Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Not to be rude,” Richard said, trailing his fingers in the water, “but what are we doing in this ornamental boat, on this ornamental lake, on Duchess Lilly’s ornamental day?”
Bernard pulled hard on the oars. “I thought two brothers deserved some privacy as they grew acquainted for the first time. This is the best I could do on short notice. Even your voice is similar to mine.”
“You look like me, but for that blond hair.” Richard sounded as puzzled as Bernard felt. “The same wavy hair, you wear it in the same style, but yours is more Nordic, I suppose.”
“Yorkshire summers, and my mother was fair.”
Richard lifted his hand and shook droplets in Bernard’s direction.
They occupied a rowboat built along the lines of a modified punt.
Shallow draft, shallow sides, made for navigating a shallow lake.
The water fixture was probably six feet deep at the center, and it was to the center that Bernard piloted the boat.
“Are condolences in order?” Richard asked.
“You know they are not. Mama is en route to, or has arrived at, the Antipodes. She is an arrogant, meddling busybody who very nearly stole bread from the mouths of orphans. What of your mother?”
“Blessedly enjoying her celestial reward. I hope she’s ringing a perpetual peal over our mutual father’s head.”
Bernard let the boat drift. They were as far from the dock as they could get and likely scrutinized by every cousin, neighbor, footman, and truant village child within thirty yards of the shore. Seen, but not overheard.
Sorcha stood by the duchess on the terrace of the fishing cottage—a modest structure boasting a mere six bedrooms—while Bridget and Jordy capered around a smiling O’Leary and dodged in and out of assorted other youngsters.
The crowd ranging along the shore lounged on blankets, played at horseshoes and pall-mall, and sat about chatting in lawn chairs.
A tableau of ease and relaxation, while the mood in the boat was…
Tentative. Not hostile, but wary perhaps.
“You are angry with Lord Jerome?” Bernard asked.
“You aren’t? He played your mama false, the way I heard it.”
Very odd to have a conversation with one who sounded, looked, and gestured so like oneself.
“Mama’s family played her false. She set out to compromise his lordship, and her parents decided they would rather have decent settlements for her than an angry ducal son-in-law.
A baron’s younger son was found to escort Mama and her improved settlements to the altar, and she has been inflicting her revenge on the world ever since. ”
“What do your maternal relations think of you now?”
Annette and Eglantine emerged from the fishing cottage. Both wore straw hats sufficient to keep the sun from half of Kent. Annette also carried a parasol that she twirled incessantly.
“Is this how brothers talk?” Bernard asked. “I honestly don’t know my maternal relations that well. Mama kept her distance from them. The present earl is my cousin, or first cousin once removed. How do you go on in life?”
“Well enough,” Richard drawled. “And you?”
Bernard rocked the boat violently, and Richard grabbed for the gunwales with both hands.
“Huxley, are you mad?”
“I am out of patience. We will not be given a moment’s peace once we’re back among the family throng, and I would like to get to know my brother. I am not the author of your miseries, nor are you the author of mine, if any misery I have ever had. Might we not be at least cordial?”
“We shall be cordial,” Richard said, gaze on the lady cousins.
“Dolforths are always cordial. We look alike, Huxley, but you are a legitimate bastard. I am the other kind. My mother’s family hadn’t the standing to find her a handy younger son to tidy up loose ends in the person of yours truly.
Your path has doubtless had its challenges, but so has mine. ”
Bernard had surmised as much, but that Richard would admit it was progress. “You attended university?”
“Cambridge. Took a first in Latin just to show the ignoramuses that I could, but Latin doesn’t go very far toward paying the tailor. Annette needs a dunking in the lake, if you ask me. She’s grown far too impressed with herself, and Coraline isn’t rectifying the situation.”
Bernard gave the oars another pull, lest the boat drift back toward the dock. “You are cordial with our cousins?”
“I am now. For a while, I was intent on sowing wild oats all over Mayfair. Not done. Had to slink off to Lisbon. Did me good. Learned my way around the Port and Madeira business, and I’m modestly successful at it, which is fortunate.
Chanderton was about to put me on permanent remittance. I decided to grow up instead.”
Footmen carried two more little boats to the dock from where they were propped on the side of the fishing cottage. Each boat was gently lowered to the water and lashed to a stout cleat. Perhaps a regatta might follow, in which case Bernard would choose Sorcha for his captain.
“Do you enjoy being in trade?” Bernard asked.
“Love it. You?”
“Growing to love it,” Bernard said slowly. “I knew I wasn’t cut out for the Church, but one does as one is told when one is raised in a vicarage. Religious life can be pleasant and meaningful, but it’s also…”
“Yes?”
“Boring at times. Grueling, draining. People expect unfailing compassion and endless interest in their little tribulations, along with forgiveness for their shortcomings and tolerance for their stumbling, while directing very little of same back at their shepherd. After a few years, I found it all tiresome.”
“While trade is not tiresome. Frustrating, challenging, and occasionally exhilarating, but not tiresome. Lilly said I’d like you. I wanted her to be wrong.”
“Shall I tip the boat to oblige you?”
“Chanderton would blame me, and Cousin Coraline would demand that I be banished again. Hers was the loudest voice demanding that I be sent away, and I don’t care to be banished again.
Tally does not have his womenfolk under control, but speaking of which, you are to be appointed guardian of Sorcha’s little heathens. ”
“They are far from heathens, but yes.” Another push on the oars kept the boat in the middle of the lake.
“Take the wrong line with those children, Huxley, and you will find yourself with a very sore head aboard a schooner bound for Portugal. Are we clear?”
Bernard respected people who did not mince words. People like Richard and Sorcha. “You’re fond of Jordy and Bridget?”
“I absolutely am, and I am beyond fond of her ladyship. Sorcha spotted me some of the ready when I was in everybody else’s black books. She never said a word to that jackass of a husband, never even told Lilly. Dipped into her pin money or her own funds and refused to charge me interest.”
On the dock, Annette was dragging Eglantine down the planks toward a boat. Jordy and Bridget continued to play fox and geese among the milling herd, while Sorcha and Her Grace were in conversation with some diminutive granny who barely came up to Sorcha’s shoulder.
Coraline and Tallister were nowhere to be seen. Bernard would have preferred to keep them in sight.
“Sorcha hasn’t said anything to me about making you a loan.” Bernard picked up the oars and maneuvered the boat toward the dock. “I will do my absolute best by the children. They are both very bright and easy to like.” Easy to love.
“You like their mother, too, don’t you?”
“Very much. Why?”
The old lady had Sorcha by the arm and steered her around to behold the Chanderton family seat on its majestic rise half a mile away. Eglantine, meanwhile, had flounced back to shore from halfway down the dock, leaving Annette twirling her parasol like mad and stomping after her.
“Why do I suppose you and Sorcha are in charity?” Richard mused. “Because a man doesn’t loll about on picnic blankets making sheep’s eyes at a lady unless he’s smitten, Huxley. In the middle of the day, Hyde Park is all but deserted, so I doubt the gossips saw you, but I did.”
“You were on reconnaissance?” Spying. Was a brother permitted what a tutor was forbidden? Bernard suspected the answer was yes.
“I was hacking out at an hour when fashionable Society isn’t on hand. I very nearly ran into Nettie and Eggie and their nanny-scholar. I recognized Nettie’s mare in time to avert disaster. What is she doing with our Jordy?”
Annette had seized the boy by the elbow and was half dragging, half marching him down the dock.
She hopped into a boat none too gracefully and hauled Jordy into the same little vessel.
Some people were laughing and pointing, but Bridget ran to her mother, turning Sorcha around by sheer dint of yanking her skirts, and pointed to the boat, which Annette was rowing away from the dock.
Jordy sat in the prow of the boat, looking pale and thunderous. Sorcha bellowed for Annette to cease her foolishness, and Bernard began rowing with all his might.
“Nettie must make a spectacle of herself,” Richard muttered. “If she’s like this now, she’ll be a flaming terror by next spring.”
“The boat is taking on water.” Bernard pulled on the oars as if his life depended upon it. “Nobody checked to see if the bilge plug was tight.”
Richard yanked off his boots, stashed his pocket watch in one of them, and wrestled out of his coat. “Spare me from maidenly drama, but thank heavens the lake is only about five feet deep that close to the dock.”
“A boy can drown in five feet of water if he doesn’t know how to swim. I’m for Jordy. You get that infernal female to shore, and don’t let Sorcha near her.”
Annette commenced wailing.
Bernard abandoned the oars, divested himself of his boots and coat, and dived flat for the sinking boat.
“I don’t even know what a bilge plug is,” Annette caterwauled.
Sorcha gave the girl credit for stamina. She hadn’t ceased bleating since Richard had pulled her from the water. All the way across Chanderton’s park, across the back terrace, and into this little informal parlor.