A gentleman must never bring up an objectionable subject such as politics or money in front of a lady’s delicate hearing.
A PROPER GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO WOOING THE PERFECT LADY
SIR VINCENT TYBALT VALENTINE
“Oh, you are a wretched brother!” Loretta exclaimed. “Why didn’t you say I had a letter from the duke?”
He laughed. “I was trying not to overwhelm you with news.”
“I’m not that easily overwhelmed and you know it.” She took the note, hoping Paxton wouldn’t see that her hands were trembling—from excitement and a little fear, too. “But I do wonder why the duke wrote to me.”
“I suppose you will have to read it and discover for yourself. My thoughts are that he simply wants to make sure you are coming with me. He seemed quite determined.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re right.”
Carefully, she lifted the seal so she wouldn’t break the wax and cause it to crumble away. She didn’t know why, but wanted to keep everything about the letter perfect so she could look at it again and again. She unfolded the paper and read:
Miss Quick,
The battle has begun and I am well armed. I am working on my strategy for our next meeting, and I have no doubt you are working on yours. Until we meet at Hawksthorn.
Hawk
Loretta’s heartbeat pounded. He hadn’t forgotten about her. He was preparing for her. Oh, dear, what was she going to do? What defenses could she muster that would win against his alluring offenses? How could she resist him when he’d already showed her the pleasures she could experience in his arms?
“What did he say?” Paxton asked.
She folded the letter over and kept it firmly clutched in her hand. “Nothing really, other than he’s preparing for our visit.”
“That was kind of him to remember to send you a personal note as well. He’s a very busy man, you know.”
“Yes, it was,” she answered cautiously. “And I’m sure he is busy. What did he have to say to you?”
“He explained the details of our visit. He’s very thorough. He’ll send two coaches for us. We’ll leave promptly at first light and stop only to change the horses, which he’s already arranged. Baskets with food and drink will be in each carriage. He said we should arrive at Hawksthorn late in the afternoon but before dark. We should be ready to leave a week from Friday. That will give us several days to get ready. Can you do that?”
That was almost laughable. She could be ready to leave before the afternoon was over. “Yes, plenty of time for me,” she said, excited at the thought of leaving Mammoth House for a few days and seeing the duke.
Loretta talked a minute or two longer with Paxton before walking back toward the music room. She would rather go to her room and think about what the duke had written about planning his strategy but she couldn’t leave Farley sleeping in the chair. Instead, she was surprised to see Farley standing at the window with his hands and forehead flattened against the pane, looking out and seeming in deep thought. He looked taller than she’d remembered from the night he’d arrived, but no less thin or lonely.
“I’m glad to see you are feeling strong enough to stand up,” she said in a cheerful voice as she entered the room and stopped beside him.
He turned to her and quietly asked, “Where is this place?”
“You mean this house?”
He nodded.
So it was as she’d thought, he wasn’t familiar with the area. It was no wonder he was asking. There was nothing but barren tree lines or empty flat lands as far as the eye could see in any direction. “You’re in Mammoth House, which is about a half day’s ride from Grimsfield. Do you know where that is?”
He shook his head.
“Do you remember how you got here?”
“Walked,” he said, turning his attention back out the window.
“From where?”
He shrugged. “The road mostly.”
She couldn’t say he wasn’t answering her questions, though they weren’t telling her much. “How did you get onto the road?”
“A man left me standing on it.”
That didn’t sound good. “Can you tell me more about how that came about or tell me about the man?”
“I was minding my ownself, wasn’t stealing anything or causing trouble to anyone. Just looking at the meat pies cooling in the window of a bread shop. A man grabbed me from behind, put ’is hand over me mouth, and tossed me inside a wagon as if I were a sack of coal. And ’e locked the door so we couldn’t get out.”
“That’s terrifying,” Loretta said and shivered. She didn’t want to alarm Farley and show how horrified she was about what had happened to him. “What man? Do you know who he was?”
Farley turned toward her again. His big brown eyes had narrowed with anger. “No. But ’e was big and strong. Lifted me right off me feet, he did.”
“Did anyone try to help you?”
“Won’t nobody ’elp a kid like me. I ’elped my ownself. I bit ’is ’and ’ard as I could. Tried to box his ears. I wasn’t going with ’im without a fight.”
Loretta understood his fury. She was angry, too. Anyone would be under the circumstances. “That’s dreadful. But you didn’t get away?”
“’E was too strong.”
“You said we couldn’t get out. Was someone with you? Your parents? Your mama?” she asked cautiously, hoping to trigger that softness in him that she’d only seen when he was dreaming of his mother.
Farley shook his head and his expression relaxed a little. His tone evened out as he said, “Got no parents. Got no one but me. Other boys were in the wagon—just like me.” He struck a thin, limber thumb to his chest. “The big oaf that took me stole them all right off the street and locked us inside. People watched, but no one cared.”
Still trying to comprehend his story of being abducted, she asked, “You didn’t know the man or the other boys?”
Farley coughed into his handkerchief a few times before saying, “Didn’t know him from any other devil or cur that walks the streets.”
Loretta blinked at his language but held the reprimand that wanted to spring forth. Since this was the first time Farley had opened up and was talking about himself, she wanted to be careful and not say anything that would cause him to go quiet.
She remained very still with her hands folded in front of her and kept her voice even as she asked, “Where was the shop you were standing in front of when the man grabbed you?”
“Near St. James Park.”
“So you were in London when you were taken?”
He nodded again. His eyes had softened and watered when he looked up at her and said, “’Ow am I going to get back?”
At present, she didn’t know. She hadn’t given much thought to him leaving, only staying at Mammoth House.
She inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know the answer to that at the moment. And for now it’s not important. You aren’t well enough to go anywhere yet. There’s still time to consider that. Did the man say where he was taking you?”
Farley’s face relaxed. He shrugged and turned back to the window. “’E didn’t tell me anything. One of the boys said ’e was taking us to a place where we would work, get paid, and ’ave something to eat every day. But another one said we’d never get paid a halfpence and we’d be beaten if we didn’t work.”
Loretta’s heart constricted and another shiver shook her. She’d heard a little about workhouses where the very poor were given a place to live and food in exchange for labor, but had never seen one and certainly had never met anyone who was destined for such a place.
“So what happened?” she asked. “Did you escape from the workhouse?”
“No,” he said, to her surprise.
“How did you get away?”
“’E threw me out on the road and left me, ’e did.”
She covered her mouth with her hand to silence her gasp as she heard his words. Old feelings of abandonment flooded her. She’d felt them years ago when her mother had died even after promising Loretta she wouldn’t leave her. And more recently when her uncle had banished her to the loneliness of Mammoth House.
“What a vile soul that man must have to throw a young boy along the side of the road,” she said with a shaky voice. “And out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“Said it wasn’t ’is fault. ’E had to do it. I was sick with fever and I’d give it to the other boys. Said we’d all die if I stayed in the wagon with them. Then ’e wouldn’t get any money for us.”
Anger grew inside Loretta. She wanted to find the man and have him punished.
“So he just left you beside the road in the freezing rain! That was a wicked thing for him to do to you.”
“I didn’t care. ’E was a cur. I didn’t want to go wherever ’e was taking me anyway.”
She blinked at his swearing again but only asked, “How did you find Mammoth House? There’s no distinct road leading here anymore.”
“I followed the road for a while, until I saw the man walking ’is ’orse and followed ’im. I figured ’e knew where ’e was going.”
“So you followed the Duke of Hawksthorn here?”
When she said the duke’s name, Farley looked over his shoulder at her with distrust in his eyes. “’E don’t like me.”
“Who?” she asked cautiously. “The duke? I know it may have seemed that way when you first arrived. I didn’t think he liked me the first time we met, either. He can be rather strong and commanding. But he’s a fair person.”
“’Is kind got no use for someone like me,” Farley said as a determined expression settled onto his face. “I seen it in ’is eyes, I did.”
“That may be true for some gentlemen but not the duke,” she defended.
“’E’s like all the gents, ’e is. They just soon give ye the backs of their hand as a penny. They brush you away like dust off their fancy cuffs.”
She gasped. “The duke never struck you, did he?”
“’E grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go.”
“That’s because he knew you were in peril. He saved your life that night. If the duke hadn’t gone out into the storm and brought you back, you probably would have—well, there is no telling what may have happened to you. As it is, you were saved from the storm and the fever and you’re getting stronger each day. And you don’t have to go to a workhouse, either. But if you have no parents, where do you live?”
He looked back out the window and defiantly said, “Got my ownself a place under the steps of an old building near St. James Park. Dug it out my ownself. Even found enough wood for a floor and a blanket, too.”
“That’s good,” she said softly, her heart feeling heavy and thinking that she couldn’t imagine anything more horrible than not having a home to live in, nor a bed to sleep in. And not even a fire to warm her during the freezing winter nights. Just a cold wooden floor and a blanket.
“Where do you get food?”
He looked at her with his big brown eyes and calmly said, “Wherever I can find it. Got no one to bring it to me like you do.”
Loretta felt the sting of what he said, though she knew he didn’t mean it as a rebuke—only an observation. Knowing he had so little, she wondered if she’d ever truly feel hungry again. She was overly blessed compared with Farley and so many children who’d been abandoned by the good side of life.
“Ye don’t need to look sad for me. I don’t mind.” Farley started coughing. He turned away from her and bent double as he struggled to recover his breath.
Loretta wished again she could keep the bouts from returning. She would ask Mr. Huddleston to talk to the apothecary again the next time he went to Grimsfield and see if there was something else they could try that might help Farley.
They’d probably talked enough for one day anyway. When the coughing had subsided she said, “I think we should get you back to your room, and in order to do that you have to get back into the chair. I don’t want you up too long.”
“I can walk,” he muttered.
“Yes, you can, but you’re not going to this time,” she said, pointing to the chair. “We’ll try that tomorrow.”
Farley hesitated, as if he might challenge her, but instead he crawled back into the big chair and allowed her to tuck the blanket around his legs again.
When she rose and started around to the back of the chair she heard him say, “Thank you.”
Loretta lifted her chin and smiled.
The two of them were silent as they started the trek back to his room. This time her step was much lighter. She had learned so much more about Farley. The next time they talked she was confident she would learn even more.
Loretta knew there were plenty of uncared for and mistreated children like Farley. She couldn’t help them all, but she would find a way to help this one. If it were in her power to do so, he wouldn’t go to a workhouse or back to the streets of London.
He would find a home here at Mammoth House.