He had been silent so long that Kate wondered what he was thinking. His expression, so easy and relaxed a few moments before, was severe and uncompromising, his jaw set. Had she said something to upset him? ‘I suppose being a schoolmaster and being a doctor are not so very different when it comes to children,’ she said for want of something to say.
His face relaxed and he smiled, his innate good manners taking over from his grim memories. ‘One looks after the body and the other the mind.’
‘But mind and body are one when it comes to the whole person.’
He laughed suddenly. ‘That is a very profound statement for a summer afternoon, but I suppose having a father who is a Reverend makes you more thoughtful than most.’
‘Perhaps. But he has no parish. He gave it up when—’ She stopped suddenly as if about to utter an indiscretion. ‘When he decided to write a book about comparative religions and needed to be in London close to sources of research and bought the house in Holles Street. My grandmother lives with us. I will introduce you to them….’
‘I am hardly fit to go calling,’ he said, looking down at his clothes, sadly crumpled after dealing with Joe. ‘Perhaps you will allow me to call on you tomorrow afternoon, when I am fit to be presented. And then I can let you know how Joe is settling down,’ he added. Why, when he had decided that women were best kept at a distance, did he suddenly want to learn more about her? She was unsettling him.
‘Yes, I shall look forward to that.’ They were turning into Holles Street. She pointed to one of the houses. ‘That one.’
He pulled up, jumped out to hand her down, doffed his hat and watched as she let herself in the door, then climbed back to go to his lodgings in Piccadilly, musing on the events of the day. Was it fate that brought him to that spot in Hyde Park just in time to help rescue the little urchin? Fate or not, he wanted to see Mrs Meredith again, though he told himself it was only because he wanted to enrol her help for the Society.
Chapter Two
Lady Morland was sitting in the drawing room, a cup of tea in her hand and a plate of sugar plums at her elbow when Kate entered the room. ‘Good heavens, Kate, whatever has happened to you?’ she queried. She was a little plump, due to her partiality for sweetmeats, but was still, at seventy, very active both in mind and body. ‘Have you had an accident? Have you been set upon and robbed?’
‘No, nothing like that. I am sorry I am late, Grandmama, but I have had such an adventure.’
‘You had better tell me at once, for a more bedraggled sight I never did see. It is to be hoped no one of any note saw you or it will be all round town.’
‘Oh, Grandmama, of course it will not. I am not one of the ton, I do not move in such exalted circles, you know that very well.’
‘But you will when the Viscount comes back. He will take you out and about and there must be no hint of gossip. You know how particular he is.’
She did. Viscount Robert Cranford, one-time Colonel of a line regiment and now a diplomat, was very particular indeed, which was why Kate sometimes wondered why he had picked her out for his attention. She had first met him when he called to commiserate with her on Edward’s death. He had known and admired her late husband as a valiant fellow officer and felt he owed it to him to visit his widow. He knew and understood the grief felt on losing a loved one, he had told her; his wife had died, leaving him with two daughters to bring up. They were being cared for by his sister, Mrs Withersfield, on his estate near Cookham. ‘When Harriet’s husband died and left her in rather straitened circumstances,’ he had explained, ‘I offered her a home. It has worked very well because, being so often away from home myself, I needed someone to run the house and look after the girls.’
Her grandmother had plied him with refreshments and invited him to call again. He had done so several times while he was in England; when he went back to Spain, he and Kate had kept up a regular correspondence. After the war ended, he had left the army to pursue a career in the diplomatic corps and was working at the British Embassy in Paris. He had proposed by letter three months before.
She had adored Edward and there had never been a moment’s doubt about her answer when he asked her to marry him, coupling it with a declaration of undying love that had delighted her. Six months after the wedding, he was dead. Did the love die with him? She did not think so, but it changed, became a lovely memory, not something of the present, and should she not grasp a second chance at happiness? She would have a kind husband, two homes, two stepdaughters and, most important of all, the chance to have children of her own.
But she had wondered why the Viscount, who had a tendency to stand on his dignity, should choose her for a wife over others more worthy. She was an easy-going sort of person, not particularly tidy, nor one to make a fuss if something was not exactly where it should be. Nor did she complain if the servants left a speck of dust in a dark corner. She dressed neatly and cleanly without the help of a maid, did not care too much about fashion and the latest fads and, having no children of her own, it was her joy to play with her cousin’s children, the more boisterous the better.
Grandmother said she undervalued herself, that she was beautiful, knew how to behave in elite company when she wasn’t rushing about after the objects of her charity. She would make a splendid stepmama for his lordship’s motherless girls, which was more than could be said for most of the empty-headed débutantes being turned out nowadays. It was four years since Edward had died and it was time she considered marrying again. ‘You want to have children of your own, do you not?’
‘Of course, it is my dearest wish.’ It was more than a wish, it was becoming an obsession. She longed to hold her own baby in her arms, to love it and care for it. She would never consider sending it to a wet nurse, or even having one live in. She distrusted them profoundly. She would look with envy at her friends and relations who had children and could not understand how they could bear to see so little of them. They would visit them in the nursery, stay a few minutes and then hand them back to the nursery maid, as if they were bored by them. Did they never cuddle them, have meals with them, play with them, listen to their childish problems? If she had children, they would be loved and considered, but not spoiled. She would instruct them herself and take them out, show them the countryside, teach them to appreciate all God’s creatures and not be snobbish. It was a dream she indulged in more often than was healthy.
‘Then you must marry again,’ her grandmother had said. ‘Amusing yourself with Lizzie’s children and spending more than you can truthfully afford on the poor and needy is not the answer.’
Kate loved her cousin’s children dearly, but they did not need her money and others did, so what better cause could she choose? But she had to admit her grandmother was right about marrying again. ‘So you think I should accept?’
‘Kate, it is your decision, but you must be honest with yourself. You are twenty-five years old, it is the only suitable offer you are likely to have and his lordship will make a splendid husband.’
‘Yes, but what sort of wife will I make?’ she had asked. ‘I have become so used to living here with you and Papa, I do not know if I can manage a large country house or stand at the Viscount’s side at diplomatic functions. I might not fit in.’
‘Of course you will,’ her grandmother had said briskly. ‘You have as much breeding as he has. The Hartingdons are a very old and respected family and so are the Morlands. Viscount Cranford will certainly not be demeaning himself by marrying you.’
Her father was sincere in his Christian beliefs and did not behave like an aristocrat in spite of his connections with Earl Hartingdon and the fact that he was the second son of the late Lord Morland, her grandmother’s husband. They were not wealthy, not in the way their illustrious relations were, but they were certainly not poor. After considering the proposal for over a week, she had written to accept, though the engagement had yet to be gazetted.