“And as for you...you’ve no real place.” He nodded. How funny. ’Twas as though he understood her thoughts precisely and yet didn’t think her quite a ninny for feeling them. “Have you ever thought about something else? Do you have to work in the shop, Becky?”
“I thought my circumstances might soon change, but they won’t, so I might as well face facts.” She looked at him squarely, though it was terribly difficult to do so. It wasn’t that she was afraid of Paul—he wasn’t a scary sort of person. He just made her nervous with his joking ways.
His expression shifted, and the vague sympathetic moment they’d shared vanished like ice melting in the sun. “I think the reason you’re out here sobbing is in this letter I found.” He cast a crooked grin her way and tapped Lieutenant Walker’s letter against his chin with a mockingly thoughtful gesture. “Shall I read it and find out?”
* * *
That was a mistake. Paul had pushed the teasing too far, just as he had with his own younger sisters. Becky’s fine, dark brows drew together as she made an impetuous grasp for the letter.
“Give it back to me,” she pleaded, her violet-blue eyes sparkling with fresh, unshed tears. “You have no right to take my private property.” She extended her small, trembling hand out, palm up.
He swallowed, giving himself an inward kick. Here he was, making matters worse when she had finally begun to calm down. He pressed the epistle back into her hand, taking a quick glance down as his did so. Bold, decisive script—definitely the handwriting of a man. Likely she had been jilted in some form or fashion by some ridiculous blackguard. And that was the reason she was out here crying—she’d lost her chance that marriage would end her servitude at the shop.
“You’re right, I don’t.” He shrugged and handed her back the basket she’d dropped. “Forgive me. It’s the privilege of being the eldest brother, you see. I always teased my younger siblings in a merciless fashion.”
“I’d love to have a fraction of your license,” Becky admitted, the ghost of a smile hovering around her pretty lips.
She looked a little like his younger sister Juliana, though Becky’s features were softer, more feminine. Juliana, too, had had her heart broken by an undeserving male.
“I had no idea you had so many brothers and sisters to lord over.”
“Oh yes, Juliana is close to your age.” Or was. One short week was hardly enough time to adjust to the fact that his beautiful young sister was—but no. This wasn’t the time or place for such thoughts. He stifled a cough and continued with a happier memory. “But she always got her revenge. Once, Juliana put pepper in my snuffbox. You can only imagine how long it took me to recover.”
Becky laughed, a dimple touching her left cheek as she smiled. “Jolly good for her.” Then her laughter ceased, and the dark shadow fell over her face once more. The change was disappointing, for Becky was a pretty little thing. With her dimpled cheek and that dark waterfall of hair, she could certainly become a diamond of the first water, had her family been able to give her a season. Funny, he’d always thought of her as just the middle daughter of an extraordinary family...but she was coming into her own now. Not that it mattered to him, of course.
“I don’t suppose I’ve convinced you to return to the shop, then?” He gave the reins a tug, and Ciro stopped munching the moor-grass. He had business to attend to, and couldn’t spare any more time talking to a girl, appealing though she might be.
Becky shook her head, the wind ruffling her curls. “No, thank you.”
“Well, if you insist on staying out here, then I must ask you to at least stand upright.” He swung into the saddle and settled in comfortably. “I could have run over you, buried as you were in the grass.”
Becky’s delicate features hardened and she turned her head aside. “I promise I won’t do anything as silly as allow myself to be run over. You might be more careful yourself, you know.”
He suppressed a grin at her haughty tone. She certainly hated being told what to do. No small wonder, being squeezed in between two termagants like Susannah and Nan. Just to be perverse, he leaned down over his saddle and fixed her with his best “lord of the manor” gaze. “If you aren’t home by sundown, I shall tell Daniel and Susannah that you were wandering the moor like some lovesick heroine in a Romantic poem.”
She turned, lifting her chin and fixing him with a glare that could have withered the moor-grass. “When I come home is entirely my own affair, Mr. Holmes. Your friendship with my family does not extend to playing the role of my keeper.” Apparently he offended her so greatly that she chose to abandon her earlier plan of remaining on the moor. She tucked the willow basket and her letter under her arm and strolled off, her bonnet bobbing against the middle of her back as she wound her way back to the village.
He chuckled ruefully. Whatever had that lad who jilted Becky been thinking? The fellow couldn’t be in his right mind. Paul gave Ciro his head and the beast responded with astonishing speed, carrying him over the moor and back toward home with grace and agility. He never really had to think when he was riding Ciro. The horse had such an uncanny sense of timing and pace. It gave a fellow time to think.
But what was there to think about? Becky Siddons wasn’t the only one to receive a horrible letter lately. He, too, had received a terrible missive only a week ago, from Italy. Juliana was dead of a fever. She had died alone. The blighter who carried her away from her family and from England was dead, too, of the same fever. But a few years before they both died, Juliana had borne a child. A child who was now his responsibility.
Juliana was dead. He said the words in his mind but they made no sense. Juliana had a child. Her name was Juliet. And she was his ward. He crammed the rising grief and panic back down his throat and shut the door against his own anguish. ’Twould be one thing if a fellow believed in God or Heaven. There might be some comfort in thinking about Juliana then, if he could believe she was in a better place. But while he wasn’t precisely an atheist, he’d taken no comfort from religion since Ruth Barclay, his fiancée, had passed away. After she died, the cold trickle of doubt had entered his soul.
So there it was. It was never good to dwell on pain. In fact, a fellow shouldn’t even feel any kind of sorrow. He must remain in control, master of all situations. He was the head of his family now. This was his duty. He must attend to anything that required his attention, and later he might have his reward—perhaps a trip to London would be in order. Duty first, then pleasure.
He turned his mind back to the problem at hand. Juliana was dead, and her daughter would be at Kellridge Hall in a matter of days. He had no time or resources to care for a child. His niece was being attended to by a servant, but who knew what kind of servant Juliana had hired abroad? No, she must have a proper English nursemaid. No one at Kellridge could assume that role easily; each servant’s duties were clearly delineated and none of them had time for children.
He could try to hire someone from the village, but that might incite gossip about Juliana and the circumstances of her daughter’s birth and her own demise.
Ciro gathered speed and strength as he tore through the open gate; yes, he knew what he was about. Those gates meant the barn was nearby. Paul quirked the corner of his mouth. Ciro understood his motto, too. Duty first, then pleasure.
The situation warranted someone who had a proper upbringing, who would raise a girl in a suitable manner until she was of age to be sent to school. Someone who wouldn’t gossip, who could be trusted to handle this with poise and tact.
Poise and tact. Just like any genteel young woman should possess.
A young woman like Rebecca Siddons.