down harder, the wind picking up in earnest. Nicholas pressed his hat onto his head and gave a final wave to his friends from the street. As the door closed against the weather, though, he found himself still standing and staring—considering for a moment the events that had brought such happiness to that house. He finally roused himself and turned to his groom.
“Go on home, Jack, and get warm. I believe I’ll walk from here.”
A gust of wind whipped at the capes of Nicholas’s overcoat, and the groom moved on as he was ordered.
The baronet turned up the collar of his overcoat and walked past the fashionable houses lining the square. The handsome windows were still lit in many, in spite of the lateness of the evening. It was the season for entertaining. A solitary leaf danced along the snow-covered street, pressed forward by a gust before being caught in a carriage track. The chill wind burned the skin of his exposed face, reminding him of the warm fire in the Stanmore’s library. The image of his friends in the foyer kept pressing into Nicholas’s thoughts.
The improvement in Stanmore was so marked. For all the years since his first wife had left him without a word—taking James with her and disappearing—he had been a tormented man. And now, since he’d found the lad and had married Rebecca, Stanmore was so obviously happy. ‘Fulfilled’ was perhaps the best word. The change was stunning…miraculous, perhaps.
It was not long before Nicholas’s house on Leicester Square came into view, but he was far too restless to settle in for the night. The snow was beginning to let up, so he turned his steps toward St. James’s Park.
Since coming back from the colonies over ten years ago, Nicholas Spencer had worked diligently to keep his life as uncomplicated as possible. He had wanted no ties. He had endeavored to inflict no pain. During his years as a soldier, he’d seen enough suffering in those wounded and killed, and enough anguish in those families that were left to endure the loss, to cure him of ever desiring any kind of attachment. Life was too fleeting, too fragile.
Somewhere over the years, he’d also found that women were more than willing to put themselves in his path for their mutual amusement and enjoyment. Live while we can. Carpe diem. No harm in it for anyone.
Wealth only meant having enough for good clothes, good horses, a little meaningless gambling, and a bit of concealed philanthropy. It mattered little to him that the most polite reaches of society scoffed at his roguish lifestyle. He knew that they perceived him as a gambler and a womanizer, as a sportsman who had chosen to shrug off the responsibilities of his position in society.
And Nicholas Spencer did not dispute this reputation. He was proud of it. He’d earned it. He’d worked hard to establish it. He had never wanted to be answerable to anyone.
So when, he thought, had he become so discontented?
He strolled through an open gate onto the tree-lined walks of St. James Park. The usual prostitutes and gallants who frequented the park—even this late—appeared to have searched out warmer haunts, out of the wind and the weather. He left the paved walk of the mall, moving out into the open field, his boots crunching on the dry snow.
Indeed, he was as independent as an eagle, but something unexplainable was happening to him. Why, for example, had he felt driven to spend so much time over the past six months with Rebecca and Stanmore? Of course he cared for them deeply, but spending time in their company often did nothing to lift his spirits. On the contrary, it only served to point up how empty and insignificant his own life was, in comparison with theirs.
Fight it as he may, it seemed a desire for belonging, for permanency, had been edging into Nicholas’s heart. It was an odd sensation, new to him, though he knew it was a condition as old as time. Nonetheless, he didn’t want to believe it. He was happy with who he was.
Or so he thought…
“Spare a ha’penny, sir? Jist a ha’penny fer my sister an’ me?”
Out the dark shadows of a grove of trees, he saw the boy’s scrawny bare arms extended in his direction. Nicholas paused to look at him.
“A ha’penny, sir?” Walking on feet wrapped in dirty rags, the waifish figure came cautiously nearer. The top of his head barely reached Nicholas’s waist. Even in the darkness, the boy was pale as death, and the baronet could hear his teeth chattering from the cold.
Nicholas glanced past the thin shoulders of the child toward the bundle of bare legs and arms curled into a ball and lying motionless beneath the tree. Hanks of long dark hair covered the other one’s face.
“Is that your sister?”
The boy tugged at Nicholas’s sleeve. “A ha’penny, sir...”
He teetered slightly, and the baronet put out a hand to him. As Nicholas took hold of the boy’s arm to support h
im, he was immediately dismayed by the thin ragged shirt that covered the bony frame. He took his gloves and his hat off and handed them to him.
“A ha’penny, sir?”
It wasn’t until Nicholas had taken off his overcoat and was draping it around the boy that he smelt the spirits emanating from the child.
“If you and your sister follow me to a safe house I know, I’ll see to it that there is hot food and warm clothes…and half a shilling in it for you.”
Dwarfed by the size of the clothes, the boy stared at him blankly and said nothing.
“No harm will come to you or your sister, lad. You have my word on it.”
Nicholas turned his attention to the girl on the ground. She was much smaller than the boy and, as he pushed back the dark mangle of hair, the baronet was stunned by the angelic look of innocence in the sleeping face. Like the brother, she was dressed in nothing more than thin rags that barely covered her. He touched her face. It was deathly cold.
Nicholas immediately gathered the child in his arms, stood up, and turned to the brother. The boy was gone.
The frail bundle of bones and skin in his arm concerned him more, however, so he started across the park in the direction of the house on Angel Court, off King Street. There, he knew, a couple of good souls would look after this child while he searched out the brother.
The loss of his coat and hat was not what concerned him. The boy was welcome to them. What bothered Nicholas was the money he would be finding in the pockets. There was enough there to keep a man drunk for a fortnight. For a child who would use it for pouring spirits and beer down his throat, there was enough money there to kill him.
The girl weighed no more than a kitten, and Nicholas frowned fiercely at the smell of alcohol that her body reeked of, as well. The excessive drinking of both rich and poor was still one of the curses of England. While the rich could afford to take care of themselves and their families, though, the misery of the poor passed early on to their children.
A face appeared at the window when Nicholas knocked at the house on Angel Court. At the sound of his voice, the door quickly opened. The old woman’s face, bright with recognition, immediately darkened when she saw the bundle in Nicholas’s arms.
“I found her in the park.” He brushed past her. “I think she is unconscious with drink…though the cold surely hasn’t helped her any.”
The old woman hurriedly opened up a door to the right, leading him into a large room where a small fire spread a warm glow over a dozen beds lining the walls. A few children peeked from beneath their blankets, wide-eyed with curiosity.
“Which one, Sadie?”
The old woman pushed a basket of mending off an empty bed, and Nicholas laid the child gently on the clean blanket.
“Go fetch Martha for me, dear,” Sadie said to a boy on the nearest cot.
As the child hurried out of the room, Nicholas stood back, watching the older woman’s wrinkled hands at they moved over the girl’s face and neck.
He was no expert on children’s ages, but he guessed this young one couldn’t have been more than five. Small curled hands lay on the blanket. Dirty feet stuck out from beneath her rag of a dress. Nicholas’s gaze was drawn to the dark hair framing the innocent features of the face. Long eyelashes lay peacefully against cheeks pale beneath the dirt.
Looking at her, Nicholas found his mind racing, planning. The city was a difficult place for a child on her own. Perhaps he could bring this helpless waif to Solgrave when she was a little better. He was certain Stanmore wouldn’t mind it, and Rebecca would embrace the idea. After all, they had given shelter to Israel, and he was a new lad entirely after only six months. She would thrive in the country. She could go to the village school in Knebworth. She could become a child again.
Sadie’s sharp glance in his direction stopped him. He went nearer, and the woman stood up.
“The poor thing has already gone to her Maker, sir.”
He stared at the woman’s mouth as she quietly spoke. A sudden need to deny her words welled up in him, but he restrained the utterance.
He took a step back. With a slight nod, he turned and in a moment was on the street.
Oblivious to the harshness of the winter night or the time, Nicholas Spencer walked the streets. The injustice of such a death was so wrong. And more innocents—helpless and dying—surrounded him. And what he had been doing about it was clearly not enough.
A shelter here and there. A house to offer meals and a safe bed off the street. All well and good, but where did these children go from here? How had his insignificant acts of charity in any way changed their lives? What had he done to keep them from ending up drunk or abused or dead on the streets?
There had to be something more that he could do. A house in the country where they could grow up healthy. A school where they could learn to fend for themselves. They needed something like a permanent home.
Suddenly, he found himself back at Berkeley Square, staring up at the darkened windows of his friends. Even the night and winter could not hamper the glow of warmth radiating from inside.
Nicholas was getting old and he was terrified of it. The admission hurt less than he’d imagined. But for so long, he’d been battling the emptiness and coldness of his life, that now coming to terms with his ailment was an incredible relief.
An image of the innocent face of the dead child came before his eyes. His life had become a waste and there was so much more that he could do. He would need to make a few changes, though. A new life for himself. A real home where he could truly influence the fate of these lost souls.
But such a thing required a wife, and where on earth would he find her?
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
EPILOGUE
About the Author
CHAPTER 1