Chapter 10
“Have you seen Lord Hawke yet this morning, Abby?” Helena paced from the stove to the kitchen table before finally giving up, dropping into a chair and resting her chin in her hands.
Was it really only nine o’clock in the morning? It felt as if years had passed since she’d left Steeple Cross yesterday evening.
“Nay, miss. I daresay his lordship is still in his bed.” Abby sprinkled a dusting of flour over her pastry before attacking it with the rolling pin. “The quality likes to lie about in their beds till the afternoon, you know.”
That made Helena smile, despite the heavy weight that had settled in her chest since her conversation with Juliet yesterday. If Abby knew how early Lord Hawke woke, and what he did in those dark morning hours, she’d faint dead away.
He’d been in his study when she returned to Hawke’s Run yesterday evening. She’d noticed the light underneath the door, but she’d passed by without knocking. If she had knocked, he likely would have let her in, and then she would have been obliged to tell him she was leaving Hawke’s Run.
Leaving the boys, and Mrs. Norris and Abby, and Hecate, Hestia and Poseidon.
Leaving him.
It would happen soon, too, just after Christmas. She and Juliet had decided it couldn’t wait any longer than that, as Tilly was meant to spend several months of the new year in Kent with Emmeline and Lord Melrose.
She should have told him last night. It was pure foolishness for her to have fled upstairs without speaking to him, as if she were a child fleeing a scolding. It wouldn’t do the least bit of good, pretending it wasn’t happening. It wouldn’t change anything.
But somehow, she simply couldn’t make herself knock on his study door last night. It was too soon, her heart too raw still. She would surely have burst into tears as soon as she opened her mouth.
So, she’d run upstairs, and had woken this morning regretting her cowardice. It wasn’t as if it were going to get easier if she put it off, and neither was it fair to Lord Hawke or the boys, as it would take time to secure a new governess…
A new governess. Someone else, someone nameless and faceless taking care of her boys, watching over her cats, laughing with her Abby, and bringing tea to her…her…
Her nothing. No one here belonged to her. This wasn’t her home. Her home was with Phee and Tilly in Herefordshire, at Hambleden Manor.
“Are you ill, miss?” Abby’s rolling pin paused mid-turn. “You look right miserable, you do.”
“No, I’m fine, Abby.” Helena pasted a smile on her lips. “It’s just that I wanted a word with Lord Hawke before the boys and I left for the Ladies Benevolent Society meeting this morning.” They were due at St. Mary’s soon, and it was a half hour’s walk from Hawke’s Run to the church.
“You could go and fetch him from his bed yourself, miss.” Abby gave her a saucy wink. “Mind, you enter the bedchamber of a rake like Lord Hawke, you’ll not come back out the same as you went in, if you take my meaning.”
“Hush, Abby, you naughty thing.”
Abby cackled. “Here, miss. You can take my rolling pin with you.”
“Stop that.” Helena batted the rolling pin away. “You shouldn’t gossip as you do, Abby. It’s terribly wicked of you.”
“Is that so then, miss? Well, since gossip’s so wicked, I suppose you don’t want to hear what my sister wrote to me about Lord Hawke’s scandal, do you?”
Did she? She no longer knew. It was a dreadful invasion of Lord Hawke’ privacy, but it might prove useful for her to know, and anyway, there wasn’t much chance of silencing Abby, who was clearly bursting to tell the tale. “So, there is a scandal, then?”
“Oh my, yes!” Abby glanced at the kitchen door, then leaned over the table, lowering her voice. “It’s like this, miss. According to my sister, Lord Hawke is rumored to be having a torrid affair with…who do you think, miss? Just guess!”
A torrid affair? Well, of course, his scandal involved a beautiful, fashionable lady. Scandals always did. There was no reason that should make her heart sink, but there it went, right into her half-boots. “I haven’t the faintest idea, Abby.”
“You’d never guess it, anyway.” Abby paused for effect, then announced rather breathlessly, “Why, it’s none other than Lady Pamela Fielding!”
Lady Pamela Fielding? No doubt Lady Pamela Fielding was a very important personage, indeed, but the name meant nothing to Helena. “Who, pray tell, is Lady Pamela Fielding?”
“Why, she’s Prinny’s current mistress, of course.” Abby threw her hands up in the air, exasperated. “Really, miss. Her name has been in the scandal sheets for weeks!”
“Is it just gossip, or do you suppose…” Helena swallowed the lump in her throat. “Do you suppose it’s actually true?”
“As to that, I can’t say, but Lord Hawke does run in the highest circles.
He’s wealthy and handsome, and all the ladies are in love with him.
He’s rumored to be so charming he can coax a snake from its skin.
” Abby cast a nervous glance at the door, then slid into the seat across from Helena’s.
“I daresay Lady Pamela sheds one lover for another more often than a snake does its skin, eh, miss?”
“That analogy doesn’t quite work, Abby.”
Abby waved this away. “That’s not all, either. From what my sister tells me, Prinny nearly caught them out!”
“Caught them out?”
“Yes. It seems Prinny paid a late and unexpected visit to Lady Pamela, and when he entered her private apartments he heard a scuffle, and then he saw Lady Pamela push a gentleman out her window, and what do you think, miss?”
A sick feeling had settled in her stomach, but she’d come too far to stop now. “What?”
“Lord Hawke arrived here the very next day!” Abby drew herself up with an unmistakable air of triumph.
Helena slumped in her chair. That story would explain his missing boot and cravat, and his sudden appearance on Saturday morning, wouldn’t it? “I suppose it must have been Lord Hawke hopping out Lady Pamela’s window,” she said dully.
“I daresay it was, but Lady Pamela’s antics have come back to haunt her. My sister says Prinny’s broken with her! He’s said to be fed up with her nonsense, and now he’s saying Lord Hawke can keep her, and welcome!”
“Keep her!” Oh, no. This was dreadful! If Prinny really had washed his hands of Lady Pamela and turned her over to Lord Hawke with his blessing, then there was no reason at all Lord Hawke couldn’t return to London at once!
As soon as he heard of it, he’d be off to town again, and then she’d be off to Herefordshire, and the boys would be left alone and heartbroken—
“My goodness, girls!” Mrs. Norris strode into the kitchen then, her brows drawn down in a frown. “What in heaven’s name are the two of you shouting about? I can hear you clearly all the way from the entryway.”
Not too clearly, hopefully. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Norris. It’s nothing at all, just…er, I just found out Abby’s making my favorite current scones for tea, that’s all.”
“Scones? Oh, very well, then. You’d best hurry, Miss Templeton. The boys are waiting for you in the entryway.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Norris.” She leapt up from the table and hurried up the stairs, her mind whirling.
She had to come up with a way to keep Lord Hawke from leaving Hawke’s Run.
But how? There was no way to keep him from finding out that Lady Pamela was now his for the taking.
One of his friends from London was sure to write to him about it.
“Good morning, Miss Templeton!” Etienne called from the top of the stairs. He came charging down them, his brother right behind him.
“We’d better hurry, Miss Templeton.” Ryan seized her hand and tugged her toward the entryway. “We’re to play tag in the churchyard with Freddy and Ian, and whoever gets there last has to hunt for the others first.”
“Yes, alright. We’ll go at once.” She took each of the boys’ hands in hers and was hurrying to the door when a deep voice behind her stopped her in her tracks.
“Wait, Miss Templeton.”
She stilled, a shiver darting up her spine. Lord Hawke.
“I thought I’d come along with you this morning.”
“You want to come with us?” She turned to face him, and nearly choked on her tongue. He was wearing a bottle-green coat that perfectly matched his eyes, and fitted breeches that perfectly flattered his—
“Only if it’s agreeable to you, Miss Templeton.”
“Why, of course, but you do realize we’re going to the St. Mary’s Ladies’ Benevolent Society Meeting?” It didn’t seem at all the sort of thing that would interest him.
“Yes. I feel I must attend, Miss Templeton, to make certain my mistletoe is properly accounted for.”
He gave her an uncertain little smile that melted her heart, and before she could stop herself, she was smiling back. “You’re very welcome to accompany us, Lord Hawke.”
“Hurrah!” Ryan cried, before darting out the door, Etienne chasing after him.
“I was surprised to find the boys attend the St. Mary’s Ladies’ Benevolent Society meetings with you, Miss Templeton,” Lord Hawke began, as they made their way down the well-worn path that led to the village of Steeple Barton. “I’ve no idea how you talked them into that.”
“Oh, they don’t come inside, but chase around with the other boys in the churchyard. I’ve gotten into the habit of taking them with me everywhere, my lord, though I confess there are days when it would be easier to simply lock them in a cupboard until I return from my errands.”
He laughed. “You could leave them with Abby, or Mrs. Norris.”
“I suppose, but they’re busy, and besides, I enjoy the boys’ company very much. I’d never choose to leave them behind,” she added, her smile fading.
“Well, let’s hope you never have to.”
It was the perfect opening, the ideal moment to tell him she would have to leave them, and soon, but she couldn’t make the words leave her lips.
Not now, on such a beautiful morning, with the sky a brilliant blue above them, the boys’ lively chatter carrying on the clear, bright air, and Lord Hawke walking beside her, the breeze ruffling his dark hair.