Bear No Malice

by Clarissa Harwood

  The boy in the naval hat wandered to the back of the church and asked Tom if he could sit with them.

  “Of course. You’ve taught your men very well, Captain. I’m going to promote you to admiral, if that’s acceptable to you.”

  “Yes, sir.” The boy squeezed in beside Tom, who shifted closer to Miranda to make room. She could feel the warmth of his arm against hers through the sleeve of his coat. There was enough room in the pew for her to move away from him, but she didn’t. The toddler was asleep in her arms and she didn’t want to disturb him; Amy was leaning contentedly against her other shoulder. Most powerful of all, though perhaps not as good a reason, was her desire to be as close as Tom as possible.

  When the ceremony was over, Simon and Gwen marched back down the aisle to the front foyer and were immediately mobbed by well-wishers. Nobody seemed to notice Tom, Miranda, and the three children in the shadows of the back pew. Miranda was glad of it. Amy seemed to have fallen asleep against her shoulder, and the newly promoted admiral had done the same on Tom’s other side, so they were well and truly hemmed in.

  “How did you do it?” Miranda whispered to Tom.

  “Do what?”

  “You solved all the problems in a matter of minutes. You calmed everyone down and made them do what they were supposed to.”

  He smiled. “You forget I’m a clergyman. I’m used to the madness that goes along with weddings.”

  “This much madness?”

  “Well,” he admitted, “this was more than usual. But the children just needed to use their energy for good instead of evil. The groomsman had merely forgotten which pocket he’d put the ring in. And it was the first wedding the officiant had conducted, so he just needed some guidance.”

  “And Gwen’s horrible sisters? What did you do with them?”

  “Some people need to stay away from each other. I gave them a strongly worded suggestion to sit at opposite sides of the sanctuary.”

  “Thank you.” She looked up at him, risking the possibility that he’d see more than just admiration in her eyes.

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “I like solving problems. The most important thing is that Simon and Gwen are married and nobody has been seriously injured in the process.”

  “Yes. And Gwen’s hair looked perfect to me, even though she was upset about something the hairdresser had done to it. She looks beautiful.” Miranda glanced at her new sister-in-law through the crowd of people in the front foyer.

  “So do you,” Tom said.

  Miranda glanced at him in confusion. He was definitely looking at her, not Gwen, and his eyes were warm. “I’ve never seen you wearing anything but black or gray.”

  Not knowing how to respond, she looked down at her rose-pink silk dress. It was relatively plain for wedding attire, but it did have lace trim and a velvet sash. “Gwen forbade me to wear black. She said she didn’t want anyone to mistake her wedding for a funeral.”

  “That seems like a reasonable request from her perspective. I thought you’d be in the wedding party.”

  “No, Gwen has so many sisters there wasn’t room for me. I don’t mind.” She lowered her head to breathe in the warm, sweet scent of the sleeping child.

  Their conversation was interrupted by the vicar, who approached them and said to Tom, “Sir, you didn’t tell me your name. I’d like to thank you properly for your help. I’m glad you brought your wife, too. What a lovely family.”

  Miranda was in an agony of embarrassment. She didn’t dare look at Tom. Of course they must look like a perfect family tableau, the parents sitting close together with the two older children leaning against their shoulders and the youngest one asleep in the mother’s arms.

  Tom and Miranda spoke at the same time.

  “No, they’re not—”

  “He isn’t—”

  Rose saved them by swooping in to fetch her children. It turned out that the admiral and Amy were hers, but the little one in Miranda’s arms belonged to another sister. In the ensuing confusion and bustle of people collecting their children and the vicar apologizing for his mistake and thanking Tom profusely for his help, Miranda slipped away.

  She went into the graveyard again and stood by the same tree where she and Simon had hidden before the ceremony. There was a chill in the air, and the sun had gone into hiding. Her arms and back ached from having held the little boy for so long. She realized that she didn’t even know his name. She stared at the inscriptions on the gravestones. Near “William Gresham, beloved husband” was “Sarah Stott, safe in the arms of Christ” and “Our Darling Jane, gone too soon,” whose dates indicated she had died at the age of four.

  She felt guilty. She had no right to be shocked by the vicar’s assumption when she wanted so badly for it to be true. Not for Tom to be her husband or for those particular children to be hers, but for everything they represented. All she had ever wanted, even as a child, was to have a family of her own. She had grown up dreaming of a loving husband and five or six adorable children. Even when she was old enough to laugh at herself for imagining that perfect family, she still wanted it.

  She was glad her younger self couldn’t have guessed how her dreams would be crushed later. Richard had destroyed that innocent girl. And then there was Sam, who made up for everything she’d lost, but he had been taken from her, too. After the operation, she’d still held on to her desire for a family, despite what the doctor told her. She remembered very little of the immediate aftermath of Sam’s birth, only that she seemed to be drowning in a sea of blood. Later, the doctor used clinical words to explain what had gone wrong, words that masked the fact that her life was changed forever. Postpartum hemorrhage. Hysterectomy. “You nearly died,” he’d added. “You ought to be grateful.” She hadn’t been grateful then, and she wasn’t grateful now.

  She hoped Tom hadn’t sensed what she was feeling. She could tell from watching him at the wedding that he’d be a good father: he’d treated Gwen’s wild little nephews with exactly the right balance of warmth and firmness. Whatever had happened with his own father, he was naturally good with children.

  “You idiot,” she said aloud. It didn’t matter what sort of father Tom would be if or when he married. It had nothing to do with her. She would never have what she wanted most, and she ought to have learned by now that the pain of forcing herself back to reality wasn’t worth the few minutes of joy she received from her fantasies.

  She made herself return to the church with a smile on her face to congratulate the happy couple.

  10

  After all, what would life be without fighting, I should like to know? From the cradle to the grave, fighting, rightly understood, is the business, the real, highest, honestest business of every son of man. Every one who is worth his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, be they evil thoughts and habits in himself or spiritual wickednesses in high places, or Russians, or Border-ruffians, or Bill, Tom, or Harry, who will not let him live his life in quiet till he has thrashed them.

  —Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown’s School Days

  If that isn’t the finest cigar you’ve ever had, I’ll eat my hat!” exclaimed Alastair Bourne.

  “It’s very good,” Tom said, smiling at his friend’s exuberance.

  “The finest. Admit it, Cross,” Alastair insisted.

  “Very well, then, the finest, but I’m only saying so because I’d hate to see a good hat go to waste.”

  Alastair made a grimace that may have been meant as a smile and leaned back in his chair to savor his cigar. He was an aristocrat with mild blue eyes and fair hair that was thinning on top despite his mere thirty years. The two men had been part of a group of friends at Cambridge who still kept in touch with one another, though their career paths had diverged substantially. Bourne dabbled in politics, but his true passions were hunting, gambling, and smoking cigars, not always in that order.

  Tom and Alastair were in the smoking room at the Athenaeum, Alastair’s club. Alastair had insisted that Tom be his guest
that afternoon. Tom would rather have met elsewhere because the Athenaeum was also Charles Carrington’s club and Tom, naturally, preferred to avoid places where Julia’s husband might be. The smoking room was an oasis of masculine privilege, with its mahogany tables and chocolate-brown leather chairs, the leather as soft and supple as a woman’s body. “Nearly all the pleasures of feminine company with none of the annoyances,” Alastair often proclaimed. It was difficult not to succumb to the sensuous pleasures of taste and touch offered by this room, but Tom had too many things on his mind to be swayed by them today.

  Alastair set down the stub of his cigar on the nearest ashtray and sighed. “That was my last ‘Romeo y Julietta.’ I’ve had my valet order more, but the shipment’s been delayed for some unknown reason. I’ll have to bear the loss bravely, don’t you think? I say, Cross, you look like the dog’s breakfast. What’s the matter?”

  “It’s nothing,” Tom lied. “I’ve had some trouble sleeping lately, that’s all.”

  “Working too hard, as usual, I assume.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Nevertheless, you ought to step back from time to time and let others do some of the work. You can’t reform the whole world single-handedly. Besides, it’s been months since you’ve spent an evening with your old chums—why do you think we didn’t even notice you were away for so long?”

  “I know. But the old dean isn’t expected to live much longer, and I need to impress the bishop if I want the deanship. That means more work.”

  “You’ve already impressed him, haven’t you? And look at your competition. That pretentious Paul Harris doesn’t have a chance. He’s too young, not to mention too out of touch with reality, to be a threat.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Tom said grimly.

  “Well, you’d best enjoy that cigar, as it’s the only pleasure you seem to allow yourself. You know, sometimes I forget you’re Anglican, with your determination to abstain from everything enjoyable in life, from liquor to gambling to women. You’re not turning Methodist on me, are you, old man?”

  Tom merely raised his eyebrows and smiled. He was used to his friend’s raillery.

  After a brief silence, during which both men contemplated their cigars, Alastair said, “Do you know anything about an illegal pugilism club that uses an abandoned factory in the East End?”

  “No,” Tom said, too quickly. “Why do you ask?”

  “My valet, Henry, has gotten himself into some sort of trouble with this club. He admitted to placing bets on the fighters, but he’s denied doing any of the fighting himself. I don’t know if I believe him, since he’s had some suspicious injuries in the past few weeks. He’s tried to hide them, of course, but it’s not easy to hide black eyes and bruises on the face.”

  “Why would I know anything about it?”

  “Because of your work with inmates at the prison. Most of the lads involved in the club have been locked up at one time or another, if what Henry says is true.”

  “There are probably several illegal clubs of that sort in the East End,” Tom said.

  “Well, it’s no matter. I just thought if you knew where the club might be, I could find out if Henry is lying to me or not. He’s a good valet, so I’d hate to see him get mixed up with these toughs or even get himself killed.”

  “I’ll keep my ears open the next time I visit the prison,” Tom said. “If I hear anything useful, I’ll tell you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I ought to go,” Tom said, shifting in his chair and eyeing the door.

  “Already? You haven’t even finished your cigar. Stay a little longer, for God’s sake—er, sorry—and tell me what you’ve been doing lately. Working for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Persons of Diminutive Size? For the Betterment of Badgers? Against the Adulteration of Adulterers?” Alastair laughed heartily at his own joke.

  Tom didn’t find the joke particularly amusing, but he could afford to be patient with Alastair, who had always been a generous supporter of Tom’s reform work. Although he wasn’t a religious man, Alastair seemed to believe that the bad things he’d done were canceled out by the money he donated to good causes, despite Tom’s oft-repeated reminder that indulgences were not part of Anglican doctrine. In truth, Tom understood Alastair’s motives only too well, as his own were the same. He just substituted good deeds for money.

  The two men continued their conversation for a short time longer, speaking of people they knew and of Alastair’s planned hunting trip at his cousin’s estate in Scotland. As Tom left the smoking room and made his way to the entrance hall, he was deep in thought about his plans for the rest of the day and didn’t notice William Narbridge and Charles Carrington until it was too late to avoid them. If he had to make a list of people he didn’t wish to see, they would be at the top.

  “The Athenaeum has lowered its standards lately,” Narbridge was saying to Carrington. “If every Tom, Dick, and Harry gets in, I’ll be leaving. Oh, look, here’s Canon Cross.” The railway magnate never missed an opportunity to mock or discredit Tom.

  “Good day, gentlemen,” Tom said, assembling his features into what he hoped was a pleasant expression.

  Unlike Narbridge, whose face looked like it was carved from rock, there was nothing prepossessing about Carrington’s appearance—he was of average height and build, in his late thirties, with slightly stooped shoulders. Tom was likely not the only person who assumed his money was the only attraction for Julia. He did have a distinctive voice, though, as deep and melodious as an operatic baritone’s.

  “I’ve just come from the cathedral,” Carrington said. “I was hoping to speak with you.”

  “Oh?” was all Tom could manage in a casual tone. Carrington knew that Julia had consulted Tom about religious matters, but he had never sought Tom out before. Had she told her husband about her affair with Tom, or even about her pregnancy? Tom had to remind himself to breathe.

  “Could we speak privately?” Carrington said, with a quick glance around the entrance hall.

  “We’ll continue our conversation later, Carrington,” Narbridge said. With a dismissive nod in Tom’s direction, he left.

  Tom struggled to maintain his impassive expression. “Would you rather meet at the cathedral?”

  “Yes. Would tomorrow suit you?”

  “I don’t have time tomorrow. Perhaps next week.” He had to concentrate in order to look the other man in the eye.

  They made arrangements to meet at the cathedral the following week, and Tom left the club. His first clear thought was that he shouldn’t have put Carrington off. It would be maddening to wonder for a whole week what he wanted to talk about.

  He told himself it was unlikely Carrington had found out about Tom’s relationship with Julia because he had seen no anger in the other man’s eyes. On the other hand, Carrington might be so mild-mannered that no betrayal was serious enough to lead him to a public display of anger. Or perhaps he was cleverer than he looked, crafty enough not to show his true feelings in order to lull Tom into a false sense of security. If Carrington had been behind the attack on Tom—and Tom still thought him the most likely suspect—he would have much invested in playing the role of the innocent, trusting husband.

  Tom hadn’t heard from Julia since their conversation in the cab more than two months earlier, though not for lack of trying. As soon as they had parted that day, he’d regretted his harsh response to the news of her pregnancy, and the next day he wrote to her asking for another meeting. She hadn’t responded. She hadn’t attended any of the cathedral services since December, either, and he’d been worried enough to make discreet inquiries about her health. Apparently she was well, only visiting friends in the country. Had she visited the doctor she’d spoken of and needed time to recover? Or had she decided to keep the baby? Part of him hoped she had, despite his initial reaction and the many difficulties such a decision would lead to.

  When the vicar had mistaken Tom, Miranda, and their charges
for a family at Gwen and Simon’s wedding, Tom’s first thought had surprised him: he wanted it to be true. Why shouldn’t he be a father of legitimate children and have a wife like any other man? And Miranda ought to be a mother: she had held that little boy so naturally and lovingly, and her gentleness had clearly made that timid little girl feel safe. But then he’d come to his senses and remembered that such a life was not for him. There was plenty of evidence that he’d be a terrible husband, and given his own upbringing, it was likely he’d be a terrible father as well.

  Miranda had disappeared so quickly after the vicar’s blunder that Tom couldn’t help but think she had been shocked and dismayed to be mistaken for his wife. He knew she was disappointed by his failure to tell her the truth about his name and profession, and she was certainly more distant with him in London than she’d been at the cottage in Surrey.

  Simon had said she’d never marry. Tom needed to find out more about that. While he was not the man for her—his feelings for her were those of a friend, not a lover—perhaps her objections could be overcome if he could find a good man among his acquaintances. Though in truth, he couldn’t imagine any man good enough for her. She’d been a revelation to him at the wedding, and not only because of her sweet way with the children. Wearing that rose-colored dress and with her hair arranged in a flattering style, she had a unique, ethereal beauty.

  That evening, he went to visit the Thornes. He’d been thinking a great deal about Jack, having visited the textile factory where he worked a few times, and he was hoping his friends might think of ways to help the boy. It was the first time he had visited their modest redbrick house in Holborn.

  As the foursome settled themselves in the drawing room, Miranda and Tom in armchairs across from each other and Gwen and Simon together on the sofa, Tom wondered how Miranda was adjusting to being relegated to the periphery of Simon’s life. He hadn’t had an opportunity to converse privately with her since the wedding, and he knew better than to judge her feelings by her placid mien in the presence of others.