Chapter 3 #2
“He charmed them,” Sorcha said as steam rose from her cup. “Beguiled them. Made up a story about a naughty little dragon whose contrary nature caused all manner of mayhem.” Not a simple moralist fable, but truly entertaining.
Tansy would not sip from her cup until Sorcha had, would not nibble her shortbread until Sorcha had partaken. Sorcha’s clandestine rebellion against decorum was conducted along rules from which Tansy would never deviate.
“That’s a form of trickery, to beguile,” Tansy said. “My sister Patsy has been beguiled into another confinement.”
Ye gods. The poor woman wasn’t thirty years old. “Is this her eighth?” Sorcha sipped her tea, a jasmine-scented gunpowder.
“Seventh confinement, but four and five were twins. You have the sheep count correct. What will you do about this Mr. Huxley, my lady?”
The question of the day. “He and I are to interview governesses tomorrow afternoon.”
“I’m sorry. It’s only been a month.”
Sorcha believed the sympathy was genuine, however tersely expressed. “We might have some luck this time. Mr. Huxley says we’re looking for somebody with a good imagination and a sense of humor.”
“Oh, aye. Every select academy for independent young ladies teaches fancifulness and silliness. Mazie said they beat her for giggling.”
Patsy, the eldest sister, had been compromised by her father’s curate.
The reverend had promptly rectified the situation with an application of matrimonial vows.
Mazie, the second-oldest sister, had been the lucky recipient of the sort of education that resulted in placement as a governess at a lesser household.
She dwelled in Glasgow and looked after four children for the wife of a ship’s captain. Her penmanship was exquisite. Tansy had been left to try her luck in domestic service, a nursery post being a natural fit for somebody with five younger siblings.
Sorcha had the sense each sister envied the others, and all were bearing up in challenging situations.
“If we do hire a governess,” Sorcha said, “you have leave coming to you, Tansy. Go home for the summer, see your family.”
“My lady, I couldn’t.” She set down her tea cup, though the jasmine was Tansy’s favorite. “What did you think of Mr. Huxley, when he wasn’t spinning tales and being very tall?”
He was tall, but not loud with it. Barclay had worn two-inch heels on his boots and outlandishly high top hats.
“I don’t know what to make of him, to be honest. He seems well intended. He kept referring to the children as his cousins.”
“Odd,” Tansy said, putting her cup and saucer on the tray, one piece of shortbread uneaten. “Though they are his cousins, I suppose.” She sounded as if she begrudged him a connection to her charges. “He makes you nervous, doesn’t he? He made me nervous. Never trust a man with faultless manners.”
And how had Tansy learned that lesson? “He was a vicar for more than a decade, Tansy. His manners had to be faultless.” Almost as faultless as a Scottish widow’s when she dwelled in Mayfair.
“‘Vicar’ doesn’t mean anything, my lady. Trust me, I was raised by one. My sister is married to one. Too many of them are men first and vicars for a few hours on Sunday. I’d best get back to the nursery.”
Tansy never lingered, never overstepped, and that was wise of her.
At any moment, the door might open, and a footman bearing a bucket of coal would pretend he’d had no idea the parlor was occupied.
Sorcha had taken far too long to realize that her exquisitely trained staff would never make such an error.
“We’ll start the day in the park tomorrow,” Sorcha said, “if the weather is fine. The children are always happier for some fresh air early in the day.”
“My lady is happier for some fresh air at any hour.” A slight smile leavened the observation. “I wish you luck with the governess interviews and with Mr. Huxley.”
“Thank you.”
She left, silently closing the door in her wake. Sorcha set aside the tea and shortbread, having lost her appetite for both.
Tansy was not quite the ally she’d been two years ago, but she was still a comfort. They conversed in Scottish Gaelic when private and also when private with the children, which meant Jordy and Bridget had rudimentary competence with the language.
Tansy had taken the job knowing neither child was an infant. In a widow’s household, that meant the post would expire in a few years. Generous wages had been part of the inducement, but Sorcha suspected pity had been the rest.
Tansy was pragmatic, patient, and slightly bitter, also shrewd.
She grasped that being a young, Scottish widow in the exalted ranks of the Dolforth ducal family was challenging.
For Sorcha to hire Tansy instead of some little English mouse had caused a minor skirmish with the duke, but the duchess had dissuaded him from escalating the conflict outright.
See that you have no more Scots on your staff in future. My nephew must be surrounded by only appropriate influences.
Sorcha did not miss her husband, but his existence had simplified life in a few regards.
“Mr. Huxley is a complication,” Sorcha muttered. “Whatever else he is—charming, mannerly, well intended—he is a complication.”
Time for a call on the duchess. That thought would have inspired a wee nip from the flask Sorcha kept in the depths of her workbasket, but time did not allow for the indulgence. Then too, arriving at Her Grace’s family parlor with spirits on the breath would not do at all.
“Why is it,” Tallister Greer mused, “Sorcha is becoming more attractive, while my own dear Coraline has grown matronly?”
Lillian, Her Grace of Chanderton, turned a baleful eye on her guest, who was in actuality her nephew-by-marriage, despite being several years her senior.
“Keep your hands off Sorcha, sir.” Tallister had kept his hands off Lilly, which suggested he wasn’t a complete fool, despite being lazy, ambitious, and too comely for his own good.
“If Coraline has acquired some avoirdupois,” the duchess went on, “she did so while presenting you with four daughters in close succession. She approaches the end of her childbearing years, and the passage of time takes a toll. That aside, a woman has more to do in this life than ornament her husband’s existence. ”
Tallister struck a theatrical hand-to-the-heart pose. “The Lilly has thorns. I am wounded.”
He was handsome enough for the stage. Tall, sable-haired, blue-eyed, and winsome.
Tallister favored rare beefsteak for his meals, Byronic disarray for his dark curls, and mistresses half his age for sport.
A fellow very near forty had no business being so attractive, much less attractive and charming.
Even the threads of silver at his temples added to his appeal.
And yet, Lilly liked him, for the most part. “You are tedious, and you can stop pacing the carpet. Have a seat, decimate the tray, and report whatever news has brought you here.”
Lilly received him in the formal family parlor, which looked out on the leafy street and the square beyond.
For all his affability, Tallister was much taken with his own consequence.
He would prefer to be seen calling upon his ducal in-laws rather than enjoy the cozier informal family parlor overlooking the garden.
“The news is all the same.” With an elegant flip of his coattails, he settled into a wing chair.
“The Wilson heiress has gone to the country for a repairing lease, which means she was plotting a jaunt to Gretna Green with some fortune hunter. The betting books claim Henry Duquette was leading the pack, but now he’s off to some undisclosed foreign location with creditors howling for his blood. ”
“Duquette will not be missed.” He was kicking his heels in the Low Countries, according to Lilly’s sources. She fixed Tallister’s tea as he liked it: two sugars, no milk. “A perpetual hanger-on. Duquette would have made Virginia Wilson miserable.” Lilly passed Tallister the cup and an empty plate.
“Virginia Wilson would have made Duquette’s creditors happy. Do the merchants of Bond Street deserve no consideration?” He sipped elegantly. “Nothing like a strong China black to lift the spirits. Where do you suppose the fortune hunters will turn now that La Wilson has retired from the lists?”
Lilly indulged him with a quarter hour of speculation, on-dits, and small talk as Tallister emptied his plate twice.
“Tell me, Lilly dearest. What is this I hear about Chanderton foisting Sorcha’s little heathens on one of the family by-blows?”
He refilled his plate with tarts, tea cakes, and profiteroles, then dunked a tea cake in his tea and popped the whole sweet into his mouth. Tallister exuded good-natured ennui and looked the part of the man-about-Town making a pleasant social call.
His question regarding Jordy and Bridget was doubtless the point of the whole discussion.
Tallister was rather too interested in Lord Barclay’s widow, like a spoiled boy is always more interested in another child’s toys than in his own vast collection. Sorcha was either oblivious to Tallister’s curiosity or knew better than to acknowledge it.
“Chanderton does as he pleases. He is the head of the family, and Mr. Bernard Huxley has until recently been serving in a vicarage up in Yorkshire. Huxley is connected to the Lorne barony by legal patrimony. His mother is the daughter of an earl, though she’s apparently on an extended trip abroad.
Huxley is willing to take on guardianship of the children, and you will acknowledge him socially when it becomes appropriate to do so. ”