Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Ambrose sat at the head of the long dining table, the silver candelabra casting flickering shadows across the vast, empty space. A plate of roasted pheasant, root vegetables, and crusty bread sat untouched before him.
“The boys, Mrs. Higgins?” he asked, his voice hollow even to his own ears, as she entered the room with a somber expression.
“Still in the nursery room, Your Grace,” the housekeeper replied, her mouth set in a thin, disapproving line.
“They refused the shepherd’s pie that the cook had made especially for them, just as you requested.
Lord Arthur said it tasted like dust, and Lord Philip…
well, he threw his spoon at the footman. ”
Ambrose let out a long, ragged sigh as he reached for his wine goblet. “I will speak with them now,” he roared as he downed the last of the glass and slammed it onto the table with a thunk. “I have no appetite.”
He climbed the stairs, his boots leaden as he trudged up the steps.
He had spent the afternoon interviewing three more candidates, women with impeccable references and starched collars, but the sessions had been more disastrous than the first four he had seen.
One woman had fled in tears after Philip told her she smelled like “rotting cabbage and despair,” and another had been physically barred from entering the schoolroom by a barricade of heavy toy soldiers and overturned chairs.
He pushed open the nursery door. The room was dark, save for a single lamp that flickered in the corner.
Arthur and Philip were huddled together in one bed, looking small and fragile, whispering to each other before falling silent at Ambrose’s presence.
They looked up at him with sad, searching eyes.
“I thought we might read,” Ambrose said softly, holding up a volume of Robinson Crusoe. “It was your favorite, wasn’t it?”
“Miss Lewis read the voices better than you can,” Arthur muttered into his pillow, not looking up.
“I will try my best, boys.”
“She made the parrot sound real. Can you do that, Uncle?”
“No, I do think that is above my abilities.”
“When you read, you just sound like… you,” Philip added. “Not that your voice sounds so very bad, Uncle. But… Robinson Crusoe is special. Special like Miss Lewis…”
Ambrose sat on the edge of the bed, feeling a sharp pang of inadequacy. “I can try, boys. Let’s try the beginning. ‘I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York…’”
“Stop,” Philip cried, sitting up with fat tears rolling down his cheeks. “It’s wrong. Everything is wrong.”
“What did I do now?” Ambrose rasped, his voice sharper than he wanted it to be.
“Why did she leave, Uncle? Did we break her? We tried so hard to be good! Was it because I didn’t practice my sums enough? Or because I was sick for so long?”
“Oh no, no Philip,” Ambrose said, reaching out to touch the boy’s shoulder, only for Philip to flinch away and shimmy under the covers. “It wasn’t you. It was… adult matters.”
“What are adult matters?” He asked. “I don’t understand what that means.”
“Complicated things,” he replied cryptically, unsure how to explain matters of the heart to such young souls.
“Everything is complicated with you,” Arthur spat, his young voice trembling with a bitterness that shocked Ambrose.
“She was the only one who didn’t look at us like we were a problem to be solved.
Now you’re just bringing in those mean ladies with the pinched faces.
And that one lady really did smell horribly of cabbage, Uncle! Even you know it!”
“I am trying to find someone to care for you,” Ambrose argued, his own frustration bubbling up. “You cannot be so picky!”
“We don’t want just someone,” Philip sobbed. “We want her.”
“We need her Uncle. Don’t you?” Arthur cried.
Ambrose stood, the book slipping from his fingers and hitting the floor with a dull thud. He tried to offer a comforting word, a gesture of solidarity, but the words died in his throat. He realized, with a soul-crushing certainty, that he was trying to fill an open canyon with pebbles.
He retreated to his study without another word. He picked up a crystal decanter of brandy, then set it down. He looked at the maps on his wall, the ledgers of his estate, the symbols of his power and title. What did they matter if he couldn’t provide stability and care for his wards?
He had the wealth of a kingdom and the authority of a Duke, yet he couldn’t even make two little boys smile.
He had tried to be the protector, the stern guardian, and the pillar of the Lockhart and Welton names.
But as he stared into the embers of the cold hearth, he knew that without Imogen, he wasn’t a pillar at all.
He was just a man in a very large, very empty house, listening to the echoes of a happiness he had been too late to claim.
“Jones,” he called out with a ring of his bell. “Jones!”
“You rang, Your Grace?” He asked as he stepped through the door.
“Send word immediately to Mr. Longborn. It is time we investigate the Presholms,” he barked as he handed over a note. “Have him be discreet, but learn everything he can about them and about Miss Lewis’s connection to their household. Leave no stone unturned.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” he said with a small bow. “Will that be all?”
“For now.”