Barbara Metzger (36 page)

She told Aminta, “Hugo will ruin his eyesight worse, reading all day and night. Billy was sleeping during tea, so now he must be wondering where everyone has gone.”

Billy knew where everyone was, he said, once Alissa apologized for neglecting him and gathered him and a blanket onto her lap in the rocking chair. He knew because he was watching from the window all day, except when he was sleeping, of course. The servants chased each other through the gated garden, and Papa rode off up the street at a gallop, and that funny old man limped away down the street to hire a hackney, and Aunt Eleanor pulled Aunt Reggie into the carriage just to drive around the square, and Willy and Ken climbed into the boot of the coach taking Mr. Canover’s brother Lawrence back to Oxford because he pinched the maid’s bottom.

“Why do you think he did that?”

“They left after breakfast, with Mr. Lawrence Canover?” Now it was dark, and they had been gone so long. Alissa was horrified, but she was relieved, too. The boys had not been kidnapped, not stolen away from her by white slavers or Gypsies or Sir George Ganyon. They’d gone on their own, but
Lawrence
would look after them once he discovered their presence, unless he became distracted by some tavern wench.

Alissa was relieved, too, now that she knew where Willy and Ken were going. The only reason that she could think of for their flight to Oxford was that they might be trying to find their Henning cousins there, likely because she had spoken so often of the importance of family. Their own family, Rockford, Amy, and herself, had all been too busy for the boys.

Billy wiggled closer. “Why are you crying? The maid Lawrence pinched wasn’t crying. She laughed. Mr. Claymore was the one who got mad and told Papa.”

“No, dear, I am not weeping over the maid or Mr. Canover. But why did you not tell me about Willy and Ken going away? You had to know they were not supposed to leave the house on their own without permission.”

“You mean I should have peached on them like Mr. Claymore did to Lawrence?” He jumped off her lap and stood in his nightshirt, fists clenched, offended that she would think so poorly of his honor.

“But they could be in danger or lost. They must be hungry.”

He could not decide if that changed the rules about tattling. Then he remembered that it had not been his decision to make anyway. “But you locked me in here and told me I couldn’t talk to anyone, remember?”

The morning seemed an eternity away to Alissa, but she did recall leaving Billy on his own. “Yes, and I am so sorry I did. Can you forgive me?”

Billy came closer to her rocking chair, rubbing his bare feet together until she leaned over and wrapped the blanket around him again, then pulled him back to her side. “I s’pose,” he answered. “Are you mad at me again?”

“No, I am not mad at you. At Willy and Ken, maybe, for worrying me so.”

“But you still love them?”

“I will always love them.”

“And me?” he asked with hope in his voice.

“I will always love you too, and Hugo. Forever. Do you still love me?”

He threw his arms around her neck and kissed her cheek, a loud, wet kiss. “I will love you forever too. What about Papa?”

“Oh, he will love you forever also.”

“No, I mean do you love him? For forever?”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

How long was forever? Alissa was halfway to loving her husband until her dying breath, if not beyond. Now that Robert had shown a father’s affection for her boys and a lover’s attention to herself, she was almost ready to give her heart entirely into his keeping, as she had her life. Almost. If he wanted it.

Rockford had made no secret of the fact that he wished no emotional attachments whatsoever. Of course, Alissa knew that not even the Earl of Rockford could control where his passions led, but she had no doubt he would try. How hard he would try was the question. If he never grew to love her, never let his own feelings get tangled in Cupid’s net, then he would never be the rock she needed to anchor her own love. Forever would be only until he took his next mistress.

Meantime, she had to find her sons.

She tucked Billy back in his bed and kissed him good night, happy to note that his skin felt cool, his fever entirely gone. “I will not be here tomorrow night unless the boys return before then, so here is another kiss to hold you until I come home.”

She did the same to Hugo, to his embarrassment. He too felt cool, so she could leave Rockford’s boys with the tutor without worrying about either of them. She could not, however, go away and not worry about leaving her sister behind, with the tutor.

“Shouldn’t we wait for morning?” Aminta asked as she watched Alissa throw a nightgown and a hairbrush and a fresh gown into a satchel.

“The hired carriage has too long a start for us to ever think of catching up to them before Oxford, despite Rockford’s best team, but I do not wish to lose the boys at the university. If their cousins do not take them in, heaven alone knows what will become of them, or how they will get home. I have to be there as soon as possible.” Alissa packed her late husband’s pistol, too, just in case. Two women traveling alone at night, in a coach with a crest on the door, were an easy target. She took off her jewelry, except for her wedding ring.

Seeing the pistol, Aminta paled. “We ought to wait for Rockford, at least.”

“No, he might stay out all night looking. Claymore can tell him where we are headed and he can meet us in Oxford if he wishes. Although it might be better for the boys if he does not encounter them so soon.”

Aminta lost more color. “He will be very angry, won’t he?”

“You are right.” Alissa took out the flannel nightgown and traded it for a nearly transparent silk peignoir set that Aunt Reggie had given her as a wedding present. “If this does not take Rockford’s mind off thrashing the boys, nothing will.”

Now color flooded her sister’s cheeks as Amy left to pack a valise for herself.

Claymore also urged the countess to wait for dawn or the earl, whichever came first, and she heeded him as little as she had Aminta. She had to go. They had to understand nothing else mattered but her sons.

Shortly after they left, Lady Eleanor and Aunt Reggie came home, with the duke as escort. Aunt Reggie called for a celebratory brandy on hearing that the boys were located, if not recovered. Lady Eleanor insisted she had to chase after Alissa. The countess could not be allowed to journey through the night with no one but her young sister for company and old Jake on the driver’s box.

The duke, naturally, could not let Eleanor go on her own. Besides, the Henning boys were most likely going to see his own sons, according to Claymore’s interpretation of Lady Rockford’s best guess. His grace had to be there to make sure Rockford did not wreak havoc on any Hennings for this misadventure. They would take his phaeton, which would be much faster. With the moon out and unobscured by clouds, they ought to catch up with Lady Rockford well before she reached the university town. Especially, Lady Eleanor claimed, since she could spell his grace at the ribbons.

An unwed female and a widower duke driving through the night in an open carriage? Aunt Reggie swooned again.

As soon as the duke left to fetch his rig, Claymore whispered, “Will you not reconsider, my lady? Or take a maid along? Think of your reputation.” He whispered in case there were any servants left who did not know about all these comings and goings. Perhaps the scullery maid did not know by now that Lady Eleanor had gone off to visit the duke. Claymore did not hold out much hope of being heeded, for
none
of the butler’s admonitions had ever carried any weight with the earl’s sister. Loyal Claymore had been whispering until he was hoarse the day she carried out her elopement with Arkenstall. He could have saved his breath now, too.

“Too late,” Eleanor called back as she ran up the steps to gather what she might need for a short stay from home. “When Aunt Reggie awakened in the coach outside Henning House, she set up a screeching that alerted the entire neighborhood. At least a score of servants, and one retired general brandishing his saber, raced into the house. At the time I was not precisely dressed to deliver my urgent message about the boys.”

“Heavens!” Claymore declared.

Lady Eleanor smiled. “Yes, it was.”

*

Lord Rockford came home a brief time later. The air in the hallway of his town house turned smoky with curses. He kicked at the ugly umbrella stand that replaced his prize Oriental urn, succeeding in ruining his new boots, if not relieving some of his frustration. “Damn it, could no one wait for me? The boys are my wards, aren’t they? By Jupiter, Alissa is my wife, and I should have gone instead. She took her sister? The one who weeps at a raised voice? What kind of protection is that, I ask?”

“Duke Hysmith left shortly after,” Claymore said, trying to be reassuring.

“Hah! He left my sister at the altar once. Heaven knows where he will leave her this time.”

“I, ah, believe His Grace and Lady Eleanor have an understanding.”

“No one understands my sister, and that is a fact.”

Rockford called for his curricle. A horse would be faster, of course, but his best mount was fatigued now. The curricle pair were tireless beasts who could travel long distances before they needed to be changed for fresh horses. Rockford only hoped he had as much stamina, after so many sleepless nights.

He left in a swirl of dust, the capes of his greatcoat fluttering behind, trying to decide which route Alissa would have taken, where she would stop first for a change of horse. His sister and the duke could drive to Gretna Green for all he cared.

The Bow Street Runner was not pleased either. This was work for professionals, not frenzied mothers and autocratic guardians. They did not need the reward money. He did. So he hailed a hackney after speaking to Claymore, and set off after the earl and his lady.

Rockford was paying expenses, after all.

Mr. Canover was torn. He was the one at fault for letting the Henning boys escape Rothmore House, and for letting them stay missing so long that catching up to them would take a day, at least. He should be the one to go after them, to bring them back. He yearned to follow Lady Rockford and her sister—he yearned for Miss Bourke all the time, in fact—but he could not leave the other boys.

What if the Henning children had met with trouble along the way? Gads, what if Lawrence had met up with other choice spirits on his drive back? For all Mr. Canover knew, Lawrence would bribe the driver to let him take the reins, or he’d find a doxy to dally with. He might even decide not to return to his school at all, eluding the driver Lord Rockford had instructed to see that Lawrence arrived there. Who could know what would happen to the little boys if any of those dread possibilities occurred? And who knew what Lord Rockford would do to Canover’s brother then? For certain the tutor would lose his position, and any chance he might have had to win Miss Bourke’s hand in marriage.

He had to go after her. After them. The Rothmore boys were no longer ill, and they would be sleeping through the night. Tomorrow…tomorrow he’d promised the viscount another visit to the lending library if Hugo was well enough, and he had promised young Billy a return to the Tower Menagerie if the weather was clement.

Before Mr. Canover could agonize over his conflicting duties and desires, the boys came hurtling down the stairwell, Billy sliding down the banister and Hugo bumping along with a valise, the four puppies yipping and swarming at his feet. They were dressed in their overcoats and hats, gloves and woolen mufflers.

“We are going after Willy and Ken,” Billy announced. “They are our brothers now and we will not be left behind.”

“We have decided,” Hugo added, standing as tall as he could, trying to raise one imperious eyebrow as he’d seen his father do so often. Then he had to adjust his slipping spectacles. “And no one can stop us.”

“Of course we can,” Mr. Canover and Claymore said at once.

Aunt Reggie said, “We can lock you in your room.”

Hugo held up the key. “No, you cannot. Besides, we looked. We can climb out the window, go across the railing, then over the rooftop, and find the drain spout. Billy knows how to slide down one of those.”

Aunt Reggie swayed on her feet. Claymore did not bother to try to steady her this time. He had to sit down, his head in his hands, at the idea of the heir, with his poor eyesight and fragile constitution, climbing over roofs and down gutter pipes. “I am too old for this. I helped raise Master Robert and Lady Eleanor. That was hard enough. I told the countess I should not have come to London, and now she will see that I was right.”

Mr. Canover ignored the butler’s muttering to try to reason with his charges. “You cannot have put your excellent mind to this problem, Rothmore. How do you intend to get to Oxford? Walk? You know the grooms will not take a coach out of your father’s carriage house without his say-so, or Mr. Claymore’s, at the very least.”

“We shall hire a hackney at the corner to take us to the nearest coaching inn. I have studied the schedules and routes.”

“But how shall you pay for it?” Aunt Reggie asked, miraculously recovered since no one was paying the least attention to her. She knew she had won most of the boys’ allowance money.