A Return of Devotion

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  A blush crept up Daphne’s cheeks as she realized how little she actually knew about Maxwell Oswald. “Cousin, perhaps?” Daphne trudged through her mind, trying to remember all the times Kit had gone on about what a brilliant match Mr. Oswald was. “His father was the second son of a marquis, though I’m not sure I knew which one.” Daphne swallowed. “Right now I’m willing to place a great deal of money on it being Chemsford.”

  Chapter three

  Jess chopped the onion with smooth motions of the sharp knife. Finally she scooped the pieces of onion into a pot and looked at Daphne. “What do you want us to do?”

  The next breath slid into Daphne’s lungs just a bit more easily than the one before. Us. Jess wasn’t leaving. Part of Daphne was always waiting for her to leave, to run, to decide Daphne and everything that came with what remained of Haven Manor were too much hassle.

  Running was always still an option. After all, Jess had come here to hide from something, or perhaps someone, and the house was much more vulnerable now that people were coming and going from the property. It sounded like for now, at least, she didn’t plan on packing her bags and disappearing.

  Daphne was willing to take now and let someday wait for later.

  “He can’t be allowed to see Benedict. Ever.”

  Jess snorted. “You do remember that the boy is Mr. Leighton’s apprentice, don’t you? The man who was hired to make repairs and updates to this entire house? Benedict is going to be crawling all over the place for the next year at least. It’s not possible.”

  “Why not?” Daphne said. “He’s an apprentice. Lord Chemsford will have no reason to seek him out, nor any need to be in a room where the work is being done. He’s a nobleman. The woodwork would get dust on his boots. It shouldn’t be too difficult to ensure they are never in the same room.”

  Jess pulled a turnip from a nearby basket and rolled it from hand to hand as she considered Daphne. “With or without Benedict’s help?”

  Daphne bit her lip. That was the other difficulty in this situation. Benedict knew he was illegitimate, just as all the children who’d lived here were. He also knew his parents, or in this case his father, were nobility of some kind because all the children had come from such situations. None of the children had been told who those parents were.

  Having grown up knowing what it was like to feel different from her peers, to wonder why no one else started to shake when meeting someone new or feel the burning desire to hide under the bed instead of go to any sort of social event, Daphne had wanted Benedict to feel as normal as possible. To feel like he belonged.

  So she hadn’t told him.

  He didn’t know he was hers.

  Since she’d loved all the children as if they were her own, she’d thought it would never matter. He’d be the same as his pseudo-siblings being raised in secret to protect them from the ridicule of society and shielded from the horrors of possibly ending up dead in a workhouse.

  If she told him now that she’d lied to him his entire life . . . would he forgive her? She couldn’t risk the close relationship they had, the mother-son connection they’d created despite his never being able to address her as such.

  “Without,” Daphne said quietly. “It has to be done without his knowledge.”

  Jess didn’t agree or disagree, simply moved forward with her food preparations. “It’s not possible.”

  Daphne sat up taller on the stool and crossed her arms over her chest. “Why not?”

  “Aside from the logistic impossibility of keeping two people apart in a building for more than a year? What about the fact that Mr. Leighton is certainly going to have interactions with Lord Chemsford? And yes, he will also notice the similarity.” Jess crossed her own arms and lifted her brows. “What do you intend to tell Sarah, Reuben, and Eugenia?”

  Daphne groaned and dropped her head to the table.

  All three children remaining at Haven Manor worked for the estate in some capacity to explain their continued presence. They all viewed each other as family, and they still thought of Benedict as an older brother, despite the fact that he now lived with Mr. Leighton. Keeping them all away from their new employer wasn’t going to be possible. What would they think? What would they say?

  Another groan ripped through Daphne’s chest as a sharp throbbing began in the middle of her forehead. How was it possible for two people to look as similar as Benedict and Lord Chemsford? No one would believe they weren’t father and son. No one. And if it became public knowledge that Benedict wasn’t legitimate, the life he was trying so very hard to build could be destroyed.

  Perhaps Benedict could move north. People in Scotland appreciated skilled woodworking, didn’t they? And the possibility was small that anyone there would know Lord Chemsford.

  That didn’t solve the problem of all the people who already knew Benedict. What if someone said something to Lord Chemsford? Would he demand answers from Daphne? Would he dismiss her when she didn’t give them?

  If he did, she’d be forced to go to the workhouse. She’d never see Benedict again. Perhaps she could live off the sympathies of Mrs. Lancaster, the kind old shopkeeper from nearby Marlborough who had helped her when she’d first arrived in the area all those years ago. The woman was getting old. She needed someone to leave her shop to, didn’t she? Daphne could be a grocer. Well, except for the fact that running a shop required her to interact with people she didn’t know well.

  “Daphne? Daphne?”

  Jess’s voice cut through Daphne’s mental wanderings, bringing her crashing back into the kitchen of the secluded manor.

  She raised her head slowly and swallowed. “Yes?”

  One golden eyebrow arched and Jess’s blue eyes crinkled in humor. “Really?”

  Oh dear, had there been a question? What had Jess asked? Apparently not something she expected Daphne to agree to. “Er, no?”

  Jess laughed and shook her head as she added more ingredients to the pot in the fireplace.

  Daphne grimaced. Spending the past two months dusting and cleaning on her own had gotten her out of the practice of suppressing those flights of fancy her imagination liked to take.

  Jess gave a pointed look over her shoulder. “The children?”

  Daphne opened her mouth to try to come up with a way to keep everyone away from their new arrival, but Jess cut her off.

  “Reuben is going to see the man in a matter of moments when he takes that water upstairs.” Jess nodded to the multiple pots and buckets of water heating over the fire.

  “I’ll think of something,” Daphne muttered. She had time. Since Benedict didn’t live with the rest of them in the little cottage down beyond the garden, he didn’t see the other children every day. She had a day or two to create a plan.

  “You won’t,” Jess said quietly, “but if you want to buy yourself some time to admit that, you need to make a few things happen.”

  Jess was wrong. Daphne was a desperate mother trying to protect the well-being of her child—and herself, but mostly her child. She was capable of anything.

  A little more time to come up with a plan would be nice, though. “What things?”

  “Mr. Leighton and Benedict finished the work in the saloon today. Tomorrow they’re moving into the parlor. That was my old room. It won’t require a great deal of work, but they’ll be in it for a few days. You need to give Lord Chemsford a tour and show him those rooms tonight.”

  “Why?” Daphne knew the house was his now and he had the right to go wherever he wished, but she didn’t like the idea of taking him through it on a tour.

  “Because he’s moved into a new house, Daphne. He’s going to want to see it. If not tonight, then tomorrow, when those rooms will be occupied with workers.” Jess hacked a knife through more vegetables with a speed that made Daphne tuck her fingers away.

  “A tour. I can do that.” She could. Hadn’t she just concluded that a desperate mother could do anything? “What next?”

  “If you want more than a da
y or two, it’s going to be difficult. You could convince him to send the work crew up to the garret rooms so the staff can move back into the house. Then have him move his living quarters down to the main floor, into the parlor. If he has no reason to go upstairs, he is less likely to run into Benedict. That’s a lot of things that have to happen, though. You’ll have to work hard to make all that a possibility.”

  “Me?” Daphne’s voice cracked. Somehow she’d pictured Jess performing the required manipulation. After all, she was good at it.

  “Yes, you.” Jess stabbed the cooking knife into a block on the table by the hearth. “You are the housekeeper. He’s hardly going to sit down and have tea with his cook. Or would you rather we tell him his only parlor maid is a twelve-year-old girl and have Sarah ask him his plans? She’ll probably get a good look at him while she does that.”

  Daphne groped for the edges of the stool she was already sitting on, afraid she was about to tumble off it. “This is a bad idea. You be the housekeeper. I obviously don’t know what I’m doing.”

  The other woman didn’t say anything, simply stood with her hands on her hips, head cocked to the side, and eyebrows raised in expectation, waiting for Daphne to think through what she’d just said and realize it was utterly ridiculous.

  “Oh.” Daphne winced. “That wouldn’t really work, would it? Now that he’s already met me and I told him I was the housekeeper?”

  “Not to mention you can’t cook much besides mashed turnips and boiled rabbit.”

  “A perfectly filling meal, that.”

  “For a band of ruffians, maybe. But you don’t put that on the table of a marquis, no matter how reclusive he is.” Jess grabbed another pot off a hook and started gathering ingredients.

  Daphne bit her lip. She hadn’t considered that. Gone were the days of easy, simple fare. Lord Chemsford was going to expect meals that took hours to prepare. Jess likely wouldn’t see anything but the kitchens for hours each day.

  “Do you know how to make fare fit for a marquis’s table?” Daphne held her breath. If Jess said no, what would they do?

  “I wouldn’t have volunteered for the position if I couldn’t,” Jess said.

  “Of course not,” Daphne mumbled. “I’m going to be on my own upstairs.”

  “Not completely.” Jess set the pot over the fire and pulled out a bowl to begin making some sort of bread dough. “He’s going to hire more servants.”

  “That is not exactly comforting,” Daphne moaned. “I’ll be expected to oversee those servants.”

  “It can’t be much different than managing the chores for a dozen children. In all likelihood, it’s easier.” Jess looked at Daphne, then sighed and slid the bowl to the side. “Sarah is a fine parlor maid. Eugenia is doing well helping me in the scullery. They aren’t going to be enough, though. There’s a good chance he’ll have you do the hiring. We can make sure that everyone hired is someone who supported Haven Manor when it was a refuge. They might even help you with whatever futile scheme you come up with for the Benedict situation.”

  Jess shrugged as she slid the bowl in front of her once more. “Of course, they’ll all assume Lord Chemsford is Benedict’s father, but that will simply make them more protective.”

  “And more inclined to hate their employer,” Daphne murmured. “Anyone who helped us with the children before wouldn’t take too kindly to one of the men who dumped his illegitimate child on our doorstep.”

  Jess sighed and braced both hands on the table to spear Daphne with her blue gaze. “Then tell them. Don’t tell them. Hire them. Don’t hire them. Tell Benedict. Don’t tell Benedict. There is not a perfect solution in this scenario that doesn’t cause you some bit of discomfort. Pick your poison and drink it.”

  “Well, that’s not nice,” Daphne grumbled.

  “I’m not nice,” Jess returned. “I’m realistic.”

  As much as Daphne hated to admit it, Jess was right. Daphne’s comfortable life away from the prying eyes of society and people in general was over. It had been nice while it lasted. “You’re going to have to tell me what to do.”

  “I already told you what to do.” Jess buried her hands in the dough and began to mix it. “Tell Benedict the truth. Then if he wants to stay out of the marquis’s path, he can.”

  No. There had to be a way to solve this that allowed Benedict to maintain what little shred of childhood innocence remained. Daphne frowned. “I meant, tell me what to do with the house and the servants.”

  “Weren’t you raised to be the woman of the house one day? Just find a mirror and pretend you’re talking to your housekeeper.”

  Daphne’s frown deepened. Most of the time, Jess’s frankness didn’t bother her, even when it was framed as a jibe in Daphne’s direction, but right now she found it frustrating.

  Yes, Daphne knew she tended to be a little bit scatterbrained, but she knew it had more to do with her imagination than any lack of intelligence. There were times when it felt like Jess assumed the lack of attention could be laid at the door of a lack of mental substance. It was usually easier to ignore those moments, but today they were just a bit too much.

  “I believe I’ve rather forgotten all those lady-of-the-manor lessons, Jess. Fourteen years of fending for myself has made them rather faint.”

  “Fair enough.” Jess wiped her hands on her apron and grabbed a pencil and a scrap of brown paper from the side table. She scribbled for several minutes, then shoved the paper across the table. “Does that help?”

  Daphne glanced down at the paper.

  1. Assign living quarters to the valet and groom. (Grooms live beside the stable. That’s why they built two rooms when they renovated the barn.)

  2. Make sure Sarah knows not to clean upstairs without your permission anymore. (Don’t send her up there while he’s abed or changing.)

  And on it went. A smile bloomed as Daphne read all eight items on the list. She could follow a list. Even a sarcastic one. “Yes. This helps immensely.”

  “Good.” Jess paused for a moment, remaining so still Daphne would have thought she’d left the room if not for the fact that she could still see her.

  “You know,” Jess finally said, “it’s okay to not be good at something. It’s okay to ask for help.”

  Maybe. Probably. But Daphne wasn’t really good at anything. At least, not anything that was actually useful. She could play the piano and draw, two skills that provided absolutely nothing when it came to survival. She possessed not a single tangible skill that was better than what any other average person could accomplish.

  Admitting that out loud, though, would make her sound pitiable and self-conscious. She knew she wasn’t a horrible person or even an unworthy person. She just wasn’t all that remarkable anywhere except her imagination.

  Chapter four

  William slowly nibbled on the last biscuit as he took in the view of the estate from his bedchamber window. For as far as he could see, there was nothing but grass and trees. All the outbuildings, non-ornamental gardens, and service areas must have been carefully placed to not disturb the tranquility on this side of the house. It was more peaceful than he’d dared to hope.

  Behind him, Morris and Pasley shuffled by, carrying the largest of the trunks into the dressing room. William hadn’t made it that far yet. It didn’t particularly matter what the dressing room looked like, as he was having the entire house refurbished. No matter what state the house was in, everything in it was more than twenty years old. At the very least, it needed a new coat of paint.

  He ran a hand along one of the grey marks on the wall. What on earth had the previous owners done in here?

  “Mrs. Brightmoor has informed me there is a room for me off your dressing area,” Morris said as he emerged from the dressing room. “We’ve another trunk to bring up and then I shall retrieve my own.”

  William nodded and picked up his tea. It didn’t matter when Morris got William’s clothing unpacked and pressed. There was no one here for him to see, no o
ne waiting on him or expecting him to do anything. No one to tell him what he could and couldn’t do. He was blissfully alone. “Take your time. Your throat must be as parched as mine, if not more so.”

  Morris bowed and slid silently out of the room.

  William returned to the window with his teacup, allowing himself the luxury of a deep sigh that eased one more bit of tension from his shoulders as he drank in the view along with the tea. The place where he’d been living in Ireland for the past several years had a gorgeous view, but it was full of people and buildings. This peaceful nature was exactly what he’d been hoping for when he chose this place. All his life his father had talked about people. Who he knew, who he refused to know, who he liked.

  Who he hated.

  William had nothing against people, but right now, as he was trying to determine what sort of marquis he was going to be, people were the last thing he wanted to deal with.

  The door opening behind him pulled his attention from the window. The boy he’d seen earlier sidled into the room with a large bucket. He didn’t appear any less gangly when he was inside the building. His neck was scrawny and his arms didn’t look strong enough to carry the bucket of water he was hauling, yet nothing spilled out over the edge.

  This close, William could confirm the boy was wearing spectacles, but he still seemed to only want to use them to look at his toes.

  William didn’t have the heart to make this boy—and he really was nothing but a boy—haul up enough water to fill a proper bath, even the small hip bath in the corner near the hearth. He couldn’t hire a proper footman tonight, but he could have Pasley bring the water up later or perhaps even take his bath belowstairs, closer to where the water was being warmed.

  With a nod to the dressing room—not that the boy could see it—William said, “A basinful will do.”

  As the boy moved toward the dressing room and the washstand visible through the door, his shoulders sagged a bit. William thought it was probably more due to relief than the weight of the bucket, but it didn’t matter. William couldn’t stand there and watch him bring up bucket after bucket in painful, slow agony.