“That is an earl, Thomas,” Matilda Merridew said quietly. She’d crouched down to admonish her son at eye level. “The Earl of Tremont is a peer of the realm, an important man, a lord.”
Also a bit stuffy, based on what little Matilda knew of him. He was dark-haired, lean, tall, and turned out in exquisitely understated good taste. His reputation among the former soldiers who’d served with him was one for rules, policies, and proper decorum.
If any force on earth was not inclined in those boring directions, it was Matilda’s five-year-old son.
“I am an important boy,” Tommie replied, grinning. “My mama loves me best in the whole world!”
He’d nearly yelled that proclamation, his voice carrying to every corner of the church hall. Vicar Delancey sent her a pained smile, Mrs. Oldbach flinched but otherwise ignored Tommie’s outburst, and Mr. Prebish—current dominus factotum of the pastoral committee—glowered at Tommie, then at Matilda.
The earl, fortunately, remained in conversation with the vicar’s son-in-law, one Major Alasdhair MacKay.
“I do love you best in the whole world,” Matilda said, putting a hand on Tommie’s bony little shoulder lest he hare off to make a cave out of the cloaks hanging in the corridor. “I also want to be proud of you, and if I’m to take the minutes for this meeting, then you must stay out of trouble.”
“I’m always in trouble,” Tommie said, puffing out his chest. “Mrs. Oldbach says I’m a proper limb.”
A limb of Satan, did Tommie but know it. “You are not always in trouble. You are simply lively.” Exhausting was a more accurate term. “For the next hour, you will please look at your picture book, practice writing your name, and be quiet.”
Tommie would try, he truly would. He’d turn a few pages of his picture book. He’d even pick up the pencil and wave it about or make a few scratches on the paper Matilda had fetched from Vicar’s office, but Tommie had a constitutional aversion to extended periods of quiet while awake.
Mrs. Oldbach clapped her hands. “Tempus fugit, my friends. Lord Tremont is a busy man, and it’s time we brought our meeting to order.”
Mrs. O was a fixture at St. Mildred’s. White-haired, imperious, and well-to-do. She exuded a perfect balance of Christian good cheer and elderly ruthlessness. Matilda kept Tommie as far from Mrs. O as possible.
“Please be good,” Matilda said, kissing Tommie’s crown and moving to the table in the center of the hall. She took up her post as scribe at the right hand of the chairman’s seat and angled her chair to give her a clear view of Tommie’s corner. He’d plopped himself on the floor and dutifully opened a picture book, but his gaze was leaping all over the hall.
Matilda had packed not one but all three of his picture books, the old stuffed horse that he now sought only at bedtime, two pencils—Tommie invariably broke his pencil points—and some string. The church cat could be counted on to entertain Tommie for two minutes at a time if that good beast was in residence.
Tommie cupped his hands to his mouth and bellowed, “I’ll be good, Mama!”
More winces and scowls greeted that announcement. The earl glanced over at Tommie as if noticing the boy for the first time. Matilda mentally prepared for lordly disdain—children did not belong at business meetings, not even church business meetings.
Tommie waved wildly. “Good day, Mr. Earl! Do you want to see my picture book?”
Merciful angels, deliver me now. St. Mildred’s was a prosperous congregation, though a far cry from St. George’s in Hanover Square. Peers did not frequent St. Mildred’s, and the earl was very much a visiting dignitary.
The whole room went quiet, with gazes ricocheting between the boy and his lordship. Mr. Prebish looked positively eager to hear Tommie on the receiving end of a tongue-lashing.
Another tongue-lashing.
The earl excused himself from his conversation with Major MacKay and walked over to where Tommie sat on the floor.
Matilda did not care that Tremont was a peer, a wealthy man, a noted philanthropist, and a former officer. She marched over to Tommie’s corner, prepared to inform his lordship that nobody scolded her only begotten son for merely being friendly.
Tremont extended a hand in Tommie’s direction. “Tremont, at your service, Master…?”
Tommie scrambled to his feet and wrung the earl’s hand. “I’m Tommie. Tommie Merridew. This is my mama.”
Tremont extricated his lordly paw from Tommie’s grasp and bowed to Matilda. “Madam, you have me at a disadvantage.”
She bobbed a hasty curtsey. “Matilda Merridew, my lord.”
“My amanuensis on this august occasion, I believe. Tommie, a pleasure to have made your acquaintance. I was told St. Mildred’s is a congenial house of worship. Your mama and I must tend to business for the nonce. You will keep that storybook in good repair until I can make proper inspection of it. Mrs. Merridew.”
The earl gestured in the direction of the table. Tommie, for once, was silent, so Matilda preceded his lordship to the table and managed not to faint from shock when he held her chair.
The earl called the meeting to order, and a discussion began of hiring former soldiers to look after St. Mildred’s grounds. His lordship’s charitable endeavors included housing a dozen such worthies. Setting them up in some sort of business was his present aim.
The sexton had vociferous objections to anybody tending to the churchyard but himself, until Lord Tremont suggested that any lot of former soldiers managed better when somebody was appointed to supervise their efforts. Moreover, gravedigging was a skill known to all former soldiers, alas, and one suited to younger men who benefited from regular vigorous exertion.
Matilda bent over her notes while keeping one eye on Tommie, who was imitating Tremont’s hand gestures. The earl’s hands were graceful, his manner dignified, but more than anything, his voice held Matilda’s attention.
Tremont moved the discussion forward with polite dispatch. Whether he agreed with the committee member who held the floor or not, he thanked every participant for sharing their thoughts. He listened. He asked sensible questions and again listened to the answers.
Nobody dared interrupt or talk over anybody else. Nobody dared make a ribald aside. The meeting was the most civilized and productive exchange of ideas Matilda had observed. That Tommie was a witness to this gathering gave her all manner of maternal ammunition for good examples.
The orderliness of the proceedings aside, Lord Tremont had the makings of an orator. Before he spoke, he took a moment as if to gather his thoughts, and when he replied, his words were chosen for precision and economy. All that was lovely—the fellow made sense even as he flattered his listener—but what upended Matilda’s usual indifference to all things masculine was the beauty of Tremont’s voice.
He created a flowing stream of golden elocution in a well-modulated baritone. His words resonated with courtesy, reason, benevolence, respect for his audience… all the gentlemanly virtues made audible.
If he ever set out to be charming instead of polite, he’d be dangerous. Matilda mentally shook herself for even speculating on such a topic and pretended to add something to her notes.
Has beautiful voice.
She was erasing that nonsense when Tommie began to sing. Being Tommie, he did not sing a venerable old hymn or a sweet little nursery rhyme. He burst forth with Burns’s “Green Grow the Rushes, O,” an earthy tribute from a man to the charms of the ladies.
While Matilda scrambled about for a means of discreetly silencing her son, Tommie caroled on. The sweetest hours that e'er I spend/Are spent among the lasses, O…
Had the Earl of Tremont not been present, Mr. Prebish would have been leading a charge to silence Tommie’s warblings and assign him a penance. Instead, the committee of the whole waited to see how a peer of the realm dealt with a Proper Limb.
But gie me a cannie hour at e'en/My arms about my dearie, O!/An' warl'y cares an' war'ly men/
May a' gae tapsalteerie, O!
“Master Merridew.” Lord Tremont’s voice carried without having been raised, and yet, Tommie paid him no heed.
For you sae douce, ye sneer at this/Ye're nought but senseless ASSES, O! The wisest man the warl' e'er saw/He dearly lov'd the lasses, O.
The vicar looked as if a post in Cathay had developed compelling appeal. Mrs. Oldbach’s lips were pressed together very firmly, and Major MacKay was grinning.
Worse than that, much worse, was MacKay joining in for the next verse. Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears/Her noblest work she classes, O!/Her ’prentice han' she try'd on man/An' then she made the lasses, O!
“Master Merridew.” Tremont sounded quite stern, and Tommie was not accustomed to proper address. The boy fell silent at long last.
“While we appreciate your impromptu serenade,” the earl said, “there is yet work to be done. Come here, if you please.”
To Matilda’s astonishment, Tommie did not order the earl to instead come to him. Tommie viewed matters logically, which often made him sound impertinent. Superior height, for example, did not make adults superior in any other way. Otherwise, according to Tommie’s reasoning, the tallest man would be king and the shortest a beggar, but there were tall beggars and short kings.
And yet, Tommie scampered over to stand by the earl’s chair. “Mama taught me that song, but she has a much prettier voice than I do.”
“Very gallant of you to compliment your mother,” Tremont said, hoisting Tommie onto his lap. “Pay attention, young sir. This is a gavel.”
He held up the chairman’s gavel, but did not let Tommie grab it.
“It’s a hammer, Mr. Earl.”
“Not a hammer, a gavel. When the chairman applies his gavel thus to the tabletop, silence reigns. Give it a bang if you don’t believe me.”
Tommie walloped the table with the gavel, and the whispering among the committee members stopped.
“There, you see, lad? Not a hammer, a gavel with all the special powers attendant thereto. As the vice chairman of this meeting, you will bang that gavel when I tell you to, as many times as I tell you to. You will not permit anybody else, not even your dear mama, to touch the gavel during the progress of the meeting. Three whacks now, for practice.”
Tommie thumped the old table three times.
“Very good. When you are not required to man the gavel, you may draw toads, if your mother would oblige you with some paper and a pencil. All gentlemen acquire basic artistic skills, and the sooner you start, the sooner you will master the challenge. If you are already proficient at rendering toads, you may attempt a dragon or the very difficult unicorn. You will please recall the meeting to order.”
Tommie twisted about to send Matilda a questioning glance.
“Two raps,” she said. “One right after the other. And then you say, ‘This meeting will now come to order.’”
Tommie vigorously executed the duties of his office. For the next forty-five minutes, he seemed quite content to occupy the earl’s lap and draw all manner of mythical beasts while quietly humming Burns’s ode to the ladies.
In the opinion of Marcus, Earl of Tremont, churches had more in common with the military than either organization liked to admit. Both were devoted to strict hierarchy, strange rituals, peculiar uniforms, and formidable edifices. Both were much concerned with cadging a substantial share of the common weal and doing with it nobody was entirely sure what, but the work was held to be very important nonetheless.
A useless observation, but then, a man of a philosophical bent was prone to such musings. Tremont concluded the meeting when he’d secured an offer from the parish committee to hire the men on a trial basis.
“No scurrilous behavior,” Mrs. Oldbach had said, with a fraught glower in the direction of the boy on Tremont’s lap. “More specific than that, I cannot be in present company.”
If only Wellington had commanded an army of church ladies. They would have ordered Bonaparte into exile as effectively as…
More useless thoughts.
“Master Merridew,” Tremont said, setting the boy on his feet. “If you would return the gavel to the vicar’s office, I would appreciate it. No making free with it on any handy wall, floor, or parishioner, if you please. Gavels are not hammers.”
Tommie ran a small finger along the smooth, glossy handle. “I’ll put it on Vicar’s desk, Mr. Earl.”
Tremont risked leaning within gavel-smiting range. “We need not be so formal. You may address me as Tremont or my lord.”
“Mama has no use for idle lords.”
Mrs. Merridew bent closer to her notes, though the side of her neck, then her cheek and her ear turned a delicate pink. Tremont had been aware of her throughout the meeting. Aware of a light, rosy scent, the graceful curve of her jaw, thick brown hair in a severe bun, and serious gray-blue eyes that had remained fixed on the page before her.
“I have no use for idle lords either,” Tremont replied. “Might I call you Thomas?”
“Mama calls me Thomas when I’m naughty.”
“Tommie, then. Away with you. That gavel cannot levitate.”
“Fly,” Mrs. Merridew said. “Levitate means fly.”
Tommie silently mouthed levitate, twice. “I wish I could levitate!” And then he was off at a gallop, the gavel clutched in his little fist.
“A lively boy,” Tremont remarked. “You must adore him.”
He’d apparently surprised Mrs. Merridew, who turned slowly—warily?—from her notes. “I do. He’s a wonderful child, but too smart for his own good, and he has no siblings to play with.”
Perhaps that’s what Tremont had seen in the child—loneliness. Adults were often lonely by choice, but not so a small boy.
“He has you,” Tremont said. “You were prepared to deal with me severely if I thought to castigate your son. A mother’s devotion is no small blessing.”
An odd look flickered through her eyes—consternation or longing. Tremont was a poor hand at socializing with the ladies, or with much of anybody in polite circles. If he’d ever had the ability to make pointless small talk, he’d left it on myriad Continental battlefields.
“I do love my son,” Mrs. Merridew said, making her words a confession of some sort. “He is doubtless snooping in the vicar’s office, though, so I ought to collect him and get him home before we’re in full darkness.”
Well, yes. Small boys were a curious lot. So were earls. “I’ll fetch him. Do you need a moment to finish copying your minutes?”
“I do not. I make two copies as the committee members exchange their comments. They do tend to discuss every point thoroughly, and if the minutes are finished as the meeting concludes, they owe me for only a single hour’s work.”
That slight flush of color came again.
“I am remiss,” Tremont said. “A vale for the scribe is the normal course, isn’t it? Very bad of me.” He passed her one of the coins he always had in his pocket for the occasional urchin, crossing sweeper, or beggar. “You would have let me prance off without tending to my obligations. Not well done of you, Mrs. Merridew.”
Before she could protest, he made his exit and followed in Tommie’s wake down the corridor. What was wrong with St. Mildred’s that they begrudged a congregant a few coins for an extra hour’s work?
Though that question was just another version of Tremont’s favorite question, upon which he could dwell for eternities: What was wrong with the world?
He found Tommie inspecting Vicar’s desk drawers, though the child did not appear bent on larceny.
“Find anything interesting?” Tremont asked.
“Spectacles. Vicar forgets where he puts them, and he hasn’t a mama to remind him, so he has extra spectacles. Miss Dorcas used to remind him, but she married Major MacKay. I like Major MacKay. He says God made small boys lively, so it’s not my fault that I climbed on the roof of the lych-gate. Did you ever climb on the roof of a lych-gate?”
“I did not. Earls are forbidden from doing that sort of thing. My father permitted me to climb my share of trees, though, where I went for a sail among the fjords of the Viking north, then returned to my homeland in my longship. My brothers-in-arms and I made many a victorious raid upon the wealthy castles of Normandy.”
Tremont had forgotten his outings in the boughs of the surveying oak. They had come to an abrupt end when Papa had died.
“I’m a Viking, too, sometimes.” Tommie closed the drawer he’d been rifling. “I’m quite tall when I’m a Viking, and I wear fur robes. Mama was wroth with me for the fur robes.”
“You used her best cloak.”
“Her night-robe. It’s warm and soft and smells like Mama.”
Another memory assailed Tremont, of being a small boy, newly saddled with a title, and hiding—from whom or what he could not recall—among his mother’s morning dresses. His older sister, Lydia, had found him and given him one of Mama’s shawls to sleep with. Not the first or last time Lydia had found him.
“Let’s return you to your mother’s side, my young friend.”
“I was a good vice chairman, wasn’t I?” Tommie marched down the corridor ahead of Tremont, but for all the confidence in the boy’s step, his question held uncertainty.
“The best I’ve ever had. You do a recognizable rendering of a toad, too, which is more than I could manage at your age.” Tremont’s road to a gentlemanly command of the arts had been long, wearying, and pointless in the end.
“Toads are easy. They’re toad-shaped with big toad eyes. Mr. Prebish looks like a toad when he’s yelling about the lilies of the field and giving glory to God. He means he wants the church to buy his flowers. Mama says we shouldn’t yell in church, but when I asked where should we yell, she said we should yell when small boys vex us past all bearing.”
“And you said, ‘What if that happens in church?’”
Tommie stopped at his mother’s elbow and looked abruptly bashful. “I ask Mama a lot of questions.”
Mrs. Merridew tousled the lad’s hair. “You make me think, Tommie. You make me use my brain, and that is a good thing. Let’s get you into your coat and be on our way.” She passed her son a coat that was a bit too short in the sleeves for his arms.
She was avoiding Tremont’s gaze, which might have been embarrassment about the boy or about the coin. Other congregants milling about had doubtless seen Tremont pass her that coin and seen her accept it.
“Allow me,” Tremont said, taking her cloak from her and holding it out. She submitted to the courtesy without comment and then bent to rebutton the buttons Tommie had done crookedly.
Probably on purpose, the little blighter. Tremont was abruptly tempted to button his own cloak crookedly. Instead, he draped that article about his shoulders and did something he rarely allowed himself to do—he yielded to an impulse.
“Might I walk you home, Mrs. Merridew?”
She straightened. “I beg your pardon, my lord?”
Women had the ability to make two words—my lord—convey a wealth of meaning. Those two words could communicate a willingness to become Tremont’s countess, his mistress, or his intended. They could also convey caution, though they never had before.
“We’re losing the light,” he said, “you have a small child to keep track of, and I don’t see anybody else on hand to provide you an escort. I’m offering my services, as any gentleman ought to. The linkboys won’t be at their posts yet, and you likely wouldn’t bother with them when traversing familiar ground in a decent neighborhood anyway.”
Major MacKay chose then to intrude on the discussion. “You’re seeing Mrs. Merridew home? Then I will be on my way. Dorcas will want a full accounting of the meeting, and she will be most pleased to know the committee acquired a vice chair.” He squeezed Tommie’s shoulder, bowed to Mrs. Merridew, and bustled off, humming Burns’s ditty about men being the practice version of the species and ladies being nature’s finer article.
Mrs. Merridew watched MacKay go, her expression caught between bemusement and vexation. “I must yield to your good manners,” she said, settling a plain straw bonnet on her head. “Tommie, you will mind the earl’s example. He will walk us home and provide you with a demonstration of how a gentleman escorts a lady.”
True to her word, Mrs. Merridew delivered the boy a homily about an escort’s duty. Tremont matched his steps to the lady’s, lest he jostle her arm or hurry her. He walked on the outside, the better to shield the lady from splashing or mud from passing vehicles.
She forgot the part about the gentleman offering his left arm indoors, the better to keep his sword hand free, or perhaps she did not want to bring up swords around the boy.
Tommie, capering about on the walkway, had a thousand questions. Why not hold hands, which would make it easier to prevent a lady from falling on her face if she stumbled? Why was getting mud on a lady’s skirts worse than getting mud on a gent’s trousers? The laundress had to deal with either mess. Why didn’t the lady just tell the gent not to walk so quickly if his legs were longer, or why didn’t the person with shorter legs set the pace because Mama was much taller than Tommie, and she always waited for him even though she was a lady?
Tommie chattered all the way to the steps before a modest town house. No light shone through the foyer windows, and nobody had yet lit the mandatory streetlamp either. When Tremont expected Tommie to charge up the stairs, the boy instead disappeared into the gloom leading down to the half basement.
“Thank you for your company, my lord,” Mrs. Merridew said, “and for your kindness to Tommie. Most people consider him a trial to the nerves.”
His mother did not, though Tremont suspected that Tommie challenged his mama’s patience frequently.
“You will be astonished to learn that I was a small boy once, Mrs. Merridew. Widowhood quite undid my mother, and my only sibling was a sister several years my senior. When my father died, I became a trial to the nerves too.”
Mrs. Merridew regarded him in the gathering shadows while the sound of a door scraping open came from beneath the porch.
“What changed?” she asked. “You are the furthest thing from a trial to the nerves now.”
“I grew up. I went to war. I realized I could never be my father, and life goes on.”
“That, it does. Thank you again, my lord, and good luck with your men. I surmise they can be a trial to the nerves as well.” She curtseyed and followed her son down into the darkness of the half basement.
Tremont waited on the walkway until a dim light appeared in the narrow window beside the basement door, then he set a brisk pace for his own dwelling. Walking calmed his mind and allowed his thoughts to form into tidy squares. His imagination, however, was making that exercise impossible.
A whisper of an idea wedged its way into the swirling currents of Tremont’s cogitations. Mrs. Merridew might be the answer to a prayer. She was pretty, though she tried to hide it. Pretty wasn’t necessary, but it did help, and she was patient. A wealth of patience was mandatory.
Mrs. Merridew was the soul of patience. She was accustomed to unruly males who needed a firm, kind hand. She was in straitened circumstances. The child’s too-short coat, her widow’s weeds going worn about the seams, and her willingness to accept a spare coin at the expense of her pride all confirmed as much.
Tremont marched along, the idea growing and twining like ivy around other ideas and between yet still others. By the time he reached home, he was humming “Green Grow the Rashes, O” and wondering if he’d parted with what little remained of his reasoning powers.