Not Quite a Lady (The Dressmakers 4)

Darius’s family merely deemed him aggravating, and it bothered him more than he liked. This boy had no family, and strangers disliked him on sight.

Darius wished Lady Charlotte were here. She would know what to say to the child. She had known what to say to Darius. Hadn’t she given him a completely new perspective on his father?

“Come now,” Darius said. “You can do better than this, Pip. Mr. Welton must have thought so, or he wouldn’t have taken such pains with your schooling.”

Pip wiped his eyes with a grimy sleeve.

“You must not mind these fellows,” Darius went on. “They don’t know any better. William the Conqueror was a bastard. Do you know who he was?”

Pip nodded.

“There’s a lot of that, among the upper orders,” Darius said. “If it wasn’t for bastards, we should be able to fit the entire House of Lords in a wardrobe, with room to spare.”

The image of England’s great lords stuffed into a wardrobe brought a shaky smile to the boy’s face.

“The first Duke of Richmond,” Darius said. “The first Duke of Grafton. The first Duke of St. Albans. All of them the by-blows of King Charles II.”

The boy’s mismatched eyes widened, and his mouth formed an O.

“The Duke of Somerset’s descended from a bastard son of the Duke of Lancaster,” Darius continued. “These are merely the ones who come quickly to mind.”

He had the lad fully diverted from his sorrow now. “All of them were conceived in sin, sir?”

The concept of sin had never made the slightest sense to Darius. “They were conceived in the usual way,” he said. “Do you know how it’s done?”

Pip’s face reddened. He covered his mouth, but Darius heard the stifled snigger.

Again, something nagged at the back of Darius’s mind, but it must wait for another time. For now he must press his advantage.

“Then you know it’s nothing to do with you, and not your fault,” he went on. “There’s nothing evil about your eyes, either. I’ve seen it before. At Eton. One of the older boys, if I remember aright. None of my schoolfellows ran away screaming from the sight, or uttered nonsense about devil’s work. It’s a quirk of nature, nothing more, and a very interesting one, in my opinion. Anybody can have two matching eyes. Eyes of two different colors are distinctive.”

“Eton,” the boy murmured. “Distinctive.” He stood a little straighter.

“We’ve got that sorted out, then,” Darius said. “We’ve only one other matter to settle. I must make sure there’s no trouble about your indenture. For that I must go to Salford.”

The boy looked alarmed at the mention of Salford, but he lifted his chin bravely, ready to trust Darius. “Yes, sir.”

“You’d better play least in sight today,” Darius said. “I’ll take you with me. Can you ride?”

Yes, Pip could ride. Mr. Welton had taught him.

The prospect of riding one of Darius’s fine horses helped quell the child’s anxieties about returning to the scene of his nightmares. Not twenty minutes later, he and Darius set out for Lancashire.

Tuesday night

Colonel Morrell sipped his whiskey. “Jowett,” he repeated.

“Head carpenter over at Beechwood, sir,” said Kenning. “Said Mr. Carsington took an interest in the plasterer’s apprentice. The one I told you about, with them odd eyes. The one who walks Lady Lithby’s dog.”

“Odd eyes,” his commander repeated.

“One blue is what Jowett said. The other a sort of muddy green.”

The colonel considered for a time. “I knew a man with eyes like that,” he said. “Frederick Blaine. He was one of my officers. You remember him, Kenning?”

“Oh, him,” said Kenning. “Never noticed his eyes.”

“Troublesome fellow,” said his commander. “Blown up at Waterloo. Always careless and impetuous, but he grew worse after his younger brother Geordie died in a duel, some years before that. That one was a rake of the worst kind. Locals complained about his leading their daughters astray. Had he been under my command, I should have had him up on misconduct charges at the first whiff of scandal.” He considered again. “But his commander was notoriously lax. If my memory does not mislead me, the battalion were stationed somewhere hereabouts for a time.”

Colonel Morrell’s memory rarely misled him. On the contrary, it was a prodigious memory, and it had served him well in his profession.

“The boy’s one of his bastards, you think, sir? From what Jowett said, he’s somebody’s bastard.”

There was a silence while the colonel’s reliable faculty made a connection between a coachman’s obscure references to events of a decade ago and the current discussion. “How old did you say the boy was?”

“Ten or thereabouts, sir.”

“Ten.” Colonel Morrell sipped his whiskey. “Or thereabouts. Came from the Salford workhouse.”

“Previous in Sheffield.”

“Sheffield, Yorkshire,” said the colonel. “Ten years. Yorkshire.” A possibility occurred to him. A week ago, he would have deemed it unthinkable.

Now he thought it.

“Kenning,” he said. “You’re going to Salford tomorrow.”

Beechwood

Friday morning 5 July

“I was afraid you’d abandoned me,” Mr. Carsington said, “to the hordes of servants and workmen.”

He and Charlotte stood outside the open doorway of the corner guest chamber. The housekeeper, Mrs. Endicott, had told Charlotte that he’d asked to speak to her as soon as she arrived.

“We might have come sooner,” she said. “Stephen’s fever passed quickly. But he was ill and fretful afterward, and Stepmama decided he might be allowed some coddling. Usually she leaves the children to the nursemaids—and Papa. But when the boys are ill, she steps in. When they’re especially obnoxious, too.”

“What are they?—one of them not three, as I recollect, and one four or five years old?” he said. “Can such little ones be especially obnoxious?”

“The older ones, certainly,” Charlotte said. “She banished Richard and William to Shropshire because they’d started bullying Georgie. In Shropshire, they have older cousins who’ll give them a dose of their own medicine.”

“Her ideas of child rearing sound like my mother’s,” Mr. Carsington said.

“She is unsentimental about them,” Charlotte said. “She needs to be, I think, because Papa tends to overindulge them. She does not want the boys to be spoiled.”

“Were you spoiled, does she think?”

“I don’t know what she thinks about that,” Charlotte said. “I only know that she did me a great deal of good when she came.” She pushed the past to the back of her mind, where it belonged. “You did not summon me here to discuss the rearing of children, I think?”

“No,” he said. “The image of obnoxious infants led my thoughts astray. I asked you to come because I need your help.”

She said nothing, but she could not conceal her surprise. She hoped she did a better job of hiding the foolish burst of happiness that made her heart beat erratically.

“Those last may be the most difficult four words I’ve ever uttered in my life,” he said. “I thought I would choke saying them.”

“I thought I’d faint, hearing them,” she said. “In my experience, men would rather have a limb amputated than admit they need help. And to seek it from a woman is completely unheard of.”

He smiled. “The pain is nearly unbearable.”

“Yet you appear to be breathing normally,” she said. “Your face has not turned blue.”

“Perhaps there will be a delayed reaction,” he said. “In the meantime, I will tell you that I am at a loss.” He nodded toward the room. “I don’t know where to begin.”

Several pieces of furniture had been moved out of rooms in which work was being done and into this one, which would need only cleaning and perhaps a fresh coat of paint.

“Both Mrs. Endicott and Lady Lithby say this is not something for them to decide,” he said. “But I have no idea how one decides what to keep and what to throw away.”

Charlotte stepped into the room. It was more crowded than the last time she’d entered, to investigate the trunk. It would grow more crowded still as repairs proceeded. The trunk, she saw, was still here. It stood open on the floor. Judging by appearances, someone had thrown back into it everything she’d taken out and so carefully sorted.

He must have followed the direction of her gaze because he said, “I gave up. I still haven’t chosen a fan for my grandmother. Perhaps I should send her the lot.”

“That would ruin the effect,” she said. “The effect you want is of one exquisite item, carefully chosen for her and her alone. Then she will believe you are more thoughtful than she’d supposed. If you choose well, she may even decide that you have more sensitivity and feeling than she gave you credit for.”

“That shouldn’t be difficult,” he said. “She gives me credit for having none whatsoever.”

He spoke in the detached way he often adopted, but she detected the note of frustration. “Do you mind so very much what your grandmother thinks?” she said.

“I shouldn’t mind,” he said. “She’s equally merciless to everybody, including my esteemed father.” He smiled. “But I should like to astonish her. At least once in my lifetime.”

He had so many smiles, and in this one she saw his younger self so clearly: the boy vexed with his provoking grandmama.

“I’m acquainted with your grandmother,” she said. Compared to the Dowager Lady Hargate, Mrs. Badgely was the meekest of lambs. “I’ll choose a fan. As to the rest…” She made a sweeping gesture. “Tell me what the rules are, and I’ll make a preliminary list.”