The Courteous Cad (33 page)

Walking toward his horse, William pondered the information. He could not guess why the family would take Prudence to the country, but at least she was still alive. He prayed the clean air would serve as a healing balm. On the other hand, perhaps her sisters had done as many families did, removing their ill loved one to a remote place where her final days might be spent in privacy and silence.

Reclining on a lawn chair plumped with cushions, Prudence tilted her face toward the sun. She had been trying with little success to sketch a yellow cat lying in the shade of a nearby clump of blossoming lavender. On the porch, Mary was playing with her baby daughter, their coos and giggles drifting on the light breeze. Sarah had gone to the market at Pentrich in search of Spanish oranges. Henry had been attempting to set up a white tent next to the rose garden—while the tent had enjoyed regularly toppling Henry into the thorny branches and making him yelp.

It was a pleasant enough afternoon, Prudence admitted, though she felt restless and a little hungry. She glanced at Henry, who was now attempting to extricate his trousers from a pink rosebush.

“Shall we enjoy tea beneath your tent today, Lord Delacroix?” she called out.

“In time, yes,” he muttered. “But first I must put this stake into the . . .”

His guttural curses faded, and Prudence smiled. She had learned to like Henry rather well. Sarah and Mary had declared that if their younger sister was well enough, a wedding must take place before the year was out. Even Charles had put in a good word for his tea-trading colleague.

Prudence had thought a good bit about marriage but settled against it. Her doctors had warned that even if she was ever well enough to take a husband, her fragile constitution might prevent her from successfully bearing children. In an effort to put this dire news out of her mind, Prudence had decided that any good health she regained must be seen as a gift from God—a gift that would permit her to resume her high calling to improve the lives of mill families.

Though she could not remember Betsy Fry’s visits well, Prudence did recall an idea that had played endlessly through her fevered mind like a singsong chant—
a law, a law, a very good law
. She had even begun to hear a little tune, a jingling cadence that never failed to brighten her spirits.

“A law, a law, a very good law,” she sang now in a low voice. Eyes closed, she drummed the rhythm on the arm of the wooden chair. “A law, a law, a very good law . . . The very best law that I ever saw . . . Take it away to Parliament . . . The very best law that ever was sent.”

At someone applauding behind her, Prudence opened her eyes and tilted back her head. “William!” she gasped, nearly tumbling out of her chair. “Upon my word, you frightened me!”

“I beg your pardon,” he said, stepping onto a rug spread out across the grass. “If I startled you, it was unintentional. I meant to startle Lord Delacroix. His antics are far more amusing.”

Her heart hammering, Prudence glanced at the man who now sat beside her. He was as handsome as she remembered— brown hair curling at his neck, dark eyes studying her. His lean, athletic form stretched with ease on the rug, one knee crooked and an arm resting on it.

Did he know how very striking he was? Surely he did, and he had used his manly allure to woo the poor creature who eventually lost her life bearing his illegitimate child. As she gazed at him, Prudence reminded herself that she must try to abhor William for the awful things he had done. She had taught herself to think about that unfortunate woman as often as possible—and not to recall William’s warm charm, tender words, strong embrace, and extremely . . . exceptionally . . . impossibly delightful kisses.

“How did you find me?” she asked him, breaking into her own forbidden thoughts. “I expected never to see you again and certainly not in Derbyshire.”

“I apologize for failing to meet your expectations,” he said, “but this visit could not be helped.”

Despite herself, Prudence smiled at his familiar silly banter. “My
expectations
must not be equated with my
hopes
. You did not fail to meet the latter.”

“That is happy news indeed.” He studied her for a moment—long enough that she became uncomfortable and reached for her fan.

“We had word from your friend,” he continued. “She said you have been ill.”

“Anne wrote to you?”

“To Olivia. Her message alarmed us all. As soon as I read the letter, I departed Chatham at once.”

“Chatham? Do you live at Chatham Hall now?” She reflected on the grand manor house she had seen across the rolling moors. “Are you . . . alone?”

“No, no. My home is filled with laughter and song, people bustling about from attic to cellar. A jolly place indeed.”

Prudence lowered her fan as she tried to imagine who might have moved into the home with William. Had he suddenly wed a widow with many children? Was he visited by friends who enjoyed revelries at all hours?

“But,” he continued, “when the painters, window washers, silver polishers, and carpet beaters have thoroughly transformed the place, I shall move into it at last and rattle about on my own.”

“Oh,” she sighed. “I am relieved . . . that is, I am comforted to know you are not overwhelmed with visitors . . . and that sort of thing.”

“Visitors can be a great nuisance,” he concurred. “For some time now, I have been of the firm opinion that visitors and every other sort of caller should be outlawed.”

“But then you would not be allowed to sit here and tease me, and I should miss that very much indeed.”

His smile warmed her to the tips of her toes. “I should miss it too. I have missed
you
, Prudence.”

“We did not part on happy terms. Have you yet forgiven me for my dismal charade as a spinner?”

“Forgiven you? Certainly not. Had you not become Polly the spinner, I should never have known how essential it was to sack Dick the Devil.”

“You have dismissed him? Oh, I am very glad to hear it. I know Davy Smith’s injuries were caused by his labor beneath the billy, yet I cannot help but think that Dick the Devil played a part in the poor child’s suffering.”

“Dick is gone, as is Polly. I say good riddance to them both. Polly, as you well know, was forever raveling her threads and tangling her spindles.”

“But she was improving day by day,” Prudence said. “Jimmy will tell you that.”

“He did indeed. You are greatly missed at the mill. The workers always ask about you.”

“Do they? I brought a great deal of havoc into their lives. The decision to join the ill-fated March of the Blanketeers was a direct result of my futile efforts at reform. Such a catastrophe.”

“More than you know. I am told most of the aristocracy believes that the poison of the American and French revolutions led to the protest at Manchester. There is great fear that a similar revolution may be afoot in England.”

“Good heavens. Have I been ill so long as to miss this news?”

“Have you not been reading Miss Pickworth? She is full of information on the inanities and idiosyncrasies of our artful aristocrats.”

Laughing, she shook her head. “You certainly alliterate as well as Miss Pickworth. I shall have to begin suspecting she is your
nom de plume
and spare poor Mary from my accusations. But you are right about my activities of late. I have been unable to muster interest in society’s comings and goings. My chief focus has been the restoration of my health.”

His eyes warmed to dark pools. “Prudence, I cannot bear to think of your suffering. Please tell me you are greatly improved.”

“I believe I shall not expire just yet.” She tried to read his expression. “But, William . . . I must ask if you know Bettie Barns. She is a weaver at your mill.”

“Perhaps you refer to Bettie Walker?”

Prudence sucked down a breath as this revelation penetrated. So Mr. Walker and Bettie had married at last. It was done now, and she realized she was glad. Very glad for him, for his new wife, for their children, and even for herself. She could close the door on that chapter of her life forever.

“I know Bettie well,” William was saying. “She has been employed at the mill from the start.”

“Did you know she is ill? She suffers from mill fever.” Prudence looked away, and her gaze fell on the cat. It had yawned and stretched and was now lying in an impossibly contorted pose beneath the lavender. “I, too, contracted mill fever. The journey to Manchester in the rain hastened its progress. My persistent cough became a trifling cold. My cold grew worse and led to a violent pneumonia that has rendered me little more than a helpless rag doll.”

Prudence fell silent when William made no response. Rather than listening to her, he seemed to be watching Henry, who had just set the central tent pole into place—only to have the whole thing collapse on his head. Amusing though it was, William did not smile when he turned to Prudence again.

“Anne wrote that you nearly died. I understood at that moment how much I love you.” He looked away again. “I am sorry if my words of affection distress you. We are not meant for each other. Still, I thought you should know. I have never taken my feelings for you lightly.”

“As you have for other women?”

He glanced at her, his eyes flashing. But in an instant his face sobered. “Yes, actually. Very lightly. I have been something of a rounder. A cad. And more. I was a gamer, risking everything to win at cards. I won often. I lost more often. I drank too much—at first to join the revelry, then to numb myself to my own failures. Finally, because I could not stop.”

Her breath growing shallow as his words poured out, Prudence feared she might swoon. If she collapsed, she could blame it on her poor health. She was stunned—more by William’s brutal honesty than by the facts he related.

“Midway through my last military mission,” he continued, “we put out to sea. Our ship engaged in several skirmishes with the French. Responsibilities to my men ended my drinking. As you may imagine, there was no choice in the matter. On my return to Plymouth, I was clearheaded enough to comprehend the havoc I had caused there. Far more havoc, dear lady, than your well-intentioned protest march.”

Prudence set down her fan, praying that William had concluded his declaration of guilt. If he went further, if he spoke of the poor dead woman, she did not know how she might bear it.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked. “I cannot absolve you, and thoughts of such behaviors as you describe render me faint. I see now that you have been as licentious and wicked as ever I feared. I cannot imagine how I am to reconcile this information with my former good opinion of you.”

“You held a good opinion of me?”

“I loved you, William, and I told you so.”

“You told me more often how you despised my mill, my treatment of the workers, the very essence of my character. I believed you hated me far more than you loved me.”

“I tried very hard to dislike you.”

“Did you succeed?”

She closed her eyes, willing away any tenderness she felt for him. “I did succeed,” she answered. Then she sighed. “And I also failed.”

“Upon my word!” Mary’s loud voice cut off William’s response. “I am beyond astonishment. Mr. Sherbourne, such a surprise!”

He clambered to his feet and bowed. “Mrs. Heathhill, how delighted I am to see you again.”

“And you are here with my dear sister. . . . How very . . . very unexpected!”

“I was commissioned by the Royal Art Society of Otley and Thereabouts,” he quipped, “to judge the merits of Miss Watson’s sketch of a . . . a cow.”

“A cow?” Prudence cried, holding up her notebook. “It is not a cow.”

“It is a dog,” Mary opined. “One of our sweet corgis.”

“I am sorry to disagree with you, Mrs. Heathhill,” William said, “but I see it now. It is very clearly an elephant.”

“An elephant!” Laughing, Prudence struggled to her feet. She pointed to the feline stretched out near the lavender. “It is a cat.
That
cat, to be exact.”

“Aha, just as I suspected,” William said, taking the sketch and studying it. “It is an elephant disguised as a cat—exactly the sort of clever artistry most admired by the Royal Art Society of Otley.”

“And Thereabouts,” Mary added.

Henry strolled over and took the sketch from William. “Very nice rendering of a fox,” he pronounced. “Though it wants a sharper nose, I think.”

“Give me that!” Prudence snatched the paper. “Go away, all of you. I must be left in peace, or I shall have no choice but to perish on the spot and make you rue your biting commentaries.”

“That is a threat not to be taken lightly,” William said, scooping Prudence up in his arms. “We must not allow you to perish, Miss Watson. Rather we must fortify you with the tea and cake that is even now being set out under Lord Delacroix’s fine white tent.”

“Oh!” Mary cried as William started across the lawn toward the tent. “Put her down! Put down my sister!”

Prudence’s own exclamation of shock quickly transformed into giggles as she wrapped her arms around William’s neck and laid her head on his shoulder. They entered the cool shade of the tent and he settled her into a chair. But not before brushing a soft kiss on her cheek.