Gaunt’s face lit up for all the world like a jolly—albeit murderous—elf. “Let him try, Your Grace. Just let him try.”
Sir Richard, it seemed, had not made friends among the servants. “The duchess will want her ward to live with her, so I will reduce this household to a necessary few,” Vander said. “We’ll find employment for people in my other houses; there’s always room for more. Was there anyone you know of wrongfully dismissed after Sir Richard moved in?”
“I shall make you a list,” Gaunt said, beaming.
A list. Bloody hell.
Vander turned to leave. But something nagged at him, and he paused to look back at the butler. “Gaunt, I take it you were acquainted with my duchess’ former intended?”
The butler inclined his head. “Indeed.”
“Send a couple of footmen—or hire a Bow Street Runner—but I’d like you to make absolutely certain that the man still lives. It strikes me as exceptionally convenient that she was jilted. He referred to ‘my estate.’”
Gaunt’s eyes widened. Clearly, the idea had never occurred to him.
Vander was a great deal more cynical; a life spent in and around the stables had taught him that men like Sir Richard Magruder felt that they had a right to effect change wherever they wished, and the devil (and the law) could take the hindmost.
Quite likely, Mia’s fiancé had actually fled the responsibility of a wife and child. A vision of Mia came into his head, lips rosy after his kisses, breast heaving.
Or not.
Chapter Twelve
NOTES ON PLOT
1. Flora left 100,000£ by the ancient but kindly Mr. Mortimer. Proviso she spend it on herself (a struggle, bec. of sweetness of her nature). Torn between Count Frederic, who wants none of the money & Mr. Wolfington.
2. Gives up bequest; Count Frederic jilts her.
3. She ends up nearly dead in countryside, rescued by the evil Lord Plum, who has designs on her virtue.
4. Although Lord Plum offers her a castle, she cannot forget her first love. Bec. he is wild and reckless and has a devil’s heart (and an angel’s form).
5. Escapes from castle. Lord Plum wld. rather she die than marry another. No: Boring.
6. Evil Lord Plum has a pet tiger! Trained to attack. Excellent!
“I’ll take my ward home with me to Rutherford Park,” Vander told Gaunt, after Sir Richard had been dispatched. “Have my carriage brought back around in thirty minutes. You can send over all personal belongings at leisure.”
At that, Gaunt took on the air of a stern yet attentive grandfather. “Is Her Grace aware that you are fetching Master Charles Wallace?”
Vander was not accustomed to being questioned by servants. He gave Gaunt a look. “Show me to the nursery, if you please, or must I find it on my own?”
The butler didn’t even twitch at this set-down, but began pacing up the stairs, keeping Vander behind him by dint of walking in the middle of each step. “The young master has faced challenges in his short life,” he said, pausing on a stair as if to catch his breath. “Yet he has all of his father’s courage and forbearance. He is a Carrington to the bone.”
“Good to hear it,” Vander said. The disquisition was irritating, but he admired the butler’s loyalty. It was good that the amphibious child had supporters.
When they reached the nursery door, Gaunt gave him yet another inappropriate look, saying without words that he had better be kind or else.
It seemed to Vander that everyone he’d met in recent days was challenging the hierarchy that underlay all society. It was unsettling. “I’ll introduce myself, Gaunt,” he said.
With obvious reluctance, the butler bowed and retreated down the stairs.
At first, the nursery seemed empty. It was a large chamber, bright and cheerful, though it could use repainting. Its walls were covered with lumpy-looking paintings on foolscap, which he assumed must be the artistic efforts of young Master Charles.
Vander had never seen anything like it. His nanny hadn’t allowed paints, and if she had, his crude efforts would surely not have been displayed.
From the corner of his eye he caught a movement. A young boy had put a thick tome aside and was rising from a chair, pushing himself up awkwardly. Vander had no experience with children; his new ward looked around five or six.
As he watched, Charles Wallace picked up a small crutch, hitched it under his armpit, and stood. The problem seemed to be his right leg, though Vander didn’t see anything particularly deformed about it.
“Good afternoon,” the boy stated. “May I inquire who you are?”
Not five. Older. His voice was clear, composed, and—unexpectedly—authoritative.
Vander approached, but not so close that he threatened the boy in any way. “I am the Duke of Pindar, your new guardian. And you must be Charlie.”
A moment of silence ensued before the boy said, “If you will forgive the impertinence, Your Grace, I am Master Charles Wallace to those who know me, and Lord Carrington to those who do not.”
Vander felt a flare of amusement and it took everything he had to suppress a smile. Instead, he swept into the bow he had been trained to give to royalty. “Lord Carrington.”
On straightening, he was disconcerted to discover that the gray eyes opposite his showed distinct signs of disapproval.
“If you are expecting me to bow in return,” the boy said, “I shall disappoint you. As you can see, my right leg does not function as well as it might.”
Vander had never had much to do with children, though he was extremely fond of Thorn’s young ward, Rose. India had told him once that it was best not to deceive children. They saw through you.
“My bow acknowledged your rank,” he said. “In the event that a gentleman is unable to bow with a bended leg, whether through illness or injury, he bows from the waist.”
“I might topple,” Charles Wallace countered.
His eyes were light gray and surrounded by an extraordinary fringe of dark lashes. His hair was curly and thick, and stuck out from his head; his chin was pointed and his cheekbones were sharp. He wasn’t beautiful, by any stretch of the imagination.
Still, the worst thing Vander could do was to coddle him. Mia had probably pampered him, albeit with the best intentions in mind. Kept him around the house splashing paint onto sheets of paper even though any idiot could see the boy had no talent.
He shrugged. “Give it a try.”
Charles Wallace gave him a narrow-eyed glance, bent at the waist and—as he’d predicted, toppled. He rolled smoothly as he met the floor.
Vander took a few steps closer. “Nice form in the roll,” he observed coolly. “Would you like a hand up?”
“No,” Charles Wallace said. He turned onto his side and pushed himself up.
“I think your crutch may be a bit short for you.”
“Are you Aunt Mia’s new husband?”
“You call your aunt by her first name? Just don’t do it in public.”
“I do not go in public,” Charlie stated, with all the hauteur of a young emperor.
“Why not?”
He didn’t answer, but his eyes silently informed Vander that he shouldn’t ask stupid questions.
“I believe I’ll sit down,” Vander said. “Why don’t you join me?” He moved to an ancient sofa and sat, deliberately refraining from looking back to check Charlie’s progress.
The boy showed up after a moment and seated himself at the other end of the sofa.
“Haven’t you a tutor or someone of that nature?”
The boy shrugged his thin shoulders. “Sir Richard declared my tutor a toadying idiot, and dismissed him. The curate is drilling me in Latin and Mr. Gaunt is teaching me chess.”
“Why didn’t Sir Richard find another tutor?”
“He says it’s absurd for a cripple to study as if he were capable of going to school.” Thankfully, Charlie sounded unperturbed by his former guardian’s insult.
“How are you meant to run your e
state, if you remain uneducated?”
“Aunt Mia has asked him that. He said that there would be time enough to consider it if I survive to my majority.”
It occurred to Vander that, had he not entered the scene, there was a distinct possibility that Charlie might have suffered from “an unfortunate accident” sometime in the next few years. “You look quite healthy to me. Have you anything wrong with you other than your leg?”
“No.”
“And what is wrong with it? Oddly shaped, unable to move, too short?” He kept the question direct, but asked it without any special emphasis.
“It isn’t shaped properly below the knee.” Charlie’s mouth tightened. “The villagers all think my foot is a flipper, but it isn’t. It’s a normal foot turned sideways.”
“You have to look on the bright side: if your estate is lost one day you can hire yourself out to a traveling fair.”
With this, he managed to break the defensive calm that surrounded Charlie like a suit of armor. A flush rose in his sallow cheeks. “That isn’t a nice thing to say.”
“Boys don’t say nice things to each other,” Vander told him.
“You’re not a boy. You’re a duke. You ought to be more polite!”
Vander grinned at him. “You’re my ward now. I don’t feel like being polite. What’s the matter? You don’t like traveling fairs?”
“I don’t know; I’ve never seen one.”
“Why not? The fair comes through the village twice a year.”
Charlie shrugged and his eyes went flat again.
“You’re afraid to be seen in public.”
“No!”
That was good. He had backbone and fight in him.
“Since you won’t let me call you Charlie, perhaps I’ll call you Crip instead.”
“For cripple?” Charlie’s jaw set. “No! You wouldn’t wish to be called Crip, if you were me.”
“When I was at school,” Vander said, stretching out his legs in front of him and looking at his boots, “I was called Horny. And sometimes Vulcan.”
“Vulcan, like the Roman god? Why? And why Horny?”
“They were references to the fact that my mother, the duchess, was blatantly adulterous. Do you know what that means?”
“No.”
“She was intimate friends with a man who wasn’t her husband.”
“Oh, the way that Venus took lovers and Vulcan didn’t like it,” Charlie said. “Did your father get angry, the way Vulcan did, when he found out? Vulcan used to make a mountain explode every time Venus took a new lover.” Charlie’s voice was bright and interested now.
“My father never learned about my mother’s friendship. Horny is a reference to a cuckold’s horns, a nasty way of identifying a man whose wife’s affections are otherwise engaged.”
“Oh.”
“Most of the boys would make this gesture whenever they saw me, particularly in the first year I was in school.”
He showed Charlie how to make horns with his thumb and little finger. Like any boy, Charlie started making horns left and right.
“I could either get on with it, and realize that people were going to call me names because of my mother’s behavior, or I could fight every boy in the school.”
“That’s what I would have done,” Charlie said, showing a sudden bloodthirsty side. “If I were you, I mean, and I had two normal legs.”
“I tried that in my first year,” Vander said meditatively. “I pummeled quite a few of them. Smashed their faces in the dirt and made them swear never to call me Horny again. I didn’t mind Vulcan as much.”
“Did they stop making horns?”
“No. Some people will call you Limpy or Crip and names like that behind your back your whole life.”
The corner of Charlie’s mouth twitched.
“A great many people will be watching me to see whether your aunt falls in love with another man,” Vander continued. “They will be curious about whether the men in my family have some sort of deficit. They think that the Dukes of Pindar aren’t able to satisfy their wives.”
Charlie had been tucked into his corner of the sofa, but he leaned forward and patted Vander’s knee with a thin white hand. “You needn’t worry about that,” he said comfortingly. “My aunt will never fall in love again. She told me so. That means that she’ll never leave you the way Venus left her husband.”
Vander felt a sudden stillness. “So she was in love with her betrothed? What was his name?” he added casually.
“Mr. Edward Reeve,” Charlie replied. “He is the son of the Earl of Gryffyn.”
An icy sensation swept over Vander. It was that possessive instinct, of course. Nothing but that. No man liked to hear about his wife’s affection for another man.
“In the end, he couldn’t face the responsibility of raising me. That’s what he said in his note.” Charlie’s eyes slid off to the empty fireplace.
“He was a selfish fool,” Vander said, his voice harsh. “How did you learn what was in his note?”
“Sir Richard read it aloud.” Charlie’s voice trembled a bit. “He shouldn’t have done that. Aunt Mia shouted at him afterward.”
Vander’s response was blasphemous.
Charlie brightened instantly and asked what two of his words meant.
So Vander defined them, with the proviso that he not share his expanded vocabulary with his aunt.
“The worst of it was that Sir Richard had Mr. Reeve’s note in his pocket, but he waited until the church was full. Then he pretended to remember it had been delivered earlier that morning.”
“Sir Richard should be horsewhipped.”
“Aunt Mia called him a bastard,” Charlie said with relish. “That’s someone whose parents weren’t married. Mr. Reeve was a bastard, too, because his parents weren’t married and he left my aunt in the church.”
The image of his wife waiting in the church for some numbskull while Sir Richard played vicious games was enough to make Vander’s gut burn. “I’ll make him pay.”
The corner of Charlie’s mouth quirked up. “So violence is the solution now?”
“There are times when it is the only thing that satisfies.”
Charlie’s brows furrowed.
Vander guessed what he was thinking. “We’re going to put you on a horse. Build up your muscles. And we’ll find a way for you to defend yourself when you’re on your own feet.”
“Anyone can shove me over.”
“Not if you had a dagger or a rapier,” Vander said, giving him a wolfish grin.
“A rapier?” Charlie’s face lit up. And fell just as quickly. “How would I hold a rapier? I’m always carrying my crutch.”
“We could put a concealed dagger in your crutch. They do it with walking sticks all the time. Not that you want to stab anyone, but a man needs a weapon.”
“You should stab Sir Richard with a rapier!”
“It’s best to avoid manslaughter except when absolutely necessary,” Vander said, the thought crossing his mind that perhaps he wasn’t the best model for a boy. He was hardly peaceable in his temperament.
Neither, it seemed, was Charlie. “You should kill Mr. Reeve as well. Aunt Mia says that sometimes men are not as courageous as one would hope, but I think he was horrid to leave her like that.”
“I’ll consider it,” Vander promised. “Your aunt’s fiancé is definitely a scoundrel. He blamed his inadequacies on you, which is a shameful thing to do.” He leaned over and poked Charlie in the stomach. “Don’t you agree with me, Crip?”
Color washed Charlie’s thin cheeks again and he lurched to his feet, his crutch thumping the wooden floor. “I don’t wish to be called that name!”
Reeve’s loss was his gain. Vander genuinely liked this boy. He rose and then crouched down in front of Charlie so their eyes were on a level. “All right, I won’t.”
“Never?”
“No. Can I call you Gammy?”
“No!”
“Peg-leg?”
“No.”
“I must address you as Lord Carrington?”
Silence. Then, “I suppose you can call me Charlie.”
“Does that make me Uncle Vander, in private at least?”
A tiny smile played on Charlie’s mouth, the first Vander had seen. “I think I’ll call you Vulcan in private.”
Vander snorted. “You call me Vulcan and I’ll call you Crip. That way you won’t give a toss by the time you get to school.”
Charlie blinked. “School! I can’t go to school.”
“Why not?”
“I’m a cripple. You don’t understand. It’s like going to the fair. I might be pushed over.”
“So what? You’ve shown me that you know how to roll. You can’t stay in this room like a fairy-tale princess asleep behind her briars.”
“I’m not a princess,” Charlie said, scowling.
“Then let’s go downstairs and fetch some food from the kitchens, and after that we’ll set out for my house. There’s an art to raiding the larder, Crip, and every young lord needs to know it.”
They made their way to the top of the stairs, and stood for a moment looking down the rounded sweep.
“Is this one of the reasons you spend so much time in the nursery?” Vander asked.
The boy nodded. “It takes me too long to get down. I have to cling to the rail and I feel as if the footmen are laughing behind my back. Mr. Gaunt used to carry me down, but I’m too big for that now.”
“I agree.” Vander put Charlie’s hand on the magnificent mahogany banister. “Do you feel how smooth this is? It is meant for sliding down. I’ll take your crutch this time, but next time you can tuck it under your arm.”
Charlie’s eyes grew round. “Aunt Mia would kill me.”
Vander pretended to look around. “Aunt? Any aunts here?” He grinned at Charlie. “I’ll catch you at the bottom. Turn around and slide on your stomach.”
Charlie was clearly apprehensive, but he was a brave fellow. When Vander reached the bottom and shouted, “On you go, Crip,” he clambered awkwardly onto the banister.
“Let go!” Vander hollered.
He did, with just a little squeak.