Luke looked surprised. “Our brother, of course. He’s our guardian, too. He says that we are a great trial to him.”
“He says that because we get him into trouble with the villagers and the servants.”
Lillian felt a little bewildered at this statement. “But isn’t he the Duke? I think I remember that much from when you found me.”
“He’s the Duke. But most of the servants and the people who work on the estate remember when he was even littler than us. So they all seem to think they are kind of like his guardians. We can’t even wiggle without someone telling on us.” Nicholas knit his eyebrows together in a fierce frown.
Lillian almost laughed, but she remembered how it had upset her when she was not yet out of the schoolroom for the adults to chuckle at something she had said that they thought humorous. “I can see where that would be a great trial to all three of you.”
Just then a maid came bustling in with a tray. “So that’s where you got off to!” she exclaimed. “Begging your pardon, Miss Doyle, but Tom Gardener has been looking all over for this precious pair.” She didn’t make the description sound like a compliment. “He dozed off for just a minute, and when he awoke their sums were done, and they were gone.”
Lillian heard the word gardener, and made a connection. “Perhaps this gardener fellow could tell you about the apples,” she suggested.
“Not him,” Luke said scornfully. “He’s not a real gardener, that’s just his name. He’s the footman Seb left in charge of us while he was talking to the physician and seeing about you. Only Seb never came back, and it is awfully dull in the classroom when we don’t have anything to do.”
This time Lillian did laugh. She couldn’t help it. “I can see where that would be. Perhaps the boys could stay and have tea with me. There is far more food there than I can hope to eat by myself.”
“Oh, could we?” a pair of beseeching eyes focused on the maid. “She is ever so jolly to talk to.”
The maid sighed. “I’ll tell Mr. Gardener where you are so he will stop fretting. I suppose it is your teatime, as well. I’ll tell Mrs. Blanchard so she will make it all right with Mr. Evans and with the cook. I’ll bring up some more food. Believe me, Miss Doyle, what is on this tray isn’t enough to fill up these two walking appetites.”
After the maid departed, Lillian commented, “I can see that they aren’t very respectful of you. But I suppose that is what happens when servants have had the raising of you. She does seem caring.”
“Oh, that’s Martha Louisa,” Nicholas volunteered. “She watches us sometimes. She’s nice, mostly. But she acts like she’s our big sister, not our maid.”
“So she does, indeed. I will wager that she has younger brothers and sisters.”
“A whole raft of them,” Luke nodded, carefully loading a small plate with dainties from the tea tray. “Here, now, you eat this up. You look like you could use a stiff fortifier.”
“How do you take your tea?” Nicholas asked, not to be outdone by his brother. “One lump or two?”
“Just the plain tea, please. It goes well with the scones that way. Do make plates for yourselves. We can get started on this while the maid is bringing back the rest.”
The boys drew stools up to the small bedside table, and fell to it like ravening wolves. Martha Louisa was correct in her estimation that added provender would be needed. In hardly any time at all, the pair had laid waste to what seemed to Lillian to be a prodigious amount of food.
Their cheerful chatter was just the medicine she needed, however. Their stories of their misadventures and all the things they had been caught doing around the estate frequently sent her into gales of laughter.
When Duke Parkforton came in search of his brothers, he found all three sipping tea while Luke was telling a story of how they had gotten caught in the mill race the previous spring. “So I was reaching for that fish with my net, and my foot slipped. Nick tried to grab me, but he just caught my jacket and it toppled him over and he fell in right after. Matt Hampton, the miller, was that mad at us! He said we were little limbs of Satan sent to torment him, and made us sit in the mill office until Seb got there.”
“Did you tell Miss Doyle that you fell in less than twenty feet from the mill wheel? I quite forgave Mr. Hampton his remarks, for I am sure that you gave him quite a fright. The estate heirs would have been quite a price to pay for the flour ground for the village bread that day.”
“We weren’t scared,” Nicholas put in. “And we can swim like fish. You said so yourself.”
“The mill race is a dangerous place to play. You were forbidden to go there, and you know it.”
Two dark heads hung low, and mumbles issued forth. “Didn’t mean nothing by it. Weren’t plannin’ to scare ‘im.”
“Did not mean to…Weren’t planning…that, my dear brothers is precisely the crux of the matter. What a ramshackle pair you are! I despair of making gentlemen of you.”
“Your Grace . . .”
“Yes, Miss Doyle?”
“They were excellent gentlemen and kind nursemaids for me today. They have been telling me of their adventures. They are well-liked, your younger siblings.”
“Why, so they are.” The Duke’s expression softened. “As am I. Our parents were deeply caring of their staff and tenants, and taught the principles of management to me. But unfortunately that does not mean that Nicholas and Luke do not give everyone on the estate gray hairs on a regular basis. I cannot be with them all the time, and they have the most dev… er, deuced talent for slipping custody of anyone assigned to watch them.”
“We need a mother,” Luke announced.
“Or at least a sister-in-law,” Nicholas affirmed.
“We like her,” Luke added. “Why don’t you marry her, Seb?”
Lillian colored right up into her hairline. The Duke cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. “Look, you two incorrigible match-makers, we have but met today. Marriage deserves a great deal of thought, consideration, and planning by all parties involved.”
“Awww,” the boys sighed in unison.
“But, since you like her . . . Miss Doyle, did you not say you had been a governess?”
“Why, yes, I did say that.”
“Then how would you feel about trying out as governess to these two rapscallions? They are, as you have noticed, quite the handful.”
“I might not be able to go about with them for a day or two,” she temporized. “But if they would be content to remain in the schoolroom for that time, I think we might do well. You can send in whomever you like to check on us, Your Grace. I do understand that your brothers are extremely important to you.”
“Very well, let us try it. Starting tomorrow morning. The next few days are likely to be unpleasant out-of-doors anyway. I believe you have brought winter weather with you, Miss Doyle.”
“It was rather cold,” she said.
“Snow? Is it snowing?” the boys bounced about excitedly.
“Not yet, you heathens. Right now, it is a miserable cold drizzle. But it does show promise of snow. I’ve had Bessie and your mount, Miss Doyle, brought down to the upper stables where they can be warm and dry, and there will be grooms to attend them.”
Chapter 8
As Sebastian had predicted, the next several days proved to be blustery and cold. All the stock were brought into the big barns, the furnaces in the orangeries were kept stoked, and the fireplaces in the main rooms and occupied bedrooms each had a cheery blaze on the hearth.
When Sebastian checked, the schoolroom, the boys’ rooms, and Lillian’s drawing room and bedroom were all toasty warm. Lillian had a snuffly nose and a bit of a cough, but seemed otherwise none the worse for wear in spite of what had apparently been a precipitous flight.
She seemed to be doing very well with the boys. Instead of trying to outwit her, they were in a sort of competition to see who could do the most for her, and best impress her. The result was that they were both showing amazingly excellent manner
s, and superb behavior.
For the first time in years, Sebastian felt he could breathe freely. The two footmen assigned to the schoolroom, Gardener and Stableman, gave good reports, as did the maid, Martha Louisa, who had been “told off” to take care of Miss Doyle’s needs as well as to clean the schoolroom and nursery environs. It was probable that the boys’ angelic behavior would not last, but for the time the entire household had a reprieve from their hijinks.
Thus it was that on a snowy morning, about a week into Miss Doyle’s tenure, Sebastian actually had time to settle in before his fire and read the papers delivered with the morning mail. He noted that Napoleon had been successfully delivered to St. Helena, where he was to live in exile, and that the fellows over at Cambridge University were using Mr. Fahrenheit’s mercury thermometers to measure temperatures. “It is cold, gentlemen, quite cold,” he said to the newspaper page. “Any fool could tell you that.”
Disgusted with the headlines, he turned to the descriptions of the summer cricket matches, and prospects for iceboating on the Thames. He quite missed a small article on the third page of the newspaper that told of a peer who had recently died after drinking from a contaminated bottle of wine, and whose wife was presumed to have added the poison to his drink.
Having quite finished with the paper, he handed it off to Martha Louisa to kindle the nursery fires.
Chapter 9
Oblivious to the tiny seed of information that was now lying in the firebox, Lillian conducted class. She discovered that the boys could add very well, but did not know their times tables. They could conjugate Latin, but tended to mix up the verb tenses in English. They could recite the entire saga of King Arthur, but were a little shaky on what a member of parliament should do. They could read broadsides, but struggled with more formal writing.
She supposed that this was natural. They were only eight, after all. The boys’ current assignment was to write a letter to their older brother. While Luke could be justifiably proud of his penmanship, and Nick’s was not bad, their spelling was best described as creative.
The quiet in the classroom was broken only by the soft popping of the fire on the hearth and the scratching of the children’s pens. The rain had turned into soft flakes of snow that drifted lazily past the window.
Left with only her thoughts to occupy her, Lillian began to idly draw snowflake patterns down the edge of the classroom record book, which just incidentally showed more than one sort of blot. She hoped to ask the Duke for a new one as soon as possible.
As she worked, she was suddenly aware of being watched. A pair of beady little eyes peered at her from behind her teacup and a delicate paw boldly stole a crumb from her plate. Lillian sat very still. Emboldened, the little creature sat up and nibbled at the crumb. Then, out of her peripheral vision, a grubby little hand flashed, and snatched the mouse up by its tail.
Thus captured, the mouse squeaked its surprise, and flailed about. “Sorry Miss Doyle. I don’t know how she managed to get out. Luke must not have fastened the cage good.”
“She has a cage?” Lillian asked in surprise.
“She does. The blacksmith, Tink Littlesmith, helped us make it out of some spare wire he had laying around.”
“I did not leave the cage door open,” Luke protested, thrusting his pen into the ink pot and getting up hastily from his desk. “I’ll prove it.”
He quickly trotted to their bedroom and came back with a square box made of finely woven wire. “See? Emmy Sue is right there in her nest.”
“Can we add this fine fellow to her quarters?” Lillian asked. “I don’t mind if he has my crumbs, but I’d rather not share living space with him.”
“Sure. Nothing easier.” Luke opened a cleverly made little hatch at the top of the cage, and Nick popped the wiggling rodent inside. The now terrified creature burrowed into the bedding at the bottom of the cage.
“How long have you been keeping mice?” Lillian asked.
“Since summer,” Nick replied. “Master Fusty Britches pitched such a fit about having one in the top drawer, we had to do something with Emmy.”
“Nick, that is not a respectful way to talk about an adult, especially one who was in charge of you.”
“Botheration, Miss Doyle. His britches were fusty. You could smell him a mile away. I don’t think he ever changed his small clothes.”
“Dear me! And your brother kept him on?”
“Oh, he cleaned up if Seb was due to pay a visit. Any time else, he had spots on his waistcoat and he smelled like an outhouse. That’s why we thought it was a good idea to shut him in the garderobe. We thought he’d be right at home.”
Lillian smothered a laugh. “Oh, dear. Boys, where do you keep your mouse?
“In our necessary or in the closet. It isn’t very nice for her, but Martha Louisa isn’t likely to let us keep her if she finds out we have a mouse.”
“Let me worry about Martha Louisa. I am pretty sure that the mouse you just dropped into the cage is a boy mouse, so we have the beginnings of some very interesting natural science observations.”
“Oh?” The boys looked at the cage with renewed interest.
“Yes. We will make some observation notebooks this afternoon, and you will write what you see happening each day.”
“Uh…Miss Doyle,” Nick looked embarrassed. “They are mice so, some of what we see might be just a little bit indelicate.”
“Quite so. But since they are mice, they are completely unaware of social niceties. You, however, may be circumspect in the way you word your observations, as long as they remain accurate.”
Letter writing forgotten, the boys looked into the cage intently. “One other thing,” Lillian added. “You will be responsible for making sure they have food and water, and for cleaning their cage. Since they are confined, they will have little opportunity to deposit their leavings in a civilized manner.”
“Well, now, that ain’t quite so,” Luke put in.
“Isn’t,” Lillian corrected. “Better yet, is not.”
“It is not quite so,” Luke went on. “Emmy Sue has a bathroom corner she uses. As long as we keep it cleaned up, her cage don’t smell.”
“Otherwise, Martha Louisa would’ve found her long ago.”
“I see.” Lillian suspected that the astute Martha Louisa, big sister to a healthy brood of youngsters, was fully aware that the boys had a caged mouse but had kept quiet about it. “Well, for now, please set Emmy Sue and Mr. Fusty Britches on top of the schoolroom bookcase where they can get some fresh air and light. Then go back to writing your letters.”
“Awww,” the boys sighed a protest, then went back to their writing.
Lillian watched the mice. The original resident, a sleek little brown mouse with large eyes, wiggled her nose at the newcomer. Mr. Fusty Britches tentatively poked his nose out of the bedding. When nothing untoward happened, he scampered over to the saucer of crumbs and cracked corn the boys had provided their pet. There, he began to eat hungrily. The newly captured mouse was a soft gray color, with small, beady eyes.
Emmy Sue sniffed at the newcomer, then settled in to nibble contentedly beside him. By the time the boys had finished their letter writing, and Martha Louisa brought in their afternoon tea, the mice were curled up together in a little brown and gray heap.
“See ya found tha mouse,” Martha Louisa said, confirming that she had known about it all along. “Well, at least you didn’t throw an unholy screaming fit like that last tutor.”
“Why should I? They are rather interesting, don’t you think?”
“Until they gets in yer dresser drawer,” the maid snorted derisively. “In that there cage, I reckon they are intr’stin’.” She set out the tea things on the scarred table that was used for classroom meals and for lessons in deportment.
“It’s my turn to seat Miss Doyle,” Nick announced.
“No, it’s my turn!” Luke declared. “Besides, you caught the mouse.”
“I should get to do it, because I
caught the mouse. I rescued our governess from a monster!”
“It is Nick’s turn,” Lillian intervened. “But if you wash your hands, you can pour the tea. Nick, you should wash up, too, especially since you touched the mouse.”
“That was one thing,” Nick grumbled as he held Lillian’s chair and pushed it in, “Old Fusty Britches didn’t make us wash up so much.”
“Mr. Trigent,” Martha Louisa put in, “wasn’t much for washing up his own self. But I like Miss Doyle’s ways much, better don’t you? Anyways, I had Mr. Stableman bring up a can of hot water and a new bar of soap.”
Luke acted as page to Lillian, bringing her a bowl of the warm water and a soft towel so that she could also wash her hands without coping with the intricacies of getting out of the heavy chair that sat at the head of the schoolroom table.
The Untold Tale of the Winter Duchess: A Historical Regency Romance Novel Page 4