The Duke Who Loved Me by Jane Ashford

Ten

Cecelia couldn’t resist. The next morning she slipped out while Aunt Valeria was in the garden checking her beehives and took her customary circuitous route to the Tereford town house. Finding the back door locked, she knocked, waited for a stir at the kitchen window, and knocked again.

The lock turned, and the smallest Gardener opened the door. “Mam says you can come in,” she said.

“Thank you, Effie.”

Mrs. Gardener was in the kitchen, which looked even cleaner and tidier than before. The woman wore a muslin dress that had probably come from the store of clothing in the wardrobes. It was loose on her thin frame, and Cecelia thought she looked self-conscious about its suitability for kitchen work. Cecelia saw her run reverent fingers over the fabric, however. Effie had settled on a stool in the corner and wrapped herself in the blue and scarlet silk dressing gown she admired. There was an enticing smell of baking. “His lordship is clearing out,” Mrs. Gardener said. “Next room down from where he was.”

“Thank you,” said Cecelia.

She made her way there and found James, Ned, and Jen maneuvering a large disintegrating wardrobe out the window. Bits of chewed wood flaked off as it teetered on the sill, threatening to fall to pieces in their hands. Jen started to lose her grip on the massive thing, and Cecelia hurried over to lend a hand. The four of them managed to tip it over and out. It landed with a crash on a new pile in the walled garden, next to the one from the cleared room.

“Thank you,” said James. “That one was rather nasty. We found yesterday that it had a large rat’s nest inside.”

“Made Jen scream,” said Ned. “She hates rats.” His sister shuddered. “On account of one bit her once,” Ned added.

“A rat?” Cecelia was shocked.

“Long time ago, when I was little,” Jen said.

She couldn’t be more than eight years old now.

“We are sure the rat has abandoned the house now that its den is gone,” said James.

Neither of the children seemed convinced, and Cecelia didn’t blame them. She’d heard that seeing a single rat meant that there were many more unseen, but she didn’t say so. She did eye the corners of the room for signs. Then she noticed that her gloves were smudged from the worm-eaten wood. She removed them.

“Never mind,” Ned said to his sister. “I got a plan. Fixed it up first thing this morning, before you was awake.”

“What plan?” asked James.

“A first-rate one. You’ll see.” Ned grinned up at him.

“You need more help,” Cecelia said to James. The sooner the house was cleared, the better.

“Yes, I think I must hire some workmen so that we can go faster. And certainly to haul away the rejected bits.” He pointed at the discarded furniture outside, which was beginning to fill the walled area.

Belatedly she realized he was wearing different clothing—his own. “Have you been to your rooms?”

“I sent Ned over with a note for Hobbs. My landlady said he’d packed up his things and gone.” James had been annoyed and then relieved at this news. “I expect he was lured away. Bingham was always trying to poach my valet.” He shrugged. “It’s just as well. Hobbs gossiped like a washerwoman.”

“You don’t care?”

“Strangely, I don’t, much.” James had wondered about this himself. A few weeks ago he would have been livid. Now it didn’t seem terribly important.

“What is happening to you, James?”

It was true that something was. He didn’t know what. So instead of answering, he said, “Come and see our room of oddities.”

He led Cecelia to the first room he’d emptied, the children trailing behind. “See here,” he said, picking up an item from the long table they’d set up there. “This clever implement combines a spoon and a fork. Good for stews, I suppose.”

“We’re calling it a foon,” said Ned.

“Foon,” Jen repeated with a giggle. She wore a pink gown that had been chopped off at the hem to fit her small stature and tied around the middle with a scarf. Ned had on a billowing lawn shirt with the sleeves rolled up. It hung nearly to his knees and was liberally streaked with dust.

James set the implement down and picked up a large pair of calipers. “Didn’t that fellow who told fortunes use something like this?” he asked Cecelia.

“He predicted temperaments, not fortunes. He was a phrenologist.”

“Ah, yes.” James moved on from this unfamiliar word. “We have powder horns for muzzle-loading muskets, and look at this.” He whirled an ornate, rotating bookstand carved with miniature gargoyles. “You can spread your book open here and read sermons to a reluctant audience. The carvings show what becomes of the inattentive.” He grinned at her. “Ned thinks it’s better than a museum.”

“Never been to a museum,” muttered Ned.

“We got knives, too,” said Jen. She held up a long, slender dagger in a tarnished silver sheath.

“Indeed, Jen.” James pushed the bookstand aside and revealed a litter of knives. “Uncle Percival seems to have been particularly fond of short blades. We’ve found them stuck in everywhere. Daggers, poniards, dirks, a stiletto. I would call it a collection if I could perceive any organization.”

“I was thinking the old man was afeard for his life and wanted a knife to hand wherever he was,” said Ned with a ghoulish relish.

“An intriguing idea,” James replied. “But a bit too adventurous for Uncle Percival, I fear.”

“You said you didn’t know him so well,” Ned pointed out.

“That’s true.” James grinned at the boy. “It is gratifying to picture the old fellow skulking through the place always ready to whip out a dagger.”

“Mebbe he had secret passageways underneath the piles,” added Ned.

“No, Ned, now I am seeing him as an oversized rodent.”

“Like a rat-man? Ugh.” Jen shuddered.

“Exactly. But he wasn’t, Jen. He was a perfectly…” He stopped.

Cecelia could almost hear him running through descriptive words in his mind—normal, no; kindly, no; sane, no.

“Quiet old man,” James finished. His eyes laughed into hers.

“Who are you?” Cecelia said to him. “And what have you done with James Cantrell?”

He laughed as if she was joking, though he knew she wasn’t. Indeed, he scarcely recognized himself lately. For example, if anyone had told him a month ago that he would rather enjoy sorting through broken-down furnishings with two street urchins, he would have told them they were demented. He had been a creature of the ton, and now he was…what?

Cecelia was staring at him. She wanted an explanation. He had none. Like him, she would have to wait until one emerged.

He set that puzzle aside. Cecelia was here, just as he’d planned. They were nearly alone together. Turning to the children, he said, “Why don’t you go and ask your mother for some of her splendid muffins.”

Ned and Jen didn’t hesitate. Their history had left them susceptible to any offer of food. In a twinkling, they were gone.

“I have nowhere to ask you to sit, do I?” James surveyed the room. “If I pull that chair out, the rest will fall on us. And I’m certain it’s as dusty as all the rest.” There were seats in his bedchamber, but he didn’t think he should invite her there again. He was not made of steel.

“I don’t need a chair,” Cecelia said.

“What do you need?” The question popped out of his mouth, surprising James almost as much as it evidently startled Cecelia.

“I…” She blinked. Her cheeks reddened. Her lips parted, then closed again without a word.

James very much wanted to know what she was thinking. What had made her blush? She’d come back, as he’d known she would. But could he hope that more than curiosity had brought her? “What are you…”

“I passed one of Lady Wilton’s footmen as I was coming here,” she said at the same time.

That was clearly not the answer to his question. She had not been thinking of a footman a moment ago. “Yes, he’d been pounding on the front door,” James said. “I ventured a look and recognized the livery.”

“He didn’t try the back?” she asked.

“No, the fellow was clearly hired for his appearance rather than his intellect. I can’t imagine what he wanted.”

“Lady Wilton is concerned about her lost earl.”

“Ah, that. Concerned or incensed at the fellow’s rebellion?”

“Both?” said Cecelia.

“I shall have to talk to her. And set some inquiries in motion, I suppose. I believe there are people who do that sort of thing. I will do so, in a few days.” He couldn’t face it yet.

“You’ve decided to take up your familial duties then?”

She seemed to be marveling at the idea, which rankled. “I don’t have much choice,” James said.

“You do, you know. Look at Fleming or Pendle. You could be a wastrel like them.”

James acknowledged the point with a shrug. “I find that I can’t, actually. Perhaps it is due to your example.”

“What?”

“Through all those years, while you more or less managed my affairs, you never drew back from necessary tasks. Even those you disliked the most. And now for your father, it’s the same. I understand better than I did.”

Cecelia’s mouth hung open in astonishment. James savored the expression. He hadn’t ever confounded her before, not that he could recall. It was quite enjoyable. “You’ve been calling me selfish for years,” he added.

“Because you are!” She frowned. “You have been.”

“Perhaps so. But I never really had a job, did I? Now that I’ve inherited, many people are looking to me.”

“As I told you!”

“You did.”

“And you scoffed. What has changed?”

She seemed fascinated, which was good. But James didn’t have a proper answer. The only thing that occurred to him was, “Did you know that children like Ned get no schooling? He can barely read.”

She blinked, bewildered. “There are charity schools, I believe.”

“I have heard of them. But according to Mrs. Gardener, there are difficulties.”

“What sort?”

“I couldn’t quite understand that. I suspect a patron is needed to procure a place. And on that front, I am increasingly convinced that the late Mr. Gardener was a criminal. A housebreaker perhaps or a footpad. And that the ‘accident’ he died in was a stabbing.”

“Good heavens. Why do you say so?”

“Things the children have let drop. And then looked anxious about revealing. Particularly about the array of knives we’ve found. Mrs. Gardener’s marked silences are also suggestive.”

“Do you think they’re in danger?” Cecelia asked.

James shook his head. “Only of starving in the street. Which they are not going to do!” Was that admiration in her eyes? He discovered that he hoped so.

“That is good of you,” she said.

“Do you think so?”

“Anyone would.”

“But do you?”

“Yes, James. I said so. What is the matter with you?”

“I believe your good opinion matters a great deal to me,” he found himself saying.

Cecelia stared. “You have never seemed to value it much,” she replied.

Had he not? He had brushed off her criticisms. That was true. He had resented them. But was that because he disagreed or because they stung? He’d had to fight back. “Did I hope for something else beneath the surface?”

“What does that mean?” Cecelia asked.

“I have no idea. I’ve begun to speak quite at random, without any idea what will come out next.”

“That makes no sense, James. And it sounds like an affectation.”

“Which concerns me far more than it possibly can you.”

“I think this disordered house is affecting your brain.”

“Could that be it?” He felt an urge to take her hand. But she’d refused him that. Her hand remained her own. “Or perhaps the interminable sorting is uncovering treasures within as well as without.”

She stared at him.

“Not knives,” James added, and then wondered if she was right that Tereford House had addled his mind.

“I’ve never heard you sound so cryptic.”

“Is that how I seem?”

She hesitated. “Not exactly. But you are much changed. It’s…unsettling.”

He knew that she worried about him; that had long been evident. Didn’t that mean she could not dislike him? “It’s all this seeing things in a new light. You, for example. What would I have done without you?”

“I thought I was the bane of your existence.”

“You did not.”

“Well, you always said so, James.”

“Fortunately, you never listened to me.”

Cecelia laughed. The lilting sound made James smile, join in, and then realize that he wanted to laugh with her for the rest of his days. This had nothing to do with estate work. He cared for her far more than he’d ever understood. He opened his mouth to say…something.

Jen hurtled in and spoke in a rush. “Mam has made the tea and wonders if you’d like to come to the kitchen for a cup as she’s very sorry there’s no place for her to set a tray up here.” She took a breath. “We have raspberry jam for the muffins!” Her eyes sparkled with longing.

“Well, we must have some of that,” said Cecelia.

She followed the girl out before James could summon words to deflect the interruption. It was an acute disappointment. With every step, he was more conscious of the lovely young woman ahead of him.

The tea, muffins, butter, and pot of jam were arrayed on the scrubbed kitchen table. Mrs. Gardener hovered, looking proud and anxious in equal measure. They had just sat down when they were interrupted by a sharp rapping on the back door.

Their circle reacted with varying degrees of alarm. James wondered if his grandmother’s footman had developed some inconvenient initiative.

Ned jumped up. “That’ll be Felks.”

“Who?” asked James. He had not sanctioned any visitors.

“He’s a champion ratter,” said Ned over his shoulder.

“What? I didn’t…” James glanced at Mrs. Gardener. She shook her head, looking frightened.

Ned returned with a squat, seedy-looking man who held the leashes of three short-haired terriers. The little dogs vibrated with energy. “I told Felks we got rats here, and you’d pay to have them killed,” said Ned.

“Penny a rat,” said the newcomer.

“Well, but…”

“My boys is the best in the business,” continued Felks, indicating the eager dogs. “They’ll find your rats and bring them back to me, dead. Every last one.”

“Commendable,” said James. “But I do not think that this house is suit…”

As if feeling his payment slip away, Felks bent and released the terriers. They sprang away and out the kitchen door.

“Wait,” said James, far too late.

The scrabble of paws faded. There was a pause that James felt to be ominous. Then, somewhere in the house, a large object hit the floor. A clatter of smaller items followed the thud, punctuated with excited barks.

“What the devil?” said Felks.

The sounds of toppling furniture nearly drowned him out.

“Was that a pianoforte?” asked Cecelia.

There had been a trill of notes as if from a keyboard. James had not noticed an instrument, but a small animal could go where he could not.

The cascade of noise continued. James pictured three trails of mayhem.

“My dogs do not knock things about,” said Felks. “They’re trained right, they are. No climbing on the sofas or pulling at draperies.”

“As I tried to say, this house is unusual,” said James. “Not…not suited for dogs.”

“How many rats is in here?” asked Felks, scowling.

Cecelia choked. On a laugh, James thought. “Can you call your dogs back?” he asked their visitor.

“I’ll go and fetch ’em!” Felks went out. “What the hell?” came floating back in his wake.

There was a good deal more banging and crashing and creative cursing before Felks returned with the terriers leashed once again. One held a large rat in its teeth and did not seem inclined to give it up.

“Ugh,” said Jen.

“What sort of place is this?” Felks glared at Ned and then at James. “It’s no better than a rubbish heap.”

“Thus the rats,” James couldn’t help but say.

“My dogs couldn’t keep from knocking into things,” Felks went on, belligerent. “This ain’t their fault.”

“No. I don’t think this is a good place for them to, er, work,” said James. “Too constricted.”

“Well, they can dig through most anything,” replied Felks, recovering some of his balance. “But there might be damage, like.”

“I think we will try another method.”

“You owe me a penny for this ’en.” Felks pointed at the dead rat hanging from the terrier’s mouth.

“Take this for your trouble.” James handed him a sovereign.

The man looked delighted. “Thank your lordship and no hard feelings about the misunderstanding, I hope.”

“None.”

Pulling on the leashes, Felks made his way out. James turned to Ned.

To find that the boy looked absolutely terrified. “I’m sorry,” he cried, cringing under James’s gaze. “You kin throw me out, but let Mam and the girls stay. It’s not their fault. I never said anything to them about Felks.”

Mrs. Gardener stepped in front of her son. “If you try to beat him, we will all go,” she said, her voice shaking.

“I’m not going to beat him,” said James, shocked.

“You have no right to touch him. You ain’t his father.” Mrs. Gardener trembled and blinked back tears but stood her ground, a thin, careworn woman in an ill-fitting muslin gown. But adamant.

“James would never beat a child,” exclaimed Cecelia. Her tone held absolute certainty. It was a voice that left no room for question or argument.

“Of course not,” said James. “Not under any circumstances.”

The change in the atmosphere was marked. All the Gardeners slumped with relief. Ned was clearly fighting tears with all his might.

“Let us sit and have our tea,” said Cecelia.

Mrs. Gardener wrung her hands. “It’s likely gone cold.”

“I will make a fresh pot.” Cecelia put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Sit down.”

“That ain’t right.”

“Of course it is.” Cecelia took up the teapot and turned toward the fire.

“Jam,” said James. “We all require a good deal of jam. Don’t we, Effie?”

The smallest Gardener nodded tearfully. They settled again at the table. Muffins were buttered and slathered with raspberry jam. Large bites were taken.

“So,” said James after a while, and wished that his staff did not stiffen and shy at the sound of his voice. “Your impulse was right, but the method was wrong, Ned.”

“Yessir,” replied the boy, eyes on the tabletop.

“You should have consulted me first.”

“Yessir. Milord, I should say.”

James could not understand why the lad looked so deeply anxious. “In the future, you will do so about any arrangements that, er, occur to you,” he continued.

The mention of a future seemed to hearten Ned. He looked up. “Yessir. Milord.”

“So here is what I think we must do.”

Ned crouched, and the whole family froze again as if awaiting a blow. Even though he’d said he would never hit a child. What did they expect was going to happen? And then an answer occurred to him, and James decided that it might be a good thing the father of this family was gone. What had Mrs. Gardener said—that he had no right to touch Ned as he wasn’t his father? Did she think a father had such rights?

James felt a sudden fierce longing to show these children, and their mother, too, that there were other sorts of men in the world. He almost said so. But words were cheap, and often deceptive in their world. Only actions would convince them, over time.

Ned straightened and raised his chin. “I’m ready to take my punishment,” he said.

“Not a punishment,” exclaimed Cecelia, who had brought hot water to warm the tea.

“Rather a change of strategy,” said James quickly. “Or is it tactics?”

His small audience stared at him. Jen’s mouth hung open.

“In either case, I think a stealthy approach is better suited to our…situation,” he continued. “So, Ned, you should find us some cats. Large fierce cats who are accustomed to hunting rats. Several, I should think. Though not vicious, of course.”

Ned didn’t look much heartened. “I’m not partial to cats,” he muttered to his half-eaten muffin. “Can I get Effie to help me?”

“Effie?” James glanced at the smallest Gardener. She had raspberry jam smeared all around her mouth.

“She loves cats,” Ned explained. “And they all love her, even the meanest, scraggliest ones.”

Effie nodded enthusiastically. She clawed the air with her hands.

“I suppose,” said James. “If you take care.”

“Course I will.” Some of Ned’s customary spirit resurfaced. “She’s my sister.”

“I kin do it,” declared Effie. “I’ll find proper mousers and bring ’em back. I can’t do much work, like, in the house. But I kin do that.”

James felt an odd tremor in the region of his chest. “Right. Good. Well, you may commence the, er, cat hunt when ready.”

Ned stood at once. Effie followed suit, with a mournful glance at her remaining muffin.

“After you have finished eating of course and are, ah, fortified for the task ahead,” James added.

They brightened like the sun and sat back down.

Cecelia walked out of the kitchen. Startled, James followed her. He found her in the room they’d first cleared, with its table of curiosities. Her eyes were bright with tears. “What is it?”

“I couldn’t bear to see them look so happy about something so simple. A muffin, James. Some jam.”

“Not being beaten for making a mistake,” added James.

Cecelia nodded. Her breath caught on a sob, and she began to cry.

James moved to put an arm around her. She turned within it, buried her face in his shoulder and wept—a thing she had done only once before in all the years they’d known each other.

He put his other arm around her and held on while she cried. He hoped it was a comfort. Oddly, her tears were a comfort to him, because they were right. The scene they’d just witnessed ought to be mourned. It had left him raw—having children flinch away from him in fear, thinking of the circumstances that had made them act so. It was wretched, outrageous, insupportable. They deserved tears.

Cecelia’s didn’t last long. James could feel her struggling to shake them off. She stopped on a long, shaky breath and took another, deeper one.

James expected her to pull away, but she didn’t. She lingered a moment in his arms, nestled there. Triumph shot through James at that small confiding motion. He felt as if he’d won a great prize he hadn’t known he was vying for. He hadn’t even been aware that it existed. Which made the gift even more precious.

They stayed together. Cecelia sighed, and the feel of her body changed, softened. Her hand moved on his back.

James’s arms tightened of their own accord. Need flamed through him. He wanted Cecelia as he’d never wanted a woman before. She was all a man could desire.

Cecelia straightened, drew back, and stepped away. She didn’t meet his eyes. He had to let her go. She brushed at his coat. “I’ve soaked your shoulder.”

“No matter.” He looked for a sign that she’d felt what he did. She pulled out a handkerchief to wipe her eyes and blow her nose with a ladylike snuffle.

“Our fathers were not easy,” she said then. “But…”

James nodded. “Words can lash, but my father was merely cold and dictatorial.”

“And mine distracted and self-centered.”

“Beatings are something else entirely,” he finished.

“Yes. Despicable!” She tucked her handkerchief away. “Do you think it was only Ned?”

“From the way the family reacted, I would guess so. I’ve gathered from other things they’ve said that Ned’s father did not approve of him.”

“Approve? What do you mean? He is an eleven-year-old boy.”

“Who is interested in types of fabric and details of design. He let drop that he knows how to use a flatiron, and the whole family blanched as if he’d admitted to being a murderer. Such a clamor to change the subject!”

“But why?”

“I cannot say. But after today, I judge they were expecting an explosion of temper from me.”

She shook her head. “I suppose Mr. Gardener was one of those who despises anything labeled women’s work.”

“Perhaps.” James remembered incidents at school, when sensitive boys had been teased and bullied. So often the victim of his father’s sarcasm, he’d never joined in. But he hadn’t helped them either. “I do know one thing,” he added.

“What?” asked Cecelia.

“I shall prove to them that their late unlamented father is not the only kind of man in the world.” James was surprised at the ferocity of this resolve.

“What sort will you show them?” she wondered softly.

With such a strong feeling, he should have an immediate answer. But he did not. James struggled to put words to the impulse and realized that it had been spurred on by many things that had happened in the last few weeks. A proposal and a humiliation and a change in perspective. He spoke slowly. “One who knows that strength includes, is rooted in, kindness.” He remembered Ned cringing away and nearly cringed himself. “One who appreciates those who are not like him.”

Cecelia put a hand on his arm. She looked up at him with a tenderness he’d never seen in her eyes before. Her lips parted, but she didn’t speak.

He bent his head. She raised her chin. They moved as one.

The kiss was soft and confiding at first. Gradually, it grew deep and exploratory, inflaming James to the core. It seemed that she did want to kiss him, noted the tiny part of his brain that still functioned. He certainly wanted to keep on kissing her—today, tomorrow, and for the rest of his life. James pulled her against him, every line of their bodies melting together. She laced her arms around his neck and matched his ardor. This was what he’d been looking for, James thought. This was the missing piece.

“Mam wonders can we order a roast beef from the butcher,” declared a small female voice.

Cecelia jerked back. James protested wordlessly, but she stepped out of his arms and away. He turned to discover Jen standing in the doorway. She didn’t seem shocked by the kiss. But neither did she make any allowance for privacy. How could it be so hard to achieve with only six people in a large house?

“She says it’s more economical, like,” added Jen. She waited, unconscious of awkwardness.

“I must go,” said Cecelia. Her face was flushed. She looked gloriously disheveled, even though her clothes were scarcely mussed.

“Not yet,” commanded James. He had to speak to her.

“No, I must.” Cecelia turned and rushed out.

He started to go after her, then conceded that he couldn’t settle matters between them while chasing her through the streets.

“Mam reckons a big roast would last us four days,” said Jen. “With a stew at the end iffen we get more taters and carrots.”

He would not be angry. Hadn’t he just vowed as much? Or at least he would not show it. He could manage that. “Tell her yes.”

Jen’s eyes shone. “I never had a roast beef before.”

“Then you are in for a treat.” James made a shooing motion, and the girl ran off. He went to relieve his feelings by chucking some large items out the window.