Chapter 12
Nathaniel’s heart pounded madly as he ran toward the carriage. Colin.
He wasn’t equipped to care for a child. Of course he wasn’t.
How many times had he told himself this?
How many nights had he lain awake, sure that something like this would inevitably happen and that he wouldn’t know what to do about it?
And to think that it finally had happened, and he hadn’t even been home…
that Colin had been left in the hands of the staff at the time he had needed Nathaniel most of all…
No. It isn’t me he needs, because I don’t know what to do for him. I couldn’t have prevented this. I don’t know how to keep him safe or how to comfort him. What he needs is a mother. And I’ve also failed to provide that.
His thoughts were spinning so furiously as the carriage pulled away that he didn’t even realize he had an extra passenger until she cleared her throat and spoke. “Nathaniel…where are you taking me, exactly?”
His attention snapped to Dorothy.
She was sitting across from him. She didn’t look angry, merely curious, but shame flooded him. He had allowed himself to get so caught up in what was happening that he had dragged her along without even thinking about it.
“Oh…goodness,” he fumbled, starting to rise from his seat, meaning to knock on the front wall of the carriage to alert the driver. “I’ll have you taken back at once. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You don’t need to do that,” she said softly.”
He frowned. “I didn’t mean to bring you along.”
“I know you didn’t,” she agreed. “But sometimes, in moments where we’re most distressed, we reveal what we truly need.”
“Another one of your observations?”
“Yes,” she said. “Although this one wasn’t particularly difficult to notice. When people’s emotions are heightened, they reveal their innermost needs.”
“And you’re saying you think I need…what, exactly?”
“A friend.” Her words were simple. “It’s clear how upset you were by the news you just received.”
He covered his face with his hands. “I wasn’t there for him,” he murmured.
“And I don’t know how to be what he needs.
He’s ill, and I can rush home to sit with him, but I can’t cure this.
I can’t take away his pain. I can’t make sure nothing worse befalls him.
” He couldn’t even look at Dorothy. He couldn’t articulate the horrible dread that was on his mind.
What if the unthinkable happened? What if he spoke it into being somehow?
Dorothy reached out across the carriage and laid a small hand atop his arm.
He looked up at her. Her face was calm, her eyes soft and gentle. Every time she had looked at him before now, he had seen at least some measure of judgment or disdain. But there was none of that now. There was only kindness, only empathy.
“Of course you’re worried,” she told him.
“Of course you fear what might happen to him. It makes so much sense for you to feel the way you do. But that doesn’t mean that anything is actually going to happen, Nathaniel.
It’s normal for children to become ill. It’s normal for them to develop fevers, and usually those fevers pass quickly. ”
“Usually. Not always,” Nathaniel murmured. “You know as well as I how these things can turn. How a child can start out with just a slight fever and then…in just a matter of hours…” He trailed off, unable to say it.
“No,” Dorothy said firmly. “That isn’t going to happen, Nathaniel. I understand your fears. Truly, I do. But that isn’t going to happen to your son.”
Nathaniel frowned. It hadn’t occurred to him until this moment that he had given her a false impression about who Colin was. “He isn’t my son.”
“He’s not?” Dorothy frowned. “I’m sorry. I’m confused. You’ve been pretty consistent about the fact that you’re seeking a mother for him. I assumed that meant you were his father.”
“No,” Nathaniel said. “I mean, I suppose I’m the closest thing he has to a father. His father died years ago. Before he was born, as I understand it.”
“And left him orphaned?”
“His mother survived a bit longer.” He pressed his lips together. “Our mother, I should say.”
He rarely spoke of this. He had never intentionally deceived anyone about it, but his preference was to simply leave Colin out of conversation.
Nobody needed to know this story, and it was far too painful to speak about.
He had told his closest friends, and though he had never instructed them to keep it a secret, he thought they must have sensed how difficult the conversation had been for him.
It had never been brought up again, and he had the sense even their wives didn’t know.
And yet, here he was, telling Dorothy everything. He was going to tell her everything, that had quickly become apparent to him. He didn’t like the feeling of having misled her, even though it hadn’t been his intention to do that. He wanted to be honest. Especially since she had called him a friend.
She’s willing to come along with me—in the face of all good sense and reason—simply because she has the sense that I need a friend by my side. And if I’m being honest, I think I do need that. I think she’s right.
She deserves the truth of the situation.
“I took Colin in after our mother died,” he said. “He’s been with me ever since—but it’s only been a few months’ time.”
“He’s your brother, then?”
“My half-brother.”
“I see.” Dorothy frowned. “And he has no other family?”
“None that I’m aware of,” Nathaniel said.
“I wasn’t aware of Colin himself until after our mother’s passing.
She left my father years ago, you see. She and I had no relationship to speak of.
I didn’t realize she had entered into another relationship, or that she had another child.
But a solicitor contacted me and told me of my mother’s death, and he also let me know she had left a child behind.
Colin would have gone to the Foundling Hospital if I hadn’t stepped in, and of course I couldn’t allow that to happen.
No matter what might have passed between my mother and myself, he is still my brother. ”
“It was kind of you to take him in,” Dorothy said.
“And…forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn, Nathaniel, but I don’t think it was only duty that led you to do so.
It seems clear to me that you care deeply for Colin.
To worry so much upon hearing of his illness…
it tells me that you have a deep affection for him. ”
“In spite of everything, he is my brother,” Nathaniel agreed.
“I can’t help but care for him. When I look at him, it’s as if I’m looking at a younger version of myself, and I want to offer him safety and security.
I want him to have a father he can trust, and I suppose that’s what I have to be, since his own father was never in his life. ”
“How old did you say he was?”
“He’s five years old. Young enough to feel more like a son to me than a brother,” Nathaniel said.
“Young enough that even though he knows in a sense that he and I are brothers, I don’t believe he actually looks at me that way.
He’s never had a father or a brother, so he has no way to compare what the two ought to be.
But he certainly views me as an authority figure, someone he ought to defer to, even if he has a hard time doing it. ”
“Do you mean that he’s disobedient?”
“No, not that. Misbehavior isn’t an issue.
Or rather…he does disobey, but it’s not because he wishes to thwart me.
” Nathaniel sighed. “I think he just finds it so difficult to settle into the patterns of the new life I am trying to establish for him. He has been so uprooted. Our mother was the only person he knew, the only person he loved or trusted. Now she’s gone, and he has to figure out how to live and find happiness in a world without her.
Of course it’s very difficult, and he doesn’t know what to do.
No matter what I tell him, no matter how I try to guide him, he resists me…
and that’s why I worry so much about his health. ”
“You think he’s done something to bring this illness upon himself?”
“He doesn’t eat enough,” Nathaniel explained.
“He risks making himself ill by avoiding proper nutrition. I worry about it all the time. I check his plates after they’re sent back to the kitchen, and he has never finished anything.
And I know how difficult it is to eat a good meal when you’re feeling nothing but sadness.
I want better for him. I just don’t know what I can do about it. ”
Dorothy didn’t know either. She ached for Nathaniel, who was clearly working so hard to provide a good life for this brother he had only just recently realized he had.
And her heart went out to little Colin, too, who had lost his mother and was struggling to find a way to get through the new structure of his life.
He must be in so much pain, day in and day out, trying to cope with his grief.
He must feel so alone.
Nathaniel was clearly a good man. He was doing his best. She believed that.
But it was also apparent to her that he was struggling, and that he didn’t know quite how to make a child feel at home.
That was the reason he was so desperate for someone to take on the role of mother.
He didn’t think he was capable of raising Colin by himself, and he was probably right.
That child needs a mother. And I’m going to make sure he gets one, if it’s the last thing I do.
For now, though, she would stay with Nathaniel as long as she was able.
No one was expecting her back. That was one of the few benefits of living on one’s own—there would be nobody who would notice that she was staying out later than she had planned, and nobody who would say anything about it when she arrived home late in the evening.
Her indiscretion would go unnoticed. And though spending time alone with a gentleman at his home was certainly the sort of thing that could cause a scandal, she was confident that no one would discover she had done it.
Nathaniel needed a friend today.
Though he hadn’t put it into words, he had asked her to be that friend. First when he had taken her hand and pulled her to the carriage, and again when he had opened up to her about Colin, about their relationship and how they had found one another.
Maybe he hadn’t even realized that he was doing it. But he needed someone by his side, and there was trust in the way he had approached her. She wouldn’t reject him. She couldn’t.
The carriage pulled to a halt in front of a large estate that must have been Nathaniel’s.
Dorothy had never seen it before. It was both larger and more run-down than the homes in which her two best friends lived with their husbands.
It had a haunted sort of look about it, and it left her feeling startled and uneasy.
But she summoned her courage. She had already made the decision to be here by his side. She wasn’t about to turn back now.
The carriage door was opened, and a footman held out a hand to Dorothy. She took a deep breath, summoned her courage, and allowed herself to be helped down.