The Viscount Returns (4 page)

“What is your given name, Sprout?” His voice was low and steady…steadier than he was himself.

“Robert? What are you getting at—” Allen was silenced by a quick look from his friend, before returning his attention back to the boy.

“Tell me!” Robert swallowed back his anxiety. “What is your name?”

“Robert, sir.” The boy’s voice was shaken, nearly frightened.

Swallowing back a groan, Robert licked his lips and moved on. “And to who are you named after?”

“Robert!” Fiona stood at the door in a rage. The three faces turned to the lady who had entered the room. She was dressed in a red gown that was low in the neck and laced at the hem. The threads were pulled and the fabric was faded from over wear and though in its time it would have been fashionable it was years too late. Her hair was a modest do, but elegant nonetheless and her face had been dusted with powder. She was still the beauty that he remembered, but her polish lacked the eye of a trained lady’s maid. “I told you to wait for me at the stairs and we would enter together, you were not to come here without—”

“Excused me, madam, but young Sprout was about to say something.” Robert set her and her dress aside. “Go on, Robert? Who is it are you named after?”

“Please leave him alone. He means no harm in…” She came to stand between him and Sprout and turned back to the boy. “Why didn’t you wait for me? I told you to wait for me at the foot of the stairs!” Frantic with panic and devastation, her hands shook while she looked into her son’s bewildered face with tear filled eyes.

“But?” The boy’s innocent eyes began to water out of his confusion, knowing that he had disappointed his mother, but not knowing how.

“Son,” she tenderly wiped his brow with her hand and drying his tear streaked cheeks with her fingers, “you should have waited as we planed...”

“Wife!” The room shook with the boom of her husband’s voice and brought everything and everybody to a halt. “I will have my answers whether from him or from you.” Targeting a child in his anger was wrong, but he was being pushed beyond his limits with all the secrecy. “Now which is it to be?” His eyes were ablaze and Fiona grabbed one of her son’s arms to shield him with her own body. He looked back down to the boy, biting back his anger and pain from Fiona’s deceit, calming himself to try and settle the boy’s upset. “Go on?”

“Why, you, sir.” Sniffling back his tears, he looked around from his mothers skirt with innocent eyes after losing the bold friendliness in exchange for fear of Robert’s booming anger. “That is right, isn’t it, Mamma?”

Shielding him to her with one arm hugging him around his shoulders, she patted his head lovingly with her other hand. “That is correct, my boy.”

Robert rolled back slightly on his heels, but did not straighten while Allen sat in silent observation. This was not how she had hoped to tell him, but now there was nothing she could do.

“Sprout, perhaps tonight you will take your meal with Ruth?” Walking him to the swinging door, she kept a protective hand on her son’s shoulder while trying to cloak her pain from the boy with a mother’s loving smile. “Just for tonight. Your father and I need a moment.”

Politely Sprout bid adieu and departed, leaving his mother to face her fears. Returning to her guests alone and frightened, Fiona tried to play her role of Viscountess, but with little training she was at a loss when in need of hiding her own pain and fear as so many others of the ton could have performed. Having taken the title so young with no proper lady influence she never learned how to drape the cloak of polite indifference over her own feelings.

“I don’t know what to say. This was not how I had planned it.” Wringing her hands, she suddenly felt cold and naked. “But you surprised me today and—”

“I surprised you!” His voices erupted. “Is that all I am to be given! Eight years! Eight years I work to build a fortune so that you can live like a Viscountess and then I come home to find that in all this time you could never write to inform me that I had fathered a child?” He was a monster fired up by his anger.

“Perhaps I should—” Feeling the intruder, Allen stood and began to back his way out the door.

“Hold still, Allen! You will not leave alone!” Turning from his wife, Robert made his way to the door.

“Eight years! Yes, damn you!” Fiona found her voice, stopping him in his tracks. Unable to be warned off by the fear of what danger she was toying with, Fiona continued to find her voice. “You left me eight years ago to fend for myself so that you and your…” struggling to keep the word lover from leaving her lips, “your…friend…” The title was iced over with disgust, knowing that she was referring to her rival. “Could travel the world while I was trapped here, left with no money and your father and sons to care for.”

“Sons?” The two men both turned to her.

“Sprout was unexpected as were other things in this hell you have left me in, and yes I wrote you, but you had,” looking once again at Allen with a scornful eye, “ other priorities.” She gasped when suddenly choking on her tears and keeping any other confession lodged in her throat. Holding her red-gloved hand over her mouth, Fiona pushed past the men and fled the room.

“Ruth! Ruth!” Ringing through the halls, the master of the house commanded for the only sensible woman. He would not be left in the dark. After leaving Allen to himself to partake in the homecoming feast as he wished, Robert’s heavy steps thundered on the dull wood floors. “Ruth!”

“Dear Lord almighty, what is this racket?” The woman burst through the door with Sprout holding tight to her skirt.

“Is it true?!”

“Is what true?” One arm around the boy, Ruth stood with her head held high.

“The boy’s father? Is it true?”

He was a fuming ogre. Looking from one frightened face to the other, he took two retreating steps back before pausing for a moment. He then turned back to Ruth, trying to keep his eyes from drifting down to his son’s scared face for fear of seeing his own looking up at him. Robert was ashamed of himself for the fear he had put in the boy and had to flee the judgment he was now beating into himself.

“I will see you in the dining room at once.” He turned to continue on his way, but added first, “It would be best if my son and his nurse retired for the night. I shall address him tomorrow.”

“Nurse?” the boy asked, but Ruth silenced him and allowed Robert to leave.

The table setting was meager and now that the feast had been uncovered, Allen noticed that there was much his friend did not know about the home he had returned to. The stew was hearty, but the paring of potatoes left little to celebrate in the homecoming feat.

“I cannot bear to look or think of that woman.” Robert passed around the room, never pausing from the moment he entered. “Here I have worked with my own blood and sweat to support her and my birthright and never did she or my father think to send word to me that I had fathered a son?”

“She claimed to have done just that.” Allen’s voice of reason was not welcomed.

“If she had, I would never have remained there.” Robert’s pain was evident in his face and his disheveled hair that had been vigorously combed through by his fingers. “I am no monster. I would have been honored to raise a son of my own. No, obviously the good feeling I had for her were not reciprocated and she has tarnished what should have been a blessing in my life.”

“I wish there were words I could say, but I am as thrown as you are.” Scooping up another bight of stew, Allen tried to hold back his own opinions of his friend’s treatment toward the family he had been reunited with this day.

Yes, Robert was a hard worker, but never did he show regret for leaving or a longing to return after so many years. Their hard work was an adventure and he welcomed every moment. It was a year into their friendship when Robert finally confessed to Allen and the others they were acquainted with to even having a wife and that was only thanks to a night where the bourbon had influenced his confession more than a grieving heart. Though he never took a woman to bed, he never showed restraint when a little country play was offered. Allen enjoyed a flirty lass and Robert proved to be a good partner when invited to join in.

No more innocent than his friend for leaving loved ones behind, Allen hoped that he could say he was any better, but he could not escape what he knew in his heart.

Looking over the table, Robert’s eyes passed by the tureen of stew and the platter of potatoes. What had become of his homecoming feast? All the years of travel he would remember the grand feasts Ruth would prepare with the kitchen staff whenever his father returned after months of travel. After eight years he had been prepared for a near Gala.

“What is this?” Pointing to Allen’s nearly clean bowl as he wiped the stew from the bowl with a pinch of bread. Clearing his throat, Allen popped the bite in his mouth and lifted his glass to Robert.

“Welcome home, Lord Edden.”

“What?”

This was all too much reality for the Viscount. Nothing was as it should be. Where was the young timid novice he married? Why was the estate left in ruin? Where was all the money he had sent to them for all of the improvements he had instructed and where was Jefferson?!? All of this still paled to the realization that he was now a father to a grown boy.

“My father would have never allowed this to be served in his home.” Picking up the platter of potatoes he balanced it on his palm. “We were fed better along the train line.”

Wiping his mouth clean with his sleeve Allen leaned back with a broad smile. “It tastes better than it looks.”

Hurling the platter to the wall, it shattered into pieces, leaving potatoes clinging to the faded paper that lined the wall in its place.

“She said no money.” Robert played back the argument in his head and was puzzled by what his wife had revealed to him or rather shouted.

“What is that?” Pushing his clean bowl out of his way, Allen tried to lend a friendly ear.

Running a hand slowly through his hair and looking into nothing, Robert spoke for his own benefit rather than to his friend. He had to understand what he was finding to be very close to a nightmare.

“My wife,” there was no endearment in that title, “said I had left her with no money.”

“Well, by appearance it would look like…” He picked up his glass, trying to redirect his thought. Allen could not ignore the pain that this friend was suffering from.

“But you saw…you were with me when I transferred funds to her and when I received notice from my steward that they had been received and were being used to my heart’s desire. One of the reasons I have never set up residence anywhere was so I could send funds her way. If only I knew where Jefferson was I could have some answers.”

“Perhaps that is enough answer for you?” Stretching his arms out to offer the room as his example.

“My Lord.” Ruth stood at the door, hands folded in front of her.

Answered with only a nod, Ruth stepped into the dining room. Her eyes were crossed as they passed back and forth between the sacrificed potatoes dripping from the wall and Robert’s disheveled self.

“You summoned me.” Her words were crisp with none of the warmth that had comforted him as a boy.

He wanted to run to her. He needed his Ruth to hold him and tell him everything was fine and that none of this was real. Robert may be a grown man and Lord of the Manor, but in this moment he felt no older than the boy who had just called him father. But he was the Lord of the Manor and the leader of his estate. There was no one whom he could turn to but himself. Sitting tall in his seat, he looked at the old cook and tightened his jaw.

“Ruth, please enter and have a seat.” He gestured to the one his boy had just vacated. It was against custom to have a servant seated at the head of the table, but Robert did not have the strength in these legs to stand and change seats.

“I need someone to explain a few things to me.” He calmed himself. It was easy with Ruth…always was. She had taken the role of nanny in his life when his father sent the real nanny away.

“I will tell you what I can.” She was stiff and stern in her seat.

“Is that boy my son?” His words were slow and clear.

“Yes.”

Once again he obsessively combed his fingers through his hair and took a steadying breath. “When was he born and why was I not told about him?”

Her eyes squinted and she studied him.

“He came nine months after you left. He was a little thing just as you had been. Her ladyship told me how she wanted you here and insisted that you were contacted a month before hand, but…”

“But?” He coached her.

“That is something you best bring up to Jefferson.” Her jaw tightened.

“That is another matter I need resolved. Where is Jefferson? Why hasn’t he come to see me yet, and why does it appear that there are no servants to care for this estate?”

“I fear that you had best ask your wife these questions, only…” She bit back her words.

“Only?”

“I would wait until morning. I do not think she will be in her best to receive you tonight.” Her eyes pleaded with him. “Please be kind to her, things have not been easy for her over these years while you have been gone.”

Robert stood up and backed away. Sickened by Ruth’s words, he began to shrink into the doorway. Looking at himself from the outside, he saw only a raging monster who had attacked a lonely mother and her child—his son. Littered on the floor and crunching under his feet was the broken serving ware that Ruth had once displayed their family meals to his mother’s strict approval. Nothing was ever as simple or accomplished as a young man may imagine. Only hours ago he envisioned a grand feast hosted by his beautiful wife who he had imagined would eagerly welcome him home.