Mr. Banks was beyond disappointed, beyond even enraged, and galloping into the nearer reaches of despair. Kirsten knew that territory well, knew both its briar patches and the high hedges that obscured all exits.
“Well, come along,” she said, reaching for the boy, though his muddy boots might do permanent damage to her riding habit. “Mr. Banks’s horse must be walked out and groomed, and the lads can’t see to that if you two must air your differences in public.”
She’d snapped the fingers of good manners beneath Mr. Banks’s nose. He passed his horse’s reins to a waiting groom and reached for the child.
“I’ll take the boy. He’s heavy.”
“I have him,” Kirsten said, stalking away. The child was substantial, as a healthy little boy ought to be, though Kirsten was plenty sturdy enough to manage his weight.
Besides, how often did she get to hold any child?
Mr. Banks, as Kirsten had known he would, followed. He would have followed this disappointing boy anywhere, of that she was certain. To avoid the midday bustle in the Belle Maison kitchens, and to keep the miscreant to herself for a while longer, Kirsten headed for the back entrance to the dower house.
“Are you hurt anywhere, Danny?” she asked.
“No, ma’am. I scraped my arm, though.”
“Scraped it bloody?” Kirsten had five brothers, and as sure as they must break wind and burp, boys loved bloody mishaps.
“I haven’t looked. It stings something powerful, ma’am.”
Mr. Banks stalked along beside them, his lips were nearly white and his hair was tousled in all directions.
“While I tidy you up, Mr. Banks can have Alfrydd send a groom to let others know you’re safe,” Kirsten suggested, because a period in neutral corners was necessary for these two. A short period.
“An excellent suggestion,” Mr. Banks retorted, turning with military precision and marching double time back toward the stable.
“He’s very angry,” the child said. “I’ve never seen him this angry. I’m angry too.”
“Anger often works that way. We go at it in pairs.” Kirsten’s worst rages had been solo endeavors, though. “Tell me the truth. Are you hurt?”
As they reached the dower house, Kirsten dipped at the knees and the boy lifted the door latch.
“I’m not really hurt, not like you mean.”
“Then like how?” Internal injuries had killed many a rider with more experience than Danny, but boys were tough creatures.
So were girls. Ladies were perhaps toughest of all.
“My belly aches all the time,” Danny said. “I want to shout and run, but that doesn’t help either. I don’t want to play with my soldiers, but I’m neglecting my studies too.”
Neglecting his studies was some adult’s phrase for those fidgets and megrims.
“You thought to gallop off the dismals?” Kirsten asked.
The boy turned his head away. His small shoulders hitched, and then he buried his face against Kirsten’s neck.
“I was mad at—at him. Will Loki be all right?”
Kirsten sat the child on the worktable—he was heavy—and kept her arms around him.
“Your pony will be spoiled rotten in my brother’s stable. You were angry at Mr. Banks?”
A nod against her collarbone. Silky dark hair the exact same shade as Mr. Banks’s tickled Kirsten’s chin. The boy had the same name as the vicar. His eyes were the same chocolate brown, his jaw…
Nobody would doubt this boy was Mr. Banks’s child, despite the reality of his origins.
“Let’s get you cleaned up before Mr. Banks rejoins us. A good scrap is best undertaken with a full belly.”
The two-inch laceration above the child’s wrist was indeed bloody and would bruise handsomely. Kirsten tended the wound, bound it, and then brushed the boy’s clothing clean as best she could with a damp cloth. His boots received a cursory washing down as well, more for the sake of the floors and furniture than for the boy’s dignity.
She fixed him buttered bread with jam and a mug of milk. When Mr. Banks stomped through the back door, Danny was ensconced at the table, looking none the worse for his ordeal.
Kirsten intercepted the Wrath of St. Jude’s Pulpit before he could tear into the child.
“Mr. Banks, perhaps you’re feeling peckish too? Danny’s wrist will be fine, though he has a nasty scrape. Because he’s worried about the pony, I’ve assured him Loki will be well cared for.”
“Danny should be the one looking after his pony,” Mr. Banks growled, trying to dodge around Kirsten. “Danny is the one who put him at risk.”
Horses slipped, they misjudged stiles, they were horses. The rider wasn’t necessarily at fault for any of it any more than Kirsten’s father could have stopped his sons from their various misadventures.
Kirsten put both hands on Mr. Banks’s shoulders. “When you’ve had something to eat, you can take Danny to the stable to look in on the pony.”
“I don’t want any—”
She shook him by the shoulders, rather like trying to shake a stout oak. “You could do with some ale, and a bit of bread and cheese, Mr. Banks.” Must she shout at him? Danny was hurting, upset, and a child.
Those broad, strong shoulders slumped.
“The boy was lost,” he said softly near Kirsten’s ear. “Anybody might have come upon him, stolen the pony, or worse. My own father railed endlessly against my independent nature when I was a boy. I now see why. Danny was a good two hours from home by the lanes and that pony could have come up lame at any moment. The child was completely bewildered, and I’m much afraid nobody even knows he’s taken off.”
Afraid. A trip through the mud was far preferable to being afraid. Kirsten slipped her arms around the bewildered man before her, and his stole around her too.
“I love that child,” he nearly whispered. “I love him until—I love him more than life, and he was bleeding and lost, far from home, alone, and—”
All the fierceness Kirsten had seen and sensed in Mr. Banks shuddered through him, on behalf of a small boy who sat munching bread and jam two yards away.
“He’s fine,” she said, stroking a hand over Mr. Banks’s hair. “The child is fine, though he needs a stern talking-to and some sorting out. You’ll be fine too.”
Though sending the boy back to his negligent caretakers would hurt Mr. Banks terribly.
The vicar stepped back, tugged down his waistcoat, and ran a hand through his hair.
“Have we ale?” he asked.
Yes, we did. “Of course, and bread and cheese. No biscuits for the boy, but I might find some for you.”
Kirsten smoothed down the hair Mr. Banks had just disarranged, winked at him, and repaired to the larder in search of his ale. Once there, she poured a small pint, settled herself on a stool—her skirts were indeed a muddy fright—and prepared to indulge in a bit of eavesdropping.
* * *
“The new vicar is quite tall,” Matthias said, pushing his spectacles up his nose. He wore an old pair that had been his papa’s, and Digby thought they didn’t fit him. “Tall is bad.”
“Tall means he can swing a birch rod,” Thomas agreed. Around the small circle of boys sharing an empty stall in the livery, heads nodded in agreement.
“Vicar—the old vicar—would fall asleep if I asked him a question about the Roman armies,” Digby volunteered, though inside he didn’t feel nearly as hopeful as he tried to make his words. He abruptly missed the old vicar, who’d been gruff, smelly, and long-winded, but he’d never taken the birch rod to Digby’s backside.
“This vicar doesn’t look sleepy,” Frank Blumenthal said. Frank was a quiet boy, often in his twin’s shadow, but the scholar hadn’t been born who liked a birching.
“My new papa promised me Vicar Banks is nice,” Digby said.
F
rank and Fred exchanged a look that suggested Papa had lied, which Digby would not believe, though the Blumenthal Brats were a formidable pair. They’d chased off three governesses and three tutors, after all.
“Every one of them is nice when they’re talking to your parents,” Matthias explained. “Then you’re shut up in the schoolroom with them, and it’s ‘Master Blumenthal, have you misplaced your brain?’ Whack! ‘Master Blumenthal, do you take me for a simpleton?’ Whack! ‘Master Blumenthal, fetch my cane!’”
Matthias’s imitation of adult speech was not funny at all.
“Governesses were ever so much easier.” Thomas sighed. “A few frogs here and there, tea poured on her mattress just before bedtime, a nice big spider in her slippers… I miss our governesses.”
A respectful silence descended in the name of bygone governesses, though Digby could hardly recall the one governess he’d had before his first papa had died.
“I think we should give the new vicar a chance,” Digby said. He was the youngest, though of a size with the Blumenthals. “He asked me what I thought of his sermon on Sunday, and then he listened to my answer.”
“What did you tell him?” Matthias was fiddling some straw into a braided design. Matthias was clever with his hands.
“I said he didn’t tell us a story, and then he asked me about my pony.”
“You haven’t got a pony,” Thomas retorted, looking up from retying the laces of his boots. He needed new boots, judging from the cracks in the leather near his toes.
“I don’t have a pony yet, but my new papa has promised—”
“They do that,” Matthias said, pitching his straw doll aside. “They promise, but then the rents aren’t enough, or your older sister has to go up to Town, or your mama wants a new gig. No pony, ever. And then it’s off to public school where you must fag for the older boys or get beaten to within an inch of your life.”
Digby hadn’t an older sister, his new papa had already taken Mama up to Town to shop for dresses, and these boys were entirely too glum.
“I can’t worry about public school now,” Digby said, “and my new papa will get me a pony, you’ll see.”
This might have been an invitation for Thomas to sit on him. Thomas was very good at sitting on smaller boys until they yelled whatever nonsense Thomas demanded from them. Worse, Thomas had a talent for pushing his victims down amid the horse droppings and the mud.
The arrival of the new vicar had shifted everybody’s priorities, apparently. No time for horse droppings or mud now, not when a genuine, birch-rod-wielding menace had taken up residence among them.
“We need a plan,” Matthias said, folding his glasses and putting them in a pocket. “We got ’round our governesses, we got ’round our tutors, we got ’round the old vicar, and we mostly get ’round our parents. We’ll get ’round this Mr. Banks too.”
Seven
Lady Kirsten had discreetly withdrawn to the pantries, but to know she was within earshot steadied Daniel. If young Danny lost his temper, she’d intercede.
If Daniel lost his temper, she’d also intercede.
“Are you enjoying the bread?” Daniel asked, taking a seat across from the boy.
“I said grace,” Danny shot back, a smear of jam on his stubborn little chin.
His dear, impossible, stubborn little chin that might have been dashed on a rock that very morning. Daniel helped himself to a slice of bread—cut thicker than he was used to—and applied butter and jam mostly to buy time.
“How is your arm?” he asked.
Boyish lashes lowered bashfully. “Lady Kirsten said I had a prodigious, terrible gash, and the blood nearly made her faint. When she’d wrapped my arm in linen, she kissed it better, but the cut smarted awfully when she cleaned it.”
Olivia hadn’t ever kissed the child’s hurts better. She’d scolded Danny for his various scrapes instead. Remorse nearly choked Daniel, for all the child had suffered, for all he was still suffering.
“I’m sure you were very brave,” Daniel said, tearing his bread in two and passing Danny the larger portion. They’d developed this habit long ago, and Danny took his share without hesitation.
For a moment, the bread and jam forestalled the next part of the conversation, but only for a moment.
“Danny, I have to take you back. Your mother and the viscount will be worried sick. You owe them an apology for running off, and I’m none too proud of you for this morning’s frolic myself.”
Danny set his bread and jam down. “I wasn’t frolicking, Papa. I was galloping off the dismals, as you and Zubbie do. All Mama does is hug me and mess up my hair and tell me how glad she is that I’m with her. The viscount at least got me a pony, but I’ve stopped asking them about you because they always change the subject. I hate it there, and sometimes I think I’ll soon hate them.”
Beneath the table, Daniel sensed the rhythmic kicking of a small boy’s boots against the rungs of his chair.
“Hate is a serious word, Danny.”
A dangerous word, an unchristian word. The last word Daniel had wanted the boy to learn under his mother’s roof.
“I shouldn’t hate, I know that,” Danny said, “but nobody listens, and there’s nothing to do. My tutor falls asleep, we never have buttered toast for breakfast, the vicar there shouts at everybody on Sundays forever, and I miss you!”
Daniel barely had time to push his chair back as the boy pelted around the table. Small arms lashed about Daniel’s neck, and the comforting weight of the dear child scrambled into Daniel’s lap.
“I hate it there,” Danny wailed, tears flowing. “It’s not home, it will never be home, and I want to go home.”
I want to go home too, child. Daniel recognized a tantrum when it befell the boy but hadn’t been as alert to his own emotions. While Danny sobbed and muttered and generally wrinkled Daniel’s linen worse than it already had been, Lady Kirsten rejoined them and began quietly clearing the table.
She didn’t tousle Danny’s hair, but she did brush Daniel’s hair back off his forehead. At that moment, he hadn’t the energy to question or take issue with her familiarity, for her touch brought him too much comfort.
“Tea, I think,” she said. “And maybe some biscuits after all.”
Danny subsided, exhausted, as children tended to be when strong emotion has been expressed.
“I don’t want to go back there, Papa. Mama and the viscount are very nice, but it’s hard to remember that I’m to call her Aunt Letty when she’s always telling me how much she likes being my mama. I liked her better when she was simply Aunt Letty and you were my only papa.”
Daniel had liked that better too. He’d repent of that selfish thought later.
“We have two problems, my boy,” Daniel said as the scent of peppermint filled the kitchen. “First, you were wrong to leave the viscount’s household without permission.”
“I know, but you can’t gallop off the dismals with a groom on one side and a viscount on the other when neither one of them lets you go faster than a stupid trot. You never took a groom or a viscount when you hacked out with Zubbie.”
Children would wield logic at the worst times. Over at the slop bucket, Lady Kirsten’s chin had dipped, as if she stifled a snicker.
“I’ve been riding for years,” Daniel said, “while you’re on your first pony, and when you did go for a gallop, look how your pony fared.”
He’d spiked the boy’s cannon with that one. Danny maneuvered off Daniel’s lap onto the chair beside him.
“I’ll apologize to Loki and look after him, the way you showed me with Beelzebub. I miss Zubbie too.”
Said with heartbreaking woefulness—which would get the lad nowhere.
“You owe the pony an apology, you owe your mother an apology, and you owe the viscount a very big apology because you betrayed the trust he showed you when he put Loki
in your hands.”
Ah, a gratifying quiver of the chin.
“Do you think he’ll t-take Loki away?”
If Viscount Fairly were smart—he was generally brilliant—he’d forbid Danny to ride for a few days and put him on muck cart duty.
“He might. You acted irresponsibly, Danny, toward your pony and toward the people who love you and want to keep you safe.”
While Danny struggled under the weight of that avuncular pronouncement, Lady Kirsten brought over a tea tray—plain wood, with a plain linen towel on it. Not a silver service, not even pewter, but plain, sturdy crockery. Chocolate biscuits graced a small plate in one corner of the tray.
How Daniel liked her, and how he’d have to repent of that. That too.
Sympathy for Danny assailed him, sympathy for a fellow who felt overwhelmed, alone, and without good options. A fellow who had precious little to look forward to and nobody to look forward to it with.
Except his trusty steed.
“At least you can visit Beelzebub today,” Lady Kirsten said, taking the place across from Daniel. “Drink your tea, snatch a biscuit, and then away with you to the stable. Take Loki and Beelzebub some sugar and start working on your apologies. They usually benefit from thorough rehearsal.”
Yes, they did. Just as a grown man benefited from time to sort out a proper course when a miserable little boy landed in his lap, all scraped up, bleeding, and famished.
Lady Kirsten drizzled a skein of honey in a cup of peppermint tea and set it in front of Danny. The scent alone was soothing, and the enthusiasm with which Danny downed his tea did Daniel’s heart good too.
“Why is it,” Lady Kirsten mused when Danny had bolted his biscuit and left, “the silence following a child’s departure is more profound than other silences? We love the children dearly, but when they leave us in peace, we always feel a bit of gratitude.”
Daniel accepted his cup of tea but denied himself a biscuit. Chocolate biscuits and peppermint tea were both rare luxuries by Daniel’s standards. Lady Kirsten’s company was a luxury too.
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