The Courteous Cad (39 page)

Sarah and Mary had warned her not to go to Otley. Her own heart had cautioned her time and again. But she had never been as obedient as she should, and so even now she was drawing near the grand home perched majestically amid meadows of gorse, heather, and bracken.

“Thank you,” she said as the footman helped her down onto the drive that bordered the home. “I shall only be a moment. If you wait here, you may ride back to Thorne Lodge in my carriage.”

“As you wish, madam,” he replied.

Her heart beating nearly out of her breast, Prudence lifted her skirts and ascended the impressive stone stairway to the front door. A footman received her and led her into the house.

“I am Miss Watson,” she whispered as she set a card on his silver tray. “If Mr. Sherbourne is busy, please do not disturb him. I should not wish to bother him in any way. Indeed, I believe I shall—”

“Miss Watson?”

Sucking down a breath, she turned to find William striding toward her across the marbled floor. He had been outside, she saw, for his sleeves were rolled to the elbow and his leather boots bore a coating of dust. His brown hair had been tousled by the wind, but his eyes were steady as they met hers.

“I did not expect you,” he said.

She curtsied. “Forgive me. I did not have time to send word ahead.”

“You are distressed. Come, please sit down. Is something amiss? Your sisters?”

“No, no, they are well. Very well. Mary is to wed Henry at Christmas.”

His face broke into a smile. “Happy news indeed. At one time, I had thought Lord Delacroix intended another bride.”

“No. He is very happy, as is my sister. Though I believe the illustrious career of Miss Pickworth may be at an end.”

“Miss Pickworth?” Cupping her elbow, he led Prudence to a chair near an open glass door that faced out onto the gardens.

“Mary, we have learned, kept many secrets well hidden.”

Chuckling, he sat across from her and studied the scene beyond. “Would you agree it is a fair prospect?” he asked, indicating the expanse of meadows dotted with sheep.

“Our lands give me great pleasure. I have never been happier.”

Prudence nodded. “You are certainly more at ease than on our last encounter. I believe you have many reasons for joy.”

“I do indeed. My mill now produces the finest worsted in Yorkshire. I cannot employ all those who come to my door seeking work. I am settled at Chatham Hall. No, I cannot complain about my situation in any way.”

Prudence swallowed. “I spoke to Lady Thorne this morning. I understand you are to be congratulated.”

He looked at her with a quizzical expression. “On the success of the mill?”

Prudence closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. Must he make her say it all aloud? Must she be the one to introduce this most devastating news?

Suddenly, she stood. “I recall your enjoyment of jests and teasing, Mr. Sherbourne, but I am in no humor to be mocked. Lady Thorne informed me that you are engaged to be married. I wish you much happiness, and now I shall see myself out.”

She stepped out onto the portico that ran the length of the house. Her carriage could not be far. In three strides he caught her arm and swung her around to face him.

“I am not engaged to be married,” he said. “Why did Olivia tell you as much? It is not like her to dissemble.”

Her lips parting in shock, Prudence looked into his brown eyes. “You are not engaged? But . . . but she told me that you have formed an attachment. You are quite smitten, she said, even besotted.”

“Ah!” His lips tilted at the corners until he could not hold in a laugh. “I
am
attached. But not to be married. My attachment is of another sort. Come with me, Prudence.”

He looped her arm around his and stepped down from the portico. Feeling as if she might swoon at any moment, Prudence could neither speak nor think beyond the certainty that this man . . . this man she so dearly loved . . . was not to be married.

They rounded the corner of the house, and Prudence spied in the distance a white blanket spread across the grass beneath a large oak tree. Near the blanket stood a chair, and in it sat a somewhat large woman with gray hair and spectacles. More disconcerting was the tiny creature who lay perfectly still on the blanket.

“It is a baby,” she breathed out, coming to a sudden stop. “A baby.”

“My son.” William’s face was unreadable as he faced her. “I thought you might not know the whole of the news you related to me in London. I felt it imprudent to tell you that the woman who died—”

“She died in childbirth. Yes, I knew. But I assumed . . . I thought . . . When did you—?”

“I met Timothy Charles Sherbourne the night of the masquerade. When you and I spoke, I had just departed a meeting of members of Parliament interested in labor reform. I was on my way to my aunt’s home in Pall Mall.”

“Your aunt had kept the child?”

“Yes. The family of Miss Bryse had rejected the baby and, quite naturally, me as well. In my former state of selfishness and debauchery, I, too, wanted nothing to do with the baby. My Aunt Norris, who had brought up five very successful children and was now widowed and lonely, declared that she would take him. And so Timothy’s first months were spent in the care of my aunt and the nursemaid.”

They had resumed moving forward, and now Prudence could see the baby’s face, perfectly round, with pink cheeks and long dark lashes. Her heart ached at the sweet beauty of tiny fingers and toes, soft lips, a dusting of brown hair.

“If I may be excused,” the nursemaid murmured, after greeting her master and his guest, “I should be glad of a cup of tea.”

“Of course, Matilda. Thank you very much.”

William held out his hand, indicating the blanket on which the child lay. Prudence sank with relief onto the soft cotton fabric. William took a place so close she could smell the scent of the open meadows on his white shirt.

“He is beautiful,” Prudence said. “I am happy for you.”

William gazed at the sleeping baby. “I love him. I love him with such passion.”

“
Besotted
, Olivia said.”

He laughed. “Quite right. I only regret I missed the first months of his life. He is always a delight—alternately a clown, a screech owl, a mouse, a burbling brook. He talks, you know. I am very sure he begins to say words.”

Now Prudence laughed. “You will have him reading the Gospel of St. John in another month.”

William focused on her. “Why did you come? I was certain I should never see you again. I comforted myself that you were happy and well and, most of all, unencumbered by a reformed rake and his wee son.”

“I came because you left me no choice. I had to understand you. As we stood outside Carlton House, you said that you would never ask me to join my life to another so encumbered.”

“Indeed I did. You could not have known—nor dared I tell you—that I referred to my son. He is no encumbrance to me, but to another . . . to a wife . . .” He let out a hot breath. “Forgive me. God has altered me greatly, but He has not yet succeeded in controlling my tongue.”

She reached out and smoothed the baby’s blanket, tucking it more closely around him. “I am the one encumbered now,” she said. “I stayed in London—away from you—so long because of it. When you spoke of our lives united, I knew it must never be. My long illness . . . the severity of it . . . the doctors have declared it unlikely that I shall bear children.”

He looked at her. “Indeed? But you are well.”

“It is possible I may recover all my former fortitude. But it is equally likely that I shall not.”

“Then . . . you may have lost the ability to bring a child into the world . . . while I have managed—through carelessness and immorality—to bring about . . .
him
.”

They both turned to the tiny boy. Prudence shivered as she spoke. “As for me, I am not so unfeeling as to allow only a child of my own into my heart. I believe it is possible that I myself might become quite besotted by
him
.”

“But he . . . this son . . . is my heir. I will give him—and none other—my legacy.”

“As is only right.”

She dared lift her focus to his. William’s brown eyes had gone as dark as midnight. “I am not the sort of man,” he said, “who would be welcome in some circles of society. I might be considered more than a liability to any woman who might closely associate her life to mine.”

“Perhaps you are right,” Prudence said, her heart welling. “Or perhaps . . . with the love and esteem of the brightest ornament of English society, the genuine admiration of the prettiest young lady in court all season, the steadfast loyalty of a woman whose reputation is beyond reproach . . . with such a woman at your side, perhaps your past will not appear quite so black nor your future so bleak.”

At this, William laughed. “Miss Watson,” he said, “do my ears deceive me, or have you just proposed a marriage between us?”

“Of course not,” she replied archly. “If you wish to take my hand and go down on one knee, however, I might give serious consideration to such a proposal.”

“For such an action to occur, you would have to stand up,” he pointed out, extending a hand to her. “Like this.”

They both rose.

“Miss Watson,” he began.

“Down on one knee,” she repeated.

He obeyed. “Dear Miss Watson, you have revolutionized my mill, transformed my black soul, and converted all my views of the world and my place in it. If you would willingly surrender your heart to me, I could want nothing more than to yield my own to you. My life, my fortune, my future, my dreams, in short, all that I am, I would gladly give you if you would consent to become my wife.”

“Come here, you ninny,” she said, tugging his hands. As he rose, he drew her into his arms and held her close. Wrapped in his warm embrace, she could not prevent the tears that filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

“Of course I shall marry you,” she murmured into his neck. “I could want nothing more in all my life.”

“Mill reform?”

“A hobby.”

“One you must continue.” He groaned as he drew her closer. “I love you, Prudence. I have loved you from the moment we met.”

“William, you cannot possibly know how deeply I love you and long to—”

A very loud wail cut through her words. Startled, she stepped back as William bent and scooped up the suddenly squalling, red-faced, very unhappy baby. In the same motion, he held out the miserable creature and deposited him into Prudence’s arms.

“I should like to introduce you to Timothy,” he called out. “Our son.”

Giggling, she held the baby out and peered into his wretched little face. “Good afternoon, Timothy,” she shouted over his screams. “I am your mother!”

“He does this often,” William said loudly as they started across the lawn toward the house. “He is frequently rather unhappy.”

“Are you a bother, Timothy?” Carrying the baby on one shoulder, she skipped up onto the portico and into the house. At the movement, the baby’s cries subsided.

“Are you a difficult and contentious fellow just like your father?” she asked. “Very well, I shall simply have to reform you too. Because, Timothy, you must know that I cannot help but reform those I love. And I love you . . . very, very much.”

Matilda scurried into the room, out of breath and mortified. “Oh, I am so sorry, Miss . . . Miss . . . Miss . . .”

“Mrs. Sherbourne,” William said. “Very soon she is to become Mrs. Sherbourne.”

As the surprised nursemaid carried the baby away to be fed, William pulled Prudence into his arms and kissed her lips. “I am,” he said, “the most blessed of men.”

She looked into his eyes and knew that she had at last found her home.

Summer was just ending as wedding bells rang out across the town of Otley. Mill workers lined the streets to wave at the handsome couple emerging from the church. Prudence Watson, Miss Pickworth reported in
The Tattler
, was as bright and beautiful a bride as ever had been seen. Her new husband, though once considered a cad, displayed the courtesy of the true gentleman he had become.

Miss Pickworth’s Ponderings

After reading the tale of the courteous cad, please peruse Miss Pickworth’s ponderings. She has a quantity of questions, and she wonders if you, dear reader, may come to any clever conclusions.

1.   Prudence Watson was waiting to hear God’s call. When she received her mission to save the mill children, how did God speak to her? Has He spoken to you? In what ways?

2.   Mary chastises Prudence about her crusade, saying, “You would do better to marry a rich man and redeem the world by bringing up moral, godly, well-behaved children.” Can this kind of work be a valid call from God?

3.   Mary and Sarah waver wildly in their advice to Prudence about William Sherbourne. Why do they want her to pursue and marry him? Why do they urge her never to marry such a man?

4.   How do you feel about the way Prudence managed her deep love for Mr. Walker? How did she succeed in letting him go—to a more appropriate woman and a better life?

5.   Jealousy rears its ugly head throughout the book. Of whom is Prudence jealous? Who does William fear may take his place in Prudence’s heart? How can a Christian manage feelings of jealousy and suspicion?