Daniel's True Desire

by Grace Burrowes

  Six

  “Start with the Webber boys,” Mr. Banks said, passing Kirsten a slice of bread. He’d cut the loaf thinner than it was served at the manor house, suggesting a man raised with economies learned to conserve the kitchen resources.

  He wouldn’t let half the chocolate grow cold in the pot, wouldn’t waste the first hour of his morning choosing which knot to put in his cravat.

  “The older Webber child is Thomas,” she said, “the younger Matthias, and there’s barely a year’s difference between them. Matthias is the more diabolical, for he’s fair and has a sweet countenance. His mother indulges him because he did not thrive as an infant. Thomas is the more physically robust and is protective of his younger brother. They’ve been through three tutors that I know of in the last year.”

  Mr. Banks looked intrigued. “I wonder if they use the same scheme to get rid of every tutor, or if they invent new ones suited to the occasion. What about the Blumenthal twins?”

  He didn’t call them brats. Kirsten engaged in some dilatory buttering of her bread because Mr. Banks either would not acknowledge that shocking moment in the library the previous day, or he simply did not recall it. Leah swore her infant son could sleep with his eyes open, and Kirsten had no grounds to doubt her.

  “The Blumenthal boys are said to be indistinguishable,” Kirsten replied, “but that’s not so. Frederick’s face is narrower than Frank’s, and Fred has a small scar on his left earlobe. The nursemaid who figured that out earned Mrs. Blumenthal’s undying gratitude.”

  “What sort of mother can’t tell her own children apart?” Mr. Banks asked.

  “One with ten children, five of them boys. I’m not sure they hold still long enough to be counted, much less sorted.”

  Kirsten could tell the twins apart irrespective of scars. Frederick was quick to use his fists, which probably accounted for the scar, while young Frank was a schemer. He’d hang back, plot and plan, and then hatch up mischief when nobody expected trouble.

  “You’ll have your work cut out for you,” she said, reaching for another slice of bread.

  Mr. Banks reached at the same time, their hands collided, and for a funny little moment, they each held a corner of the same slice of bread.

  “My apologies,” Mr. Banks said, relinquishing the prize. “Let’s start with Frederick Blumenthal. If you could elaborate on his strengths first, I would be obliged. Everyone has something they take pride in or do with natural ease, and emphasizing those areas often allows a child to progress in more difficult undertakings.”

  Kirsten used the knife to lift a rosette of butter from the dish for her next thin slice of bread, and abruptly she was angry.

  And very near tears.

  This was what she did well. Organized maids and footmen, kept track of which child favored licorice and which parlor needed new sachets. Made sure the good recipes were kept on hand, however humble the resulting fare. Nita could keep the accounts, organize schedules, and monitor the pantries, but Kirsten had monitored the home.

  Mr. Banks would value a woman who brought that much to a marital union. He wouldn’t view his lady as a broodmare who paid with her liberty for the privilege of serving his title.

  “Lady Kirsten? Have I given offense? I can take my meal back to the office and spend the hours with my father’s diaries if your ladyship prefers. A son ought to read his father’s words, but in the years since my father’s death, I haven’t made the time. Haven’t wanted to endure any posthumous scolds, if you want the truth.”

  Mr. Banks came close to babbling, while Kirsten managed to shake her head. Her bread was gently pried from her hand, and Mr. Banks finished applying the butter, such as he might have for a young child.

  “I hate London.”

  Yes, Kirsten had said that, like a sulky, if honest, girl. Her expostulation was Mr. Banks’s cue to recall overdue correspondence, pressing business with the earl, or whatever excuse from the well-stocked arsenal of polite male excuses he chose to fire off in return for Kirsten’s complaint.

  He tore the buttered bread in half and passed the larger portion to her.

  “My father referred to Town as Sodom-on-Thames, among other less savory appellations,” he said. “I gather London’s propensity for vice is not the source of your dislike?”

  Kirsten took a nibble of bread, which was better for having a larger quotient of butter to bread.

  “You are very brave, Mr. Banks. You might fool everybody else, but you are a brave man. I will reward your courage with gossip you’ll likely hear in the churchyard: on two notable occasions, I failed to bring my devoted suitors up to scratch.”

  Mr. Banks was even a fierce man, though the first glimpse Kirsten had seen of his ferocity had been unnervingly erotic.

  Also unforgettable.

  “I am a good listener,” he said, smiling at his half piece of bread, then biting off a portion. “An occupational necessity for a vicar, but also one of those natural abilities I mentioned earlier. I like knowing how things function and how people work. With familiarity comes greater insight into why this one stumbles, and that one can’t forgive. Won’t you tell me about London, my lady?”

  Daniel Banks had good, strong teeth and an ability to make a command feel like an invitation.

  “I am not a good listener, Mr. Banks. I am impatient, nervous by some accounts, and lacking in charm. While I am not homely, my greatest attributes, as far as Polite Society is concerned, are a larger dowry than my sisters can claim and a certain pragmatism that will serve me well in a good match.”

  All true, though not the entire truth.

  “A loveless match, you mean?” Mr. Banks asked mildly.

  “A loveless, advantageous match.” Advantageous for the man, who could improve his fortunes and his cachet by marrying an earl’s daughter.

  Mr. Banks patted her knuckles. “To know one’s own value is a strength, my lady. If you’d settled for some viscount’s spotty, self-important heir, you’d have murdered the young wretch within a year of the nuptials.”

  Mr. Sedgewick had been prone to spots, and he could have written odes to his own consequence. Viscount Morton, however—“Call me Arthur, won’t you please?”—had been Kirsten’s every secret longing adorned with a dashing smile.

  She nearly hated Arthur Morton now.

  “You’ve seen bad matches?” Kirsten asked.

  “All vicars see unhappy matches,” Mr. Banks said, dusting bread crumbs from his hands. “I’ve studied marital discord from a much closer vantage point than I had anticipated when I trained for the church. How might you make London more bearable?”

  By burning down every ballroom in the West End.

  “Two years ago,” Kirsten said, “I developed a slight cough that served me well and was only half-feigned. The air—particularly early in the Season, while the coal fires are roaring—is foul. Another year, I was prone to sick headaches. The year of my come-out, I contrived to sprain an ankle as soon as I’d been presented, but my sisters won’t tolerate those ploys now. If I cross the line to eccentric, I could queer Della’s and Susannah’s prospects.”

  “Loyalty to your loved ones is a cardinal virtue,” Mr. Banks said. “That loyalty should go both ways.”

  His observation lay between them, and like the empty soup bowls, half-filled tankards of ale, and bread crumbs, it wanted tidying up.

  “My sisters love me, as do my brothers.” Only Nita, though, had been truly loyal, and she was off with her new husband to tour the wonders of the Continent—or the marriage bed.

  “I love my horse, Lady Kirsten. Adore every hair on his handsome head and fret over his digestion the way a new mother frets over her baby, but when his oats are poured into his bucket, his awareness of me ceases.”

  “He’s a horse,” Kirsten said, though Mr. Banks was not making an equestrian point, and the oats of an approaching S
eason had indeed been poured into her sisters’ buckets. “Do you miss your former congregation?”

  The scullery maid—a cousin of Jeremy’s who’d alerted Kirsten to the boy’s earlier upset—cleared away the dishes, which meant Kirsten had to wait for an answer to her question. She was certain Mr. Banks was missing something, or possibly somebody.

  A lowering thought.

  He tipped his mug of ale and studied the contents—winter ale, though Kirsten preferred the lighter, sweeter summer ales.

  “I miss being secure in my place in the world,” he said, setting the ale down untasted. “I miss taking on the challenges I’ve chosen, not those that rise up, unwelcome and unannounced, to disturb my very concept of myself. I’d thought myself a decent enough fellow, competent to fulfill my calling, an asset to my community. Those convictions were shaken, and I will not take them for granted again.”

  Mr. Banks was leaving much unsaid, though both regret and determination echoed loudly in his words.

  “Not a pleasant time, when one’s convictions about oneself are shaken.” Christopher Sedgewick’s behavior had started that process and Arthur Morton’s had finished it. “One can emerge wiser for the upset.”

  Though what could shake a man of Mr. Banks’s fiercely decent nature?

  “Wiser, perhaps.” Now Mr. Banks drained the last of his ale. “I’ve begun to wonder if wisdom isn’t overrated. Nowhere in the Commandments are we exhorted to be wise.”

  He came around to assist Kirsten with her chair, something her brothers would have neglected to do unless company were present.

  “The Commandments don’t exhort us to be happy,” Kirsten said, “and yet I cannot cease wishing happiness for myself and for those I care about.” She wished happiness for Mr. Banks too, though why hadn’t she seen sooner that he was sorrowing for something or for someone?

  Kirsten rose and Mr. Banks remained where he was, lips pursed, gazing into the middle distance. This close, she could see that he’d again turned his cravat to hide frayed stitching, and a seam on his collar was threatening to unravel as well. He’d worn the plain, clerical collar on Sunday, but apparently eschewed that affectation when at home during the week.

  “Mr. Banks?”

  “You’ve given me an idea for a sermon, my lady, and it’s only Monday. My thanks, for you’ve made my entire week a more cheering prospect. If I take my horse out for a good gallop tomorrow, by Wednesday, I’ll have the Scripture to go with the message.”

  Should Kirsten, the least Christian of any Haddonfield in the centuries-long history of Haddonfields, be pleased to have inspired a sermon?

  “I’ve made you happy?” Kirsten asked.

  His focus shifted back to the present moment, probably torn from the glories of Psalms or Deuteronomy.

  “You have, my lady. My thanks.”

  His smile was so gently, radiantly pleased, Kirsten wanted to be wrapped in his arms and in his joy, to give him many inspirations and to give him her heart.

  I shall not subject myself to the farce of a London season this year. The notion settled in her mind as a fait accompli, and the relief was enormous. Mr. Banks was right—she’d have murdered either Sedgewick or Morton had she married them.

  “You’ve made me happy too, Mr. Banks, and I assure you, few can say as much.” She kissed his cheek, a second transgression against strict propriety, though the maid was busy at the sink, and Mr. Banks hadn’t taken any great exception to Kirsten’s first such trespass.

  He said nothing now, either, no scold, no remonstration, so Kirsten patted his worn cravat and sailed from the kitchen. As she flew up the maids’ stairs, sunlight illuminated a coating of dust on the newel post, for the sun had finally, finally come out.

  When she’d finished turning the music room into a classroom, she’d have the maids get after the stairway. Mr. Banks deserved a clean, pleasant place to undertake the challenge of educating a pack of rascally boys.

  To undertake all of his challenges.

  * * *

  “She did it again,” Daniel informed Beelzebub as the horse toddled away from the mounting block. “Lady Kirsten kissed my cheek, and I was so taken aback, so ambushed, I could not chastise her for her boldness.”

  Beelzebub trundled along the damp lane, though already, the puddles were drying and the morning sun had chased the dew off the grass. A beautiful day, really, well suited to galloping off the fidgets.

  “I did not want to hurt her ladyship’s feelings. One should be kind.”

  Zubbie shied, of course. His former owner had called the gelding “high-strung,” though others termed it “full of the devil.” His spooks, shies, dodges, and bucks were not intended to jeopardize his rider, but rather were intended to ensure the rider was paying attention.

  As a conscientious rider ought to, at all times.

  “At least wait till we get to the road before you start quizzing me on my equitation,” Daniel said, patting the beast’s shoulder. “Some families are simply friendly, you know? They hug and kiss in the normal course and it doesn’t mean a thing. The earl is quite a friendly fellow.”

  With his countess. With his sisters, Bellefonte was more circumspect.

  “If you want the truth,” Daniel said, guiding Beelzebub around a puddle in which the horse would have splashed and pawed away half the morning, “I don’t want to hurt Lady Kirsten’s feelings. Somebody already has—hurt her feelings or offended her sensibilities. I needn’t court her disfavor by taking issue with a pair of harmless, friendly kisses.”

  Daniel’s personal test for what was acceptable conduct had once come down to: Would he have behaved in a given manner if his wife or son were present? He’d tolerated many kisses and embraces from parishioners in Little Weldon as Olivia and Danny looked on, but his test failed him in this instance.

  Beelzebub indulged in another of his favorite tactics for riveting his rider’s attention, and came to an abrupt halt.

  “Walk on, you naughty boy. He who craves a good gallop must walk and trot first.”

  Daniel had spent yesterday trying to distract himself from thoughts of Danny. The dower house would easily accommodate a herd of small boys in addition to one unsettled vicar, and the dwelling was becoming a pleasant place too.

  Lady Kirsten had issued a decree to that effect, and so it would come to pass.

  “I’m to look after other people’s small boys again,” Daniel said as his horse minced along the lane. “I miss Danny.”

  Daniel could say the words now without wanting to destroy the nearest fragile object, could say them without wanting to throttle his lawfully wedded wife, or even rant at her for very long.

  “A rousing go-to-the-devil or two,” he murmured as they turned onto the road to the village. “A few I-never-want-to-see-you-agains, and the usual how-could-yous at full Sunday volume. For form’s sake only, you understand. I can accept that Olivia was disappointed in me as a spouse, but Danny and Letty did nothing to deserve her betrayal.”

  Anger joined Daniel in the saddle, a dangerous, raging flood of it that had grown more powerful with the passing months rather than ebbed.

  “My lawfully wedded wife will not cost me my calling,” Daniel said, sinking his weight into his stirrups. Beelzebub, a veteran of many steeplechases in pursuit of spiritual clarity—or something like it—knew what that weight shift meant. He settled, collecting back onto his haunches in anticipation of a great leap forward.

  “Of all the losses Olivia has inflicted on me—my home, my dignity, my position in Oxfordshire, my relationship with my only sibling—she will not also rob me of my vocation.”

  Then they were away, flying across the spring countryside, a flat streak of dark horse and determined man, throwing up mud, turf, psalms, and anger behind them.

  * * *

  “Trouble afoot,” Alfrydd muttered.

  Kirsten
followed his gaze down the lane, to a man on a sizable, muddy horse, a small child up before him, and a riderless black-and-white pony beside the horse.

  “The pony looks sound enough,” Kirsten replied, but Alfrydd was right that trouble approached, for the pony had a grass-stained, bloody knee.

  “Mr. Banks left more than two hours ago,” Alfrydd said, tugging at the girth of Kirsten’s saddle. “That black of his is winded. They had a good romp before turning up Samaritan.”

  The Samaritan was furious. The line of Mr. Banks’s jaw and the absolute dignity of his posture shouted of rage. The child, curiously, was in no better mood.

  “You can put up my mare, Alfrydd,” Kirsten said. “Better still, have one of the grooms take her for a hack. I apparently won’t be raiding the vicarage’s library shelves today after all.”

  Kirsten could still climb on her mare, salute the approaching pair as she cantered past, and leave them to sort out their differences, but the child was barely school-age, and he was muddy down one side of his breeches.

  Kirsten could not turn her back on the boy, for nobody’s outlook was improved by a trip through the mud.

  “Mr. Banks,” she called cheerily. “A pleasant day to you and to your companion.”

  The vicar stared down at her from the back of his black destrier, a portion of that ferocity Kirsten had seen in the library lingering in his expression.

  “Lady Kirsten, good day.”

  Nothing more, as if all manners, all civility even, had fled his grasp. The boy, however, remained snugly secured by Mr. Banks’s arm about his middle.

  “Won’t you introduce us?” Kirsten asked, taking the pony’s reins and passing them to Alfrydd.

  “Master Daniel Banks, ma’am,” the child announced, his little chin quivering. “All I did was take my pony for a gallop. Loki is my pony. The viscount said.”

  Banks swung down, the child leaning forward in synchrony with the adult’s dismount, as if they’d ridden together many times in the past.

  “You left without permission, Danny,” Mr. Banks said. “You didn’t take a groom, you told no one where you went, you took risks, and Loki came to harm as a result. I am very, very disappointed in you.”