Chapter 8 #3
“Fear not, my lady. They will be shooting about the nursery like Congreve rockets after a short rest.”
“They probably did get overly excited. They like Jessica. She’ll play hide-and-seek with them, and she tells them tales of haunted ruins. Why am I so tired?”
“Because you didn’t sleep well last night, fretting over the stupid Sunday dinner, as did I. Now I sound like Jordy.”
He stepped back, and Sorcha let him go. “I’ll read to Bridget,” she said, “if you’ll read to Jordy. My impromptu dragons pale compared to yours.”
“Three pages, no more, and then we are having a digestif to settle our nerves.”
“Two pages,” Sorcha said, “and a wee dram.” Or not so wee.
They shared a smile that was partly humor and partly mutual fortification. Not the sort of smile Sorcha had ever shared with Barclay, or with anybody else, for that matter.
She arrived at her assigned post in Bridget’s room to find the child half asleep atop the covers.
Bridget went unresisting into her nightgown and from there to the arms of Morpheus.
Sorcha poured a glass of water and set it on the bedside table, then returned to the playroom, where she could hear Bernard expounding on the days when even jungles had had a proper complement of dragons.
The urge to weep ambushed her as she dropped into the wing chair, though no immediate cause for sadness came to mind.
Bernard’s voice grew quieter, a masculine murmur calculated to soothe an upset boy to sleep.
I could fall in love with that sound. Somebody should have fallen in love with it, and with the selflessness of a man who’d make up tales for the amusement of small children and spend his Sunday afternoon playing nursemaid simply because that was the helpful thing to do.
He sauntered into the playroom, shelved the book, and took the second wing chair. “Bridget’s asleep?” he asked.
“Sound asleep. Jordy?”
“Same. Are they prone to these sorts of ailments?”
“Probably no more than any other pair of lively children. Sunday supper at the Greers’ is heady stuff for them. Thank you.”
He peered at her. “For?”
“For being a better nanny than their own nursemaid can sometimes be. For leaping in when another man, even another mother, would likely have left me to deal as best I could.”
“You would have coped splendidly.”
“I am tired of coping splendidly.” Tired enough to not guard her words apparently.
“Perhaps I need a nap. I find the Greers something of a challenge myself.” Though how much of that challenge was because, for the past several years, Sorcha had been the widowed auntie rather than Lord Barclay’s wife?
The family dinners hadn’t started until after Barclay’s demise.
“Coraline enjoys great confidence in her opinions,” Bernard observed, “and the three oldest daughters appear to take after their mama. One has some sympathy for Tallister, being surrounded by all that feminine expertise. He was a very helpful host, though. I recall my own father making a little production out of bringing the ham forth from the kitchen. Imagine what their Sunday suppers will be like in ten years.”
The same overly salted meat, the same bungled French sauce for the beans. Hairy-cot vairts, to hear Eglantine’s version. Coraline instructing her daughters on how to manage her granddaughters…
“The mind boggles. I suppose I’d best apprise Gilchrist of the day’s developments.” The wing chair was growing seductively comfortable, and the urge to weep was fading.
The Sunday suppers were a fairly recent development because Barclay would have never consented to Sunday supper en famille with the Greers.
He would have insisted on Gilchrist accompanying the children to any destination, even on the Sabbath.
He would have found every reason to hold Sorcha responsible when the children were under the weather.
He’d been a nasty, insecure husband once Jordy had arrived, unworthy of the vows Sorcha had taken in all good faith.
“You look vexed,” Bernard said. “I can find Gilchrist on my way out, and you can grab forty winks in that ever-so-comfy chair.”
Sorcha was vexed, and to simply acknowledge that was a curious relief. “I am vexed by the memories of past disappointments. Why are you so nice?” Even Barclay had been able to manufacture agreeableness while playing the part of a suitor.
“I am not so nice. Vicars are supposed to be kindly because compassion is a virtue. In truth, comporting oneself with some consideration for others tends to make for fewer fistfights and duels, even of the churchyard and committee meeting variety. Lorne would say taking the decent path is good for business, and he’d be right in almost any context. ”
“If more men adhered to that view, there would also be a deuced sight fewer unhappy brides, Mr. Huxley.” I should have never married Lord Barclay Dolforth. Sorcha managed to keep that part to herself, but the sentiment—long suppressed, never expressed—now felt like a simple statement of fact.
“You speak from experience. I’m sorry.”
Sorcha pushed to her feet. “Let’s find that wee dram, shall we? I’ll ask Gilchrist to wake the children in an hour or so. We can use that hour to toast Coraline’s faultless expertise regarding every possible topic and Annette’s stated desire to take Mayfair by storm.”
Bernard rose. “A fine plan, appealing in every particular, but might I kiss you first?”
Lord Barclay had never had the basic gentlemanly sense to ask a question like that, ever. “We’ll kiss each other, and to borrow from the Scottish play, damned be him who first cries, ‘Enough.’”