Sari Robins - [Andersen Hall Orphanage] (6 page)

L
eaving behind Andersen Hall’s wrought-iron gates, Marcus resisted the urge to ask his father for the reins. Watching, he realized that Dunn was a competent driver, albeit on the slow side.

His father eased his grip on the leathers. The gig plowed onward, but at a leisurely pace. “I have to say, that didn’t go
too
badly. Although,” he added, “I’m not sure that Catherine is satisfied with our little performance.”

“Do you always suffer her tongue so lightly?”

Dunn shot his son a censorious glance. “Don’t give her any trouble, now, Marcus. She’s a wonderful woman who’s been through a lot.”

“What child at Andersen Hall has not?”

Dunn grimaced. “Too true. But I know you, and you’ll be tempted to stir up trouble where there’s calm. So stop now before you even start.”

“That’s not very fair of you, is it? Judging me when I’ve been back in the country for a mere handful of days?”
Shifting in his seat, he sighed. “I suppose some things never change.”

Marcus was pleased by the guilty scowl lighting his father’s features.

“You’re right,” Dunn admitted, surprising Marcus. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.” He shrugged. “I suppose I’m a bit protective where Catherine is concerned.”

Marcus bit back a comment that a father should be protective of his own son. He really had no desire to start up right where he and his father had last left off. They’d typically had difficulty finding a way to communicate besides arguing and it had always left Marcus feeling torn up on the inside. As if every insult he’d flung speared him just as well.

“Catherine’s given up a lot for Andersen Hall.” Dunn sighed. “I honestly don’t know how I will get on without her.”

“Why? Has she taken another position?”

His father’s cheek’s reddened.

“I certainly won’t say anything, sir,” Marcus assured. Not that it really mattered, he’d be leaving Andersen Hall soon enough when he’d completed his mission.

“Catherine…How shall I put this? Catherine is intended…”

“The poor fellow has best be deaf or have a strong constitution to put up with her sharp tongue.”

“She’s not betrothed…” Dunn’s gaze grew thoughtful. “Although it’s a wonder she’s remained free this long. She’s quite lovely.”

Marcus examined the trees. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“No.” Dunn sighed. “I suppose you wouldn’t. You were never very good at seeing past people’s outer trappings. Catherine does not care one whit for her appearance, I’m afraid.”

Marcus decided to ignore the slight. His father didn’t
know him half as well as he thought he did. But nothing Marcus could say would change his father’s prejudices.

“Why was she so peevish, back there?”

Dunn grimaced. “She doesn’t trust you.”

Marcus’s lips quirked, amused. “Really. Why not?”

“I suppose Catherine is…” Dunn shifted in the seat. “Protective as well.”

“And she sees me as a threat. I wonder what could have led her to that assumption.”

“I never said a word, Marcus.”

“No, often you don’t even have to. Your obvious displeasure is like a trumpet horn, it precedes you.”

They rode along in strained silence.

Dunn peered at him from the corner of his eye. “I was thinking. Catherine is quite trustworthy, knows the ins and outs of Andersen Hall. Knows the trustees. It might be helpful for her to understand your true purpose.”

Marcus straightened. “Don’t tell me that you yield to that sharp-tongued lass?”

“Of course not.” Dunn scowled.

“Good.”

“But Catherine can get her nose bent if she smells something rotten. And she can be quite dogged.”

“Are you saying she might cause me trouble if she’s not satisfied with what she’s being told?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Marcus shrugged. “If she becomes a nuisance, I’ll deal with it.”

“What the blazes does that mean?” his father cried.

“No matter what you think of me”—Marcus hated the injury he heard in his voice—“I don’t harm innocents.”

Dunn’s cheeks reddened. “I didn’t believe that for a moment, Marcus. I simply…well, I didn’t know what you meant.”

Marcus ignored the old hurt of how poorly his father always judged him. They rode along in stilted silence.

Dunn shifted in his seat. His brow furrowed and his lips pinched as if he was fretting over something.

Marcus girded himself for another round.

After another few moments of shifting, Dunn peered at Marcus from the corner of his eye. “I…well, I was wondering how long you suppose you might be in England.”

Marcus looked away. Once he’d accomplished his mission he’d be on the next swift boat headed to Portugal. Or better yet, Spain.

“I was hoping to take a visit to some of our cousins,” Dunn added. “It’s been a long time since you’ve seen Aunt Amanda or Uncle Phillip. Charles has a few babes of his own…”

Adjusting his stiff legs, Marcus offered, “Granted, it has been a long time, but I don’t know that I have the luxury of an extended stay—”

“Aunt Tizzy just sent me a letter…” Dunn handed Marcus the reins and reached into his inner coat pocket.

Marcus clicked his tongue and encouraged the horses to a swift canter. His father frowned, but did not otherwise reproach him. Dunn scanned the missive and Marcus noticed that his father had to hold the paper with his hand outstretched very far to read it. Then he gave up and pulled out his gold-rimmed spectacles. Marcus shifted in his seat, not wanting to recognize his father as anything but indomitable.

“Here it is.” Dunn read from the page, “Phillip seems even more forgetful of late, oftentimes becoming disoriented while walking about even in our own garden. He’s recovered, but has not quite been himself since the fall. Then there’s the issue of his wheezing. I do worry that he is not long for this world and don’t know how I will cope
without him.” Dunn rested the paper on his knee. “It goes on with more along the same vein.”

“If I recall, Uncle Phillip has always had one ailment or another…”

“Yes, but this sounds more serious. And I would hate for you not to see him before he goes.”

Marcus sighed. “I haven’t seen him in seven years. Will it truly make a difference now?”

“Family is important, Marcus.”

The unspoken rebuke about their rift hung in the air between them. Dunn had never been very good at veiling his meaning.

His father sighed. “Someday you will learn to appreciate the importance of family.”

“Let us first see how things progress in town with my mission,” Marcus replied. “Thereafter, we can discuss Uncle Phillip.”

Dunn shifted in the seat. “Yes, of course…thank you.”

They rode along in silence, the tension now having eased a bit. As if Marcus had conceded something. He wondered if it was like that with most fathers and sons, a combative relationship of advances and retreats. He’d been around so few lads who’d had fathers while growing up that he really didn’t know, but somehow he suspected that other fathers and sons knew how to communicate without verbal bloodletting. In truth, it did not matter. Marcus would only have to suffer through this reunion for a short time, then all would be back as it should be. Him, free in the field, his father shackled to his large brown desk. The thought of resurrecting the status quo somehow lifted Marcus’s spirits.

The sun was well matched with a refreshing breeze that pressed against Marcus’s cheeks and caused the white
plume to whip about on his shako. He was enjoying the jaunt, despite the ache in his thigh at the bandages with every bump. Tam had insisted that they be tight enough so as to alter Marcus’s stride and remind him of the ruse.

Marcus welcomed the sights and sounds of the city, only now realizing that he had missed London and its cast of characters. A man in an oversized, dowdy brown coat pushing bric-a-brac wares on a handcart. An old woman in a faded yellow hat with frayed fringe hawked flowers from a basket on her arm. An innkeeper swept the entry with a swift
whoosh, whoosh
, then stopped to chat with a passerby. The scent of cooked mutton filled the air, almost overcoming the odor of horse manure and refuse.

“Does London seem much changed to you?” Dunn asked, watching him.

Marcus realized that he’d been grinning and stopped. Stifling his exuberance, he answered gruffly, “A city is a city.”

Dunn shrugged. “I always thought London was special. But then again, I have not traveled abroad as you have. I suppose I never had the urge to…escape.”

Having no desire to discuss his abrupt departure seven years before, Marcus changed the subject. “I need to meet with the board members soon. I was thinking that a dinner party at your club might be a way to hoist the sails on my acquaintances. Get things moving along.”

Dunn studied him a moment, then turned and waved to a stout woman with several bedraggled children hanging about her ample black skirts. Noting Marcus’s stare, the littlest, a girl with toffee hair and freckles, stuck her tongue out at him.

“I will send word today. A dinner party is a good idea,” Dunn admitted. “But I must confess, I am concerned.”

“On which front?”

“That one of the members of the board, most of whom I consider dear friends, has fallen in with Napoleon…Well, it makes me question my own good judgment.” His face looked pained. “I don’t understand. These are good, earnest fellows. Righteous men—”

“Even righteous men make mistakes.”

“True.”

Did Dunn have any idea that Marcus was referring to him? Marcus doubted it. Dunn saw the world through stained spectacles.

“I simply wonder if I’m going to be able to look them in the eye in the same way,” Dunn continued, his voice tinny with distress. “I would not want to endanger you because I have difficulty maintaining a façade.”

“I have to agree, you were never much of a player.”

“And for good reason!” Dunn stiffened as if affronted. “I pride myself in dealing with people in a direct, if politic, manner. I am no
actor
.” He said the word as if it was a disease.

“Acting might not be a much admired profession, but it does have its uses.”

“The inquiries, I can understand.” Dunn frowned. “Yet I wonder at your ability to lie and deceive so easily, Marcus.”

Marcus felt his hackles rise. Simply to annoy his father, he clicked at the horses and they quickened their pace around a bend. “Unlike you, my superiors have never tried to make me into something I am not. Instead, they value me.”

Clutching the side of the seat in a death grip, Dunn snapped, “I have always valued you, Marcus. I just never understood why you had to be so damnably Machiavellian.”

The old nagging sensation in the pit of Marcus’s stomach felt like shame. He hated it, and himself for feeling it. He was never who his father wanted him to be. Never up
to snuff. Trying to keep a harness on his anger, Marcus bit out, “Contrasting to how you always treated me, Lord Wellington prizes my abilities. There might be times when my labors might be considered less than straightforward, but—”

“War is a dirty affair and no one within it comes out clean.”

“That’s not true! Men act with valor, honor—”

“War is a necessary evil. Yet evil it remains.”

“And you are so without blame?” Marcus replied, feeling as frustrated and grieved as he had those torturous years before when his father had betrayed him. “Soldiers fight to protect their country, to save their families! You, on the other hand, were so busy rescuing strangers that you failed to salvage your own family!”

Dunn’s hands fisted on his lap and he stared straight ahead. “You have no idea about what you speak—”

“Mother tried to pretend, but her grief was obvious to everyone but you,” he cried, his voice rising as fury overtook him. “You were too lost to your causes—hardly a husband to her!”

“Patricia knew well and good the man she was marrying when she made her choice—”

“But what upset her the most,” Marcus interrupted, hardly listening to his father’s flimsy excuses, “was how you treated me!” The child within him wanted to kick up a jig for the joy of finally laying this indictment at his father’s feet. “That you would treat others better than your own flesh and blood—”

“I never treated the children of Andersen Hall better than you. They’d simply been through so much. You had every advantage—”

“Except having a father who cared!” The anger surging through him felt good. Clean. Straightforward. Dunn
wanted honesty from his son? Well, he was going to get it, in full measure. “I only thank heaven she wasn’t around the last few years to see how you behaved toward me.”

“I had to be hard on you. It was the only way to discipline the wildness out of you. I—”

“I will never forget those words the day you betrayed me.” He shook his head as his hands clenched on the reins. “‘If only you could be as much of a son to me as Nicholas is.’”

Dunn flinched as if struck.

“How is your old favorite, Nick Redford, anyway?” Marcus scoffed. “Still the sycophant he always was?”

“You might be justified in your anger toward me,” Dunn replied stiffly. His cheeks were splotched red with antagonism. “But Nick never did a thing to hurt you.”

That his father would jump to Redford’s defense so easily made his stomach churn.

“You might be surprised how much you and Nick have in common,” his father continued. “He recently opened his own enquiry firm—”

“I’d sooner have Napoleon as a mess-mate,” Marcus scoffed, fuming. He wanted to make the horses run faster, but the road had grown too congested with pedestrians. He was about to shout at them to move aside and make way for the carriage, but suddenly realized that he had lost track of where he’d been leading the mounts. He never lost his bearings!

Marcus mentally shook himself. He was known as cool in a fix, master of his passions. Resentment, rage, agonizing disappointment, these were emotions he could ill afford in his line of work. He needed to remain unruffled to get the job done. It could mean the difference between success and failure, life and death. And he was never one to countenance failure. The cost was too high.

Marcus realized that now, more than ever, he needed to keep his emotions under control. To be detached in his relationship with his father. And everyone else at Andersen Hall.