“Believe it or not, we have not yet discussed it. The activities of the orphanage have occupied us somewhat, and we have not spoken about it beyond my offer and her acceptance. The truth is, I was hoping to learn more about her family from you,” Colin responded. “I can say that the engagement was a surprise to us both. I offered in a fit of pique,” he admitted, standing and walking to the fireplace. He tossed a crumpled-up wad of paper into the low flames and watched it ignite before regarding his friend and his mother. “However, I find I cannot regret it. She gave me an opportunity to withdraw, and yet, I could not. I find her fascinating,” admitted. Was he smitten? No. That takes time, does it not? In truth, he had no idea. Colin had never felt this way about any woman. He glanced at his friend for succor, but the smirk on Bergen’s face told him nothing was forthcoming.
His mother regarded him for a moment before breaking into a smile that seemed almost giddy and clapping her hands.
“Dearest, I cannot wait to meet her. If she is anything like her grandmother or her mother, she will be a delightful and spirited young lady. Her mother has maintained very little involvement with Society and therefore, I do not know her daughter.”
“You lost your temper and offered for her?” Bergen choked out the words within a peal of laughter. “I beg your pardon. I wait with bated breath for the details. I have always known your temper to be your weakness. I never expected it to be your salvation!”
“I cannot explain my actions.” Colin fell silent for a moment. “I ask you both to reserve judgement.” He realized that his protective nature had become fully employed with the woman to whom he was now betrothed. Perhaps that explained the overwhelming need to return to her today. He had promised to make the orphanage more secure.
He gave his mother a quick kiss on the cheek and walked towards the door. “I shall return once I ensure Nora and her charges are safe. The footmen should be able to keep things in hand until I have a Runner in place.”
“I understand, my son. I will send for my maid and clothing, and make myself comfortable,” He could tell she wanted to say more but chose not to. Instead, she took another swallow of her brandy. “Be off with you. Attend to your betrothed,” she urged.
“I will follow you out, Shefford,” Bergen added, also giving Lady Shefford a quick buss on the cheek. “It was good to see you, my lady.”
“Thomas, see that you give Elizabeth and the children my best. I have every intention of gathering us all together before you leave for the country,” she chided softly. “You have always been like another son to me. I cannot wait to see your family again.”
The two men walked quietly to the door and retrieved their coats, hats, and gloves.
“Franklin, will you send for the carriage?”
“It already awaits you, my lord. I expected you would need it.”
Colin looked at his butler and dipped his head. “Thank you. You never cease to astound me.” Turning to Bergen, he continued, “I know you have questions. I can set you down at your town house and we may talk for a few miles, if you care to tie your horse to the back of the carriage.”
“I accept your proposal,” his friend replied buoyantly. He signaled for the footman waiting with his horse to secure her to the back of Colin’s carriage. “Merry will enjoy the respite.” Bergen climbed into the carriage and took the seat opposite Colin.
As the carriage lurched forward, he leaned across. “I am more than ready to hear the rest of this story,” he said with a big grin on his face.
Colin chuckled. His mother was right… Thomas Bergen was like another brother. He had been his best friend for as long as he could remember. Neither had kept a secret from the other in all those years.
“There is no possibility you will wait to hear this with Morray, is there?” he suggested weakly.
“Not a chance, my friend.” Bergen’s lips twitched. “I plan to savor every word which comes from the gentleman who swore he would never marry.”
Chapter 12
A small apartment in East End…
“What do you mean, he overheard you speak, woman? You have told a man—a man who deals in children like cattle—where to find my… mother’s orphanage?” A thick vein pulsed in Lord Wilford Whitton’s neck and his bulbous nose flattened in rage. “Tell me again how you spilled my business to a stranger, and how you know this man!”
“I should ask you the same,” the woman muttered, her voice barely audible.
“What did you say?” he roared, propelling his flaccid body from the chair beside her bed.
She stepped out of his path and moved to the window overlooking the street and stared outside at nothing.
“I swear, Lord Whitton, I did not know the man was lurking in the shadows. I had to find a place for the child. He already has a cough… that cough that small children get what crawl in chimneys. He would not survive a life like that. I ’ad to do something.” Tears streamed down her face as she turned to face him.
“You took a child from the chimneys and moved it to the orphanage? To my mother’s orphanage? My niece lives there!” he bellowed. “If something happens, they will blame me. My mother will never forgive me—she is not one to cross.” He paced the small room.
“I am sorry…” Jenny Maven let her voice trail off. She had grown tired of Whitton’s huffy attitude, and after all she had done for him. A lord, indeed! she thought acidly. Instead of finding a protector, she had trapped herself with this odious excuse for a gentleman. He still had not told her why he was here, and she had stopped asking. It no longer mattered. She had hoped he felt something for her, yet now knew he cared only for his own hide. A sigh escaped her.
“Did you say something?” he thundered. “My niece has two women and about a dozen children living there, and you tell a blackguard who would do them all harm where to find them?” He held her gaze. “I cannot trust you with any information.”
“Is that so, your lordship?” Furious and no longer afraid, she walked right up to him and pointed her finger close to his face. “Keep your voice down. I have some pride, and I do not need everyone to hear us. As far as your niece and the children are concerned, do not pretend to care about anyone but yourself. And I might suggest you stop shouting, considering you may want no one to know you are here.” To her surprise, he stopped blustering and stared, boring into her with obsidian eyes. “Yes. I took Benjamin there. What of it?” She refused to cower to this man.
“You know his name? Is he your bastard?” He squinted, and his mouth pulled into a sneer as he taunted her.
“What business would it be of yours, if he was?” She hurled the quickest response she could think of in return. Were he standing closer, she might have slapped him. He had repulsed her. Lord Whitton was not a handsome man. He looked utterly revolting, like a squat, red-faced toad. How had her life become so desperate that she had committed any of her time to him? Jenny resolved, in that moment, that Whitton would know nothing further about her life. “I did not know he had followed me.” Her voice sounded calmer and more measured than she felt. She had not even considered the possibility. Realization of her carelessness sent shivers of fear quaking through her. It was likely the child she had tried to save was in danger, thanks to her stupidity. If Sneed sees him, he will take him. She had been nothing but stupid lately, starting with allowing this short wad of a man into her apartment.
“What business is it of mine?” he mocked. “The man is a murderer!” Whitton continued his rant as he paced the room. “He has no conscience. The children play only a small part in his evil deeds.”
It was clear Whitton feared his mother’s wrath. Guilt over her sharp criticism of him—even though it be to herself—made her consider the possibility that he cared for at least, some of his family. He blustered enough about each of them. She surely knew every member by now—at least, everything he felt was wrong about them. His niece was a spinster, and according to her uncle, it was because she shunned the ton and all it afforded her. Jenny could not
imagine spurning such a glamorous existence.
His niece’s father was a stupid man, according to Whitton. He could have appealed to his mother for funds to care for his family when the family business fell on hard times, yet pride had kept him from asking. And Jenny could not even start on the confused web of insults and attributes he directed at his sister, although it seemed he cared for her.
“You have placed me in a difficult position,” he finally said. His voice sounded calmer.
“I have apologized. Do you not think I feel bad enough about it? I could have kept my suspicion my own secret and not shared it with you.”
“There has been nothing else you should tell me about, has there?” he taunted again.
“Fret you not, my lord,” she said with a firm note of sarcasm, adding untruthfully, “I have said nothing to anyone about you being here. I merely feel sorry about the boy—Benjamin. However, your being in this difficult position is of your own doing,” Jenny derided, holding her hands on her hips. “Do not forget that. You stabbed a peer.”
He started at her words, causing her to back away a step.
Pretending more courage than she felt, she caught his gaze. “Yes, I know what you did. You refused to tell me, and I stopped asking, but people talk hereabouts.”
“What do you want with me, woman?” An edge had returned to his tone.
“Nothing,” she heard herself say. “You could at least be agreeable. Other gentlemen treat their mistresses with…”
He cut her off. “Mistress? You think you are my mistress?” His entire body recoiled from her. “You are naught but a bit of muslin.”
The cruelty of his words rendered her speechless. He had not called her his whore, exactly, but he might as well have done.
Before she died, her mother had made Jenny agree to better herself. “Jenny” she had said, “promise me that ye will do yer best t’ find a life that ye can be proud of. M’ own life has me dying of the pox. I’ll ne’er see ye grown. Oi want more fer ye, child.” Jane Maven had died later that very night.
Jenny had promised her mother to do better, but the gambling hell and its vices had been too tempting for a young girl, already hungry and penniless. She drew herself up. Quaking at her knees, she knew she had to change her path, now.
“Perhaps you should leave. I have no standing with you, and I am not sure why I ever cared. You are a horrid man. Leave now! Go home to your wife.”
“Stop talking, Jenny. I need to think.”
His reversal in attitude made her head spin. “Did you hear me, Lord Whitton?” She fairly screamed his name. “I said, ‘go home!’”
“Perhaps there is still some advantage to be made with my mother.” He spoke aloud, almost to himself, while pacing up and down again.
He had ignored her.
Benjamin had wormed his way into her heart. She desperately needed to help him—somehow. Except, first, she needed to free herself of this man.
“I am an earl. I have a great deal of influence.” She heard him say.
He was not listening to her at all. What mischief was Whitton planning now?
Chapter 13
“Miss Nora, here’s ye chocolate and a couple o’ pieces of toast, and a wee biscuit from the batch I jus’ pulled from the oven. I thought ye could use the indulgence this morning after the night ye had,” Mrs. Simpkins said, placing a tray down on the small table next to Nora’s bed. “I thought as how, with the extra men about, ye would sleep better.”
Nora had been lying there, awake, and when Mrs. Simpkins knocked, she sat up and stretched, holding back a yawn. She needed a stout dish of tea.
“I could smell your heavenly biscuits all the way up here,” she said with a giggle. “Did I wake you last night?”
“Ye did, miss. I came in and ye were screaming. It sounded like ye were praying. I sat next to ye and smoothed yer hair back from yer forehead until ye calmed and were resting again. Ye kept mumbling about little Amy but never opened yer eyes. She slept soundly all night. I looked in on her when I left yer room.” The older woman scanned the bedchamber. “I confess, I worried about ye.”
Nora recalled the dream. She had been running for her life, holding Amy close to her. Growing tired, she had stepped behind a building to catch her breath when powerful hands had pulled her backwards. It was a man, but she could not remember a thing beyond that. Perhaps Mrs. Simpkins’ soothing manner had finally coaxed her from the dream. She wondered if it had been a vision, as a chill of fear seized her and shook her to the core. Nora had experienced visions in the past and had never deciphered their meaning until she witnessed the same incident happen in life. This dream frightened her still. It had to be the dastardly Sneed chasing her. Certainty eluded her—maybe because the dream had ended too soon. She could recall nothing about the man who caught her and fought to quell her growing panic. Had it been Sneed?
Nora had expected to sleep better, knowing that the perimeter of the school was being watched by Lord Shefford’s footmen and was secure. Her mother had always said that visions did not happen until the body and the mind were relaxed. A shiver ran from her spine to her toes. She would let no one take Amy—or any child. Yesterday’s visit to her grandmother had been delayed. Today, she hoped, nothing would prevent her from seeing Grandmama to discuss the deed and other things which had transpired, still needing to tell her about her betrothal.
As she sat on her bed, reflecting on her dream and nibbling her toast, Uncle Wilford’s face flashed across her mind. Gosh! It had been a long time since she had had a foretelling. Could this be a second one? Could he be in danger or was he stirring more trouble? She knew naught of what it might mean and shook her head to clear it. The sun had already been up an hour, and she was eager to see Amy and Alice.
She stepped to her wardrobe and withdrew her golden muslin. Pleased with her dress selection, Nora secured the hooks and buttons on the front before leaning down and pulling on her half-boots. Having finished dressing, Nora gulped down the last of her chocolate, gathered together the dishes and hurried with them down to the kitchen.
“’Tis good to spy ye up and about Miss Nora! The children have just settled down to breakfast,” the cook said, peering over her shoulder from the sink. “Spending time with ye before they begin their lessons will put a smile on a few faces,” she added with a wink.
“I fear I slept a little longer than I usually do, and I do not want to miss this time with them,” she said as she set down the tray and hurried back towards the schoolroom.
As she headed up the stairs, male voices in the entry startled her. One she recognized as Amos Woods. She must remember to thank Grandmama for adding the handyman to the household. Having him to watch the front door was helpful. Another male voice spoke then, and his husky tone relaxed her immediately. Colin had arrived! No gentleman had ever stirred as many feelings within her as this one. Curious. Why is he here so soon? Had she forgotten something? Their carriage ride was not until ten.
The previous evening, he had arrived in time to oversee the additional guards he had arranged. It was thoughtful of him to lend her the footmen. Four men and three women now made up the employees at the school. The topsy-turvy nature of the household struck her as funny, causing her thoughts to turn fanciful. It was quite obvious that Mary had set her cap at Amos Woods, who clearly returned the attraction, and their burgeoning friendship was exciting her own sense of longing for a close relationship. Of course, Nora had not shared that she and the handsome Lord Shefford were betrothed. Still, theirs was a convenient arrangement—not the connection her heart desired. If she were honest, her heart desired him for reasons she failed to comprehend.
That only left Mrs. Simpkins spouseless. She snorted. Just supposing…? No, that is just nonsense. Still, she could not deny the amusement. The matchmaking mamas of the haute ton would marvel at the success found under one inauspicious roof in less than one week’s time.
Nora avoided going downstairs to meet the company, reluctant to squa
nder her time, and certain Woods could handle whatever presented itself. Instead, she visited the children to see how they did. They had finished their early meal and according to the schedule; it was time for watercolor painting. Easels and stools were being placed about the room by the children. Mary had already mixed the paints and set out the brushes. Paper and a pile of smocks were on a table by the door, for the girls to pull over their dresses. The boys had aprons that her grandmother had thoughtfully supplied. The Dowager Countess was an avid supporter of the arts and made sure supplies were plentiful, even encouraging all the children to take part.
Nora had her own supplies at the ready and positioned her chair across from her easel, choosing the space in front of one of the tall windows which lined the outer wall. She moved the curtains out of the way to allow for more light.
“There you are!” Colin sauntered in sporting an impudent grin and gave her a quick bow. “I am here to do your bidding, my lady.”
Her bidding? She had looked forward to spending an hour or two with Amy and the other children. Frustration welled inside her and she felt confused why. This man was everything that most women would clamor to claim. He was a gentleman; he was handsome and according to gossip, he was rich. She looked up and his grey eyes found her own brown eyes. As he held her gaze, she realized that what she had called grey was actually a very pale blue with silver flecks. His eyes held her captive. Damn it. She wanted him, too. Once again, he was taking over her plans.
“I am quite sure I have professed no bidding,” she snapped. What was it about this man that could make her eager to see him and also wish him elsewhere? He looked hurt. She immediately regretted her short-tempered response but did not apologize.
“I can be a quiet observer,” he coaxed. “I thought it a good time to meet the other children—perhaps get to know them a little.” He studied her face. “I can see you had not expected me, so please allow me to apologize for not speaking of my intention last evening. However, I am serious about our bargain and if I am to uphold my part of the bargain, I need to understand everything about the orphanage, and that includes the beneficiaries.” He regarded the room about them. “You are setting up for a class.” It was an observation.
Earl of Shefford: Noble Hearts Series: Book Three (Wicked Earls Book 28) Page 9