Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The day was beginning with the balmy, cloudy weather that could descend into steady rain or clear off and usher in a beautiful spring day. Sorcha’s mood was equally unsettled.
“Mr. Huxley.” She nodded for the benefit of her groom, who trailed a few yards behind on an aging gelding. “A pleasure.”
“Lady Barclay, likewise. Shall we enjoy your favorite path?”
Even the sound of Bernard’s voice pleased her. The sight of him on his lean gray, the hint of amusement in his words as they played the polite games necessary in public…
I am in love. Sorcha relished the thought even as it worried her. Bernard had fallen curiously silent on the matter of Jordy’s bump on the head, and his greeting was notably restrained.
“Mr. Huxley will see me home, Grimes.”
“Very good, my lady.” The old groom touched his cap and gave Bernard an admonitory glower. “Sir.”
Bernard maneuvered his horse—Bounder—next to Sorcha’s mare. “Rain this morning would have been disappointing, to say the least. How fare you, and how fare the children?”
The park wasn’t crowded, probably as a result of the weather and also the advancing Season.
In early spring, the need to see and be seen, to establish who was back in Town, and who had yet to make an appearance was paramount.
As exhaustion set in and social calendars filled up, a morning hack became a luxury.
“I am well,” Sorcha said, which was mostly true. “The children seem to like their new governess. Miss Gelling is imaginative, also firm and very good-humored. Gilchrist has given Miss Gelling a cautious vote of approval. Mr. Entwhistle has taken to hiding in his study.”
They turned their horses onto the path that led along the Serpentine.
“Speaking of Entwhistle, what exactly do we know of his particulars?”
An odd gambit for a courting swain. Very odd.
“I hired Entwhistle at a bargain. Coraline employs him to tutor her girls in French and Latin, though only Eglantine takes an interest in Latin. I had room to house him, Jordy was approaching the age when a tutor was needed, and Mr. Entwhistle was available.”
“I fear he is no bargain, my lady.”
Riding side by side with Bernard, Sorcha noted signs of fatigue evident only at close range. His eyes were shadowed, his mouth a little grim. While his turnout was pristine, the knot in his cravat was off-center, as was the golden pin securing the linen.
“Entwhistle is young,” Sorcha said. “He doesn’t cause any problems, and Jordy is accustomed to him.”
“Jordy runs circles around Entwhistle, and Entwhistle spies on you. I grant you, matters have improved in recent weeks. Entwhistle simply lacks experience and probably deals better with biddable young ladies than with rambunctious little boys. He does take direction and seems to care about Jordy’s progress. ”
“You want me to sack him.” Coraline would find eleven thousand reasons to criticize a change of tutor. Sorcha wasn’t keen on the notion either. “For a young man to lose his first official tutor’s post could be devastating, and why should Entwhistle be any different from the entire household?”
Bernard held back the branch of a leafy maple dripping with a heavy dewfall. “What are you implying?”
“They all spy on me. They always have. Gilchrist’s loyalty is trustworthy, but when she and I speak Gaelic, you can bet the whole neighborhood hears about it, as well as the duchess, Coraline, and probably the Mayor of London.
When Jordy has a cold, when the fortune hunters make their annual trek to my parlor…
I have virtually no privacy. I know that now. ”
Bernard adjusted his reins. “What fortune hunters?”
“The ones with pockets to let—those fortune hunters. Younger sons home from the war, widowers who find courting the diamonds and heiresses expensive and tedious. They all look in on me to remind me what I’m missing and to try to tempt me back to the altar.”
The gray halted. “I am not a fortune hunter, Sorcha. Believe that if you believe nothing else.”
Finally, the suitor had joined the discussion, albeit his tone was nearly priggish for a fellow who’d commenced his courting only three days ago.
“Your financial situation doesn’t interest me, Bernard. What has put you in such an ungracious mood?”
“Bounder, walk on.” The horse plodded forth.
“‘Ungracious’ is an interesting description. Apt, for which I apologize. I am deluged at the office, concerned for you and the children, and have been to more Venetian gossip-breakfasts and at home gossip sessions, and card-gossip parties in the past fortnight than I hope to attend in my entire life. The duchess is plotting a ball at the end of the month, and I am to make my debut. One is tempted to dress in white and wear roses in one’s hair.
I suppose a fan embroidered with gamboling lambs would be too much. ”
He’d been neglecting his rest again. That explained much. “You poor dear. If you attend Her Grace’s ball—and you must—then the hostesses will include you in other formal entertainments.” Roses in his hair…
“My valet will be in alt. I never had a valet before I went into trade. He fusses about everything in bad French and laundered Cockney. This is not what I wanted to discuss with you in the very limited time we have together.”
He’d wanted to discuss sacking Entwhistle for some reason. Sorcha had wanted to discuss nothing at all. To find a quiet clearing in the woods, dismount, and wrap her arms about the solid, wonderful reality of Bernard Huxley.
Granted, he wasn’t at his most wonderful in his present mood. “What do you want to discuss, Bernard?”
“Jordy’s bump on the head.”
This again. “I share your concern—somebody treated my son very badly at Mirobello and then didn’t own up to their bad behavior—but I don’t see that the situation admits of any resolution. I will exercise caution when Jordy is around his cousins, but other than that—”
“Other than that, you can sack Entwhistle or, better still, quit Town.”
Sorcha’s mare shied as a gust of wind whipped a branch across the path. “Settle, girl.” She patted the mare’s shoulder, though how could the horse settle when the weather was so contrary?
“I realize my proposal sounds ludicrous,” Bernard went on. “If anybody had told me that my own mother was tampering with my mail, subjecting my parishioners to extortion, and pilfering pin money from the local orphanage, I would have called that ridiculous too.”
What had his perishing mother…? “Bernard, did you even sleep last night?”
He peered at the sky. “I think so.”
His ungraciousness, his stubborn fixation on a bit of juvenile mischief, the lines grooving his mouth… One did not have to be a mama to understand the evidence.
“You need a nap, Bernard. You will come home with me, I will feed you a proper breakfast, and then you are to find your bed and deposit yourself therein until you’ve treated your temple unto the Lord to the rest it craves.”
“I am tired, but I am also concerned that Coraline—”
“Not now, Bernard. You can be as concerned as you please—I have concerns too—but we will discuss them far more productively when you can put two sensible sentences together.” Sorcha used her Mama-isn’t-having-any-nonsense voice, and it seemed to do the trick.
She circled her horse in the direction they’d come, and—signs and wonders—when traveling toward home, the mare was much less susceptible to spooks and shies. Bernard’s gelding toddled along, and Sorcha had to look closely to ensure Bernard wasn’t asleep in the saddle.
“I am concerned,” Bernard said as they approached the park gates, “that Greer or Coraline want me displaced as Jordy’s next guardian. If Jordy’s studies aren’t progressing, if he’s having too many mishaps and unexplained illnesses, then my competence is cast in doubt.”
Two sentences, and they made sense in themselves. Sorcha decided to humor him, because that strategy generally applied when an overly tired male was in the picture. Then too, even when well rested, Bernard would not let a matter drop until he’d analyzed it to his satisfaction.
“Why would Tallister engage in such a roundabout scheme, Bernard? If he wants guardianship of Jordy, why not simply petition Chanderton directly or win me to the cause? Until a few weeks ago, you were unknown to me, while Tally and I are at least cordial.”
This peculiar exchange was reminding Sorcha that, in some ways, Bernard was still unknown to her.
She had learned the muscular contours of his bare back, knew the way his breath hitched when he found his pleasure, and could detect the particular gleam in his eyes when determination coalesced into one of his unorthodox strategies—flying dragons, swimming unicorns, card tricks.
But much of him—his romantic past, his upbringing, his churchly endeavors—was a terra incognita to her. His descriptions of his mother were frankly horrifying, and his shift from churchman to cit had been abrupt indeed.
“For all I know,” Bernard said, guiding his horse into the street, “Tallister did approach Chanderton, or Chanderton signaled Tallister’s unsuitability.
Coraline might be moving her troops around without a word to her nominal commanding officer.
I am using military metaphors outside the schoolroom. You are right. I am tired.”
Not merely tired—exhausted. “We will talk later, Bernard, when you’ve rested.”
“I should have a cot moved into the office.”
“No, you should not. You should hire an assistant. Who are those two boys?”
“Which two—oh, the blond is Heevers. The shorter, dark-haired lad is Ipswich. I am being summoned. Kessler now dispatches them to nanny me about Town. Vexing in the extreme, but the boys have proven useful a time or two when I needed to send a message back to the office.”
“You are spied on too,” Sorcha said. “Welcome to Town life, Mr. Huxley.”
“I don’t care for it, though I care very much for present company. I’ve missed you. I meant to say that earlier.”