He shrugged. “A man has his pride.” Then as the laughter drifted off, he bent to gather a windfall apple. “You’ll find love of your own one day, Moll.” He shot her a sly, sideways glance. “If you haven’t already.”
Disinclined to talk further on that subject, she snatched the juicy apple out of his hand and walked on.
***
“Well, it took you long enough to come looking for that young lady,” Mrs. Lotterby exclaimed when finding Carver on her doorstep.
“I do not think she wanted me to look for her, madam. She made that clear when she left me.”
The woman groaned. “How many years have you lived, sir?”
“Three and thirty.”
“As I thought. Then you should know that sometimes women don’t mean what they say.”
“Yes, I suppose it might make life too easy for men if they did.”
The landlady woke her napping husband with a sharp nudge of the elbow, and he sat bolt upright in his rocking chair. “Yon fellow has come for our Molly. Look lively, Herbert. Tell him what you said you would if you ever saw him face-to-face.”
Carver stepped into the light of the fire. “I hoped you might know where she’s gone. I know she left here some weeks ago.”
“She’s gone home o’ course,” Mrs. Lotterby exhaled impatiently, still prodding her sleepy husband.
“Home?”
“To Sydney Dovedale.”
“Do you know that for sure?” He’d never have expected her to go back there, but he’d written to his sister just in case. Mercy had replied with a letter full of details about her wedding plans but no news of Margaret Robbins. “Did she tell you that?”
“The young lady was very close lipped and would not say where she meant to go, but it was no great difficulty to come to that conclusion,” her landlady answered crisply, hands clasped under her ample bosom, her bright eyes boring into him. “Where else would a poor girl go but home when she finds herself in trouble?”
Herbert Lotterby lurched to his feet, smoothed down a few wisps of thin gray hair, and cleared his throat loudly. “Now look here, young man, that little lady deserves to be loved and looked after properly. She’s a good girl, kindhearted and true to a fault. I’ll not have her misused. For all you’re a nobleman, sir, it won’t stop me standing up for her.”
“But I would never—”
“We all know what goes on in this world, young man, but I won’t have that little lady treated ill by you or anyone. She’s like a daughter to us.”
“I certainly—”
“Our Molly is a very special girl.” The landlady’s tiny husband stepped closer, puffing out his chest. “I demand to know your intentions, young sir!”
Fortunately, at that moment, Edward Hobbs came in and averted everyone’s attention. “Mrs. Lotterby, perhaps you would take his lordship and me to your sister’s room?”
Her eyes slowly grew rounder. “Oh! You’ve come to—”
“Yes, madam. I always knew the day would come when he must be told, and recent developments now make it necessary. It is best for all concerned parties that the truth be known to them.”
“Well, I have not spoken a word of it, just as I promised his father when I passed the child over to him. Not a word to—”
“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Lotterby, for all that you’ve done. Will you take us up?”
Hobbs gestured for Carver to walk ahead and follow the landlady up the narrow, crooked stairs to the upper floors of the house.
“I do hope it won’t be too much of a shock to her,” Mrs. Lotterby whispered, opening the door and stepping aside for him. “It has been so many years.”
Carver walked slowly into the room, and Hobbs followed. The door was closed behind them. The old lady lay in her bed, wearing a white lace cap. At the sound of footsteps, her eyes opened.
She looked directly at Carver, and a slow smile lifted her face. Her dark eyes, one moment black and the next silver-gray—just like his—shone with pleasure and more than a little mischief.
“My fine son,” she whispered. “So like your father. How you’ve grown.”
He stared at the old woman on the bed, and it felt as if the warped floorboards under his feet were about to give way.
Delilah held out her frail hand.
“Come and sit with me a while. I won’t keep you long, young man.”
Hobbs silently moved a chair next to the bed, and Carver sat before he lost the use of his legs.
“Now, my dear boy,” his mother whispered, “you must tell me how you mean to win that sweet Miss Robbins back.”
***
Carver swept into his library, and with a trembling hand, poured two brandies, passing one quickly to Hobbs.
“You knew. All this time. Why was I never informed?”
“My lord, your father felt he had no choice. When the first son was born, it was a difficult birth, and he was told the countess may never carry a babe to term again. After the boy died, the earl was desperate for an heir, and when he learned his mistress was with child, he decided to make the best of it. If the child was a boy, he would bring him to the estate and raise it as a son of his legal marriage.”
Carver suddenly felt no appetite for brandy and set his glass on the desk. He wanted to keep a level head. With his world tipping and swaying, he needed one thing at least to remain stable. Margaret wasn’t there to keep him sensible, so he must rely on himself.
Hobbs continued, “I made the arrangements. Delilah and her sister were given the boarding house as a gift and sworn to secrecy. They were too in awe of your father to speak a word to anyone. He did have a talent for striking fear into people’s hearts. As you know, my lord.”
“Yes. He did it to me quite effectively all my life, with or without a cane in his hand.” The solicitor sipped his brandy and sighed. “The countess remained in the country that winter for her ‘confinement.’ When you were born, I wrapped you up and rode with you through the snow to Sussex, where I put you into your father’s hands. Thus it was done.”
Carver dropped into his chair behind the desk. “So my true mother has lived in that damp, decrepit house ever since?”
“Sadly, your father made no provision for the lady in his will. He was not a man who thought a great deal about the difficulties of others.” Hobbs bowed his head apologetically. “I have done what I could to help the sisters over the years, but my own funds were always tightly budgeted. Thank goodness they are two honest, uncomplicated, kindhearted ladies who would never go back on their word to your father, or they could have demanded much more than he ever thought to give them.”
Head in his hands, Carver was slowly coming to terms with his true identity. “Then I owe you much recompense, Hobbs, for taking care of my mother all this time. Something my father failed to do.”
“You have done much for them yourself in recent months, even without knowing the intimate connection.”
Carver stood and paced. “I did all that for Margaret.”
“Yes, my lord, I know.”
Falling back into his chair, he linked his fingers behind his head and stared at the portrait of the countess above his mantel. “Then none of this is mine, Hobbs. I am not legally entitled to it.” Suddenly he felt a laugh bubbling out of him, but it was a painful one, and there was nothing merry about it. “I always knew, somehow, I didn’t belong.”
“Oh, do you think so, my lord?” Hobbs raised a thick gray eyebrow. “I always thought how perfectly you did fit.”
He snorted. “I never could do anything right in my father’s eyes. As for my mother…” He paused. “I suppose I should call her his wife, the countess…she could scarcely look at me, and now I know why. I was a deceit. I was one of those dirty secrets that lurked in shadowy corners of the house. Always fluttering in the corner of my eye.”
Hobbs finished his brandy and looked wistfully at the decanter. “Forgive me, my lord, but rather than dwell upon the past, should you not look to the future? Think not of
how you came to be where you are, but of what you can do while you’re here. Now you have discovered the truth, it is up to you what is done with it.”
Hobbs was right. It was all up to him whether he kept the secret. Did he give everything up for Felix, his distant, unlikeable cousin? Did he strip himself of the title and…do what? He would suddenly be an ordinary man. Perhaps Hobbs could make him a clerk in his firm, he mused.
Aha! Margaret Robbins would not run from him then, would she? She would prefer him as a humble fellow, surely.
But if he gave everything up, he would have to forget about funding that school for orphaned boys. Just as he’d found his purpose and learned how to make something good out of his life, it could all be ripped away from him.
As Hobbs said, he had much to consider.
“I’ve put too much on your shoulders all these years, Hobbs,” he muttered, looking up at his friend and counselor. “It’s time I took things in hand and stopped throwing everything at you.”
“That would be nice, my lord.”
There was a pause, and then both men laughed.
One thing Carver knew with certainty: He didn’t want to be like his father. He finally had a chance to choose his own future, just as he’d wanted since he was ten.
Whatever he chose, he would be his own man.
Twenty-six
The wedding of Lady Mercy Danforthe and Rafe Hartley took place in the chapel at Sydney Dovedale where, seven months before, he was supposed to wed Molly Robbins. It was an intimate affair, and the bride wore scarlet.
“What else would she wear?” grumbled that professional scold, Mrs. Flick. An uninvited bystander, she peered over the mossy churchyard wall that afternoon to see the newlyweds emerge under a flurry of rice.
Molly, close enough to hear the comment, replied briskly, “A wedding is a joyful occasion, Mrs. Flick. If you have nothing pleasant to say, I suggest you move on and don’t tarry here.” But the woman who made an occupation out of shaming others was never easily shamed herself. She glared boldly back at Molly over the wall and pointed with a gnarled finger.
“You’re no better than your fine mistress. I always knew she was a pampered, brazen little strumpet with too much to say for herself. But I expected better from you—a girl born and bred in this village. Now we all know why you came slinking back here with your tail between your legs.”
Since the weather was bitterly cold that day, Molly carried a large fleece muff for her hands. It was also a useful way to keep her figure well hidden. Not that she showed much yet, but she was so very conscious of it that she sometimes feared it was obvious to anyone who saw her, despite Lady Mercy’s assurances to the contrary. “I can’t imagine what you mean to say, Mrs. Flick.” She’d decided denial was the best policy. The few people who needed to know had been informed, and under no circumstances did Mrs. Flick count as someone who needed to know anything.
“Oh, can’t you indeed?” the old crone replied, her mean little mouth gathered tight. “What would your poor mother think of you now? Of course, she never did anything but spit out babes one after t’other. I don’t suppose you’ll be any different. Although you might at least have got a husband first. There was a time when this village was a good, quiet, orderly place. Now it’s sin and damnation everywhere I turn.”
Molly sighed. “If it’s everywhere you turn, perhaps you are the cause of it.”
Mrs. Flick drew back, eyes afire with indignation. “Don’t talk daft.”
While looking over the crone’s black bonnet, she watched a coach-and-four pulling around the common. Her heart ground to a halt just as the wheels did. Very few carriages that grand ever came to Sydney Dovedale. The chestnut trees shivered in the breeze, and the first fallen leaves spun under the hooves of those fine horses. The door opened, and even without her spectacles, she recognized the man who stepped down.
Sin and damnation personified. He had come to his sister’s wedding after all.
There was nowhere to go. The lych-gate was the only exit from the churchyard, and he was heading directly toward it. Unless she climbed the cobblestone wall and leapt over Mrs. Flick—an amusing thought certainly, but hardly practical in her state—she could not escape an encounter with her former lover.
Coming down the path with her new husband, Lady Mercy suddenly saw her brother by the gate.
“Carver! You came!” She rushed by in a blur of scarlet and embraced her brother as if she hadn’t seen him in years.
“Of course I came. Wanted to make sure you went through with it. Can’t have you turning up on my doorstep again like a bad penny, can I?” Carver kissed her cheek. “I waited long enough to be rid of you.”
From a short distance, Molly quietly observed the greeting. At the sight of him after their weeks apart, her heart bled. She’d had no idea how hard it would be to see him again. She forgot about Mrs. Flick standing on the other side of the wall, until the old crone grumbled again, “Just what we need, another London sinner coughed up on our doorstep. And the worst of the bunch, from all I hear.”
“From what you hear?” She was amused by the thought of Carver’s reputation traveling all the way to Mrs. Flick’s ears. Did it come by carrier pigeon, she wondered?
“Aye. A devil incarnate. A Bluebeard for the way he disposes of women.”
“To bear any similarity to Bluebeard, he’d have to marry them first, and that will never happen, Mrs. Flick.”
The old woman was still considering this when Lady Mercy spun around, looking across the churchyard. Spying Molly by the wall, she waved her closer.
“Oh, Carver, here is Molly Robbins. You do remember her, I’m sure.”
He turned and bowed his head. “Miss Robbins.”
Inside her muff, Molly’s fingers were knotted so tightly she thought she might never get them undone again. “Your lordship.” She curtsied, her gaze dropping hastily to his boots.
The wedding party moved through the gate, chattering and merry, but Carver hung back, waiting to walk with her. How tall he seemed suddenly. She felt overshadowed by his presence, very insignificant, meek, and mousy again. “Margaret, will you walk with your arm in mine?” He was looking at her large muff as if it might suddenly show fangs and attack him.
She glanced over at the wall, where Mrs. Flick still watched. “I think not, your lordship. My hands are cold.”
So they walked side by side instead.
“I bring greetings from your friends in London, Miss Robbins.”
“Oh.” She kept her gaze on the merry wedding party as it moved away with greater speed than the two of them. It had begun to rain.
“I have a letter for you from Mrs. Slater, and cake from Mrs. Lotterby, to make certain you are eating well.” He smiled. “I also bring good tidings of Mrs. Bathurst.”
“How is she?”
“Better. Her spirits have much improved now that she sees her son regularly, and he is arranging for her move to the country.”
She stopped and caught a frosty breath. “Her son? You found him?”
“Yes.” He stopped on the path. “Hobbs was able to locate the man. He had never been very far away, as it turned out.”
“Frederick Dawes?” she asked in a frail whisper.
Carver’s eyes were gray that afternoon, reflecting the overcast autumn sky. She felt as if she would like to soar in those eyes, the way birds spread their wings against the clouds. “No,” he said. “Closer to you.”
“To me?”
He held her arms and lowered his mouth to kiss her.
Molly listened for a squawk and a thud, but there was none, so Mrs. Flick must not have fainted at the sight of such remorseless impropriety.
When she finally had use of her lips again, Molly demanded he tell her the truth. “I know you like your mysteries, Danny, but you’d better tell me at once!”
They walked on and came to the lych-gate, where he stopped again to shelter her from the rain. “First, before I tell you the identity of Mrs. Bathurs
t’s son, you must make two decisions.”
“Oh, must I?”
“Firstly, shall we marry here or in Sussex?”
Shocked, Molly couldn’t find words for several moments.
“And secondly, would you like to marry an earl with a fortune or a humble bastard with nothing but his looks?”
Slowly she tried to make sense of all this. She took one hand from her muff and placed it against his cold cheek. “Are you telling me that you are her son?”
“You knew it, did you not? When you found those boxes in the attic.”
Molly fought against the tears that threatened. She never used to be one for tears, but they came more easily these days. “I suspected. But I couldn’t believe—”
“So now you have a choice. Which man do you want?”
She thought about it, her fingers trailing slowly over his rough cheek. He must have ridden in haste to be there, for he had not even shaved.
“You’re telling me you would give all that up? Just for me?”
With his thumbs he wiped the tears from her face. “I will do whatever you want. I love you. It’s pitiful, but there it is. I am at your mercy.”
Molly could barely breathe, her heart hurt so dreadfully. But it was a good kind of hurt, she mused. A very good kind of hurt. “I believe, Danny, we are all put on this earth to try and raise ourselves up. To become something more than what we are when we start.”
He nodded, his eyes watching her face carefully, lovingly.
“So how could I ever ask you to take a step back for me?” A gentle breeze rummaged through her petticoats and pulled on her damp bonnet ribbons. “Besides,” she added with an arch smile, “I might be a simple country mouse, but I’m no fool. I’ll take both men, including the rich one, if you please, sir.”
Carver looked down at her and broke into laughter. “Greedy minx. I might have known. You did tell me once before that you wanted me only for the money.”
Miss Molly Robbins Designs a Seduction Page 30