Barbara Metzger Read online

  William and the two other lads silently gathered the spilled soldiers while Rockford felt like a magistrate handing down a sentence of deportation. He could not even look at Mrs. Henning, but heard her blow her nose, then pat her crying sister on the back. “It is not forever, dash it,” he finally said to the boy, but intending the others to hear him also. “There will be long vacations and holidays. Why, you and Hugo might spend Christmas here at Rock Hill, so you will see the Hennings in a few months.”

  “Truly, Papa?”

  Well, he was not quite willing to make any promises. And with the scrupulous Mrs. Henning looking on, he was not willing to lie, either. “We’ll see.”

  The boy knew it for an evasion, and his lip started to quiver again.

  Quickly, before William could unloose his tears—or the army from the carpetbag—Rockford hoisted him to his shoulder. “Come now. We must be off. The horses have stood too long as is.”

  As he made his bows to the widow, he could not help being affected by her tearstained cheeks. “I had not wanted to mention this yet, but perhaps your boys can attend the same school as William, once I have made the selection. At my expense, of course, in gratitude for your kindness.”

  She stopped crying on the instant. “What, it is not enough that you are stealing Billy away? You want to take my boys too? What kind of monster are you?”

  Because she was overwrought Rockford chose to ignore her claim that he was stealing his own son. He did say, “We can speak of schooling later. My secretary—”

  “Can go to the devil, carrying your check book.”

  He nodded and headed toward the door, William still in his arms. In Rockford’s mind, the issue was not decided yet, for a gentleman always paid his debts, but he knew when to make a strategic retreat. “I wish you good day, then. And thank you.”

  William twisted his fists in Rockford’s neckcloth. The wretched thing had been clean and neatly tied, after many efforts, for approximately twenty minutes. The earl halted.

  “But,” William whimpered, “but I never got any gingerbread. Aunt Lissie makes the best gingerbread in the whole world.”

  Now here was something Rockford could handle. “I am certain Mrs. Henning will pack us some for the road.”

  She shook her head. “I do not think it is ready yet.”

  Rockford loved gingerbread. He could not recall the last time he had had some, but the smell of it in the small cottage was making his mouth water. And he distinctly recalled her sending the sister to remove it from the oven. What, was the widow punishing the boy for his father’s overstepping her private boundaries, whatever the deuce they were? “We could wait a few minutes while you check.”

  “I do not believe that would be a good idea, my lord.”

  “Surely you will not deny the boy a taste? If you are worried about ruining his dinner, we eat later at Rock Hill.”

  “But—”

  “I will pay you for the blasted cake, madam. Or do you wish the poor boy to cry the whole way home?”

  She left and returned with a basket, enough gingerbread for six hungry boys—or men—covered in a checkered cloth. She marched toward the waiting carriage and thrust the basket in the door while he followed with William and his satchel of toys. His small trunk of clothes was already strapped to the rear of the old carriage. “Here, my lord,” Mrs. Henning said. “You may take this and your son. With my compliments.”

  Chapter Five

  “Oh, dear, his lordship forgot his soiled shirts.” Amy came up beside Alissa where she was standing in the doorway, watching the old coach lurch down the rutted drive that led to Sir George Ganyon’s estate before joining the main road.

  “Don’t worry,” Alissa said. “He will be back.” She consulted the watch pinned to her gown. “I would wager on an hour at the most. Just put the shirt along with Billy’s to be soaked.”

  Amy hesitated. “Lissie, Lord Rockford did not seem happy when he left, nor did you appear to wish his return.”

  “That is neither here nor there. The fact is that the boys are not the only ones in need of lessons.”

  “I do not understand.”

  Alissa took the pig-wallow shirt from her sister, but held it at arm’s length. “No? Well, let us just say that his high-and-mighty earlship does not know quite as much about children as he arrogantly supposes. Nor is his every edict infallible. He is about to learn otherwise.”

  “I know it is not my place, Lissie, but, speaking of learning, do you think it wise to turn down his lordship’s offer to pay for the boys’ educations? I know you have been worried about making ends meet lately. And without the extras from Rock Hill for Billy…” The younger girl let her voice trail away, but frown lines stayed on her brow.

  Alissa’s brow matched, in shape and complexion and worry. “Do you think I don’t know how our finances stand? I go over the accounts every night, counting pennies. And yes, Billy has been a godsend to us, both in the joy of having the little imp and the help they send over from Rock Hill. I honestly do not know how we will make up the shortfall, although we seemed to manage before.”

  Of course, that was before the boys needed more lessons than Alissa could give them, and the fees her father had set aside for Aminta’s young ladies’ seminary had run out, and Alissa’s prize drawing student went off to London for her come-out. “We shall just have to economize further, that is all.”

  “Or I could seek a governess post, Lissie. You know I am well educated enough, even if I did not finish the term at Miss Plum’s academy.”

  Alissa also knew her sister was too young and too pretty to find a position in a respectable household. Without experience and references, heaven only knew where she might land. Besides, their father had not meant either of his daughters to go into service. He had not paid for their excellent schooling so they might drudge in some other woman’s household, but so they might make good marriages. How could Amy find a husband tucked away in some attic nursery? All her lovely young sister would find, Alissa worried, was improper advances and insult, like Lord Rockford and his sort usually offered unprotected females. Or widows.

  “Fustian nonsense,” Alissa said now. “You shall do no such thing as seeking employment with some harridan too spoiled to care for her own children. You shall find a fine young gentleman to marry and live happily ever after, with angels of your own to cherish.”

  Aminta sighed, a young girl’s sigh of high hopes and daydreams, of air castles and knights on white chargers. “I do hope so.” Then her feet touched the ground again, where her soles were thin and her stockings were darned. She pulled her knit shawl closer around her shoulders. “But I still do not understand why you refused his lordship’s offer, and in so harsh a manner. Willy and Kendall need schooling if they are to amount to anything. You know that.”

  Alissa took one more look down the carriageway before shutting the door. “I do know they need an education, but I refused, you see, because that is not what the earl offered to pay for. He offered to send them to a school, a school of his choice. Not one I would select after meeting the headmaster and instructors and checking their credentials, not one close to home so I could visit frequently, not one that has boys from all stations in life, not just those with titles before their names. I would never send Willy and Ken somewhere they would be nothing except Lord Rockford’s dependents, the poor waifs he supports out of charity. The other boys would know, and the teachers. Can you imagine how your nephews would be treated at such a place? What kind of instruction they would receive? Besides, Willy is far too young to be sent away. No, if His Arrogance wished to be helpful, he could have offered to pay for the lessons at Vicar’s. That I could have accepted gladly.”

  Amy sighed again. “Lord Rockford might be arrogant, but his pride is not without cause, I swear. And not just because he has a title and wealth and that air of worldly experience about him. Why, his shoulders barely fit in through the doorway.”

  “Enough,” Alissa said, the image of his
lordship’s bare shoulders doing somersaults in her skull. “He is merely a man, an overconfident, overbearing, overindulged man, nothing more.”

  “Nothing more? Gracious, he is so handsome, I doubt I have ever seen a finer looking gentleman.”

  “At seventeen and country-bred, goose, you have seen few enough gentlemen to compare. I suppose Rockford is well enough in his way,” Alissa added, lying through her teeth as she headed for the kitchen. “William was better-looking.”

  Amy looked at her older sister as if Alissa’s eyes had clouded over, along with the sky.

  “He was,” Alissa insisted. “My William was an attractive man, without that hard edge of hauteur his lordship wears like an ermine mantle. I much prefer William’s fair coloring to Rockford’s dark looks, besides.”

  “Well, I found him stunning.”

  “I found him off-putting. Besides, handsome is as handsome does, and his lordship too often does whatever he wishes without care or consideration for others, contrary to the mark of a true gentleman, after all. My William would never ride roughshod over women and children, nor would he forget their very existence. No, I did not find Lord Rockford attractive in the least. Except in an academic kind of way, of course. He would make an excellent model for one of the Greek gods, perhaps. Or a fallen angel. Not that I would ever wish to spend enough time in his lordship’s company to paint his portrait, of course.”

  “Of course not,” her too-wise sister said with a smile. “So why are you fondling his dirty shirt?”

  Alissa dropped the smelly garment into a bucket to soak. She would like to boil some of the starch out of Rockford, too, she told herself. For Billy’s sake. The boy needed a father, not a distant dictator.

  Alissa checked her watch again. She needed to fix her hair before he returned.

  She sent her despondent sons out to groom Harold the pony, to give them something to do now that the gingerbread was gone. She did not tell them she thought Billy would be back, in case the earl was more stubborn than she thought. Or a bigger fool, if that were possible. The boys worried that someone would come from Rock Hill to fetch Harold before they had a chance to say good-bye, so they hurried off, with handfuls of carrots.

  Amy went to see if Sir George’s groundkeepers had missed any fallen apples from the bordering orchard, now that the rain had stopped. Usually there were enough apples for a pie and some preserves, after Rosie ate the wormy ones. Tarts would help the boys forget their sadness for a while, Alissa decided, as she went into the tiny bedchamber she shared with Amy. For once, she was glad for the solitude.

  She sat on her narrow bed, the one nearest the window and the draft, and stared at the nearby portrait she had painted of William when they first wed. In it, her late husband was laughing, looking not much older than Kendall, though far less serious than their sober eldest-born. William Henning never worried, never had a frown or a wrinkle from fretting over the future. Even when his father, the duke, disinherited him on his marriage, William was not concerned, nor when the boys arrived with more mouths to feed. They’d come about, he always said, and worked that much harder without complaint. He had not even complained while he lay dying, certain that he could overcome that too. They’d come about, he’d told her, with a smile on his fever-flushed face.

  Sometimes she hated his memory, for the lies and the foolish surety that all would be well. All was not well.

  Most times she recalled William fondly. The fact that a duke’s son, albeit a useless third son, could cheerfully take up a post as assistant bailiff to her own father had always impressed Alissa, and impressed her more today, when she had faced the epitome of nobly born arrogance. William could bend. Not that he was in any way soft or unmanly, but he could sway, like a sturdy young tree, letting the wind blow past. Rockford was…well, he was like a rock, ignoring the wind, turning his rigid back on opposition. Nothing could move him, not when he ruled his universe.

  What an impossible man.

  So why was she recalling his bare chest and his raised eyebrow? Gracious, William would not have known how to lift one sandy eyebrow at a time, much less how to wear that superior attitude instead of a shirt. Was she being unfaithful to her dead husband’s memory by comparing him to a London beau, a polished town buck, one of the first gentlemen of Europe’s First Gentleman? William was just William. Rockford was a fixture in high society, a force of nature. And nothing to Alissa Henning.

  She dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief she’d meant to return to Billy. Now the poor little lamb had none. Lord, how she missed him already. And missed her husband, still, after two years. And she would sorely miss the money they both had provided, tomorrow. She was so tired of worrying, of missing what was gone and could not be recovered.

  She was so wretchedly lonely.

  Mostly, she thought as the tears kept falling, she missed mattering to a man.

  Her marriage had been one of contentment, she supposed, after the first fierce, irresistible infatuation. They were only children when they met, barely Amy’s age, fascinated by their new feelings. He was visiting a friend in the neighborhood; she was fresh out of girls’ school. Innocents together, they explored both the physical countryside and their own budding physical sensations. That had ended with her pregnancy, their Gretna wedding, and his father’s fury. William had been intended for the daughter of a marquis, not the daughter of a land steward. It did not matter to the Duke of Hysmith that Alissa’s father was from a cadet branch of the Bourke barony, nor that her deceased mother was the daughter of a highly placed prelate. Her father labored for a living, and that was enough for His Grace.

  When the duke cut his allowance, William stopped using the honorary lordship before his name, sought a position as assistant steward, and stopped believing Alissa was the most beautiful girl in England. Of course, she was big with child by then, weepy over her own father’s shock and shame that led to his fatal illness. But William had always said he never regretted their marriage, and she believed him.

  Was there anyone as foolish as young lovers?

  Yes, widows who held on to dreams.

  *

  She was waiting near the door of that insufferably small cottage, blast her and her neat brown braids and spotless gray gown. Rockford knew she would be there, ready to say, “I told you so.” Well, she had tried to tell him, so the entire debacle was on his head.

  And on his coat, his boots, and the seats of the carriage. Gingerbread was not a good idea. The carriage ride was too long. Hah! Well, fiend take her and her forest-green eyes; she could have come out and said the boy suffered motion sickness. But not Mrs. Henning. Oh, no. She had to prove to him that he knew nothing about children, that she was the better parent, that once again he had acted without forethought.

  Well, he hoped she was happy now. He suddenly knew more about small boys and badly sprung rigs than he ever wanted or needed. He knew the carriage would have to be reupholstered if not burned, and that he would never travel with the brat in a closed coach again.

  Halfway to Rock Hill the earl had realized that William could never make the journey to Sheffield to fetch his half brother. Nor could the boy be left on his own at the place with no female to comfort him. Heaven knew the earl’s attempts had succeeded only in discomfiting his own digestion.

  There was no choice, really, other than drowning, but to return to Mrs. Henning’s to seek the indulgence of a woman he would never have met under ordinary circumstances. In London he would not have given her a second glance, not in her plain gray gown and with her moralistic manners. He’d have taken her for a superior servant or a curate’s wife, out of bounds, out of his circle, and uninteresting, to boot. Surrounded by children, she would have been less appealing than a bowl of gruel. Yet now he had to beg her pardon, and beg her for a favor.

  Zeus, admitting he was wrong was getting to be like a plague of locusts, repulsive and recurrent. Once in seven years he could manage. Twice in one day? Unspeakable. Unfortunately he would have to spea
k, to ask Mrs. Henning to keep William until he could make other arrangements. First he’d nearly accused her of absconding with his son; now he had to apologize for not taking her advice, and for making the child miserable. He had meant well, for what that was worth.

  It was worth nothing, obviously, by the scowl Mrs. Henning directed his way when she took William from his arms, wrapping the weeping child in the blanket she had ready. She held him close, despite the mess and the smell.

  “Hush, lovey. Your father is not angry. No, he is not ashamed of you either. I am certain you are not the first Rothmore of Rock Hill to suffer travel sickness.”

  “No, Papa was sick too, only he got out of the carriage first.”

  “No, did he?”

  Rockford decided he should have drowned the boy when he had the chance. He had never admitted his condition to a soul, not in thirty-five years. What, the Earl of Rockford confess to a weak stomach? He’d never have heard the end of the laughter. Mrs. Henning was laughing now as she told the boy, “How clever. Perhaps he can teach you that wondrous trick.”

  Somehow the earl did not mind. Perhaps he could bear her humor because she had stopped the child’s tears, because she hadn’t said, “I told you so,” because she handed him another of her husband’s shirts, and because she looked so damn beautiful with his son in her arms.

  How could he have thought her ordinary and insignificant? By London standards, of course, she was. By his own standards, she was so far beneath his notice as to be laughable. Why, then, was he thinking of her beneath him, and not laughing at all?

  Fred Nivens, the groom, was laughing, though, making a slimy kind of snicker from atop the box. Rockford minded that very much.

  “Walk the horses,” he ordered with a jerk of his head, vowing to deal with the ignorant, insubordinate lumpkin later. He was ready to grovel if need be, but not in front of the loutish driver.

  Reminded by eely Fred of who he was, and what he was, and what Mrs. Henning was not nor ever could be, Rockford drew himself up and took a deep breath. Before he could begin to beg, however, the widow went on, talking to William.