Chapter 6 #2
“I’ll see what I can do,” Hugh replied. The vicar was always in demand on Sunday afternoons, and he had already promised Mrs. Pierce, wife of their haberdasher, that he’d share their dinner.
As soon as he could safely leave, he sprinted back through the church and let himself out into the vicarage garden.
“Here, now,” he said, striding toward the wiggling pug. “What do you think you’re about?”
The dog set up such a demanding bark that Hugh took a step back.
Only to sight a slight figure dashing toward the coal shed.
Hugh spun, took two steps, and collared the boy. “Not so fast there!”
He squirmed, and King Saul barked, but Hugh held his ground. There was something familiar about that tousled head. Could it be?
“Let me go!” the boy demanded, yanking himself out of Hugh’s grip. “I didn’t do nufing wrong!”
“Pip?” Shock froze Hugh in his tracks.
The boy from the Bateman Home glared at him. Pip’s straw-colored hair stuck out in all directions, with a leaf lodged in it here and there. Brown mud and black coal dust streaked his thin face and the knees of his breeches, while threads stuck out from his brown coat, which had a rip on one sleeve.
“What of it?” Pip snapped. As if in solidarity, King Saul aligned himself at the boy’s side.
“What are you doing here?” Hugh asked. “Surely you can’t have walked from London all this way.”
Pip rolled his brown eyes. “Not likely. But a sweet smile and a tale of an ailing muver usually gets me a lift on a wagon or the back of a carriage. One lady even let me right inside.” He grinned as if expecting praise.
King Saul punctuated the conversation with a strident bark.
“Quiet!” Hugh caroled, and the pug subsided.
Pip stared at him. “Did you just sing to a dog?”
Hugh sighed. “Yes, and I fear I’ll have to do it again, frequently. Now, explain yourself.”
“You left,” the boy said, jaw jutting out mulishly. “It weren’t the same wiffout you. What was keeping me in London anyway? So, I asked your direction from the matron, and I lit out.”
Mrs. Crenshaw, the matron in charge of the home, must be wild with worry. Few of her charges ever disappeared. “When did you get here?”
He scratched at his rear end. “Sennight ago, maybe? Days tend to run together, truth be told.”
Just about the time things had started going missing. “You’re the one stealing from the vicarage.”
He bridled. “Weren’t stealing! You always said you’d help me any way you could. I only took what was yours.”
“Taking without asking first is still stealing,” Hugh explained. “And it’s not safe sleeping in the hedgerow.”
He nodded. “That’s why I moved to the coal shed. Bit bleak, but it’s dry. Besides, those two fellows at the other house kept waking me up with all their clumping about.” His eyes brightened. “But it sure is a big house, in’it? I never saw its like. The Bateman Home could fit in one corner!”
King Saul wiggled as if he quite agreed.
Hugh had never been immune to wonder. He’d worked to encourage it in the boy. “Tyneham Manor is the ancestral home of the Dukes of Tyneham,” he allowed. “It’s supposed to show their wealth and standing.”
“It does that,” Pip said, somewhat wistfully. “And the pretty lady what visits you is the duchess, I hear.”
How often had the boy listened at doors or windows? It was a miracle someone else hadn’t spotted him. But then, Pip had started life on the streets of London. He knew how to hide when needed.
“She is the dowager duchess, to be precise.” When the boy frowned, Hugh explained. “That means she is the wife of the previous duke. The current duke is unmarried.”
Pip’s brows rose. “And she still lives with him? Is that allowed?”
Hugh’s face heated. “He is responsible for her, and yes, it is allowed. Expected, actually. But they are not courting.”
“Well good,” Pip said with a nod. “Because it looks to me like she favors you.”
King Saul yipped in agreement.
Hugh hadn’t thought his face could get any warmer. He bent to release the dog from the rope that had held him in the yard during services.
“That is neither here nor there,” he told Pip sternly. “You shouldn’t have come to Tyneham. We need to find a way to return you to London.”
Pip crossed his arms over his chest. “Not going.”
Hugh sighed. “You can’t stay here, Pip. I have no means to keep you.”
“You have a house,” the boy said, tipping his chin up at the vicarage behind them.
“You have food. If you can keep a dog, you can keep me.” He took a step forward, chin coming down and eyes turning eager, and King Saul once more sprang to his side.
“I won’t be no trouble. Now that you know I’m here, I won’t have to steal no more.
I’ll sweep and clean and fetch and carry, whatever you need.
I won’t be a burden to you. Only, please, don’t send me back. No one loves me there.”
Hugh’s heart cracked. Had not the Lord instructed that His followers should be marked by His love? How could he turn the boy aside?
Yet what would His Grace and the villagers say about their vicar? Taking in first an unruly dog and now an unrepentant thief.
Hugh knew what Georgie would say. If she could fall in love with a dog in moments, she’d be the first to welcome Pip into her heart.
Might there still be room there for Hugh?
He nearly sighed aloud. He had to stop torturing himself with such thoughts. A woman generally took her precedence from her father or the man she married. Duchesses did not marry vicars. Georgie deserved better. Nothing had changed.
Even if he fell more in love with her daily.