Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress (Transformation of the Shelley Sisters 1)

‘I’ve someone for you to meet. William!’ she called. ‘He’s grown a bit since you last saw him.’ A gangling lad appeared from round the bend of the lane, a bundle of driftwood slung over his shoulder.

‘My God.’ The boy was the spitting image of himself at fifteen—black hair, height, build, the formidable Brandon jaw and nose still to be grown into. ‘Does he know?’ he asked Lily urgently. ‘Does he know who he is, who I am?’

‘Yes…’ she nodded as his father’s discarded bastard broke into a run, ‘…he knows.’

‘Mam.’ The boy stared at Ross with Billy’s amber eyes. He was not all Brandon then.

‘Say good day to his lordship, William. Where’s your manners?’

‘Good day, my lord.’ He reached for his forelock to tug it.

Ross put out his hand and caught his wrist. ‘Don’t do that. And not “my lord”. I am your brother Ross.’

Lily gasped. ‘You can’t mean to acknowledge him?’

‘I don’t need to.’ Ross let go of William’s wrist and tipped up the boy’s chin. ‘Look at that jaw.’ He ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘But, yes, he is my brother and I will make no bones about it. You call me Ross, William. “Sir”, perhaps, when we don’t want to shock the servants.’

‘Yes, my…sir. Ross.’ The Cornish burr was rich in the boy’s voice, warm under the more refined accent Ross suspected Lily had schooled him to use. She’d been his mother’s maid until his father’s eye had lighted on her. ‘You’re fifteen now?’

‘Yes.’ The amber eyes were wide, full of intelligence and wary speculation.

‘He’s starting on the fishing boats next month,’ Lily said. Ross could hear the pride and the fear in her voice. Pride that her lad was growing up, working and earning. Fear because the churchyards of St Just and St Anthony were full of the graves of fishermen from this treacherous coast.

‘Do you want to be a fisherman, William?’

No, those eyes said. ‘It’s a steady job.’ The boy shrugged. ‘The money’s not bad.’

‘What do you want to do—if you could do anything, any work?’

‘Be a lawyer.’ The answer shot back, even as William ducked to avoid his mother’s exasperated cuff round the ear.

‘Fool of a boy.’

‘Why? Can you read and write, William?’

‘I can, sir. Ross, I mean. I love reading—books, newspapers. Whatever I can get my hands on.’ He grinned, revealing a missing front tooth. ‘And lawyers make sure people get their rights,’ he added pugnaciously.

‘Oh, be quiet do, Will!’ Lily shook her head at Ross. ‘He reads all the newspapers he can find—he’s turning out to be one of these radicals, that’s what I fear. He’ll end up with some mob, breaking windows.’

‘Not if he is training to be a lawyer.’ Ross wondered what had left the boy with such an idealistic view of the legal profession. ‘They aren’t all knights in shining armour, you know, William.’

‘Well, it’s pie in the sky anyways.’ Lily picked up her basket. ‘A man’s got to go to university to be a lawyer, I know that.’

‘He’ll need a tutor, certainly.’ Ross turned and found, to his surprise, Dragon was standing where he had left him. He picked up the reins and began to walk alongside Lily and William. My brother. He’d lost Giles, but this one had his whole life in front of him. ‘And he can go and work in Kimber’s office one day a week. When he’s old enough, university. There’s more to it than that, but Kimber can tell us what’s needed.’ He looked down at William who had stopped dead, his mouth open. ‘Would you like that?’

The boy stared back, then bit his lip, his expression clou

ding over. ‘Thank you very much, but I have to earn a wage.’

‘You are my brother, so you get an allowance. I’ll talk to your mother about it. Now, take that firewood home and leave us to sort out the details. Oh, and, William, you may use the library at the Court at any time.’

His brother just looked at him, his throat working, then he muttered, ‘Thank you, Ross’, turned and took to his heels.

Ross smiled at Lily, who stood there staring at him.

‘He’s grateful,’ she began. ‘But he’s…’

‘He’s a bit overwhelmed. It is all right, Lily. I can remember being that age. What’s the matter?’