Aunt Ree smiled beatifically. “There’s been a little change in plans. Our dear Hester has agreed to provide escort to Spathfoy and Fiona on their journey. It seems the nursemaid cannot join them in Aberdeen. We’ll send a bag along for you on the very next train, Hester.”
Ian’s brows crashed down. “The nursemaid can’t join them? We’ve a house full of nursemaid—”
“Ian.” Augusta spoke softly and leaned closer to her husband. “We cannot spare your son’s staff on such short notice.”
Ian studied his wife’s countenance for a moment. “Of course we can’t, not when the lad might be coming down with a cold. Hester, does this plan truly have your consent? You need not stay in Northumbria for long.”
Hester wanted to hug him, right there in the train yard, for his protectiveness. While the womenfolk were happy to consign Hester to Spathfoy’s continued company, Ian alone hesitated.
“If I go with them today, it will make Fiona’s transition easier and allow us a spy in the marquess’s camp for a time, won’t it?”
Dark brows rose. “That it will. Your Scottish heritage is showing, lass. Mind you write often, and here.” He extracted a missive from his pocket. “Fee is to put that in Con’s own hands. He’ll be coming to call on his niece and her relations, with Julia in tow, within the week, and the letter contains as much as I know of the situation.”
Fee piped up from her place at Ian’s side. “I had a letter from Mama. She wrote from Paris again.”
Ian glanced at his niece. “Are you sure it’s from Paris? They’re not supposed to be in France now.”
“She’s right, Ian.” Hester watched as Spathfoy made a proper fuss over his brave beast, who was now in the livestock car, gazing down the ramp uncertainly. “I saw the letter myself. It was from Paris.”
“Which explains why certain wires are not meriting any replies. Wife, remind me to stop by the telegraph office once we’ve seen Fiona and Hester off.”
And with no more ado than that, Hester soon found herself in a private compartment with Fiona and Spathfoy, watching as the child waved madly out the window while the train pulled away from the station, and Spathfoy kept a dignified silence at his niece’s side.
***
Tye had just completed a lengthy discussion with his horse about the need to develop fortitude regarding train travel—they’d be coming back to Ballater; on that point, Tye was already quite determined—when Balfour informed him Hester was accompanying Fiona to Northumbria. Hester would make the journey with them, and stay long enough to see the child settled in.
Balfour’s tone had carried a distinct sense of, “Don’t be fookin’ this up, too, laddie.”
Tye sat back and regarded a woman he was sure would rather be anywhere than in a private compartment, knee to knee with him. He’d kept his powder dry until Fiona was asleep with her head on a pillow and her feet in her aunt’s lap.
“Why did you change your mind, Hester? This journey cannot be something you contemplate willingly.”
She didn’t even turn her head, but answered while the scenery hurtled by beyond the window. “Fiona guddled me. Don’t expect me to stay long in Northumbria.”
“I do not understand.”
Now she did look at him, her expression one of bleak humor. “She tickled my sympathies, and I would likely have told her to go to blazes with her big green eyes and pleading looks, but I do not trust your father to treat her well, Spathfoy.”
Tye didn’t either, not now that he’d met the child. “You don’t trust me, then, to see to her well-being?”
She averted her eyes again, which Tye felt somewhere in the middle of his chest as a desolating loss.
“Your father has not treated you well, Spathfoy, to send you out to do his dirty work. If Quinworth had come himself, if he’d even bothered to make Fee’s acquaintance, Ian would have made sure the marquess got a fair hearing with Mary Fran and had a decent relationship with Fiona. Instead, Quinworth puts you up to high-handed legal tactics and base subterfuge. I ask again, what hold has he over you that you’d undertake such doings?”
She asked, but her tone was bored.
“I will not disrespect my father by answering that, Hester, and the subterfuge, as you call it, was mine. I fully intended to collect the child the morning after I met her, and be on my way, but then Lady Ariadne offered me hospitality, and it struck me I ought to familiarize myself with Fiona’s circumstances, and then…”
The Deeside scenery was beautiful. No wonder Her Majesty had chosen the Highlands for the private castle she shared with her handsome prince.
“Then, Tiberius?”
In for a penny… “Then I met you.” Met his own personal tempest ready to rage him into submission over the well-being of a child she wasn’t even related to.
Silence, while they passed through Scotland’s beautiful countryside. When they reached Aberdeen, the wisdom of having Hester accompany them became apparent. Fiona needed to use the necessary, she needed to fidget, she needed to cling and whine and generally carry on like a fretful child while Tye oversaw the transfer of their trunks—and his nervous horse—for the next leg of the journey.
And fortunately, they had no more transfers to make before reaching Newcastle. This left Tye hours to regard the woman he still hoped to marry, and to consider his options.
First and foremost, he hoped she was pregnant with his—their—child. She would marry him if that were the case, he was certain of it. Even Balfour would encourage the match if a child were involved.
Second, Tye could strive mightily to convince his father to return Fiona to her family in Aberdeenshire, and forget whatever crotchet had prompted this wild start in the first place. This option had dubious chances of success. The marquess was not one to back down once he’d taken a position.
Not ever.
The third option was the one Hester had suggested: to find some means of compelling his lordship to reconsider his schemes. Tye had been reluctant to speculate regarding what leverage he could find to put the light of sweet reason in his father’s eye.
Such machinations seemed disrespectful. Almost as disrespectful as presenting oneself as a guest when one intended to comport oneself as anything but.
Fiona sighed in her sleep, her second protracted nap of the day. “Shall we wake her?”
Hester brushed the child’s hair back off her forehead, the gesture tender and, to Tye, unsettling. “To what purpose?”
“So she isn’t keeping you up half the night when you’re obviously fatigued from looking after her the livelong day.”
“I’ll manage.”
With two words, she might as well have kicked Tye out of the compartment, so vast was the indifference she conveyed. She put him in mind of his mother after a particularly vexing donnybrook with his father.
“Hester, I am not your enemy.”
“No, you are not.” She studied him for a moment in the dim light of the compartment. “You are not my friend, either.”
The hope he’d been guarding for a hundred miles curled up under his heart with a weary whimper.
But it did not die. He was nowhere near ready to allow it to die.
***
They arrived to Quinworth well after dark, though even by torchlight, Hester could see the place was imposing. The facade was a vast expanse of pale blond stone, the same shade as Alnwick Castle, but modernized to boast many windows, and terraces abundantly graced with flowers.
Fiona would delight in exploring the place.
“Is she still asleep?” Hester kept her voice down, lest the child slumbering in Spathfoy’s arms waken.
“Out like a candle.”
“I can take her.”
“Get out of the coach, Hester. She’s too heavy for you, and you’re dead on your feet.”
He sounded amused and so damnably patient, Hester had no c
hoice but to comply. A liveried, gloved footman assisted her from the carriage and stood by while Spathfoy managed to maneuver himself and his burden out of the coach.
“Has a room been prepared for the child?” Spathfoy’s voice was soft in the gloom.
The footman kept his eyes front. “In the nursery wing, my lord. There’s a room for the child’s nurse as well.”
“Miss Daniels is not the child’s nurse, but rather, my guest. Please inform Mrs. Hitchins that Lady Dora’s room is to be given over to Miss Daniels’s use, and have a truckle bed put there as well for the child.”
The footman snapped a bow. “Pardon for my mistake, and I’ll see to it at once, my lord. I’m to tell you there’s refreshment awaiting you in the library, my lord.”
Hester glanced at Spathfoy to see if all these obsequies were making his head spin, but he appeared quite at home.
He was home. She surveyed again the enormous edifice before them, and realized how humble Fiona’s household in the Highlands must have seemed by comparison.
“Miss Daniels, are you coming?”
She was Miss Daniels now, not Hester. That was to be expected. She moved along at his side while footmen and porters swarmed the coach, unloading boxes and trunks and yelling at one another to have a care with that bag.
This was Tye’s welcome home—three “my lords” and a tray in the library.
This was Fiona’s welcome as well. Hester was not at all pleased, not for the child, and not for the son of the house who’d been sent north to retrieve the child. She followed Spathfoy through an enormous, soaring foyer, down a lighted hallway, and into a cavernous library.
“We’ll need to give the servants some time to make up Dora’s bed for you,” he said as he laid Fiona on a leather couch, then rearranged the blanket she’d been wrapped in. “And you should eat something.”
“Does it strike you as odd that the marquess is not on hand to greet his long-lost granddaughter?”
Spathfoy straightened but continued to regard the sleeping child. “His lordship is an early riser. He and Fiona will have plenty of time to greet each other tomorrow. May I fix you a plate?”
He crossed to a sideboard where Hester spied a veritable feast. “Is this how the help indicate they’re pleased to see you?” Beef, chicken, and ham slices were arranged on one tray, several kinds of cheese on another; hulled strawberries were piled high in a crystal bowl; and various pastries and tea cakes with all the fixings sat on a second tray.
No chocolate cakes, though.
“Pleased to see me? I haven’t a clue. This is how they indicate they wish to continue in my father’s employment. As I recall, you like a deal of butter with your scones.”
She let him do this, let him prepare her some sustenance, just as she’d let him manage all the details of getting them safely half the length of the kingdom. He was good at it, in part because people seemed naturally to heed him, but also because he had the knack of anticipating which detail was about to need attention—like putting a truckle bed for Fee in Hester’s room.
She accepted a plate from him, piled high with good food. “Thank you, Spathfoy, but you’ve served me far more than I can hope to consume.”
“We’ll share, then. Will you pour?”
She ought to balk. She ought to shove the plate at him, fix herself a more modest serving, and find a single chair on which to seat herself.
But it was late, they were both exhausted, and the remaining sofa looked comfortable. “I’ll pour. I should also make up a little something for Fiona if she should wake in the night.”
“Ring for the kitchen—one pull is the kitchen, two is the servants’ hall, which will get you a footman.”
He began to put away food at a prodigious rate, while Hester savored a fortifying cup of tea. She’d just realized she’d poured none for him, when he looked up. “You’re not going to join me?”
“In a minute.” She passed him a cup of tea, which he drained and held out to her for more.
This little late-night meal held an intimacy. Hester watched Spathfoy eat with his fingers, while the fire—a wood fire, no less—snapped and crackled softly.
“How long will you stay, Hester?”
She could divine nothing from his question, not hope, not impatience. “I don’t know. Not long. A few days, maybe a span of weeks. Are you in a hurry to see me off the property?”
He paused with a rolled-up piece of ham halfway to his mouth. “You are tired, and this was not at all how you expected your day to unfold. Have I thanked you? I’m not sure how I would have managed both Fiona and Rowan in Aberdeen. One of them would have gotten loose and come to mischief if you hadn’t been on hand.”
“You’re very patient with your horse.” He was patient under other circumstances, too, but she pushed that awareness to the back of her weary mind.
“I’m not patient so much as determined. I get it from both my father and my mother. Eat something before I demolish the entire plate.” He held it out to her, an offering of ham, beef, strawberries, and two buttered scones.
And of peace. He had not allowed her to pick a fight, and she was grateful for his forbearance. “Will you check on Rowan before you turn in?”
“I probably should, but I’ll see you and Fiona up to your room first. The layout of the house isn’t complicated. I’ll give you a tour tomorrow, and you’ll catch on in a couple of days. Go ahead and eat the strawberries, Hester. They’ll go to waste if you don’t.”
Hester. She liked it when he called her Hester rather than Miss Daniels. They were not friends, but it was as he’d said: they were not enemies either.
She ate every last strawberry on the plate.
***
Hale Flynn understood politics. Unlike many of his peers, he understood that the role of the British monarchy was changing. Having a Sovereign with a strong familial orientation at a time when the realm was steering its way past shoals that had caused revolutions elsewhere was not necessarily a bad thing.
He understood horses and respected them for their elegance, utility, and sheer, brute strength.
He understood his place in the world, his title being a symbol of stability and tradition in a society where progress was touted on every street corner while bewilderment lurked in the heart of the common man.
He did not, however, understand his own family.
“Why the hell you put up with that idiot gelding is beyond me, Spathfoy. The blighter’s going to toss you in your last ditch one of these days.”
Though hopefully, not until Spathfoy had done his duty to the succession.
Quinworth’s son eyed him balefully across the horse’s back. “I continue to work with Flying Rowan because he’s up to my weight, he tries hard, and he alerts me to ill-tempered, titled lords lurking in the saddle room when I’m trying to groom my beast for a morning ride.”
“Do I employ half the stableboys in Northumbria so you can groom your own horse?”
Spathfoy went back to brushing his mount. “I’ve retrieved your granddaughter from her relatives in Aberdeenshire, my lord. I continue to believe your designs on the child are ill-advised, and hope you’ll rethink them when you meet her.”
Ill-advised was one of Spathfoy’s adroit euphemisms—he had many, when he wanted to trot them out. “Is she simple?”
The brush paused on the horse’s glossy quarters. “She is not simple. She is delightful. She has a gift for languages and arithmetic, she’s full of life and curiosity, and she’s going to be every bit as pretty as my sisters. She’s looking forward to meeting her grandpapa, because that good fellow will provide her a pony and a pet rabbit.”
“Spathfoy, has your horse tossed you on your head since last I saw you?”
“If he has, perhaps it has brought me to my senses. May I assume we’re riding out together?”
“You may.�
�� If nothing else, Quinworth intended to get to the bottom of his son’s mutterings about ponies and rabbits.
Gordie had been the son Quinworth could understand. The boy had been lazy but likable; the man had been charming, with a venal streak, though probably nothing worse than most younger sons of titled families. The army had seemed a better solution than the church, letters, or the diplomatic service.
Quinworth tapped his riding crop against his boot, which made Spathfoy’s horse flinch. “I don’t suppose you ran into your mother when you were larking around Scotland?”
Spathfoy—who had two inches of height on his father—settled a saddle pad onto the horse’s back. “I was not larking around Scotland. I was snatching a child from the arms of her loving family, for what purpose I do not know—except my father allowed as how, did I accomplish this bit of piracy, my sisters would be permitted to marry where they pleased, and Joan would be sent to live in Paris for at least one year. Or do I recall the purpose for my travels amiss?”
The boy had an aggravating knack for making every pronouncement sound like a sermon. He was going to give tremendous speeches in the Lords one day, though Quinworth wouldn’t be around to hear them.
“You do not recall anything amiss. So you did not see her ladyship?”
“Aberdeenshire being a good distance from Edinburgh, I did not.”
He placed a saddle on the horse’s back, then slid it back into place. The animal stood quietly, though it was likely plotting more mischief once the girth was fastened. Quinworth considered asking if her ladyship was still using her son’s estate outside Edinburgh, but somebody had returned a letter he’d sent there not two weeks past, so he held his tongue.
And slapped his crop against his boot.
“For Christ’s sake.” Spathfoy hissed the imprecation as his gelding danced sideways. “If you’re going to torment an animal, at least find one of your own to pick on.”
“My apologies.” He moved away, lest the gelding start kicking and stomping in the cross ties. Spathfoy spoke to the horse soothingly in Gaelic, of all the heathen languages. Quinworth had tried to learn it decades ago, when pleasing his new wife had been the sole compass of his existence.
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