They nodded solemnly and then filed into the room slowly, cautiously, and quietly. They went over to Harry and while they surrounded him, they were careful not to actually touch him.
“Are you all right?”
“You’re not going to die, are you?”
“Or be crippled?”
Only the youngest couldn’t ask any questions but even he stared worriedly at Harry. Suddenly the look on the colonel’s face softened. He looked at them each in turn. Then, as solemnly as they had asked him their questions, he answered them.
“I am going to be fine. I am not going to die. I am not going to lose my leg, if that is what you fear. I shall even, soon enough, be able to chase you around the park and catch you,” he concluded with a growl that seemed to delight the children.
Prudence dearly hoped that was true. Not only because the children patently wanted it to be, but for Harry’s sake as well. For the first time since the battle, a little of the pinched look had left his face and she was very grateful to see a hint of the smile she loved so dearly.
A glance showed her that Lord and Lady Darton were also staring at Harry, but almost as if they had never seen him before. And they were giving their offspring even stranger looks.
The children were oblivious. The eldest held out a hand to his uncle and said, “I’m very glad to hear it, sir.”
Harry took his nephew’s hand and then the others moved closer, too. But this time, instead of wariness there was a look of calm and indeed almost pleasure on his face.
From the other side of the room Lord Darton spoke, his tone jovial. “If she weren’t your wife, Harry, I’d say we should hire her as a governess to these brats. I’ve never seen them so well behaved!”
Harry flushed, betraying the fact that neither had he. The children, on the other hand, began to visibly bristle at the insult. Particularly when Lady Darton said thoughtfully, “Perhaps we ought to look into hiring someone like her, George.”
Prudence could guess only too well what the suddenly sullen looks on the children’s faces portended. Hastily she intervened.
“Well, I think them marvelously well-behaved children. And expect them to remain so. For I shall need them to help me coax Harry into the exercise the surgeon recommended. Will you help me?” she asked the four children.
Four vigorous nods answered her and the sullen looks vanished as quickly as they had come.
“We should be happy to.”
“How can we help?”
“Uncle Harry, you’d like us to help, wouldn’t you?”
Uncle Harry looked anything but delighted. Still, he managed to smile and reply, manfully, “Of course. My wife will tell you how you can, er, help.”
“Good. Now, children, I expect your uncle is tired. Why don’t we go back upstairs and you can show me your portion of the house. I can’t stay long for I am needed back downstairs soon but there should be time for a very quick tour.”
Whether it was because she had them thoroughly cowed, or because she had purposely not used the word nursery to the children, they agreed without arguing. A circumstance that once again seemed to astonish everyone else in the room. But they very politely took their leave of the adults as though they behaved this way every day.
Then, once again carrying the youngest and holding the hand of the second youngest, Prudence led the children out of the room and up the stairs. There she found several cozy rooms, all outfitted nicely for children. In the largest room was a table and chairs, bookshelves, and a young man who had the most harassed look on his face that she had ever seen. At the sight of them, he gave a gasp of relief, then began to lecture.
“I told you children not to leave the schoolroom! I only went to my room for a moment and you were to stay here, playing quietly. Not disturbing the adults in the house.”
“It was my fault,” Prudence said gently. “I gave them permission to come downstairs to see their Uncle Harry.”
The man threw up his hands. “You gave your permission. And did it never occur to you to consult with me, first? Of course not! Nor with Nurse, I suppose. She has been frantic looking for the littlest ones. They were to have had their baths now. The schedule for the day is in tatters. Who the devil are you, anyway?”
She felt a trifle abashed and almost apologized. But the children were looking at her with such pleas in their eyes that, instead, she stood her ground.
“I am Mrs. Langford. Colonel Langford’s wife. And I am very sorry if I disrupted the schedule, but it was important,” Prudence said coolly.
He gaped at her and she pressed her advantage. “I believe there may be more times this week that I shall need to take the children downstairs. I shall try to alert you ahead of time, but that may not always be possible.”
“Take them downstairs?” the tutor echoed. “Why on earth should you wish to do that? Lord and Lady Darton always come up here when they wish to see their children.”
“But Colonel Langford cannot climb the stairs as yet,” Prudence said gently. “The children must come to him.”
The tutor looked at her as if she had lost her wits and Prudence began to think that perhaps she had. Nor did it help that when he spoke, the tutor’s voice was tart and sarcastic.
“Oh, and I suppose the colonel has asked for them? Naturally he did so. Never mind that the entire staff knows that Lord Darton’s brothers greatly dis—”
Prudence cut him off before he could complete the words. In a bright, cheerful, and very loud voice she said, “Lord Darton’s brothers greatly dislike to be a nuisance! But Colonel Langford was injured in Spain and asked the children to help him get the exercise the surgeon recommended in order for his leg to heal properly.”
The tutor looked as if he would like to call her a liar to her face but did not quite dare. So he swallowed hard, bowed, and said, with a resigned sigh, “Of course, Mrs. Langford. But do, I pray, give me warning next time?”
“Of course, sir,” she answered in almost precisely the same tone as he.
The man seemed to relax then and turned to the children. He spoke a trifle sharply, telling the little ones to go in to the nursery where Nurse was waiting for them, and he told the older two to go and find books to read.
When they would have objected, wanting to spend more time with Prudence, she said, quite firmly, “No. I shall see you another day. For now you are to listen to your tutor.”
He looked surprised but pleased by her support, as if it were something to which he was unaccustomed. Indeed his voice thawed perceptibly.
If they did not part precisely as friends, at least they parted on amicable terms. Downstairs, outside the drawing room, Prudence found Lady Darton waiting for her and she did not look pleased at all.
“Are my children back in the schoolroom?” she asked stiffly.
“Yes. The two youngest are about to take a bath, the two eldest are with their tutor.”
Prudence eyed Lady Darton warily. Abruptly the other woman seemed to come to some decision for she said, “Come, let us go to my private parlor. I know that dinner is waiting but I should like to speak with you alone first.”
To ring a peal over her head no doubt, Prudence thought as she followed Lady Darton to a room at the back of the house. There Athenia turned to face Prudence. Her voice was severe but there was a betraying quiver as she said, “How did you know how to do that?”
Prudence blinked. “Know how to do what?”
“Speak to my children as you did. Bring them to see Harry. I shouldn’t have dared. He thinks I don’t know but he doesn’t like my children. At least I should have said so before today. None of my husband’s brothers like my children. And there are moments when I cannot blame them,” she said, the quiver more pronounced now.
Prudence could not think of a single word to answer and so she simply waited. After a moment Lady Darton began to pace about the room, her hands clasped in front of her.
“I try to be an excellent mother. I am just like my own. And yet it does not se
em to be enough. Nor does George, Lord Darton know how to handle matters any better than I. I thought we were doing well. I thought my husband’s brothers merely prejudiced against children. But today, when I saw how my children could behave, when I saw how Harry looked at them when they did, then I knew that I was mistaken. So I ask you again, how did you know what to do?”
Prudence felt a strong impulse to flee the room. Instead she sank onto the sofa. “I suppose,” she said slowly, “it is that I can still remember so clearly how it felt to be a child. What I wanted and what I needed.”
Lady Darton came to sit on the sofa beside Prudence. Her brow was wrinkled as she said, “I had not thought to try to remember. I thought it enough to simply do as my parents had done.”
“I am the niece of a diplomat, and my father was a diplomat as well,” Prudence said with a wry smile. “I have heard from my earliest days that one must endeavor to think as the other person thinks, to feel as the other person feels. It would seem to apply as much to children as to foreigners.”
“Or,” Athenia said, an odd and faraway look in her eyes, “perhaps husbands as well?”
Prudence blinked in some surprise. “Why, yes,” she said slowly. “Husbands as well.”
They looked at one another and then Athenia and Prudence both started to giggle. And that was the odd sight that greeted Lord Darton when he came in search of his wife and guest.
Chapter 15
The first week was something of a trial for everyone. Harry’s homecoming was not what anyone, including Harry, had ever expected. And Prudence was a decided complication. She turned Lord Darton’s household upside down without even seeming to mean to do so and the Langfords were hard put to comprehend her.
It was not that she tried to cause trouble. It was simply that she did not seem to understand the nature of the way things were done in Lord Darton’s household. She thought nothing of descending to the kitchen herself to fix Harry a particular food she thought he would like rather than conveying her orders to the staff.
To be sure, she did so in such a way that she did not offend the cook. And indeed she fast became a favorite among the staff. But it was, nonetheless, most disconcerting to Lord and Lady Darton, who were not accustomed to any guest taking such liberties in their household.
Nor did she refrain from giving her opinion upon a great many subjects that Lord Darton had always considered to be beyond the sphere of a lady. It was not, precisely, that he disagreed with her so much that he was simply stunned to have her render any opinion at all, though one would think his brothers' wives would have prepared him for such a thing. But this was his house and expected deference here!
As for Lady Darton, she was hard put to know what to think as she watched Prudence with the children and with Harry. Had she but known it, the emotion so strong in her breast resembled nothing so much as envy. And it was a sensation she had never felt before.
So it was that a week after her arrival George and Athenia met in Lord Darton’s study to discuss their new sister. And their discomfort over her presence in their household.
“What do you think of Harry’s wife?” Lord Darton asked cautiously. “She seems most unconventional to me.”
“She means well. And she is very fond of Harry, I think. She seems also, I think, capable of being a perfect lady when she decides to do so,” Lady Darton replied, choosing her words carefully. “And with some of my dresses made over for her, she looks the part.”
He was not convinced. “I know that she has been raised in diplomatic circles and one ought to find that encouraging but there are times when she says the most appalling things,” Lord Darton said with pardonable exasperation. “You know everyone will be watching and wondering about her. There are the most outrageous rumors about how she and Harry met and how they came to be married. What will she say or do if someone says such things to her directly?”
With the air of one taking a necessary but unpalatable medicine, Athenia replied, “We shall have to give a small party in their honor. If it is seen that we give Harry and Prudence our support no one will dare cavil at their marriage. London is rather thin of company at the moment but all the better. They will not be faced with a crush of people.”
“You do not mind?” George asked his wife doubtfully.
Athenia realized, with some surprise, that she did not mind at all. Perhaps Prudence had influenced her more than she knew, for suddenly she found herself behaving in the oddest manner. She and George had been sitting on sofas that faced one another but now she moved to sit at his side. She also took his hand in hers, startling both of them. It was an oddly pleasant gesture.
“Harry is your brother,” she said. “For that reason alone I should do everything in my power to help him.”
George blinked at her, then dared to slip his other arm around her waist. Cheered by the fact that she did not draw away, he even dropped a kiss on her forehead.
“You do not dislike having to appear to approve of Prudence?” he asked with some concern.
Lady Darton avoided her husband’s eyes. “I, er, Prudence is not perhaps what I would have chosen for Harry, but I think she will suit him.”
“You do?” Lord Darton peered closely at his wife. “Are you feeling well, my dear?”
Athenia looked at him then and a tiny corner of her mouth turned up into a smile. There was an oddly shy look on her face that reminded him of when they were courting, as she said, “She loves him, George. Truly loves him.”
“But when have you ever cared for that?” he asked, taken aback. “I cannot recall the number of times you have called love a vulgar emotion!”
If he expected her to look away, he was once again mistaken. She held his eyes with her own and her voice was remarkably steady as she said, “I used to think so. But I have begun to think, perhaps, that I have been mistaken. You and I, we were married for sensible reasons. Your father’s estate marched with that of my father. We were both sensible people, not given to vulgar displays of emotion. We both held rigid views of what was right and proper.”
“And that’s just as it should be,” he said stoutly.
“Perhaps,” she allowed. “But perhaps there is, or could be, something more.”
Now a look of alarm crossed Lord Darton’s face and he pulled both his arm from around her waist and his hand out of hers.
“What are you trying to say?” he asked, a hint of alarm patent in his voice. “Are you...are you trying to say that you have developed a tendre for someone?”
Now it was Lady Darton who looked a little afraid. But she swallowed hard and gathered up her courage. “Yes,” she said.
He rose to his feet and began to pace about the room. “Who?” he asked at last.
She gaped at him. “Why, George, I am talking about you!”
“Me?” he looked utterly taken aback. “You are talking about me?”
Lady Darton blushed and nodded. Lord Darton came a little closer. He peered closely at her face.
“You don’t wish to have an affair with someone else?” he asked, his voice still full of doubt.
Now she looked up at him, not hiding anything as she said, her voice husky with unaccustomed emotion, “Oh, George! I only want to have an affair with you!”
And that was why, half an hour later, the major domo stormed into the kitchens vowing to give notice immediately. For, as he said, “I chose to work here precisely because I knew it would be such a properly run house. But if the master and mistress are going to take to such goings on right in the master’s study, well, it is more than a body should be expected to bear!”
That, naturally, led to the other servants crowding around and demanding to know what he meant by “goings on.” The major domo felt a little relief in being able to describe in great detail the scandalous scene he had walked in upon. Tomorrow he would be overcome with shame at having been so indiscreet as to share this scene with anyone other than the housekeeper, but for the moment, he could not resist telling his tale.
Fortunately for Lord and Lady Darton, most of their servants were secret romantics and, for the first time since coming to this house, began to think of the master and mistress with genuine affection.
It was a presumption that would have offended Lord and Lady Darton. Nonetheless, it did lead to an immediate improvement in the level of happiness among the staff and the quickness with which they moved to serve.
Still, the interruption was enough to recall Lord and Lady Darton to their circumstances. As soon as was practical they did up each other’s clothes and made the mutual decision to go upstairs. That was how Harry came to meet them in the hallway.
“George?” Harry said, trying very hard to pretend he did not see that his brother’s buttons had been done up wrong.
“Er, yes, Harry? Is it urgent?”
“No, no, not urgent at all,” the colonel hastily replied. “I shall talk with you later. Er, your servant, Lady Darton.”
She blushed most becomingly and for the first time Harry began to understand what had drawn his brother to this woman. It was an entirely new vision for Harry and it was all he could do to bow and back away from the pair and reach the library before he collapsed in laughter on the so recently vacated sofa.
That was where Prudence found him.
“Are you all right?” Prudence asked doubtfully from where she stood in the doorway.
Harry waved to her. “Come in. And for heaven’s sake close that door! If any of the servants should see us we would be done for.”
Warily Prudence did as she was bid. She came to stand over Harry and feel his forehead with her hand. “Are you certain you are all right?” she asked again.
Harry choked back another snort of laughter. “Absolutely,” he told her solemnly.
Now her eyes narrowed. “Then what,” she asked, tapping her foot impatiently, “is this all about?”
Harry reached up a hand and drew her down to his side. Or at least that was what he thought he intended. Instead, somehow she ended up sitting on his lap. Which was not, he thought, an altogether bad thing.
The Sentimental Soldier Page 11