by Lenora Bell
“Yes, Michel?”
“We’ve changed our minds.”
“What? Changed your minds. How can that be? This fine fellow will take you to his nephew.”
“We want our tea and biscuits,” said Michel, his lip wobbling.
“Never mind, sir,” called Mari to the fisherman. “They’ve changed their minds.”
The man gave her a confused look and returned to mending his net.
She’d called the children’s bluff.
It had been a risky strategy—she couldn’t stop them if they were set on running away—but acknowledging it, confronting it head on, might force them to see the danger in their escape plans.
Adele gave her a sheepish look. “I want to see Lady India’s daggers.”
“How silly of me. I forgot about the antiquities exhibition. You won’t want to miss that. Well in that case, shall we go back?”
Adele nodded.
They didn’t trust her yet. She was too new to them, and they’d been betrayed before. Abandoned by their mother, and, they felt, abandoned by their nurse.
She would have to tread carefully. Find ways of giving them ownership in their education, and a sense of pride in learning. But one step at a time.
The children were tired and, she suspected, disinclined to run away again until after Lady India’s exhibition.
Today’s victory would simply be a quiet, peaceful home for the duke to return to. She was determined to give him no reason to dismiss her.
“Come along then,” Mari said. “Best foot forward. We’ll be home in a trice.”
When Edgar arrived home all was superficially quiet, but he knew chaos must lurk somewhere in the house.
“You’re home early, Your Grace,” said Robertson as he took his hat and overcoat. “How was your day?”
“Unsatisfactory.” Why the devil had he agreed to take Lady Blanche riding? It was a losing proposition. If word got out that he was on the marriage mart it would be disastrous.
Edgar rarely attended social events. And he never, never was seen with an eligible young lady. But what choice had he been given? West had resorted to blackmail.
“Will you dine in?” asked Robertson.
“I already dined. Where are the children?”
“In the nursery, I believe.”
“And Miss Perkins?”
“With the children, Your Grace.”
“Any tears today? Constables? Cannon fire?”
“All has been tranquil since morning. I believe she took the children on an extended outing.”
Sound strategy. Tire them out so they couldn’t misbehave. Chalk one up for Miss Perkins.
Edgar took the stairs two at a time.
He had to see this purported tranquility with his own eyes.
Chapter 6
Edgar heard the murmur of voices from inside the nursery. Miss Perkins’s musical tones and Adele’s questioning ones.
Cautiously, he opened the door and entered the room.
Long shadows fell across the blackboard.
Only a matter of a few steps across the room and he slipped into place just outside of the doorway to the children’s adjoining bedchamber.
He had a view of Miss Perkins’s back where she sat in a chair between the children’s beds, reading to them from a book.
He couldn’t see the children over the high railings of their beds, and, surprisingly, he couldn’t hear them, either. They appeared to be listening to her.
What witchcraft was this?
He crept closer, to hear what she was reading.
“‘It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,’” she read in her joyful, ringing tones. “‘The holy time is quiet as a Nun. Breathless with adoration; the broad sun is sinking down in its tranquility . . .’”
The elegant lines of her profile rattled something loose inside Edgar’s chest.
“‘Dear Child! Dear Girl! That walkest with me here, If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, Thy nature is not therefore less divine . . .’”
The words rang like a muffled bell inside his shuttered heart.
He knew the poem well.
Wordsworth had written it for his daughter by a Frenchwoman. It was a lovely poem, about meeting the illegitimate daughter he’d never met until that day.
He had to admit it was appropriate, though the children could hardly understand the full significance of the choice.
She closed the book.
“Very pretty,” said Adele.
“Not enough fighting,” scoffed Michel. “I only like poetry with a good battle scene.”
“I see you’ve plenty of toy soldiers to play with,” said Miss Perkins. “Tomorrow we’ll stage a battle reenactment, shall we?”
“Pah! The duke thinks we’re babes in arms. We’re too old for toys,” said Michel.
That was news to Edgar. He’d chosen the same toys he liked to play with as a boy. They didn’t like them?
“Too old for toys?” exclaimed Miss Perkins. “What a dreadful notion. Why, I believe a person is never too old for toys.”
“You don’t play with toys,” said Michel.
“I most certainly do.” Miss Perkins pulled something out of a bag at her feet. “I have my rabbit.” She held up a carved wooden rabbit with tall ears and jointed limbs that dangled at crooked angles. There was something familiar about the rabbit. Where had he seen one like it before?
“She’s been with me since I was a little girl,” said Miss Perkins.
“You still play with her?” Michel sounded so incredulous that Edgar smiled.
“I write stories about her. Because she has so many strange and unusual adventures, you see. Don’t let this velvet gown fool you.” Miss Perkins stroked the tattered green gown the rabbit wore. “She’s quite fearsome. She’s known throughout the world as P.L. Rabbit, the Scourge of the Seven Seas.”
“She’s a pirate rabbit?” asked Michel.
Edgar clapped a hand over his mouth.
“What does P.L. stand for?” asked Adele.
“Why, Peg Leg, of course. See?” Miss Perkins lifted the rabbit’s paw. “She has wooden pegs holding her limbs together. But that doesn’t mean she can’t carry a sword. Why, just the other night, she set sail on her ship, The Silver Hind, with her trusty crew of fearless bunnies. They were hunting for sunken treasure off the coast of Barbados when they were set upon by the dread pirate rat known as Drew the Destroyer . . . oh, but I forgot, you’re too old for toys.”
A breathless pause. “But what happened?” asked Michel.
“I’ve no idea. I haven’t written the ending yet. Perhaps you can help me think of a good one,” said the clever Miss Perkins.
Edgar saw exactly what she was doing. Trying to engage the children, make them participants instead of antagonists.
He had to admit that even though she appeared fragile and defenseless, she had quite a few tricks up her sleeves.
“Here’s your ending,” said Michel, sitting up so that Edgar could see the tips of his ears sticking out from his head. “They’re on the deck, see.”
“Yes, I can see it,” said Miss Perkins. “The crew of bunnies set upon by the hideous rat with glowing red eyes and razor-sharp teeth.”
“That’s right,” said Michel. “And then P.L. shouts ‘slit that rat from his gullet to his boots!’ and the bunnies set upon the rat and, because it’s four of them to one of him, they gut him and throw him to the sharks and—”
“And then,” Adele jumped in, bouncing so that Edgar caught a glimpse of the crown of her head, “an enormous sea serpent swallows all of the rabbits whole, even P.L., and they have to live for years in its belly and they have to poke him from the inside with their swords and tell really bad jokes until he vomits them onto a beach.”
There was a pause.
“Well that’s one potential outcome,” replied Miss Perkins. “Rather bloodthirsty, I must say. But when you write your own stories you can make the characters do whatever you want them to do.
If you want them to become sea serpent vomit, well then, you may.”
“Did you write a lot of stories when you were a little girl?” Adele asked Miss Perkins.
“Hundreds. And they were all about P.L. Rabbit. I have them all recorded in the pages of my journals. Should you like to write stories in a journal?”
“I guess so,” said Michel. “But you’ll read them, won’t you?”
“Absolutely not,” said Miss Perkins. “They will be your private journals. For your eyes only.”
Adele yawned and stretched her fists over her head. “It’s strange to think about you as a little girl, Miss Perkins.”
“Even your tall, formidable father was a child once,” said Miss Perkins.
Formidable, eh?
“I can’t picture that,” said Michel. “He must have been a proper boring milksop. Spouting off his sums and always knowing the right answers.”
Excuse me? Was that what they thought of him? Edgar had to stop himself from joining the conversation.
He’d been cocky, headstrong, full of the devil. Always in the thick of everything, the instigator, the troublemaker.
Quick with his fists. When the lads at Eton had taunted him for being a namby-pamby duke’s heir born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he’d shown them.
“Sums do have practical applications, Michel. They’re not just a unique form of torture devised by governesses. Your father must have applied himself to learning his sums in order to be able to design steam engines.”
At least she was defending his honor.
“Perhaps he will come to the schoolroom someday and help you with our sums,” Miss Perkins said.
“Oh no,” said Adele. “He would never come to the schoolroom.”
Michel nodded. “He doesn’t even want us here at all.”
Edgar flattened his palm against the wall. They thought he didn’t want them?
But he’d taken them in and purchased them the best of everything.
“Oh my dears. Of course he wants you.” Miss Perkins bent closer to Adele. “He’s extremely occupied at the moment, that’s all.”
“He doesn’t want us,” insisted Michel. “That’s why he’s sending me away to Eton. To be rid of me.”
“We’ve never been apart,” said Adele with a sad note in her voice. “Not even for one day.”
Miss Perkins made a sympathetic noise in the back of her throat. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
Edgar had never thought about how strong their bond must be, having faced so much adversity. It gave him pause.
He was separating them for their own good. Because it was a mark of honor and distinction for the males of the family, legitimate or otherwise, to attend Eton.
“We won’t let that happen,” said Michel fiercely. “Don’t you try to convince us that it’s the right thing because we won’t listen.”
“We’ll never leave each other. Never as long as we live,” vowed Adele.
Miss Perkins was silent for a moment. “I’ll not try to convince you of anything tonight,” she said, “except to take a spoonful of this.”
She fetched a glass apothecary bottle from a shelf and Edgar had to duck backward for a moment so she didn’t catch a glimpse of him.
Miss Perkins held up the bottle and read the label. “One Tea-Spoon to be Taken at Bed-Time in the Event of Homesickness.”
“Homesickness?” asked Adele. “That’s a funny thing for a label to say.”
“Well some children are beset by colds, others with overexcitement. This will help what you’re troubled by. Try a small taste. I promise you’ll like it.”
“Do we have to?” groaned Adele.
“I won’t,” said Michel.
Miss Perkins poured some liquid into the spoon and held it out to Adele, who took a tiny taste.
“Sweet as strawberries,” Adele said with astonishment, finishing the spoonful. “You’ll like it, Michel.”
Miss Perkins wiped off the spoon with a cloth and poured some for Michel, who drank his spoonful down in one gulp.
“Not half bad,” he admitted.
Miss Perkins smiled at the children. “I told you that you’d like it. Now then, it’s past your bedtime. Go to bed late, stay very small. Go to bed early, grow very tall.”
“Miss Perkins?”
“Yes, Adele?”
“When we were sitting by the Thames, you said we needed a bridge.”
“There’s no bridge between England and France,” scoffed Michel.
“I’ve figured out what you meant,” said Adele softly.
“Have you now?” asked Miss Perkins.
“You’re the bridge, aren’t you? Crossing from our old lives to our new ones.”
Miss Perkins smiled at Adele and swept a lock of hair away from her face. “That’s right. I’ll be your bridge. If you let me.”
A lump rose in Edgar’s throat.
He’d built his defenses and written his rules so methodically.
Control your anger. Drink only in moderation.
Control in all things.
Guard against the misuse of power.
Guard against love, for it makes a man a fool.
What he’d failed to do was build a defense against something like this.
Miss Perkins reading to his children. Telling them stories and giving them remedies for homesickness.
The innocent tenderness of the moment.
Blindly, he backed away, feeling for the edges of the room.
All he knew was that he didn’t belong here.
He had to leave.
Mari was on a mission.
The books in the nursery had been sadly lacking. More than lacking. Harmful.
She’d made some small progress with the children today, but she couldn’t teach them using Dr. Pritchard’s Catechisms. There must be something more wholesome for them to read in this enormous marble-and-gilt mausoleum of a house.
Adele loved poetry so Mari would find her poems in French to translate into English.
And they both seemed to like adventure stories.
It had broken her heart when they’d said they would never let the duke separate them. Their bond was so incredibly strong. So unlike anything she’d ever experienced. What would it have been like to grow up with a sibling?
Wiping away a stray tear, she walked resolutely to the duke’s library. She must do everything in her power to help the children adjust to their new life and that meant finding the right books to anchor them here.
She knew the exact location of the library—along this corridor, down a narrow flight of stairs, round the landing corner, and three doors down.
What she didn’t know was the exact location of the duke.
She didn’t want to run into him by accident. Not even a glimpse of him through a window.
And especially never anything to do with him kneeling at her feet, touching her, lifting a knife to cut her bootlaces.
Why couldn’t she stop thinking about it? It was only that it had been wholly unexpected.
His powerful grip on her ankle. His hand under her skirts.
She stopped a housemaid carrying a bundle of linens. “Is His Grace in this evening?”
“That’s doubtful, miss. He stays late at The Vulcan most nights, working on ’is engines.”
“Thank you.” How many servants lived in this house? Seemed a fair army.
She hadn’t considered that living in the duke’s home might feel so isolating. Even though there were people everywhere.
Footmen posted at doorways. Maids scurrying through the corridors.
They mostly avoided her eyes and went about their business.
A governess was an odd sort of creature, living betwixt the upstairs and downstairs worlds.
Mari knew she was more qualified for the position of serving girl than governess, but no one else did. In the servant’s eyes, she was above them. And in the duke’s, she was far, far below.
About the size of one of his mi
niature engines.
Mrs. Fairfield had said he spent more time at his foundry than anywhere else. Was he still there working on his steam engines? Or was he somewhere else . . . perhaps out carousing with dissipated friends.
Lolling about on a velvet divan, smoking cigars while voluptuous women fanned him with ostrich feathers.
She couldn’t quite picture it. Or maybe she didn’t want to think about it. She’d rather picture him in his shirtsleeves, hands stained with oil as he worked with his engineer to construct an engine.
Well wherever he was, he wasn’t here, and that was the most important thing. She could plunder his library in peace.
He wouldn’t miss a volume or two.
She passed a footman standing sentry outside a room and gave him a confident nod, as if to say: yes, I have business here, no cause for alarm.
She peeked into the library. There were lamps burning on the tables and a fire lit in the grate.
How extravagant.
Checking to make certain there were no dukes or model engines in her path, Mari entered the room, leaving the door ajar.
Wouldn’t do for the footmen to think she was trying to hide something.
A noise made her jump but it was only the chiming from a clock standing against the wall.
Lamplight flickered over metal tracks and engines on the table that held the model of his proposed railway. Drawn by curiosity, she ventured closer.
Miniature trees flanked the tracks that snaked around the table. He’d even fashioned miniature estates, painted to look like stone, complete with coats of arms over the doorways and pennants flying on the battlements.
The engines were platforms mounted on metal wheels with staffs and barrels bristling out of them. Tiny men in even tinier top hats stood atop the locomotives, feeding their engines with little shovels.
Wouldn’t Michel and Adele love to play with these?
A whole new world. The world the duke wanted to create. Engines carrying goods and passengers of all social classes across England.
It would change everything.
An image rose in her mind of Banksford painting each figure with longing and precision.
His huge hands performing the most delicate of tasks.
They’d been stained with ink, his hands, and she’d noticed several burn marks.