Charlotte Louise Dolan (27 page)

“And no Mrs. Pierce-Smythe,” Anne remarked under her breath.

Lord Leatham’s eyes met hers, and his held such an intensity of emotion, she began to suspect he had not been joking when he had made that remark about marriage. Then he smiled, and she decided it was a good thing she was sitting down because the look in his eyes was making her knees feel all trembly, the same as if he were actually kissing her.

For a brief moment she wished the twins had accompanied the others to Tavistock, so that she and Lord Leatham could have a private
tête-á-tête
.

“I have a housekeeper there, and a cook, so we will manage very nicely,” Lord Leatham’s eyes conveyed the silent message that she had only to be patient, and soon they would have all the privacy she had just discovered she wanted.

* * * *

Their announcement of the impromptu journey had created quite a furor. Jouncing along on the way to Sidmouth, Anne thought back over the protests, searching for a clue in some servant’s remark or someone else’s tone of voice, but there was nothing.

The number of people demanding to go with them had rather surprised her. Sally had not been the only one to act insulted that the slightest possible suspicion should fall upon her.

Virtually every servant had appeared to argue his or her case before Anne. Why they all thought she was the one to approach instead of Lord Leatham, she could not have said.

Even Trussell had been in a state of total panic when he had learned of their impending departure. He had been truly piteous when he begged not to be left alone with Mrs. Pierce-Smythe, but Lord Leatham had been adamant: No one was allowed to accompany the four of them.

The boys had wanted to ride cross-country to the coast, but as the four of them had a sizeable amount of luggage, they were traveling in style in an ancient landau that had belonged to the boys’ grandmother.

Old-fashioned though it was, the coach was surprisingly well sprung, and the only complaint Anne had was that since Lord Leatham was acting as coachman, she was denied his company and conversation on the trip, except for the short periods of time when they had stopped to change horses.

Having left behind the person engaged in malicious mischief directed against the twins, and having given the boys a piece of string and shown them the intricacies of cat’s cradle, Anne was finally free to turn her attention once more to the subject of marriage, more specifically marriage with Lord Leatham.

After his infamous remark the evening of the dinner party, she had expected to feel some degree of self-consciousness in his presence, but the search for Anthony had put them on a very informal basis with one another. Once Lord Leatham had even called her Anne, although he had apparently not realized it.

Well, at least she was now sure in her own mind what her answer would be. If he was indeed serious about marriage, and from the looks he had been giving her, that seemed not a totally impossible assumption, and if he did ask her formally for her hand, then she would definitely say yes.

One thing the kidnapping had shown her clearly was her own heart. She could not love the twins more if she were their own mother, and as for Bronson ... well, she was not sure if what she felt for him was love, but she quite definitely liked him.

More important, after living in the same household with him and after watching the way he handled the twins, she was sure he was an exception to Aunt Sidonia’s rule. He would not be an encumbrance like most husbands, but rather a friend, a partner, and a—

Lover
was the other word that darted through her mind, and she felt her face flush. Luckily the coach was beginning its descent to Sidmouth, so the boys were more interested in the sights outside the coach than inside. By the time Lord Leatham pulled the horses to a stop in front of his residence, she had her emotions under control again.

It was a tall, narrow town house of gray stone, and she liked it from the moment she saw it, even though she had to admit to herself that it was probably the fact that Lord Leatham owned it that made it stand out from its neighbors with such distinction.

The boys darted up the steps without waiting for Anne, and were already pounding on the front door by the time Lord Leatham helped her descend from the traveling coach.

There was a considerable wait, however, before the big front door was eased open a crack. “Oh, Lord Leatham, we were not expecting you,” a woman’s voice said. Then the door was flung open the rest of the way. “Come in, come in, I shall tell Mrs. Uglow you are here so she can prepare some rooms.”

Anne stood frozen to the spot as if she had been turned to stone. Welcoming them into Lord Leatham’s house was his mistress, the mother of his child, the woman he had shaken so roughly on the street in Tavistock.

How could she have forgotten that incident, which had revealed to her Lord Leatham’s true nature? How could she have forgotten the woman and especially the boy, who looked so much like the twins?

Inside herself Anne felt something die, something delicate and soft that had just begun to take root and that had not had a proper chance to grow and flower.

Choking back a sob of despair, she realized her aunt was right: Men would always betray the women who loved them. And she did love Lord Leatham. She had to, else this discovery would not hurt so much.

Her own life as a governess now stretched before her, inevitably bleak, lonely, and loveless. She could have forgiven Lord Leatham a mistress. What she could not forgive was the neglect of an innocent child. She could never marry a man who fathered a child and then refused to acknowledge his own offspring.

* * * *

Bronson wandered through one familiar room after another, wondering why he felt no sense of homecoming. This was, after all, his home, where he had lived continuously until he was sent off to Harrow, and intermittently for years after that, coming back here for vacations until he attained his majority, after which he had studiously avoided Sidmouth.

Home. The word implied something more than wood and stone and plastered walls, more than Aubusson carpets and damask-covered chairs and Sevres vases.

Home implied family, but his parents had lived together only long enough to produce the required heir, then they had gone their separate ways, leaving him behind ... alone.

Not that he had ever minded being alone. Indeed, at school and later at university he had made it a point to avoid close friendships. He had a large circle of acquaintances, to be sure, but he had never allowed any of them to have an important place in his life.

Why do you travel so much? people had asked him repeatedly, and he had told them what he had believed to be true, namely that it was in his blood. His father had spent his life traveling, and he was also destined by nature to be a wanderer.

But now for the first time Bronson had to ask himself whether that was true ... or whether he had actually been wandering in search of a home? The home he had never realized he missed—at least he had not realized he missed having one until this summer, when he had seen how devoted the twins were to one another. For the first time in his life, he truly wished he’d had a brother when he was growing up.

And more significantly, for the first time in years he had remained in one place for more than a week or two without feeling a compelling need to set forth on another journey.

Now, back in the house where his life had begun, he climbed up the stairs to the floor that held the schoolroom. Even before he reached it, he could hear voices—the twins’ high and excited, Miss Hemsworth’s lower and calmer.

Approaching the open door quietly, he was able for a few moments to observe the three of them before they noticed him. Andrew had discovered the lead soldiers and was lining them up in formation. Anthony was galloping wildly on a rocking horse, which was barely big enough to hold him. And Miss Hemsworth was industriously unpacking some of the boys’ own toys, which they had not wanted to leave behind.

Becoming aware that he was standing there, she turned toward him. As their eyes met, the realization sprang into his mind, full blown, leaving no room for doubt: Home was where Anne was.

He could no more leave her and resume his aimless traveling than he could cut off his own right hand. Not that he had any desire to be separated from her, even for a short period of time. What he wanted was to stay by her side forever—night and day—to be married, to step into parson’s mousetrap, to be leg-shackled for life. In whatever disparaging terms it was described, it was still what he wanted more than anything else.

The only question that remained was whether or not he could persuade the enchanting Miss Hemsworth to accept such a ramshackle old bachelor as himself.

* * * *

Why, why? Anne asked herself. Why did Lord Leatham still look so appealing, even with what she knew about him? Why did her heart still race when he smiled at her? Eyes downcast, she continued to unpack the twins’ toys, afraid to look again at the despicable baron lest she fall further under his spell.

“Miss Hemsworth,” he said, but still she declined to look at him.

“Miss Hemsworth, if I might have a word with you in private?”

“No, indeed, my lord. I am much too busy now for idle chatter,” she replied, her heart pounding in her chest. Oh, how could she stop him from broaching the subject of marriage? She did not want to reject him out of hand; it would be far more agreeable for all concerned if they simply avoided the topic altogether. The twins had become very quiet, and she knew they were undoubtedly listening to every word with fascination.

“I did not intend discussing the weather, Miss Hemsworth.”

“Perhaps another day,” she demurred. “Next week, perhaps? I may have some time free then.”

She risked peeking up at him. He was lounging against the doorjamb, a look of unholy amusement on his face.

“I find I am a very impatient man, Miss Hemsworth. May I call you Anne?”

“No!” she blurted out. “That is, I feel we should not have such a degree of informality between us, since I am in your employ. People might gain a false opinion of our relationship....” Her voice trailed off.

“That is what I wished to discuss with you, my dear Miss Hemsworth—our relationship.”

“Oh,” she said, “well, perhaps we should not have this discussion now, in front of the boys.” She felt her face become hot, and she knew she was blushing.

“Oh, but—” one of the twins started to say, but then stopped.

She looked up at him, Anthony it was, and saw he was grinning at Lord Leatham. Really, this was an impossible situation. They should definitely not be discussing such matters in front of the boys—or indeed anywhere.

She would have to be firm—blunt, even. “I feel I should make it perfectly clear to you, my lord, that I intend to remain a governess all my life. I feel I have a calling to educate young minds—”

“You can be our governess, forever and ever,” Andrew piped up. “We don’t particularly want to go to Harrow anyway.”

“Yes, you can stay with us at Wylington Manor, forever and ever,” Anthony reaffirmed.

“Capital idea, really splendid,” Lord Leatham interposed. “And I shall cease wandering around the world and we shall all live together in Devon and be as merry as grigs.”

“Say you’ll stay, Anne, do say you’ll stay,” Andrew said.

“You don’t want to leave us, do you, Anne?” Anthony asked with a slight tremor in his voice.

The black look that Anne gave Lord Leatham should have made it clear to him that she was not at all pleased with the way he had manipulated her, but he showed no sign of remorse.

And what of your other son? she wanted to ask. Will he be living with us in Wylington Manor? And what of his mother? Where will she be? And do you still plan to visit her occasionally?

Methodically, Anne began again to unpack the toys, until at the bottom of the portmanteau she found something wrapped in silver paper. When she opened it, two little figures fell out into her lap. “What on earth?”

“Oh, these are sugar mice,” Andrew explained, picking one up.

“Haven’t you ever eaten one?” Anthony asked.

“Quite a favorite of mine when I was a boy,” Lord Leatham contributed.

“If you want, you may have one of these,” Anthony offered.

“Yes,” Andrew agreed, “Tony and I can divide one, and you can have the other.”

She probably would have declined, except she was in the mood to bite someone’s head off, and a sugar mouse was better than nothing. Feeling quite like a kitchen cat, she bit the head off the sugary little animal and chewed, while the others watched her intently, waiting to see if she liked it.

“Very strange flavor,” she commented. “What is the filling made of?”

“Filling?” Lord Leatham repeated, his expression very strange.

“Yes, the filling.” She held up the uneaten half of the sugar mouse for him to see. “What is the green filling inside the fondant?”

He turned a rather sickly shade of green himself, then knocked the remaining piece of confection out of her hand. “Spit it out,” he ordered in a frantic voice. “Spit it all out!”

“I swallowed it,” she said faintly, already starting to feel queasy.

Wrapped in a blanket, Anne sat on Lord Leatham’s lap in the kitchen of his house in Sidmouth. Gathered in a circle around her were the twins, Mrs. Uglow, and Martha Miller and her son, Adrian.

It had been a rather eventful hour. Lord Leatham had first stuck his finger down her throat, which, unpleasant though it was, had brought up most of the poisoned candy. Then he had carried her in his arms down to the servants’ quarters, where Martha had mixed up a repulsive concoction, which Lord Leatham had then forced her to drink. It had tasted much nastier than the poisoned sugar mouse, but it had apparently been efficacious. Her stomach was already feeling much better, and the chills and cramping had eased.

“Can anyone tell me how those two sugar mice got into the portmanteau?” Leatham asked, his hand still soothing her hair. “Andrew? Anthony?”

Both boys denied any knowledge of the confections.