Chapter 9 #3
“Tell me more about your friends,” Hope said as they turned onto their street. “What was in the package you left in the larder?”
“Jane and Quinn’s cook sent me home with enough sweets and treats to give every boy in the conservatory the king of all bellyaches.
We will have to ration the abundance. I have a semi-aversion to anise, so I developed the habit of taking an anise star from the holiday treat tray first, to blunt my appetite.
The myth has arisen in certain quarters that they are my favorite.
I dearly hope the boys can appreciate them, because I cannot. ”
“I like them. My favorite will always be warm gingerbread with plenty of butter.” Preferably shared with Joshua.
That thought dimmed some of the day’s sparkle.
“Fresh gingerbread is high on my list as well,” Joshua said. “I’d like you to meet Their Graces.”
“Who?”
“Their Graces, my friends, Quinn and Jane. They have the honor—the dubious honor in Quinn’s opinion—to be the Duke and Duchess of Walden.”
Hope stopped in the middle of the walkway. “You are friends with a duke and duchess?”
“The friendship predates the title, at least with Quinn and me. He was a brash, canny Yorkshireman trying to establish himself in banking circles here in London. He went about it all wrong, and I told him so. He invited me outside, and I feared he meant to try conclusions with me in the stable yard. I would not have emerged victorious from such an encounter with Quinn, if I emerged at all.”
A large icicle on the house across the street dropped and shattered, spooking a passing horse.
“You are friends with a duke who tried to brawl with you?”
Joshua smiled. “He asked me what suggestions I had for improving his approach. My first suggestion was to find an elocution teacher. My second bit of advice was to focus on the customers nobody else took much interest in. The smaller shopkeepers who might invest in a silver service in lieu of stashing money in a bank. He heeded my advice, and that led eventually to a partnership.”
“Widows,” Hope said, resuming her progress. “This is the Wentworth and Penrose bank, and you are the Penrose. Every widow I know advises me to entrust my assets to Wentworth’s.” Though, until the house sold, there would not be any assets.
“I am the present Penrose.” Joshua ambled along beside her, apparently knowing better than to offer his arm. “My grandfather was the original article, but my uncles bungled his legacy.”
“What of your father?”
“I barely recall him, though I’m said to resemble him closely. Big, hearty, doted on Mama. He was knocked into eternity in a coaching accident.”
Hope was not angry, exactly, but she was flustered. “And your mother?”
“Grandpapa looked after her and me, though the financial business eventually passed into my uncles’ hands. Repairing the damage they did took some time, and in that regard, Quinn Wentworth, as he was styled at the time, had some excellent investment strategies.”
Meaning Joshua’s mama had been a widow cast upon the charity of family. “Your bank looks after widows.”
“We look after all of our customers. His Grace is particularly adept at seeing that bereaved women and, in some cases, bereaved men are not taken advantage of. His Grace has no patience with predatory greed.” Joshua walked along in silence until they reached the front steps of the house.
Hope’s house.
“Quinn was raised not simply in poverty, Hope, but in abject squalor. His mother succumbed before Quinn was grown, the father not much later, and I gather that was for the best. Quinn doesn’t talk about it.
His siblings nevertheless told me enough that I know he and they have overcome unimaginable odds.
He was convicted of a murder he did not commit…
He and Jane were married in Newgate, of all places. They are remarkable people.”
Joshua’s voice conveyed the next thing to awe, which made Hope want to shake him.
“You are remarkable. You gave this brawling, ill-bred, overgrown orphan a chance before Society had to give him the time of day. You put your faith in him and apparently stood by him through all of his tribulations, which frankly sound to me like something from a Gothic novel. Of course, the Wentworths were unnerved by your departure. You were the answer to their prayers, you daft man.”
Joshua peered around the slushy, sunny, bustling street. “Are you angry?”
“I don’t know what I am, but we’d best get along and make sure Holly is not investigating the treats in the pantry.”
Joshua winged his arm, his expression unreadable. Hope took it and allowed him to escort her up the steps.
She knew what the roiling in her gut was, knew what that irritable, anxious edge to her voice meant. She was afraid.
Joshua was not only friends with a duke, he’d been a sort of guardian angel to the man. Joshua of snow-shoveling fame was also respected in Mayfair and the City, having turned around an ailing bank, then expanded it to the New World apparently.
And successfully so.
By the time Hope was passing Joshua her bonnet, her new gloves folded into the crown, some calm had returned.
“I should have suspected you are rich,” Hope said. “This is a very fine house, and you occupied it prior to your travels.”
“I was literally penniless when I turned up on your doorstep, Hope. I simply like good art.”
“And old desks, and fine carpets, and elegant clocks—Edwin loved your clocks—and if you will excuse me, I’d better locate Holly.”
“She is in the conservatory considering which bushes will make the best cuttings for Mrs. Colchester.”
Without even cocking an ear, Hope knew Joshua was right. “I need time to consider, Joshua. I am not angry, but I am having to adjust my thinking, and widowhood has made me wary of that exercise when it is forced upon me.”
“I understand, but allow me to impart an idea or two before you embark on these adjustments, hmm?”
He did understand Hope’s need to ponder the day’s revelations. Of course he would. Loss had a way of casting a pall over any change, even positive changes.
“I’m listening.”
He took her hand and led her to the parlor, then set about building up the fire. The room was cozy, tidy, and now full of memories that would have put Hope to the blush were they not so precious.
“Their Grace’s cook is a formidable lady.
She is ferociously loyal to the family and they to her.
She can cook the fancy dishes and supervise the mandatory formal dinners, but she prides herself on knowing each person’s favorite desserts and so forth, whether that’s raspberry fool, cheese toast, or some fancy French creation. She considers me family.”
Hope settled in the wing chair rather than risk the sofa. “And?”
“I braved her purlieus to thank her for the sweets and to allow a parade inspection of my prodigal person belowstairs. I also wanted to leave as unobtrusively as possible. The first things I spotted were three of Edwin’s toasting racks, and when I asked Cook about them, she said no proper kitchen is without at least one.
She also has three of his apple-coring devices and showed me a pair of gloves that are made of oilskin—”
“—roughened on the palms with some sort of ceramic paste,” Hope said, “that makes scrubbing carrots and potatoes quick and easy. I scrubbed the skin right off many a potato with mine before they wore out. But I thought…”
Joshua perched on the hassock. “You thought Edwin’s patents went nowhere? A ducal kitchen is quite somewhere for clever inventions of that nature, Hope. Cook is very proud to have the latest in labor-saving inventions among her arsenal.”
A very competent, ducal cook. One on nodding terms at market with her peers and doubtless happy to chat endlessly with them about the tools of her trade.
Three toasting racks.
Three apple corers.
Even the scrubbing gloves. Edward had had high hopes for those gloves. Much safer for scullery maids and potboys than wielding a knife.
Hope stared at the cheerful blaze on the hearth, mind awhirl. “I… see.”
Joshua positioned himself knee to knee with her and took her hand in his. “What do you see?”
A lot of questions, not enough answers. “We shall pay a call on Mr. Peters tomorrow, if you are willing.”
“Of course I am willing. You don’t want to wait until the New Year?”
“I don’t think I can bear to.”
“Then tomorrow it is.”
Hope grabbed him in a hug, then rose. “Let’s save the camellias, shall we? Sufficient unto the day and all that.”
She sailed out of the parlor before Joshua could demand more discussion. Cowardly of her, like Edwin going for his walks to the pub when Holly had been cranky, but the holidays thus far had been one adjustment after another.
Providence alone knew what additional adjustments might be demanded of Hope come the New Year. Sufficient unto the day indeed.
Sufficient unto the holiday, more like.