Chapter 20 #2
When they were alone in the carriage, Charity pulled the rest of the story out of him. He didn’t have to make any confessions about his feelings; his wife already knew how he still struggled.
“You are working to set things right, and that is worth everything to me,” his wife reminded him, whispering in his ear as she pressed her head to his.
“I never imagined that the path would be easy, Perry. But that does not mean you aren’t worthy of forgiveness.
Don’t harbour guilt for feeling what you do. ”
Charity knew Perry still struggled with what he had done, and never wanted him to doubt that she meant those words. That was likely why she had let go of the wrongs Edmunds had done to her the moment Perry had confessed that he had been hiding the old butler.
“You say that because you are stuck with me now,” he said with a hint of deprecation aimed at himself. But he smiled softly, because he couldn’t be entirely sorry she had chosen him, anyway.
“And you with me. This life and the next.” She laid her head against his shoulder, providing the silent comfort of her presence as they made their way through London.
Hodges had put his sister up in a narrow brick front in Somers Town. It was a neighbourhood overflowing with a curious mix of London’s working poor and French émigrés living shoulder to shoulder. The street was muddy but filled with a cheerful mix of children and hawkers.
Peregrine turned to Charity as Owens opened the door. “It would be best if you stayed in here with Owens,” he told her.
Charity hesitated and then inclined her head, understanding that she could not stand outside of the carriage, and going inside would attract attention and cause embarrassment to Martha. “All right.”
Hodges had gone inside already with Sammy to begin rounding up the family, and Peregrine settled himself at the door to the tenement where he could keep an eye on the carriage and the street.
He tried not to listen too closely to the hushed, distressed argument between Hodges and his sister as she protested abandoning the little work she had.
Perry would find work for her to do on the estate so she could keep her pride, and he had told Hodges to reassure his sister on that point.
The inside of the house quickly devolved into chaos.
Sammy was the eldest of Martha’s children at fourteen; the rest appeared to be another boy of roughly eleven, and two girls aged six and three.
The youngest was wailing, trying to cling to her mother’s leg, and the six-year-old was being more of a distraction than a helper.
Finally, after the smallest was dislodged from Martha’s skirts once more, and she sat down on her rump in the middle of the floor to wail, Perry swept in to pick her up before she became an obstacle in someone’s path.
Bouncing the toddler in his arm to distract her, he reached out a hand to the other girl.
“Come on,” he cajoled her. “Let us get you both into the carriage so your mama can take care of things. You can help watch your sister, yes?”
Martha flushed scarlet at his intervention, but there was a tinge of relief too. Hodges, knowing that Peregrine was more concerned about expediency than propriety right now, simply nodded his gratitude and set the older two children to work.
He was amused to see his attention immediately intimidated the six-year-old into quiet but endearing compliance. Shyly, she took Peregrine’s hand and followed him back out to the front. The child in the crook of his arm was staring at Peregrine like he was painted green.
“This is Owens,” Perry told her as the footman saw them coming and hopped down to help. Both children goggled at the size of him and shrank away.
This was the picture Charity was treated to the moment Owens opened the door. Her eyes widened at the spectacle, and then delight lit her face.
“And this is—” Peregrine faltered for a moment, looking at Charity. It felt wrong to introduce her as the Duchess Atholl, even to hide their marriage.
“I am Lady Fitzroy,” Charity inserted the words serenely, holding his eyes.
“—my lady wife,” he added, turning slightly to the child who was standing behind him with one eye out just far enough that she could watch Charity and Owens. “Can you be very good and sit with her for a bit? Let Owens help you into the carriage.”
Nervous, the six-year-old allowed Owens to lift her in. She took the seat opposite Charity, putting her fingertips in her mouth to bite on.
“Well, good afternoon, little miss. Tell me, what is your name?” Charity asked her politely.
“Alice,” the girl whispered.
“That is a very pretty name,” Charity told her solemnly, and then she turned to Perry, her eyes sparkling in tender mirth to see the babe hiding her face against his shoulder. “And what is your sister’s name?”
The girl looked at Perry for a moment, as if she had forgotten he was holding her sister. “She’s Sarah.”
"Come, little one," Charity murmured, holding out her hands to take the baby. "You may rest with me for a time. You will be perfectly safe."
Peregrine gently dislodged the clinging child, holding her out to Charity.
Charity’s fingers grazed his as she accepted the toddler without hesitation—despite the child being slightly grubby.
She gave him a private smile meant just for him, and then she retrieved the cloth bag, undoing the laces to reveal its contents.
A pair of carved wooden elephants, likely taken from a Noah’s Ark play set like the one Perry had played with as a child.
That was what she had gone to get. Without any urging, she had thought ahead to how she might keep Hodges’s nieces entertained during the ride to the estate.
As the child sat on her lap, making strange coos of delight, Perry found himself to be equally charmed.
In short order, the older children began bringing out things, ignoring their curious neighbours. Between them and Owens, they loaded up rather laboriously well within the hour. That was good, since it was approaching five o’clock, and Peregrine was reminded of his earlier errand that morning.
“Drive by the solicitor’s office; it is practically on the way back,” Peregrine instructed Hodges as Owens helped Martha in. The boys clambered onto the driver's bench with Hodges, Perry climbed in, and they got underway.
Sitting beside her six-year-old, Martha stared silently at the small bag in her lap for most of the ride, though Charity did try to give her a few reassuring glances.
Martha was profoundly embarrassed and uncomfortable as a poor woman riding in such grand company, and had no frame of reference on how she ought to behave—especially since she was knee to knee with Perry.
Peregrine tried to emanate a sense of authority and protection over those inside the carriage.
He settled for nodding reassuringly at Martha and then focused on Charity beside him, still holding the babe.
Too young to be concerned with matters of social standing, the little one began to blink sleepily, tired out by the excitement, and eventually fell asleep propped against Charity’s breast.
Someday, he promised.
One day they would have their own, sometime after all of this was over with his mother. And then they could spend summers in the gardens, enjoying life’s idle pleasures. But not now. He could not stand the idea of giving his mother such a precious vulnerability to target.
His stop at Lincoln Frank’s office took only a few minutes.
Once Perry had confirmed his choices, he signed it quickly, and three of his solicitor's senior clerks served as witnesses.
Relief loosened the back of his neck slightly.
Now, in that matter, all was official—properly done.
But there were still plenty of other headaches to deal with.
For example, the fact that Marian Fitzroy wanted to meet him alone, secretly, and in his own stronghold.
Something set his back up about that, that she appeared to be willing to gamble on her ability to enter and leave the estate. She must have some sort of scheme in place to ensure her safety and ability to leave; otherwise, she would never have taken such a risk.
That she would cede such ground and visit a place his guards were able to watch at a distance meant that she wanted to be close enough to talk with him regarding something.
Something important. Calling a truce for negotiation was not an unknown tactic in his mother’s arsenal, however, it was one she would employ only in the most unusual of circumstances.
How important was her plan regarding the Prince of Orange? Surely, she must have deduced that he had guessed the scheme involving Lark and the Dutch prince.
Perhaps she imagined that Peregrine might actually allow the scheme to unfold.
The engagement between Prince William of Orange and Princess Charlotte, after all, had been ended by his own wife’s efforts.
So what was the harm? If she were successful in making the match to William, his sister would become a queen.
It was a daring, clever, and audacious plan—he had to give her credit for that much. If his mother had been anybody else, he might even have considered it. But he knew that his mother would not rest on her laurels, satisfied with her daughter’s conquest of the Netherlands.
And besides, if his mother had been anybody else, this scheme would never have continued far enough to be considered.
The estate was quiet upon their return, and the guards indicated all was well. Jack came out to help Owens with the full carriage, and if he was surprised to be handed an unfamiliar baby as Charity prepared to step down, he concealed it well.
Charity gave back the sleepy child to Martha once she had descended safely, and Owens led the gaggle to the side entrance. Quinn, who found his way to the front to collect their things, agreed to set Martha up with employment, doing housework.
“How is Lark?” Perry asked his butler.
“Suspicious, my lord. And upset that Edmunds hasn’t been sent to her.”
“Then no one has told her yet.” He would have to break the news gently.
His wife laid her hand on his forearm. “Would you like me to go with you?”
Peregrine hesitated, undecided on whether that would make Lark more disagreeable. “Come with me,” he finally told her. “But if things go poorly—”
“If my presence makes things harder, I will leave,” Charity said, squeezing his arm.
Giving her a sideways smile in gratitude for her support, he tugged her towards the stairs.
Lark wasn’t pleased to see either of them. “Where is Edmunds? What has happened?” were the first words out of her mouth.
Perry let out a slow breath, knowing what he could say was still bound by circumstances. “He is dead, Lark,” he said, trying to break the news to her gently.
His sister grew pale, and she swayed slightly. Peregrine didn’t think; he simply acted, going to his sister and taking her in his arms, the way he would have before everything had happened. And for a moment, she allowed that too, clinging to him as she stifled a sob against Perry’s chest.
“I am so sorry, Sister,” he told her honestly, rubbing her back.
At least someone was grieving Edmunds’s death. Even if Perry could find no feeling towards their butler, the man had deserved to be mourned by someone.
But after a few moments, Lark shoved herself away from him, her face hardening. “His death was unnatural, wasn’t it? Tell me the truth.”
“It was. Someone snuck into the house earlier today. That is the fuss you might have heard earlier in the halls. They found Edmunds while I was out and killed him,” Peregrine said bluntly.
“Why would someone do such a thing?” She moaned, and then reared back. “Was it you? Did you decide you did not like what he was telling me?”
Perry spread his hands, frustrated, snapping out a question that gnawed nearer to the bone than he previously had had an opportunity for. “Did our mother tell you I was a murderer, Lark?”
Lark deflated slightly, but her eyes still glittered with wariness. “No.”
He stepped closer. “Do you truly believe I am capable of such an act? Murdering a servant—even a former one—in cold blood, in my own home? Because I had sent him to speak with my sister and then changed my mind about it?”
She dropped her eyes to the floor, and that was chillingly telling.
She did not believe him capable, no. But he had the sense she was beginning to suspect who would be, and she was fighting against it.
It was easy to dismiss the small signs of his mother’s dark nature, especially if one had the sense it was dangerous to acknowledge it.
One of the things Marian Fitzroy had always been good at was ensuring that her children knew prying into their mother’s secrets had a price.
“Was Edmunds afraid of me?” Peregrine asked, lifting her chin with his fingertips. His sister wasn’t a fool. She surely would have wondered what had happened, that the old servant had willingly returned to the Fitzroy estate and to Peregrine.
When Lark turned her head away, Perry struggled for patience, knowing that she was likely feeling remorse and a share of guilt. She knew she had a hand in the man’s death. The same as Sammy.
“He said that many of the things other people had said about you weren’t true,” she finally murmured.
“After our outing, did you tell our mother that Edmunds knew what happened to Charity?”
Too far. That sparked her temper again. “Mama said you would do something like this—that you would make it seem like she was capable of things like hurting the Duchess Atholl.”
Peregrine shot a quick glance at Charity, but he didn’t need to worry; she didn’t look like she was planning to correct his sister about her name.
“Mama is not who you think she is, Sister,” he finally murmured. “It does not matter if you do not believe me, that she orchestrated trouble with the duchess at my ball. Watch her out the window tomorrow, if you want proof that our mother hates her.”