Barbara Metzger Page 9

  Alissa backed away, but he grabbed her wrists and started to pull her closer to his chest. She struggled, but he held fast, with arms used to controlling headstrong horses. She tried to kick out at his legs with her booted feet, but he nimbly skipped aside, cackling. “I like a filly with spunk in her. You surprise me, Mrs. Henning. Didn’t know you had that much spirit. I wager I am going to enjoy our marriage a lot more than I figured, if you like to play these games.”

  This could not be happening, Alissa thought. Not again! Not in her own front yard. This time no avenging fury on a black steed was going to come to her rescue, either. She twisted as Sir George started to press his thick lips toward hers. She thought she might be sick if he actually kissed her on the mouth. He gave her wrists a hard jerk, making her lose her footing so she half fell against him, with the stench of his dirty linen in her nose.

  “Now that’s more like it. Games can only go so far, you know, missy.”

  Alissa regained her balance and came down hard with her boot on his toes, starting to say, “I am not playing any—”

  But a voice came from the doorway of the cottage: “Let my mother go, or I will shoot.”

  Her boy, her firstborn son, Kendall, the quiet one who took his position as man of the house so seriously, was standing in the dirt path from the cottage with a pistol in his hand: the pistol he was never, ever supposed to touch. Willy stood behind him, fists raised in fighter’s stance. Rockford’s son brandished the fireplace poker, and was already covered in its soot. Amy was white-faced and trembling in the doorway, but she was gamely clutching a kitchen knife.

  Sir George laughed. “You’ll never shoot me, boy. Too much chance of hitting your mother.”

  “Yes, but I won’t miss if I aim for your horse.” Kendall brought the barrel of his father’s gun around to the pawing stallion, one of the baronet’s favorite studs.

  Sir George let Alissa go, saying, “I see the brat has more bottom than I gave him credit for, too. Well, you’ll learn better manners than that,” he told Kendall, “before I am through with you. Your ma and I are getting leg-shackled. We were only playing.”

  Kendall looked uncertain, the gun wavering. The others cried out in protest.

  Alissa backed away from the baronet, reassuring them. “No, I am not marrying anyone, least of all Sir George.” When she reached the smaller boys, she gave them each a hug, and sent Aminta a confident smile, bringing a bit of color back to the young girl’s cheeks.

  To the troll who thought she would leap at his offer to share his cave, Alissa said, “I am not playing games and I am not playing hard to get. For the last time, sir, quite simply, no. No, I will not marry you. No, your addresses are not welcome. I will move to another village if I have to, but I will not turn my boys into lackeys, nor will I become your unpaid housekeeper and brood mare. I will report you and your unwanted attentions to Squire Winslow, as soon as the magistrate returns. And I will also tell him you are using Fred Nivens to work at what should be your expense. Now leave, before I take the gun from Ken’s hands. I will not aim for the horse, and I will not miss, I swear. My rent is paid until the new year, so we have no further business. Good day.”

  *

  Alissa cried herself to sleep that night, although she was not by nature a maudlin soul. She had learned ages ago that tears availed her nothing but reddened eyes, so she usually set herself to solving her problems, rather than merely dampening them. Tonight she could not hold back the tears.

  She did not want to be afraid, but she was. Fred Nivens, and then Sir George, even Lord Rockford in his way, had shown her how very vulnerable she was. Nivens would be around, and Sir George would turn a blind eye to his actions, as long as the baronet could squeeze work out of the former groom without pay. She doubted she had seen the last of her pigheaded—although Rosie was prettier—landlord, either. And Rockford would be back in a week to take Billy away, and to bedevil her more. The world, it suddenly seemed, was not a safe place for an unprotected female.

  She did not want to move. She had friends here, and she had carved out a niche where she was comfortable and accepted for what she was, not who her father or husband had been.

  She did not want to uproot the boys again, to move into meaner accommodations, another village that might not have a school she could afford. What would become of them without education, once they grew up a bit? They would have to become common laborers, or indenture themselves to some skilled artisan to learn a trade. Worst of all, they might take the king’s shilling and go for soldiers. Kendall was almost old enough to become a cabin boy in the navy. The very thought of her stalwart son taking ship for years at a time brought on a fresh wave of tears.

  She did not want her sister to become a governess, going from one abusive household to another, withering into an old maid with no hope for a husband and babies of her own. Worst still, pretty Amy could be subject to the same assaults and insults Alissa had suffered. How could her fragile sister fend off the likes of Fred or Sir George, or an employer’s lustful son, a butler with bad intentions? What if she were forced? There would be nothing left for her but a life on the streets. But how could Alissa provide a dowry for her sister when she could barely provide a roof—leaking in the eaves and inhabited by spiders as it was—over their heads?

  She did not want to be forever pinching pennies, struggling to teach young ladies the rudiments of watercolors, or straining to make the poor soil yield another crop, to get them through another winter.

  She did not want to be so very, very alone.

  So she cried.

  Chapter Nine

  Lord Rockford would cry too, if he knew how. Instead he was simply miserable, sitting up with the driver of his coach on another blasted rainy day. The weather was not making him wretched, nor the carriage ride, nor the fact that his horse had come up lame and had to be left at an inn some miles back. No, what had Rockford out of sorts was the sort of passenger he carried inside the coach.

  Deuce take it, he thought, there ought to be a rule. People should do what they say they are going to do, by George. He was a man of his word. Everyone should be. The world would be a far better place.

  For instance, when a set of in-laws said they would rear up a boy, they should do it, until he was full-grown and ready to take his place in the world. They should not suddenly decide their grandson took too much effort. They should not simply hand a twelve-year-old boy, a sickly one at that, over to any inexperienced, unknowledgeable, unenthusiastic stranger—like his father.

  Lord and Lady Chudleigh were not getting too old to care for the boy. They were too lazy. They had little enough to do with Hugo, Viscount Rothmore, that the earl could see. In the few days he had spent at Chudleigh Hall, Rockford never once saw them take a meal with the boy, or a walk. He’d never seen them hold a conversation with the lad until they bade him a formal farewell. They might never see Hugo again, yet all they could do was shake his hand and tell him to be a good chap. What a contrast, Rockford thought, to how Mrs. Henning was always patting or hugging or kissing her sons and his own William. He would not think about her.

  No, his former in-laws were not the ones growing too old; the boy’s nursemaid was. Like his own Nanny Dee, Mrs. Doddsworth was serving her third generation of children, all in the same family. She still adored her latest baby, Hugo, when she did not confuse him with his mother, Judith, Rockford’s first wife. She was too old to navigate the nursery stairs, when she did not get lost, so the boy never went on outings. If the whey-faced, spectacled lad ever saw sunshine, Rockford would be surprised. When he asked, Lady Chudleigh claimed the child was too prone to chills. Rockford would be sickly too, kept inside all the time.

  The last tutor they had for him was a retired dean, a scholar. Rockford thought he might have suited the bookish child except, his valet learned from the other servants, Mr. Hemplewhite never left the library and his private research. Why, he’d been dead for two days, collapsed across his papers, before he was found—by po
or Hugo, of all people.

  So now Rockford had the boy. His heir. Lud, the sickly child could never be his own son. He could see something of Judith about Hugo, her eyes, the delicate bone structure, the fine blond hair. He saw nothing at all of his own dark looks.

  He could conceive of having conceived the disaster prone imp back at Mrs. Henning’s, but never this withdrawn, solitary boy. The few times he had tried to engage him in conversation, the sprig was polite but distant, all too apparently more interested in the book he was reading than in his father. They had nothing in common, not horses or sports or politics, the usual masculine topics of conversation besides women. Rockford could not feign an interest in the book on botany Hugo was studying, Hemplewhite’s last contribution to academia, and doubted the youth was interested in it either. Likely the boy was as skittish of Rockford as Rockford was of him, his lordship thought, retreating into his book the way Rockford retreated to the box of the coach. The earl could not tell. He could not read the child’s expression behind the thick glasses, although his blue eyes appeared guileless. His mother’s similar blue eyes had seemed similarly guileless, too, the whole time she was plotting her elopement. Hell, Arkenstall had looked honest enough when Rockford had interviewed the bastard.

  The young viscount was a good traveler, at least, unlike William. He picked at his meals when they stopped, which was worrisome, but he claimed to enjoy the fare and be full, so Rockford stopped fearing for the interior of his coach. His valet, Petrie, did not mind riding with Hugo at all, which was saying a great deal. Petrie found the young master to be well mannered, undemanding, patient at the long wait while the lame horse was seen to, and not the least bit nauseated. Definitely not Rockford’s son, the earl thought, on all counts.

  Judith had not been a virgin when they wed in a match arranged by her parents and his father. The infant was born early. She was running off with her lover when she died. Those were facts. Added together, they made a damned good case, Rockford had always felt, for Hugo’s being a cuckoo bird in the Rothmore nest. Still, he’d given his name to the puny infant that no one expected to survive. How could he not claim him, without bringing scandal to his name and the Chudleighs’, shame to his career? No matter that a scant year later Judith’s death created the very bumblebroth he had tried to avoid. They had covered up the circumstances so only rumor remained, which Rockford had countered by looking down his nose at anyone who dared mention his deceased wife. The baby had survived a perilous infancy.

  Now, for better or worse, Hugo was Rockford’s heir.

  So what the devil was he going to do with him?

  He could not send him off to school, not this pale-skinned, reed-thin, bespectacled boy wrapped in mufflers and blankets and mittens. Hugo was subject to sniffles and coughs and putrid sore throats, according to Mrs. Doddsworth. He needed possets and potions and mustard plasters. Rockford did not know whether to hire the boy a tutor or a private physician. He made his driver pull up at every inn they passed to replace the hot bricks at Hugo’s feet. That, at least, he could do, keep him healthy—as healthy as could be—until they reached…where?

  He could not simply set the young viscount down at Rock Hill. The servants there were as ancient as Mrs. Doddsworth and the dead tutor. What kind of life was that for a lad? It was the one Rockford had led as a boy, but he had not been frail; neither had the servants. He’d had Jake and the horses, the streams and his sister, then school. Hugo would have none of that. Rockford doubted the boy had been taught to ride, so swaddled in cotton wool had they kept him. He would have William for company, but what if that hellborn babe brought a contagion back from his rambles? Would Claymore know what to do? Without Nanny Dee, could any of the other servants nurse a child through a life-threatening illness?

  Rockford did not even know if there was a competent doctor in the vicinity of Rock Hill, or a mere bloody-handed surgeon who’d likely bleed the boy to death.

  He could hire younger, more experienced servants in London, but the air there was dangerous for anyone with dicey lungs. Everyone knew that, which was why so many invalids went abroad, or to Bath. The very idea of that fusty place made Rockford shake his head. He could not think of a worse situation for a child, with all those dodderers and wounded soldiers.

  Rockford was certainly not going to take up residence in that city of sufferers. Besides, he traveled. He went to Brighton in the summer, to hunt country in the autumn, house parties for half the winter, abroad when his diplomatic services required and the war situation allowed. He could not very well leave the near-invalid Hugo with mere servants, new ones at that, no matter their credentials. Look what happened when he trusted Arkenstall’s references.

  Blast! He could not send the boy to school. He could not leave him at Rock Hill. He could not take him along to London. He could not count on his old servants, or trust new ones. That left…Mrs. Henning.

  He clutched at her name like a falling man grasped the gnarled roots that protruded from the cliff face. He might not know how deep the roots went, or how sturdy the tree, but he held on with his bloodied fingertips until he found purchase for his feet, or help arrived, or the roots gave way.

  Mrs. Henning knew children. She loved them, even troublesome William, as hard as that was to believe. They said she was a competent nurse, if one overlooked the fact that her last patient, her husband, had not survived. She kept a neat house, which to Rockford denoted an orderly mind. She had enough knowledge of society to instill some poise in her charges, and she was learned enough to oversee their education. Most of all, she was poor. She could not refuse his offer.

  Rockford took his first easy breath since leaving Lord and Lady Chudleigh’s home. There, a simple matter of careful thought brought about the ideal solution. Mrs. Henning could take charge of Hugo, and Rockford could get back to the business of charming an alliance out of the Austrian princess and her recalcitrant brother.

  Of course, his heir was not going to reside in a hovel. Genteel poverty did not suit the future Earl of Rockford, nor the present one. But how could Rockford install the widow at Rock Hill? Her reputation would suffer if he were ever in residence, which he intended to be more frequently, to straighten out the mess Arkenstall had left.

  Her reputation seemed to matter to Mrs. Henning, and her standing in the neighborhood. He could understand, for Rockford’s good name mattered to him, too. Of course, her name was nothing, but she might balk at blemishing it, for her sons’ sakes. He would hate to see her boys suffering bloodied noses and cut lips, trying to defend their mother’s character.

  If there was anything Mrs. Henning possessed, it was character. She was no raving beauty, certainly not an heiress or a well-connected society belle. Still, she had countenance. There was something about the stiff-backed female that intrigued Rockford, that put more than her reputation in jeopardy. He could not put his finger on it, but, Zeus, he would love to put his fingers on Mrs. Henning’s soft skin. Having her under his roof would be more temptation than he thought he could resist.

  He was not a man of ungoverned passions. The very idea of uncontrolled urges was abhorrent to him, actions practiced by debauchees and drunks, and at least one deceased wife. Give way to base instincts, illicit and unsavory hungers? Not the Earl of Rockford. Let his fellow peers act like stags in rut; Rockford had too much dignity. He had his own standards to maintain, his own rules of proper behavior for a nobleman. And yet…

  And yet he had kissed Mrs. Henning. Lud, she had tasted sweet for a moment, until she recalled herself and her surroundings and her would-be seducer. She’d smelled of flowers and gingerbread, and he might have taken her, there in her vegetable patch, if she had not slapped him. If having an affair had not been on his mind, it had definitely been in his breeches.

  No, Mrs. Henning was not safe in his home, neither her reputation nor her virtue. Something about the aggravating female made him forget his lifelong tenets about soiling his own nest, about keeping to his own class, about seducing resp
ectable women. She was respectable, innocent of carnal knowledge with anyone but her dead husband, chaste. He would swear by it. And he would destroy it all.

  One way or the other, or both, Mrs. Henning would be ruined. And she was poor, so she had to accept his offer.

  Lord Rockford felt sick, despite riding outside the carriage.

  *

  From the kitchen, Alissa heard the horses coming up the seldom-used drive, and the boys shouting, so she took off her apron and tried to push a stray curl back into place. Rockford was back, come to fetch Billy away unless she could change his mind. She did not have time to check for flour on her cheek or stains on her skirts. She would have to do, and hope for the best.

  The best she could hope for, she had decided after another sleepless night, was the position of governess to Rockford’s sons until he sent them away. She meant to ask him the moment he returned, before she lost her nerve or he hired someone else. Taking a post meant giving up any chance of taking Amy to parties and balls, but Alissa did not wish to go to social gatherings where she would have to face Sir George Ganyon. In addition, she did not think the baronet would threaten her if she were known to be in the earl’s employ. He would not want a wife who had been in service; he would not want to anger his noble neighbor, a man with the ear of the prince and the eye of a marksman. After seeing the condition of Fred Nivens, only a fool would rile Lord Rockford. Sir George was an immoral maggot, but he was not a fool.

  To be safer still, she would carry the loaded pistol when she traveled back and forth to Rock Hill, the way she had been carrying it since the baronet’s visit.

  On the other hand, the earl might wish her to live at his home, to be in constant attendance for the boys, and that would suit her also, if she could take her sons and her sister. Surely there was room at the vast manor house. Goodness, there was room to barrack half the peninsular troops. Rockford could not begrudge them the space, she prayed. The boys could share a chamber, the way they always had, and she could share with Amy. That way Amy could help with the children without being an actual servant, and Rockford would be getting two caregivers for one price. He simply had to see the advantages of such an arrangement, for Alissa surely did.