Guarding the Spoils (The Wild Randalls - Book 3) (4 page)

Leopold joined him against the wall and folded his arms across his wide chest. “About you leaving: I dislike the idea of you traveling so far on your own.”

Oliver returned his gaze to the slow-moving pair, hope making his heart beat faster. “Have you changed your mind about accompanying me?”

“No. However, I would feel better if you had someone I knew and trusted at your side. You’ve not spent enough time in the world to predict the dangers that you may face. A companion, someone with a similar taste for adventure and more worldly than yourself, would also give you someone to share the experiences with.”

Oliver bristled at the suggestion he couldn’t defend himself. He might be weak still, but at Skepington he had accurately assessed danger through an opponent’s posture and expression and, when attack was unavoidable, had met each challenge efficiently. He did not need a nursemaid following him about.

The smaller figure darted toward a pond and poked at the water with a stick while the taller, a woman in long skirts he now decided, remained upon the road, hands perched on hips. “There is no one. Do not fret, Leopold. I have always been alone.”

Leopold’s sigh was heavy with disappointment. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

Oliver glanced over his shoulder, searching for their tardy younger brother and Eamon Murphy so this discussion could be diverted to something else. Since the pair hadn’t stopped chattering and bickering the whole of the walk, Oliver was confident that Leopold would join their conversation—if only to shut them up. “I did not mean to imply that I disliked solitude. It’s just that I have reconciled myself to the idea that few share my interests.”

“Part of that blame must fall on you,” Leopold said with deadly seriousness. “You have taken little interest in anyone else’s affairs since you were a boy. In general, people like to talk about themselves, too. But you will not take the time to listen.”

Oliver faced him. “And you take enough interest in everyone’s business for the pair of us.”

Leopold stabbed a finger toward his brother’s chest. “Stop avoiding the subject. At least I allow myself to care about the welfare of others and receive affection and companionship in return. I see what you’re doing and you’re going to be a bloody miserable old bastard one day. Far sooner than needs be. Do you never wish for more?”

Eamon Murphy, who’d lagged behind with Tobias, rushed up to them. “Here now. What’s all this?”

Oliver shrugged. “My elder brother is lecturing me.”

Leopold stalked to the precipice in a huff.

“Again. Devil take it! Can’t you just make a bigger effort to fit in?”

Oliver raised a brow in surprise at Eamon’s outburst. So far he’d been a simpering lapdog without a voice. Now, how to continue his transition into the semblance of his former friend? “Excuse me? Who are you to tell me what to do?”

“You never change,” Eamon said, hands clenched at his sides. “You never try to make other people happy and yet you expect everyone to toe your line. Leopold has been taking the brunt of the consequences for your misbehavior all your life. I should know. I hear everything. Every snub. Every teary young woman you overlooked or spoke down to without thought. Enough is enough. You’ve got all the maids at the abbey utterly terrified of you.”

“He’s right,” Tobias said quietly. “Even I made less of a ripple when I returned and we all know my failings as a gentleman. But you, you’re like an iceberg that has to be navigated. Treacherous to get close to.”

Oliver was relieved to finally have his friend and younger brother speak their minds; he was tired of people tiptoeing around him. He wasn’t exactly enjoying their honesty, however. “Then it is a good thing that I will be leaving soon. You’ll all be at ease then.” He stood, brushed any dirt from his backside, and faced the path winding down the hillside toward the abbey. It didn’t bother him that he was feared. He’d never consciously spoken harshly to anyone. If the servants were too dim-witted to understand that his mind was elsewhere when they interrupted him, then so be it. People couldn’t be made to change.

The odd pair on the drive had drawn closer while he’d endured the scolding. The woman had dark hair, bonnet swinging from her fingers. The smaller figure was a child, a boy he decided, and they both appeared to be headed for the stables.

“For God’s sake, Ollie, don’t be a daft fool,” Tobias said as he appeared before Oliver, halting his return to the abbey. “Leopold will only worry more when you go. We all will.”

The woman embraced the child before he disappeared into the stables. Oliver squinted at her. There was something familiar in her movements. Her hand lifted, perhaps to brush her hair back from her eyes, and then she entered the kitchen gardens, stopping to speak with the gardener.

“What has captured your attention so completely?” Tobias spun on the spot and viewed the abbey, too. “Trouble?”

The woman had almost fully disappeared behind one wall of the garden and Oliver could only see her uncovered head. He took a pace forward.

“I should like to place an advertisement in the newspaper,” Leopold called out. “Surely there is another academically minded fellow willing to risk his life to visit the continent as your companion. We can easily afford the additional expense of that.”

Oliver nodded. “If you must. That might be agreeable if the person has some sort of decent sense about him.”

“I thought you wanted him to be safe,” Eamon argued. “You never know what kind of scoundrel could answer such an advertisement. They could promise anything. It ain’t hard to procure false letters of recommendation. Believe me, I know. Oliver could be murdered on the road even before he left the country.”

“Murphy, that does not make me feel easy,” Leopold grumbled. “Speak only if you intend to offer up workable suggestions.”

Silence fell behind him as the woman in the garden crouched low, bobbing out of sight, most likely to pick an herb.

After a moment, Tobias faced him. “Are you watching Beth?”

Oliver squinted as the woman stood again. Perhaps it was Elizabeth. But if so, then who was the boy she had embraced? He was too tall to be the young duke.

“Fine,” Eamon said at last. “I’ll travel with him. But if Oliver behaves like a donkey’s hindquarters I get to say so, and loudly.”

“Excellent,” Oliver murmured. Eamon could be counted on to be a good companion. He was useful at bargaining in taverns and remarkably good with his fists. A period of time on the continent could broaden his horizons considerably.

“Oh, and if I’m murdered along the way then I will come back to haunt Tobias as recompense for the trouble he’s caused me,” Eamon warned.

“Here now,” Tobias voiced in outrage. “There’s no need to draw me into this.”

“If you must,” Oliver said absently, ignoring the growing squabble. He kept his eyes on the woman a bare moment and then returned his gaze to the stables. The boy sat atop a pony now, being tutored by the stable master, Charles Allen. Since Allen was family, his illegitimate cousin, Oliver was sure the boy was not his child. Allen’s two sons were adult-sized and had no need for lessons in horsemanship. “Who is the boy on the pony?”

Tobias swiveled to look at where he indicated and then he swore. At the end of the tirade, Oliver concluded that Tobias had quite the vocabulary of unseemly words. Some of which he was familiar with and others that would bear further study to determine their exact meaning.

Tobias threw up his hands. “See, this is exactly what we are talking about. You never pay attention when you should. There is no reason to be so obtuse.”

“What’s going on?” Leopold asked as he joined them.

Tobias scowled. “Oliver wants to know who the boy is on horseback in the stable yard.”

Leopold smiled. “That’s George. Allen says he’s becoming quite comfortable on Zeus.”

“Excellent.” Tobias threw Oliver a dirty look. “However, our learned and yet dim-witted brother still appears puzzled. He has no idea who George is because he’s had his head buried in his books and his own affairs so completely that he does not pay attention.”

Leopold stared. “How could you not?”

Oliver blinked. What had he missed? “How could I not what?”

Tobias clapped a stunning blow to Oliver’s back that threw him forward. When he straightened, Tobias had folded his arms in a perfect imitation of their elder brother. “There are times when I am ashamed to admit we have the same blood in our veins,” Tobias said with some heat. “Excuse me. I think I’ll return to the abbey and see if Blythe needs my company. At least I’m happy to listen to the people around me.” He shook his head and stalked away.

After a moment, Leopold shook his head too. “Murphy, see what you can do with him.”

Why should he have paid attention to the talk of small boys? Oliver did not spend time with the duke. He was too young to be interesting yet. If not for this George person learning to ride on the duke’s pony and Elizabeth embracing him, he would be unremarkable.

Eamon patted his shoulder. “See, this is exactly the type of situation you could avoid if you lifted your head from study and paid attention.”

Oliver frowned as the boy continued to circle the stable yard. “Who is George?”

Eamon’s sigh was loud and prolonged. “George Turner. Age eleven and growing like a weed.”

“Turner?” He focused on the boy but could discern little of his appearance beyond the dark hair from this distance.

“You really are an idiot, Ollie. That is Beth’s son.”

He stared at the kitchen garden where Beth tarried among the plants and then looked back at the boy. “No one mentioned his existence.”

“I’m sure they did. Beth speaks of him at every opportunity.”

Oliver slipped his fingers inside his waistcoat pocket and fingered the ribbon hidden there. Elizabeth was a mother. The idea changed his perception of her considerably. Despite her having married his brother’s ill-mannered friend, he’d not considered the possibility that she had a family of her own. The idea should have occurred to him prior to this. “He’s not given liberty within the house? I’ve never seen him.”

“Well, no. It wouldn’t be proper for George to play in the public rooms. Beth is employed as Lady Venables’s companion. A servant like me. He mostly spends his days outside or in the long gallery.”

“Fascinating. I often hear Edwin at play, but never this child.”

Eamon captured a handful of pebbles from near his feet. “He’s not particularly rambunctious. At first, he was quite timid around Mr. Allen’s sons but I’m sure he’s settled in now. He’s been at the abbey a bit longer than you.”

A question that had bothered him from the first thickened his tongue. “Why is she in service?”

The air hissed as Eamon flung the handful of pebbles into the long grass before them. “You’d have to ask her.”

When he turned to view the abbey again, Elizabeth was disappearing through the terrace doorway, a bunch of green sprigs in her hand. If he tried to ask her, he’d surely bungle it. “I’m asking you. You always know the gossip and the truth.”

Eamon stood and pinned him with a look that probably was meant to convey something important. Something else that escaped Oliver at that moment. “Why does any woman go into service? She had no family left, was as poor as a church mouse, and had a boy to support. Lady Venables has been very generous.”

Oliver frowned as he turned his mind to the past, a place he didn’t care to linger overlong. “Didn’t Turner have an older brother she could turn to? Surely he wouldn’t abandon her or the boy.”

Henry Turner might have been every bit as boorish as his brother but Oliver couldn’t believe he’d abandon his nephew completely. He’d faced the Turners over ridiculous misunderstandings before and he still remembered their tactics. One did not ridicule the younger Turner for his shortcomings without expecting to face the elder later. It always surprised him that Leopold had been friends with them.

“Henry Turner’s not been heard from since he left the district. He’s supposed to have gone away to make his fortune but I’ve heard nothing of that.” Eamon shrugged. “With William dead, the pair are better off here, even in service, than elsewhere on their own.”

“I see your point.” Oliver also saw that the lesson had ended abruptly and that George Turner was charging for the servants’ entrance to the abbey.

He pondered the boy’s likely nature. “I suppose he is as bad-tempered as his father.”

“Not that I’ve seen. He’s rather quiet.” Eamon stood. “Why the sudden interest?”

Oliver stared at the servants’ entrance. The pull of curiosity about the boy was greater than the current need to make preparations for Eamon to join him on his travels. An odd circumstance indeed, but he wanted to meet the boy. He faced Eamon. “Isn’t that what you want me to do, pay attention to the people around me? Let’s return.”

Chapter Four

THE SPEED WITH which a bright shining moment of carefree happiness could tarnish astonished Beth. She crouched low beside her son in his bedchamber, thankful she’d already changed into a practical gown that couldn’t be ruined by any dust on the floor, and attempted to understand George’s mumbled explanation of why he was upset. “I’m sure he did not mean to shout.”

“He did,” George insisted, angry emotion coloring his response. “I can’t do anything right anymore.”