Chapter 8 #2
Kessler frowned at the pile of letters, which measured at least three inches in height. “Logical, I grant you. Farfetched, but logical, in the manner that boys aspire to logic. Shall we begin on the letters?”
“I’ll make notes, and you can start on them in the morning. What’s your favorite sweet, Kessler?”
His rheumy eyes became animated. “I do fancy my daughter’s currant buns, sir. She makes them with this honey-butter glaze and lets the dough rise twice. You taste heavenly fare when you bite into one, and I vow, they are half the reason her spouse begged me for her hand.”
“Ask her to bake up a few batches for the clerks,” Bernard said. “We’ll compensate her for her time and the ingredients. A Monday morning treat to start the week off on a nutritious note, and she’s not to spare the spices.”
Kessler’s bushy brows rose. “If you say so, sir.”
“Ask her. She’s doubtless a busy lady, but we must find some way to keep our clerks thinking of their jobs and not of springtime’s other distractions.”
“True, sir. Unusual perspective, but true. Might I inquire as to your favorite treat, Mr. Huxley?”
Bernard returned to his desk and to the pile of letters. “I’d have to give the matter some thought. Until tomorrow, Kessler.”
Kessler paused in the doorway. “Sir, I would never have deduced why Heevers and Ipswich were behaving so badly. You must not chastise yourself for needing some time to puzzle it out.”
“Thank you, Kessler, but it’s also true all the evidence was right before my eyes, and I simply did not put it together.
We won’t have immediate peace on all fronts, but the pair of them should soon be content with verbal sniping and insults going forth.
Ipswich has a nickname—Switch—and that’s a start. ”
“Very good, sir.”
Bernard was halfway through his letters before he permitted himself a break. Darkness was on the way—the daylight was lengthening week by week, and the hour was no longer early.
He’d been less than honest with Kessler. Bernard knew exactly what his favorite sweet was. He’d also given the matter a very great deal of thought.
A kiss shared with Sorcha, flavored with chocolate, joy, desire, and hope. That was his favorite treat in the whole world, and he suspected it always would be.
“If this coach goes any slower, I shall scream.” Sorcha spoke in French to avoid alarming the children.
“The coachman doesn’t want to make the situation any worse,” Bernard replied in the same language. “Si les enfants vomissent…”
If the children vomit… “They might feel better.” Sorcha finished the thought as Bridget moaned beside her. “I cannot imagine them feeling worse. Ask John Coachman for the trot, please.”
The coach was well sprung, but the increased movement did, indeed, inspire Jordy to cast up his accounts. Fortunately, Bernard had lifted the boy from the bench and out onto the walkway before the coach had even halted.
Jordy returned to the coach as white as apple blossoms, Bernard’s handkerchief in his hand.
“I am never eating raspberry fool again.” He climbed onto the seat and budged up to Sorcha’s free side. “Vile, hateful business. Nobody should eat it.”
“I’m not eating it either.” Bridget’s voice was barely above a whisper.
Bernard took the backward-facing bench as the coach rolled forward. “More for me, then. I ate a large helping, and I’m not ill. Your mother is quite in the pink as well. What else did you eat besides the raspberry fool?”
“Ham,” Jordy said. “Too salty. Potatoes. Not enough butter. Those ghastly beans that stink like wine. I ate two bites because Mama says I must. The beans were awful, and I don’t want to talk about food.”
“Mama.” Bridget’s hand flew to her mouth.
Bernard reacted before Sorcha could. He thumped the coach roof with his right fist, gathered Bridget up under his left arm, and once again vaulted to the walkway with a heaving child.
“Will Bridget get better, Mama?” Jordy sounded very small and scared.
“You will both recover. Did you and Bridget eat something you shouldn’t have? Licorice drops in the nursery, perhaps?” A whole bag of licorice drops?
“No, Mama. We were polite. We wanted Cousin Bernard to see our good manners. Even when stupid Eglantine started reciting her stupid poetry, we were polite.”
The poetry had been ridiculous, but then, it had been written by a fanciful girl who was watching her even more fanciful older sister become the center of the family’s entire orbit.
Bernard stuck his head in the door. “Have we another handkerchief?”
Sorcha passed hers over. “Thank you.”
“Happy to be of service.”
He meant that. He was nearly cheerful under circumstances that would have sent Barclay howling to his club.
The children had done well upon arriving at the Greer residence, first disappearing up to the schoolroom with Jessica, the cousin for whom Sorcha took the most genuine liking.
Jessica was neither vain nor foolish, though she was occasionally plainspoken to a fault.
Jordy and Bridget had made a good show at the table, too, until the dessert course.
Bernard handed a pale Bridget into the coach.
“Mama, I want to die. Everybody saw me be sick.”
“They saw me too.” Jordy was clearly trying to be helpful. “We are sick, Bridge. We can’t help it if Cousin Coraline’s cook should be sacked.”
“Coraline said we got overexcited,” Bridget retorted. “Annette said so, too, and so did Cousin Tally. I am not excited. I am especially, doubly, not overexcited.”
Bernard took the backward bench, and Bridget did as well. She scooted and fussed and wiggled until she’d affixed herself to Bernard’s side. He tucked an arm around her shoulders, and she settled on a sigh.
“Have we any water in this vehicle?” Bernard asked. “A few sips apiece for the afflicted wouldn’t go amiss.”
“I’m thirsty.” Jordy rubbed his eyes with his fists. “And I hate raspberry fool.”
Sorcha opened a panel beneath the coach window. “Water. Sips only, children, or the neighbors will be treated to more digestive drama en plein air.”
She handed Bernard the flask. He uncorked it and offered a drink to Bridget.
“Three sips only, Miss Dolforth, or there will be consequences.”
Bridget smiled weakly, sipped, and passed him back the flask. He wiped the mouth with Sorcha’s handkerchief and extended the vessel to Jordy.
“Why do I have to drink after Bridget?”
“Because you are a gentleman,” Bernard said, “and the ladies go first. You can decline to drink, if you’d rather not.”
Said so blandly that it almost wasn’t a challenge. Jordy drank.
“Would my lady care for something stronger?” Bernard had produced another flask, pewter, dented, not exactly sparkling.
“No, thank you, but feel free to indulge. We can set you down at your house, if you like.” She made the offer reluctantly.
The children had become so ill so suddenly, and Bernard had simply…
coped. Called for the coach, thanked the Greers for their hospitality, declared the meal superb and the company delightful, and then he’d handed Sorcha and the children into the coach.
And climbed right in with them.
“No need to take me home. I will see the invalids to the infirmary, if you don’t mind. You’re still feeling quite the thing?”
“In the pink, as noted. You?”
“Same. Do the children often take ill this way?”
“We don’t,” Bridget replied. “We are healthy as horses. Gilchrist says so all the time.”
“We were sick at Mirobello, Bridge. You first, then me. We vomited then too. Gilchrist said we ate too many sweets, but we didn’t. Cousin Tally called us shoats, and that means pigs, and it’s not a nice name.”
Bridget turned her face against Bernard’s arm. “I’m tired.”
“Almost home,” Sorcha said as Jordy yawned. His color was coming back, but both he and Bridget would probably benefit from a nap.
Bernard scooped Bridget into his lap, and when the coach clattered into the mews, he simply carried her into the house and up the steps to the nursery.
“Can you carry me, Mama?” Jordy asked, trundling into the house hand in hand with Sorcha.
Sorcha could, but truth be told, she wasn’t exactly, entirely in the pink after all. “I’d drop you on the steps, and then you’d have bruises to go with your sour tummy. You have had the audacity to grow up on me. Not well done of you, sir.”
“I’m not all grown up.”
But you will be soon. “When you are all grown up, you will carry me up the steps, because I will be a little old lady wobbling about with my canes.”
“You might be old, Mama, but you cannot be little again. That part is over.”
Sorcha would have said several parts of her life were over, and yet…
They reached the nursery floor, the climb more taxing than Sorcha preferred to admit. Bernard and Bridget were already in the playroom, which, in honor of the Sabbath, was as neat as Sorcha imagined Bernard’s dressing closet would be.
“I shall have a lie-down,” Bridget said, sounding exactly like Annette in a missish moment. “I’m exhausted. Where’s Gilchrist?”
“It’s Sunday.” Sorcha untied the bow at the back of Bridget’s pinafore and undid half a dozen buttons. “Gilchrist is enjoying a well-deserved afternoon of rest. Jordy, a short nap will do you good too.”
Jordy got down a book from the shelves by the window. “I’m not tired.”
Bernard plucked the volume from Jordy’s hand. “The patient is recovering. Get into your nightshirt, young man, and I will read a few pages of this stirring volume while you prove to us how not tired you are.”
“Those are just fables.”
Bernard made a face. “So I see. Not a naughty dragon in the lot. We will somehow contrive nonetheless. Nightshirt, sir, and use your toothpowder for good measure.”
Just like that, Jordy trooped off to his room, Bridget disappeared into hers, and Sorcha was left alone with Bernard.
He wrapped his arms around her, kissed her forehead, and let her simply rest in his embrace. The sheer comfort, the pleasure… and she hadn’t even had to ask.