The boy had drawn a deep breath and said to the benign Mr. Mulligan, “Sir, I have but five shillings. Could I perhaps pay the remainder off next week?”
If Mr. Mulligan wondered at the boy’s apparent lack of funds, and that boy in the company of a very wealthy peer of the realm, he didn’t let on.
“My mother doesn’t have much, you see, and—”
“Theo.” Knight’s low, firm voice brought Theo to instant and complete silence. “I have a proposition for you. We’ll leave the book with Mr. Mulligan, then ride to Hyde Park to discuss it. My proposition will not make you rich, but it will make you more affluent.”
“Oh, sir, I’ll do anything.”
Knight forked down a substantial bite of roast partridge with bread sauce, one of his favorite dishes. He grinned over at Lily. “Theo will pay me back the other three shillings by next week, don’t doubt it. He, my dear Lily, is now my librarian and cataloger. My library is in a rare mess, and Theo has already prepared to gird his loins and take it on. Trump will aid him when it is necessary. Theo will work no longer than two hours a day, five days a week.”
“But—”
Knight held up an imperious hand. “It is between Theo and me, Lily. I am not a mill owner, nor do I believe in sweathouse conditions for nine-year-old children. So hush. You are only his mother. You have no say in the matter. Now, do try a bite of that crimped cod. It is one of Cuthbert’s better efforts.”
Lily ate.
Knight watched her eat. He watched her throat muscles as she swallowed her food; he watched the drops of wine on her lips as she drank from the fine crystal wineglass.
After a moment, he asked abruptly, “Why did you cry?”
Her eyes flew to his face.
“Why?”
Lily tried to look rueful, but she doubted she achieved it. She probably looked like a pathetic fool. “You have been wonderful. I couldn’t bear it.”
“Now, that’s interesting. Shall I be cruel to you and the children? Shall I threaten to beat Sam? Cut off Laura Beth’s hair? Would that make you laugh instead of cry?”
She was forced to laugh. “No, you’re being absurd. I didn’t mean it like that precisely. You have just been so very unexpected. It is more than I—we deserve.”
“And it just came crashing down on your head, is that it?”
“Yes. I’m sorry I got your cravat all wet.”
“You’re forgiven. And there is something else. The boys need a tutor. I’ve decided that they shouldn’t be enrolled at Eton until next term. The tutor I have in mind is the third son of a vicar who holds his living from me. Actually, he’s the younger brother of Tilney Jones, my solicitor. He’s just finished at Oxford and is free for the next few months. He will also provide the boys with the proper exercise. Theo, I noticed today, is far too pale, and when he is not with me, then—”
“You decided?”
Knight brought his flowing monologue to an abrupt end and stared at the beautiful Lily. She was also pale; not from lack of exercise, but from anger at his high-handedness. He continued mildly, with the ease of a man born to privilege and the occasional brain flashes of a diplomat. “Actually, if you approve of him, he can come here on Monday next. If you don’t like him, then we will forget it. Also, we need to redo the second floor so the children will have their own nursery. Only don’t say that denigrating word in front of the boys. But they need their own rooms, their own area. You and I will meet with the architect and—”
“Why are you doing all this? I don’t understand.”
He saw her confusion and understood it. As a matter of fact, his own confusion at his behavior was much greater. He said very quietly, “I’m not Ugly Arnold, Lily. I have no intention of trying to seduce you on the stairs. I have no intention of trying to gain your favors in my bed by being nice to Tris’s children.”
“But why?”
“You know something? I haven’t the foggiest idea, if the truth be told. Now, should you like some dessert? Perhaps some damson pudding?”
Lily slowly shook her head.
“Then shall we adjourn to the drawing room? I should like you to play for me, if you would. You do play, do you not?”
“I’m out of practice.”
“I can’t imagine you stumbling over your fingers to the extent that I would cry ‘Hold.’”
“You are an optimist, sir.”
“Now, about that architect, he can be here tomorrow, if that is acceptable to you.”
Lily leaned forward, and he saw that her right hand was fisted on the table beside her plate. “I don’t want you to—disrupt your life for us, at least more than you have already. I don’t want you to feel compelled to tear down walls and build new ones. I’m trying to keep the children quiet and out of your way. I don’t want you to feel that you must—”
“That is quite a lot of things you don’t want me to do, Lily. There was once a nursery on the third floor of this house. It is now servants’ quarters. I don’t wish to displace them. So that leaves the second floor and several unused bedchambers. We will make do. I daresay it will add value to the house if sometime in the future one of my misbegotten heirs decides to sell. Incidentally, I don’t feel that I must do anything. I am simply doing what I wish to. Now, are you quite through?”
Lily just looked at him. “You don’t wish any damson pudding, my lord?”
“Knight, if you please, and no. I wish to hear you trip lovingly over Beethoven.”
Lily was out of practice, but she played well enough to make Knight exceedingly relaxed. He didn’t turn the pages for her. He sat opposite the pianoforte, watching her face as she played. He wished she were a hag. He wished she had the temperament of a fishwife. He wished the children were obnoxious brats.
He wasn’t forty yet. Thirteen years to go. And here was Lily. He frowned at that. She’d been Tris’s wife and was now a widow of only one month or so. She was grieving for her dead husband. What the hell was he doing thinking like this, for God’s sake?
He rose abruptly when she came to the end of the third movement of the Sonata in C major. “I’m going out, Lily. Thank you. I will see you tomorrow.”
She rose quickly but not quickly enough. He was gone.
Lily frowned. Had she said something untoward? Had her playing been so error-riddled? She left the drawing room and walked upstairs. It was only nine o’clock. There was time yet to play with Theo and Sam. Laura Beth was long asleep, sprawled, Lily knew, in the middle of the bed.
Two days later, Knight Winthrop, eighth Viscount Castlerosse, was named legal guardian of his cousin’s three children.
Seven
Boy had never been in London. He felt instantly at home. Everyone spoke English, after all. It was a treat after France and Brussels with all those Frogs making their prissy foreign sounds.
Monk, a man from London, took him to see all his former haunts down on the wharf, and together they enjoyed the odors of the squalid alleyways and found the suffocating fumes of the slatternly taverns ambrosia.
“We ’ave time, Boy,” Monk said as he swilled down a long draft of warm ale. “We’ll find ’is bloody lordship soon enough and with ’im Tris’s fancy little piece, don’t ye doubt it. We’ll treat this as a bit of a congé, as them damned Frenchies say. Yes, sir, I’ll show ye all about my city.”
“Aye,” said Boy, trying to ape his friend’s actions and ending up coughing up his toes. “I love Lunnon.”
“A long time since I’ve been ’ere,” Monk said and gave a lecherous wink to a frowsy barmaid. “A long time.”
“Wunnerful city, Lunnon.”
“Oh, aye. Way back in ’02, I think it was, it was even nicer. I was just a little button and a bloody watch caught me with my paw in a merchant’s pocket. I escaped, o’course. Ma was dead by then and it was jest me. I found ye in ’04 in Liverpool, don’t ye remember? Then it was off to France wot with them quid we stole off that Lady Whatsername in Dover.”
Reminiscences followed, mor
e ale was ordered and swilled, and soon Monk and Boy were snoring in drunken splendor, oblivious of their surroundings.
Boy wanted to see all the sights, particularly the Tower of London, and Monk, feeling well in control of their destiny and filled with gracious bonhomie, took his friend to see the spot where the lovely Lady Jane Grey lost her pretty head. They assiduously avoided Bow Street.
Julien St. Clair, the Earl of March, seated himself next to Knight in the reading room at White’s. He said without preamble, “There is talk, Knight. Lots of it. Probably because we were so busily twitting you, we didn’t spare a thought to those possible fools who overheard us. A lucky few were even blessed to see all of you at the Pantheon Bazaar.”
Knight had slowly lowered the Gazette, and regarded his friend with somber eyes. “I see. Please go on, Julien.”
“I hate it, you know that, but your Lily is naturally your light o’ love, and little Laura Beth is obviously your child. It’s unfortunate that her hair is nearly as black as yours.”
“I hadn’t noticed, but I do believe you’re right,” said Knight, a bemused smile on his face. “Her eyes are a very dark blue, though, unlike mine.”
“I suppose the gossips draw the line at claiming all of them your offspring. After all, the older boy is nine years old, isn’t he? You would have had to have gained sufficient potency by seventeen to have fathered him.”
And Lily would have had to have been all of ten years old, Knight thought. He didn’t say it aloud. He didn’t want Julien to know that his cousin had married a fifteen-year-old girl and immediately gotten a baby on her. He tried to listen to his friend. Certainly he’d heard bits and pieces, had vague acquaintances give him thoroughly cold looks, but he’d ignored all that. It was absurd, no one had done anything wrong, and he couldn’t be bothered with such nonsense. However, if Julien was concerned enough to run him down and tell him, it was bad. It was more than bad. It would shortly be intolerable. He cursed softly.
“I agree,” said Julien. “I have spread the truth, as have all our friends, but you know the gossips.” He shrugged. “It’s like a wheel gathering speed down a hill. Unfortunately, there’s not a more titillating scandal just at present, thus yours must do until another one comes along.” Julien grinned. “I have never seen my wife more incensed. I feared she would screech a very unladylike curse at Lady Gregorson the other evening at the Ranleaghs’ musicale—a dreadful experience, by the way. You were fortunate to miss it. Some yelling soprano from Milan.”
“I guess I shall just have to send Lily and the children to Castle Rosse. I was made their legal guardian, so Ugly Arnold must now forget any nefarious plans he has for her.”
“I saw the announcement in the Gazette. It only caused more furor, as you can well imagine.” The earl, who was privy to Ugly Arnold’s attempt the day at the Pantheon Bazaar, asked with a slight frown on his forehead, “I trust the fellow can read?”
“Julien, I’ll have you know that dear Arnold is a squire of the first order. His wife is my cousin, more’s the pity. Well, thank you for telling me, but—”
“Of course,” Julien interrupted smoothly, “you already knew about the wagging tongues.”
“Yes, but it’s worse than I’d expected. I haven’t taken Lily to any balls, routs, or even musicales simply because she’s in mourning for her dead husband, and she doesn’t like to leave the children alone.” Knight grinned. “She’s afraid Sam might plug up all the chimneys and send us scrambling and coughing out-of-doors in the dark of night in our nightshirts.”
“You don’t wear a nightshirt.”
“That could prove embarrassing, couldn’t it?”
“Lily is a beautiful woman. Were she plain, the gossips would probably never have taken a plow to this particular field.”
“I know.” Knight paused for a moment, steepling his fingers and tapping the tips together. “It’s the strangest thing. She doesn’t realize her own beauty. It’s disconcerting, particularly for a man who’s spent so many years on the social scene here in London. I think I’ve been treated to every ploy, every machination, that the fertile brains of matchmaking mamas could devise. Of course, you were in the same kettle until you met Kate.”
“True, but not to the present point. Must you really send them to Castle Rosse?”
“What the hell else can I do?”
Julien studied a well-buffed fingernail. “I suppose you could marry Lily.”
Now, that was a stunner, Knight thought as his jaw dropped. He stared at the Earl of March as if he’d lost his powers of reasoning as well as his ears and his teeth. “I am not forty,” Knight said slowly, precisely. “I am twenty-seven. I have thirteen more years of freedom before I—do—that—thing.”
“It’s called marriage, Knight,” the earl said easily. “Just a suggestion, old fellow. No need to speak so slowly, as if to a half-wit.”
“I’ve hired a tutor for the boys.” Knight paused again, then added a bit ruefully, “Actually, John Jones—yes, that’s really the fellow’s name—will come to be interviewed by Lily on Monday.”
“He would escort them to Castle Rosse, then?”
“I suppose so.”
But Julien knew that this as-yet-unhired tutor would never be in charge of Lily or the children, not if Knight had anything to say about it, which of course he did and would. This would be a wholly unpredictable and quite amusing situation were it not for the gossips. Julien couldn’t imagine, after having met Lily, that Knight would emerge from it whole-hide. Every time he mentioned the situation to his wife, Kate, she always ended up howling with laughter, choking as she managed to say over and over, “Poor Knight. I shall write a play about him. The clever man who vowed and swore endlessly and with great wit and verve that a wise man never married until he was forty years old, and then only to beget an heir. Oh, no, nothing so foolish for Knight Winthrop. And now he is twenty-seven and the steppapa to three children. Oh, it is too wonderful. The Fitting End to the Man Who Protesteth Too Much—that will be the title of my play.”
“Your new tutor—he’ll probably fall head over arse in love with her, Knight.”
Knight looked exceedingly grim. Then he sighed. “Yes, I know he will, even if he’s half blind and an idiot, which he won’t be.” He sighed again. “Have you ever heard of a female tutor?”
Julien laughed. “Then you would be in the suds, old fellow. She’d fall in love with you.”
“Oh, go to the devil, St. Clair.” Julien rose easily and Knight stopped him, saying. “Thank you for telling me. I will do something. I must protect Lily and the children.”
Julien just looked at him, his head cocked to one side.
It was, oddly enough, the picnic to Richmond on the following morning, Saturday, that decided Knight that Lily and the children must go to Castle Rosse. The sooner the better. For everyone.
For late October the weather was uncommonly warm, the sun bright overhead, and only a faint breeze stirred the hair. The children were in tearing spirits. After much discussion, Knight decided to allow all of them to ride, Lily insisting that she would carry Laura Beth and Czarina Catherine in front of her. Charlie, the footman, and Lucy, Cuthbert’s assistant, would come behind in the carriage with the picnic supplies.
Knight hired a pony for Sam and bought a spirited bay mare for Lily. He didn’t tell her he’d bought it for her, simply shrugged when she saw the mare in his stables on Saturday morning. If she wished to conclude that the mare was hired as Sam’s pony was, it was none of his concern.
“Oh, she is lovely. Her name is Violet? Beautiful, aren’t you, my girl? No, no, I haven’t a carrot, but I shall fetch you one presently.” She turned to Knight, nearly dancing in her excitement. “What are you doing with such a fine lady in your stable, my lord?”
So she hadn’t concluded that the mare was hired. He said nothing. He wasn’t so stupid as to open his mouth and put his foot in it. He looked at her, his look unknowingly hungry. Her riding habit had seen several years
of wear, but it was well cut and of good quality material. It was royal blue, emphasizing her high full breasts and slender waist, and severe in design, all save the pert little riding hat perched atop her head with its ostrich plume sweeping along the side of her face. Slung over one arm was the beautiful ermine-lined cloak he’d seen her wear once before.
As for Sam, he approved of his pony, though Wicket, Theo’s grown-up mount, made him want to protest that he wasn’t a little boy, after all. Laura Beth simply smiled at everyone, her thumb in her mouth. When it finally came time to mount up, Laura Beth held up her arms to Knight.
He stared down at her, nonplussed.
“I want to go with you,” Laura Beth said in an endearingly innocent voice that brooked no argument to the discerning ear.
Lily laughed a bit uncertainly. She didn’t look at Knight. “You, my darling little pest, are to ride with me. Are you afraid that I’ll drop you, Laura Beth?”
“No, Mama, but Knight is my special man, my special cousin.”
“I am your only cousin.”
That fact didn’t bother Laura Beth or her logic even a little bit. She sucked happily on her thumb.
Lily choked. “Nonetheless, we can’t bother Cousin Knight, my love. It is very kind of him to take us on this picnic, you see. We don’t want him to feel that he’s here to serve us. You will ride with me. Come along now.”
Knight heard himself say, “I don’t mind. Hand her up to me, Lily.”
Lily stared at him. He looked startled that he’d offered. She remained silent for a moment, waiting for him to retract the offered treat. But he didn’t.
“Are you sure, my lord?”
“My name is Knight, Lily, and yes. Give me the little snippet.”
“What’s a snippet?” Laura Beth wanted to know.
Knight leaned down, tweaked her nose, then lifted her in his arms. “A snippet is a small little fragment of something, usually something of—great account.”
Night Shadow Page 10