Chapter 4
Chapter Four
“Ezra!” the Duke of Northwick roared again, his deep voice booming across the overgrown field that was presumably lying fallow that year. “Ezra!”
How red-faced and angry he seemed now. Louisa had seen the moment that the duke’s mood had changed, like a thunder-cloud descending on his handsome face.
She was sure that he blamed her for losing Ezra, but not as much as she blamed herself.
She had been distracted by that silly conversation about love and marriage and children.
They both ought to have been focused on the children and not some foolish argument, no matter how wrong he was.
“Ezra!” Louisa cried out, wanting to run after the child but knowing that any direction she took might be wrong and only carry her further away from him.
Aunt Beatrice came into view then, clutching Fanny’s hand and accompanied by the two nursemaids. From the other direction, the coachman and footman appeared, all evidently having heard their shouts and grasping the issue at hand.
Angry with Louisa or not, the Duke of Northwick lost no time in giving instructions.
“Benson, hurry to the woods over to the north and head the boy off if he goes that way,” he ordered. “Carter, do the same with the woodland on the eastern side.”
“What about us, Your Grace?” the nursemaids immediately asked as the manservants rushed away.
“Gertie, go back up to the road in case Ezra retraces his steps. Ellen, search the bushes and fences all the way round.
“I’ll check any patches of flowers,” Louisa proposed and received a curt nod. "Ezra loves flowers. He’s always wandering into the rose garden at Wexford Manor and getting scratched.”
“I’ll go downhill towards the next field… Christ, is that a river?!”
Without waiting any longer, the duke took off at a run and Louisa had to stifle a sob of fear.
Aunt Beatrice laid a hand on her arm, always cool-headed even in the worst situations and managing to communicate some of her calm to Louisa.
“Go and look for him, Louisa. The men will surely head off any danger. Fanny and I and will walk about this spot in case Ezra comes back.”
“Ezra is a silly baby,” pronounced Fanny dismissively, although her eyes looked rather frightened. “He shouldn’t run off.”
“He’s not even three,” Louisa said, feeling her lip wobble as she spoke and hurrying away quickly in case she began crying.
Crying would not find Ezra, she told herself sternly and pulled herself together.
She began her search in earnest, dashing about between every patch of colored blossoms and blooms she could see in grass, bushes or trees.
It felt like forever, although likely it was no more than a matter of minutes before Louisa heard the most wonderful sound in the world: the giggle of a tiny boy.
“Ezra is found!” boomed out the Duke of Northwick’s voice and Louisa spun around to see him coming back up the hill with Ezra riding on his shoulders.
“Oh, thank God!” she cried out and went running through the grass to their side, her knees almost buckling with relief as she reached them. “Ezra, you should not leave my sight. You know you should not! You promised your mother so only this morning.”
“Butterflies!” answered Ezra with another happy giggle, anything he might have agreed to that morning long vanished from his infant mind.
“Butterflies, indeed,” huffed the duke, setting the child down on his feet again. “You have just taken ten years off my life, young man.”
As the other searchers began to re-converge from around the field, Louisa picked up Ezra and hugged him so tightly that he wriggled and complained until she put him down again.
“Ezra found some beautiful yellow butterflies to watch, didn’t you?” said the Duke of Northwick. “Far more interesting than any of us, it seems.”
“Oh, Ezra!” Louisa sighed. “You should always answer when we call you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Butterflies!” Ezra repeated again, blissfully unaware and uninterested in the fright he had given the rest of the party.
Louisa took his hand and led him firmly back towards Aunt Beatrice and Fanny. The duke had now turned away and was following the menservants back towards the road, presumably to check on the progress of repairs to the coach.
“You’re such a silly, Ezra,” his older sister told him in very superior tones.
“There, all is well,” Lady Esher murmured, linking Louisa as she released Fanny into the custody of the nursemaids, all returning to the abandoned dolls’ tea party. “Ezra is found and you can relax. No harm is done.”
Louisa nodded but looked at her aunt with a woebegone face.
“Was it my fault, Aunt Beatrice? I did try to keep track of him but there was so much long grass and Ezra is so tiny.”
“No, these things happen to everyone,” her aunt replied. “I remember losing you once or twice in the park and you were such a little homebody that I couldn’t understand how it happened. You never wanted to be away from me when you first came to Rosemere Hall.”
“I don’t remember,” Louisa confessed but still felt reassured by this story. “Perhaps I was distracted by butterflies too.”
“Perhaps you were,” agreed Lady Esher. “Please don’t blame yourself, Louisa. Only keep a good eye on Ezra now that you’ve been so well reminded of what a little piece of mischief he can be.”
“What if the Duke of Northwick blames me?” Louisa asked, still troubled by this idea and the memory of his thunderous expression when he realized Ezra was missing.
“Why on earth should he be?” laughed her aunt. “You were both with the boy. I was watching, you know. I expect Ezra moved too fast in that long grass for either of you.”
“Aunt Beatrice, can I ask you one more thing,” began Louisa and then paused.
“You may ask me anything,” answered her aunt. “You always may.”
“Is the Duke of Northwick a good man?”
Lady Esher did not give a reply that was either straight or direct. Instead she laughed, frowned in thought and then nodded her head.
“In his own way, I dare say he is,” Aunt Beatrice told Louisa carefully. “The Duke and Duchess of Wexford would not have put their children in the charge of a man they did not believe to be good, would they? Has he said or done anything that makes you think he is not good?”
“I suppose not,” Louisa agreed hesitantly, sensing there was more to this subject than her aunt was telling her.
“When I talk to him sometimes, his personal conversation is so strange and so cynical. Yet you saw him just now with Ezra, and when the coach broke down, he made sure that we weren’t hurt before he thought of anything else. He must be good, mustn’t he?”
“Oh my dear,” sighed her silver-haired aunt, patting Louisa’s arm affectionately and looking into her face with wise, kindly eyes.
“I think that sometimes men and women ought not to have too-personal conversations, even when they are well-intentioned. Better to talk of books, of travel, of music, and so on.”
“Do you think I have been improper or disrespectful?” asked Louisa, her anxiety rising once again. “I have not met many dukes before, except Damien.”
“No, no. You are perfectly proper, my dear, but the duke is older than you, and he is a man of the world. While we are traveling together, be civil and polite but do not try to have familiar conversations as you might with your friends. Whatever his morals, he is not the right person for those conversations.”
Louisa thought about this with some confusion.
Even at their cross and dusty first encounter yesterday, she had found the Duke of Northwick surprisingly easy to talk to, or even to reprimand, as she blushed to remember now.
In the carriage, despite their differences of opinion, she had enjoyed their sparring and looked forward to proving him wrong.
Now, it seemed, she was somehow on the wrong track, without knowing why or how.
“I will do as you say, Aunt Beatrice,” agreed Louisa obediently, glad to have this further guidance on how to handle their companion and hoping she would understand it in time. “Thank you.”
She would not chatter to the duke again as she had done that morning, Louisa decided. It had not ended well and, from what Aunt Beatrice said, it was also somehow inadvisable, if not quite improper or disrespectful.
Louisa would be faultlessly polite, distant and focused on the children. That way neither the Duke of Northwick nor anyone else could find fault with her.
It should be easy, shouldn’t it..?
The next few days passed without any serious incident, Lady Esher and Louisa taking it in turns to sit with Fanny and her family of dolls in the second coach, and Ezra usually insisting on traveling in the carriage with the Duke of Northwick.
Louisa kept her eyes constantly on the fast-moving little boy and knew that Aunt Beatrice would do the same.
Despite his protests and grumbles about being overrun by children, Louisa observed that the duke was always gentle and considerate with Ezra.
Each day, he would declare that the child should travel with the nursemaids and allow him some peace.
Each day, he acceded to Ezra’s enthusiastic entreaties to ride with him.
“The child knows already that he is a little boy and wishes to keep company with men rather than women,” laughed Aunt Beatrice as she saw Ezra take his seat in the coach and imitate the duke’s posture and exasperated expression.
“Ezra is copying all that you do, Your Grace,” laughed Louisa, finding this sight both very sweet and very funny. “Away from his father, he has taken you for his role model.”
“I had best mind my manners then,” muttered the duke, straightening out the hint of a smile that had briefly appeared on his face. “I am not sure Damien would wish his son to grow up to resemble me too closely.”