The Reluctant Bride Collection Page 46

  “Father, I don’t want to hear how you bred them.”

  “And if I did? Their children are healthy and strong and they have a far better future than they would have, had their parents married others.”

  George opened his eyes. “Am I the only one who sees this part of you? That you think you are God?”

  His father got that satisfied look on his face. “That is because you are a man of the church. You’ve been trained to see God everywhere.”

  George’s disgust turned to dread. The fourth son was falling into line as well.

  “Yes. I see God everywhere, as you say,” he said and tried not to roll his eyes. “Tell me about this living.”

  “It’s on the outskirts of Manchester, in the newly created diocese.” His father beamed with pride, as if he’d not only single-handedly created this opportunity for his son but also the textile factories that employed the ever-growing number of immigrants looking for work, the coal mined in nearby hills that powered the heavy machinery, and the railways that transported finished goods out to the world.

  “The town is growing so quickly! Nearly two dozen churches have been built in the area since you left school and a dozen more are in the planning stage. Your living should be comfortable enough for a bachelor, though you won’t be able to stay one for long now.”

  “Sounds. . .” Horrifying? Depressing?

  “I’ll be going with you.”

  Torturous.

  “I don’t need a chaperone, Father.”

  “I’m not going for you. I’ve ordered the house opened. I spend some time there every year, checking my investments. Might as well do it now. You may stay with me until you’re settled, if you like.”

  “I assume my allowance will not be reinstated any time soon?”

  “You assume correctly. Once you’ve picked a wife, the matter will be revisited. We need to attract the right kind of woman for you, the kind of woman who will be comfortable hosting archdeacons, bishops. . .the archbishop. You won’t be able to find that on a vicar’s salary.”

  The entire thing was horrifying, depressing, and torturous.

  George said, “When are we leaving for Manchester?”

  “Is a week too long for you to spend at home, to visit with the family you haven’t set eyes on in five years?”

  Yes, it was.

  George stood. “I’ll need to bathe before dinner. I’ll go find Collin.”

  Collin unpacked while George bathed, putting clothing away with a running commentary.

  “She’s the exact same. I thought maybe your family would have put some polish on her, but no.”

  “My father doesn’t need her polished.”

  Alice was warm and welcoming and her children would be just like her. Healthy just like her, and George closed his eyes. Hating that his father had been right; hating that George could see it.

  Collin said, “She’s happy.”

  “Good.”

  “She says Henry’s health cycles but at the moment he is doing well.”

  “Good,” George said again.

  “After we’re done here, I’m going to run up to the nursery, see the children. Do you want to come?”

  George opened his mouth to say that the children would be coming to say goodnight before dinner and he would see them then.

  And then he thought of seeing Henry and Alice’s children for the first time with his father watching and said, “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  Two towheaded children greeted the men when they entered the nursery, shouting, “Uncle Collin! Uncle George! Mummy said you would come!”

  And though Collin had seen the children as often as George, meaning never, the young man fell to his knees and hugged them both. “It looks like Mummy was right.”

  A soft-spoken voice behind them said, “Mummy is always right.”

  George turned, looking over his brother carefully as he sat in a plush chair near the fire. Noting the frailness that never went away thanks to the wasting sickness that had plagued him since birth. Noting that he looked happy beneath the frailty as he watched his children pull Collin here and then there, showing off their toys.

  “You’re looking well, Henry.”

  “Feeling well, George. You look tired.”

  Tired. Of life.

  But he went to stand next to Henry’s chair and tried not to sound more tired than his sick brother. “It was a long trip from London.”

  “I hope you’ll stay to rest. Take walks with me in the morning and naps in the afternoon, and you’ll be feeling yourself again in no time.”

  George didn’t think so. He was pretty certain that what ailed him couldn’t be fixed with walks and naps, but he nodded at the brother he hadn’t seen in years.

  “I would love to join you on your walks, though I might skip the naps.”

  Henry chuckled lightly. “I know it sounds childish, but Alice swears by them. And I must admit, I feel better when I am able to sleep for a bit partway through the day. Invigorates me enough to last through dinner, at least.”

  Henry watched the children and Collin play with one toy after another, and George remembered how his brother had always had to sit and watch others play.

  Henry said, “Alice and Father will appreciate having company a sight more active in the evenings and we’d all love to hear about London. How long are you planning on staying?”

  “A week. Then I’m off to finally start my life.”

  But it felt as if George’s life was ending. As if he knew exactly what the future held in store for him.

  And he didn’t like it one bit.

  But, indeed, what else was there?

  Collin played toy soldiers with the children, dying exuberantly and making them squeal with laughter, and when all three of them finally tired of it, Collin pushed himself from the floor, remembering loudly that he was a grown man of twenty and while he would have liked to stay all day playing, he had dinner clothes to prepare.

  George said, “Awkward, indeed,” and Collin said over his shoulder as he closed the door behind him, “I’ll remind you for Boxing Day.”

  Henry shot a disappointed look at George. “Boxing Day? He is family, George.”

  “As he points out every year, he is both family and a servant, and so deserves gifts on both Christmas and Boxing Day.”

  Henry laughed. “Ah. Very well then. I am glad you have someone, George, who is not afraid of you. I am glad you are not alone.”

  “Afraid of me? Are you?”

  Henry thought for a long moment. “Not afraid, but you can be very severe. I’m glad Collin is there to poke at you.”

  “He does an admirable job of it.”

  “Perhaps once you’re comfortable in your new living, you can add a wife to your small circle.”

  George sighed, and thought he might need a long nap every day after all.

  “Father will no doubt find me a suitable wife who loves to poke at me as well as Collin.”

  “For an old widower, he does not do a bad job of picking out exactly what one needs.”

  The baby started her howling at that moment, the sound making George’s ears tingle even through the closed door.

  “How in the world can something so small be so loud?”

  Henry smiled as if her screams were the sweetest sound he’d ever heard. “You should hear when she really gets going.”

  “Father did say she had some lungs on her.”

  Henry closed his eyes to listen to the life bellowing from his child, and George watched him, wondering how many of the seven deadly sins a man could commit while looking at his brother.

  A week was far too long to stay but he did.

  And at the end of it, he hugged the children goodbye, kissed Alice’s cheek like a brother, thumped Henry gently on the back as if they were good friends.

  He didn’t look back when the carriage began its journey to Manchester.

  Lord St. Clair sat across from him and said, “I was right about them, wasn’t I?”
<
br />   “Yes, Father.”

  The older man nodded. “I’ll be right about you, as well. You’ll see.”

  Sinclair,

  Glad to hear you have landed in India. The place must agree with you, or it is as I have always suspected and you are simply a lucky scoundrel. The widow has made an honest man of you and there is a child on the way? Just how long is the journey to the edge of the world?

  All joking aside, I am very happy for you, old friend. Happy to have been wrong about that, and well wishes to the both of you.

  Your friend, who will be joining you in matrimony fairly soon if Father has any say in the matter,

  St. Clair

  Four

  Miss Letitia Blackstock had changed a little. Scandal will do that to a girl.

  She smiled a little less. She wore her twiggy hat a little more.

  Those who had known her in London, and there were a few unfortunately, noted the change. And whispered about it.

  Aunt Gertrude stood at the edge of a smallish ballroom, watching those around them dance and laugh and include them not at all and said, “I didn’t think any place could be worse than London. Perhaps it is the season.”

  Honora said, “It’s the rain. It hasn’t stopped since we got here.”

  Uncle Hubert cleared his throat. “It’s rained no more than it did it London. It’s the welcome.”

  It was the welcome. Or, rather, the unwelcome.

  The few acquaintances who’d known her, or of her, had made short work of her ruined engagement. She was surprised they’d been invited to any gathering at all, and if she had still been Miss Apple Blossom Blackstock, she would have been grateful and thankful to be allowed here on the outskirts.

  She wasn’t Miss Apple Blossom Blackstock any longer, thank the Lord.

  And Miss Twiggy wouldn’t be grateful for small, poisonous favors.

  She said, “I don’t care a fig whether they welcome me or not. There is only one person I care to see and I want him to know that I am a free woman.”

  “But will he welcome you, my dear? Miss Blackstock has been tarnished.”

  “I must believe that he won’t care, Aunt. The real problem is running into him. Our circles do not overlap.”

  “You mean his and Miss Blackstock’s circles do not overlap.”

  That was what she meant. Honora Kempe might have been his equal but, “Since Miss Blackstock is how he knows me, that is who I must stay.”

  “I would say he must know you very little. Did the matter of who your father is come up at all?”

  Honora tried to remember. Had she ever mentioned her father? And if so, what had she told him?

  Lies were so easy to confuse.

  “If we can but find him, I can figure out what I told him about my father. And embellish, should I need to.”

  “Perhaps Mr. St. Clair is not in Manchester.”

  Perhaps. His note had given her very little information. Only that he was leaving London for Manchester, and offering her and Mr. Moffat a hearty “good luck”.

  It had turned out to be harder than she’d expected to find one man in a town that was rapidly approaching 300,000.

  Honora said, “Then we are here, in this dreary and hostile land, for nothing.”

  Her aunt and uncle shared a glance over her head and Honora pretended not to see it.

  Pretended not to see the conjecture in the men’s eyes and the contempt in the women’s.

  It did not improve her mood to know that she deserved both, though not for the reason they assumed.

  She knew she would not see the same in Mr. St. Clair’s. . .

  She hoped she would not.

  She had not a clue how to find him though. He was indeed out of Miss Blackstock’s circle and she could not go chasing after a man openly, not now. Could not ask about him, though she sent her uncle to try and find him.

  Had she known that one day she would hunt Mr. St. Clair, she would have asked more direct questions of him.

  “Letitia,” her aunt began, and Honora shook her head.

  She could hear the defeat in their voices. Could hear the exhaustion, could hear that at some point this game had stopped being fun.

  “We only need one more and then we are done for good.” Honora tipped her head up, resolved. “We’ll stay here until we know of somewhere else to look.”

  Uncle Hubert said, “Just imagine, Gertrude. A small house on the edge of a small town. Enough money for warm rooms, fine clothes, good meat.”

  “Good ale, I suspect as well.”

  “If you must,” he said and made both women laugh.

  Honora slipped her arms through theirs, one on either side of her. “Enough for books and the well wishes of our neighbors.”

  “He’ll give that to us? All of it?”

  “He will,” Honora said. “I know he will.”

  If they could ever find the blasted man.

  It was months before she did and she’d nearly given up on him.

  Uncle Hubert and Aunt Gertrude had, and while they’d asked once if perhaps there wasn’t another gentleman in Manchester that might work in his stead, Honora had refused.

  One more man. One more engagement.

  She would save it for him.

  And then one day, she found him the exact same way she’d found him in the first place.

  At a lecture on the wonders of steam boilers.

  She stopped stock still and stared at him and blinked wildly, wondering if perhaps Manchester and its rain and unwelcome society had made her go mad.

  He rose and made his way to her, looking just as shocked as she, although perhaps less stupidly so.

  “Why, Miss Twiggy. Or should I say Mrs. Twiggy?”

  Honora opened her mouth and blinked some more.

  “Miss Blackstock? Er, Mrs. Moffat? I now quite understand how irritating one could find a name change.”

  Honora closed her mouth and stopped her incessant blinking and said scintillatingly, “Yes. Quite annoying.”

  “It is. Yes.”

  “. . .It is Miss Blackstock still.”

  “Ah. And here I was imagining running into Mr. Moffat and seeing what wedded bliss had turned him into.”

  He offered her the seat next to him and she sat wordlessly.

  Just how, she wondered blankly, was one supposed to bring up the fact that Mr. Moffat was no longer?

  She’d thought, months ago, that she could simply laugh and say he met Miss Twiggy and called off the wedding. But it had been too long, now.

  After a long awkward moment, she simply said, “I’m sorry, Mr. St. Clair. You’ve surprised my wits away.”

  “I have no doubt they will return with force, Miss Blackstock.”

  “I do hope so,” she said with an embarrassing wobble.

  She looked down at her leaflet, sitting next to him once again, and nearly cried out, I thought I had lost you. I thought I had missed my chance. And here you are.

  He said, “Now, what are you doing in Manchester? Has it become fashionable?”

  “Nooo.”

  He chuckled. “I am relieved. I’m not sure I want to live in a world where Manchester is the place to go to be seen.”

  The speaker began to make his way to the podium and Honora leaned toward Mr. St. Clair. She said softly, “Do you remember you said that if you’d never met Mr. Moffat, I would have still worked him into the conversation? To warn you that I was taken and off-limits.”

  “I remember. You seemed to be quite insulted by the idea.”

  “I think you were right. It would be so much simpler if there was a form of address for a woman who used to be engaged, but now is no longer.”

  This time, it was he who sat there looking stupid and awkward and uncomfortable.

  “Did he. . .pass?”

  “No,” she said. “He met Miss Twiggy.”

  Mr. St. Clair sucked in a breath and said softly, “Before the wedding.” And then, sharply, “He called it off?”

  She nodd
ed.

  “A cad, I thought so from the very beginning. I am sorry, Miss Blackstock.”

  Honora’s wits, at last, returned and she stuck her nose in the air to haughtily say, “I’m not.”

  Honora did not go straight home. She couldn’t.

  She simply couldn’t.

  So she walked, her maid trailing farther and farther behind and unable to see the tears streaming down her mistress’s face.

  It was the weather. It was Manchester. It was being unwelcome and unliked and pitied.

  There was nothing worse than being pitied by those you yourself pitied. Those who were silly and blind and stupid.

  Except, it was worse being pitied by someone you very nearly liked. Someone who, if one wasn’t going to swindle a nice and comfortable living from, one would actually enjoy being around. Someone who wasn’t silly or stupid, though probably still blind.

  He had to be. He would be.

  He would be worth the last few horrid months. He would be worth being Miss Letitia Blackstock for a little while longer.

  And then, when it was over, when they were assured a warm and well-fed and free future, she would finally let Miss Honora Kempe out again.

  And try and remember just who she was.

  St. Clair smiled on the way home, remembering Miss Twiggy’s I’m not.

  He stopped smiling when he remembered her shocked face and defeated posture when she’d first seen him. How could any honorable gentleman do that to a woman and force her to Manchester of all places?

  No wonder they’d left London. A broken engagement was a spinster sentence, and George could very well imagine why Miss Blackstock had been so shocked to see him. Especially when the first thing out of his mouth was to ask about Mr. Moffat.

  How could he have known? He couldn’t have.

  But that didn’t change the fact that he wished he had. That he wished he hadn’t said anything and could have remembered her as the ferocious Miss Twiggy for always.

  He hoped it would return. Hoped she would return, next week.

  That stopped him and he paused before going inside. Surely, Miss Twiggy could not be scared away. Surely, Miss Twiggy was in there still.