“That was genius, sending for the boy,” Mrs. Annette Winklebleck said, pouring Matilda a cup of tea. “Settled the men right down to put a youngster amongst ’em at table.”
Mrs. Winklebleck had invited Matilda to the housekeeper’s parlor for a wee chat. The little room would have been of a piece with the vicarage where Matilda had been raised. Clean but worn carpet, a parlor stove wedged into the hearth, a mended porcelain angel on the mantel, and framed needlepoint roses on the walls. The reading chairs were comfortable, and the slightly faded chintz curtains were patterned with more roses.
A peaceful, cozy retreat, very much in contrast with the earlier scene at breakfast.
“Tommie was rather subdued as well,” Matilda said. He’d sat at Matilda’s left hand at the head of the breakfast table, silently spooning porridge into his maw and goggling at the other diners. Mrs. Winklebleck had taken the chair to Matilda’s right, while a half-dozen former soldiers had lined each side of the table.
Their profanity had been prodigious and their manners nonexistent. Mrs. Winklebleck had made a general announcement rather than attempt specific introductions.
“This be Mrs. Merridew. Lord Tremont sent her here to civilize you lot, may God have mercy on her soul. Treat her right or learn to go without your meals, your laundry, and your mendin’.”
Matilda had offered a polite “good morning,” taken her seat, and asked Mrs. Winklebleck to please pass the porridge. After a beat of silence, a roar had ensued, involving the damned salt, the perishin’ butter, the bleedin’ honey ye damned stinkin’ sot, and worse.
Matilda had sent for Tommie in hopes that his example might do for the men what Matilda’s had not, which wasn’t quite what had transpired. The men had fallen all but silent as a staggering amount of food had disappeared.
“Where did they get off to?” Matilda asked.
“Biggs and Bentley go for a ramble. We don’t ask them what they get up to, but the law hasn’t snabbled ’em, so maybe they’re looking for work. Dantry and Davis report to Major MacKay for stable help and other odd jobs. Most of the rest spend the day at dice, cards, or whorin’, unless we’ve a churchyard to spruce up. I do fancy me this tea. His lordship don’t skimp on the larders.”
“You have eight men sitting idle underfoot all day?”
“The whole dozen if it’s a rainy afternoon. Winter is hard on ’em, and none too easy on me nerves either. They’re a good lot, though. Better than most. Watch out for that Amos Tucker. He’s a pincher.”
“A… pincher?”
“Yer bum. He’s quick too. Wants a good clout to the ear, and from me, he usually gets it.” Mrs. Winklebleck tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear, the gesture oddly girlish.
As housekeepers went, Mrs. Winklebleck was young and robust in every dimension, rather than fat. She wore a spotless mobcap and clean apron, but something about her seemed familiar.
“You are Big Nan,” Matilda said. “You and your… friends once shared a fellowship meal at St. Mildred’s.” At least two years ago, maybe more.
She set down her tea cup, her gaze wary. “And what if we did?”
“The congregation could talk of little else for weeks. Major MacKay’s ladies, they called you. Miss Dorcas—Mrs. MacKay, rather—holds you all in sincere affection, as does the major.” A lot of streetwalkers, side by side with the likes of Mrs. Oldbach. The occasion had been memorable, to say the least.
“Life on the stroll is hard,” Mrs. Winklebleck said. “‘On the stroll’ sounds so merry and fine, My Lady La-Di-Da. Half the time, you starve. The other half… It’s hard. I tried my hand at drawing caricatures in the pubs—I got a good eye for a likeness—but that don’t hardly pay. Major MacKay said his lordship were looking for a housekeeper, and I kept house for me brother until he died, so here I am. Jessup and Jensen came with me.”
Two sturdy, smiling maids.
Former streetwalkers. Harry would laugh himself to tears at the thought, and from his celestial perch, Papa was doubtless unsurprised to know the company his Jezebel of a daughter was keeping.
“People can change, missus,” Mrs. Winklebleck said. “Major MacKay forgot how to smile, but since he married Miss Dorcas, he’s all sunshine. The boy John has the major’s sunny nature. You were married, now you are a widow. I was a light-skirts, now I’m a housekeeper. Only the Quality get so bound up in everybody knowin’ their place. For the Quality, their place is usually proper wonderful.”
The next question had to be asked, because the answer would decide whether Matilda stayed on or gathered Tommie up and returned to her frigid basement.
“You don’t… That is… Your former livelihood doesn’t overlap with your current duties?”
Mrs. Winklebleck laughed heartily, the sound filling her little parlor. “How fancy you talk. I’m done with all that. Whorin’ is a young woman’s game. A few years of that here in the capital, and a girl can take her coin and go back to the village. She’ll lie about being in service or working in a shop, but nobody will mind, and some lad will be glad to find a wife with even a small dowry.”
Harry had posited the same theory many times: A man or woman of enterprise could simply hop on the next coach, travel fifty miles, and take up life in any market town with nobody the wiser about his previous affairs. Too late, Matilda had realized that Harry had spoken from repeated experience.
“And the maids, Jessup and Jensen? They aren’t expected to… extend favors to the men?”
“They are not. I suspect Jensen is sweet on Amos Tucker, but Tuck hasn’t even regular wages, so how could he take on a wife? They might rub along well enough on Jensen’s wages for a time, but then the children arrive, and somebody has to pay for the coal.”
Matilda sipped her tea rather than comment on that observation. “What, in your opinion, would the men most like to learn if they’re to better their prospects?”
“You’ll have to ask ’em. They like good food and plenty of it. They’ll tidy up a churchyard or some fancy toff’s garden, if his lordship says they ought. For Major MacKay, they’ll muck out a stable. For Captain Powell, they will try to spin straw into gold, though I haven’t met the man myself. I’m too busy beatin’ the rugs and makin’ the beds to bother about what else the lads might be fit for.”
That wasn’t exactly what Matilda had asked about. “Who is Captain Powell?”
“Major MacKay’s cousin, married to Lord Tremont’s sister, Lady Lydia. Get his lordship to draw you a family map. More tea?”
“No, thank you. I left Tommie building a card castle in our sitting room, but he cannot remain unsupervised for long. If you are free this afternoon, might you tour the premises with me?”
“I do love how you talk, missus. Once we get the nooning behind us, thee and me’ll make a thorough inspection. The house is in good repair, thanks be. I cannot abide the rising damp. Wrecks a place from inside the very walls, like giving a dwelling the French pox.”
Matilda was torn between bewilderment and the urge to laugh. The analogy was effective, but…
But a lady did not expect to hear such a comparison, ever, and in some small, quiet corner of her heart, Matilda still wished she had made a lady’s choices.
“Your wee lad can tag after Jensen and Jessup if he’s bored,” Mrs. Winklebleck said. “They’ll find chores for ’im. He has a quick look to him, and he might even be some help. When he’s a mite older, he can help in the scullery or wash out water buckets in the stable.”
Honest work, but not exactly what Matilda aspired to for her son. The whole business of what to do with Tommie posed a puzzle, one Matilda would take up with Lord Tremont. Little boys left to their own devices invariably got up to mischief, and Matilda had no intention of allowing a lot of foul-mouthed soldiers to become a bad influence on her son.
She began mentally fashioning a means of explaining to Tommie that he would have to be a good influence upon the men, but she never got very far with that exercise. By the time Lord Tremont had arrived, Tommie had been missing for an hour, and Matilda was as close to hysterics as she’d ever come.
“If you’d axed me,” Amos Tucker thundered from Tremont’s left, “I’da told ye I already searched the attic!”
“If you’da told me,”—Benjamin Bentley returned fire from Tremont’s right—“I’da not wasted me time and sneezed meself half to smithereens a-lookin’ fer the boy up there!”
Jessup and Jensen joined the crowd in the library, their mobcaps less than pristine. “We’ve searched the attics, my lord. No sign of the boy.”
A beat of silence went by, and then the arguments resumed, redoubled, and became a roar of orders, insults, and profanity. By the window, Mrs. Merridew stood with her back to the assembled household, her posture redolent of nerves on a very strained leash.
“Atten-SHUN!” Tremont snapped out the order in the tradition of infantry sergeants the world over. Chairs scraped back, chests and chins were thrust out, and silence rang though the library.
“Thank you,” Tremont said. “While your efforts thus far are much appreciated, we have yet to find the boy. Some organization will doubtless yield more satisfying results. The attics having been thoroughly searched, I want Jessup and Jensen to take the pantries, kitchen, and larder. Mrs. Winklebleck, will you search your own quarters and the servants’ hall? Biggs and Bentley take the first-floor bedrooms. Dantry and Davis, you will take the second. Mind the closets and wardrobes, look under every bed. MacIvey and MacPherson, the garden and alley, and don’t forget to look up. Small boys can get stuck in trees, as I have reason to know from personal experience.”
Tremont went on handing out assignments so that the child would be found and so that every member of the household could feel that they contributed to that happy outcome—or had done what they could to avoid a tragedy.
“And for the sake of all that is holy,” he went on, “look into any space that closes or locks. Trunks, cupboards, wardrobes, crawlspaces, every nook and cranny, every crevice and drain. Look for our Tommie as if he were your three-months-overdue pay packet. Tanner and Tucker, you are not to tarry at the tea shop. Ask after the lad, have a look around. Make a search of Mrs. Merridew’s former residence, including the adjacent alley, and then report back. No appointing yourself to scouting duty at the pub. Mrs. Merridew and I will expect reports from all points in one hour. Dismissed—and keep a sharp eye.”
Several of the men saluted, though most had shed that habit. They shuffled out the door, muttering and cursing, but following orders, as Tremont had known they would.
Mrs. Merridew had at some point turned from the window, though she kept her arms crossed over her middle.
“Thank you,” she said. “I have never heard so many raised voices at once. All I could think was, ‘The sweeps will get him.’ Whatever shall I do if the sweeps steal my boy?”
She was pale and still, though Tremont could feel the panic trying to shake her. He knew that battle for self-control, as did every soldier to take up arms.
“Has Tommie gone missing before?”
“Never. I barely let him out of my sight, but he seemed so happy here. He slid down the banister at least a dozen times, and I hadn’t the heart to scold him. If I’d been less permissive… less indulgent…” Her breath hitched, and Tremont steeled himself to endure the tears of a woman who’d probably given up crying the day she’d entered second mourning.
“We will find him,” Tremont said. “Little boys love to explore. They do not love to miss meals or worry their mamas. Tommie wants to be found.”
“He was so good at breakfast. No rude questions, no arguments. He ate every bite of his porridge.”
“Then we know he’s not hungry.”
Mrs. Merridew blinked and nodded while Tremont wished she would cry, wished she could collapse upon him in a heap of female misery so he could offer her the simple comfort of an embrace.
That was apparently not what she needed. “What is Tommie’s favorite thing?” Tremont asked. “His greatest joy?”
Mrs. Merridew worried a nail. “He was very impressed with that cup of hot chocolate at the tea shop.”
Were you impressed? Tremont kicked himself mentally. “Tommie is a canny lad. He’d know he couldn’t purchase another serving without coin. When does he lose himself in enjoyment? When is he most deaf to your maternal instructions?”
“That boy can focus keenly on a task,” she said. “My husband had the same capacity for single-mindedness. If Harry Merridew fixed on an objective, he let nothing and no one stand in his way.”
Tremont crossed the room, took Mrs. Merridew by the wrist, and drew her closer to the fire.
“Think of a time when you spoke directly to your son, and he did not even notice. What was he doing?”
Mrs. Merridew’s brows drew down, and she looked in that moment like the boy when he’d decided to master skipping stones—wholly concentrated on the challenge.
“The cat at St. Mildred’s,” she said. “Give Tommie a piece of string, and he will play with that cat until the last trumpet shall sound.”
“Mrs. Winklebleck is not fond of cats,” Tremont replied, “but a few have privileges in the stable. Come along. If Tommie went out to use the jakes, and a cat strutted past, he probably followed his quarry without a thought to asking your permission.”
“But if the cat ran off…” Mrs. Merridew caught herself. “Right. Tommie would try to make friends with the cat. A good thought. I’ll fetch my cloak and have a look in the stable.”
Two men had been dispatched to search the back garden and alley, but not the stable itself. Nobody was due to report for at least forty-five minutes, and some fresh air and activity would doubtless do the lady good.
Tremont accompanied Mrs. Merridew across the garden and into the alley. MacIvey was halfway up a sturdy maple, having a look around from the higher vantage point, while MacPherson admonished him not to fall on his fool head and expect anybody to pay for his burial.
“Tommie is in awe of horses,” Mrs. Merridew said. “He loves Copenhagen the way I used to love Christmas pudding.”
What had happened that Mrs. Merridew no longer cared for Christmas pudding? “MacIvey and MacPherson would have come this way when they finished reconnoitering from the upper boughs. I should have ordered them to climb the tree. With the leaves gone, MacIvey can doubtless see into every backyard on this side of the street.”
A fat marmalade tom scampered across the alley. His head was nearly as wide as his body, and many a mouse had doubtless added to his girth.
“He’s a regular,” Tremont said. “I think the lads call him George, owing to his size and propensity for self-indulgence.”
“Is he tame?”
“Tucker leaves milk out for the cats…”
Mrs. Merridew knelt and wiggled her fingers. The cat took notice, sat upon his haunches, and sent Tremont a look that conveyed that earls, being useless, were excused for the nonce. Lydia could achieve the same look, though she never aimed it at her dear Captain Powell.
“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.” Mrs. Merridew opened her hand, and the cat deigned to stroll in her direction. A moment later, the beast was snuggled in her arms and rumbling like a feline artillery volley. “Where is my Tommie, Your Majesty? I’ve lost my boy, and my heart will break beyond all repair if we do not find him.”
The cat stropped his fat head against the lady’s chin.
“Tommie!” Tremont called, earning a scowl from the cat. “My lad, show yourself. There’s a fellow here who’d like to make your acquaintance.”
Nothing.
Mrs. Merridew, cat cradled against her shoulder, peered into the stable. “You have a cart pony.”
“Mrs. Winklebleck and Cook’s, though Mrs. Winklebleck isn’t keen on equines. She doesn’t know how to drive, so Cook or one of the men must drive her if she’s inclined to run errands.”
“Tommie!” Mrs. Merridew called, her voice conveying only brisk good cheer. “I have come across the most splendid orange cat, but the fellow needs a name, and I daresay you excel at naming. I think I would call this fellow Marigold, or Melon, or Honey, or…”
She went on in that fashion, suggesting ridiculously frivolous names for a grand tom cat.
Tremont inspected the stable as he’d been taught to do when on reconnaissance. Make a mental grid of squares and scan each quadrant, slowly, as if taking in a piece of art. Don’t forget to look behind, down at your own feet, and up…
A tousled dark head appeared in the gloom of the hayloft. Tremont touched Mrs. Merridew’s arm and pointed.
“Tommie,” she said. “There you are. Have you met Carrot?” Her voice was light, but not quite steady. The cat had ceased purring and was glowering at the boy.
“I hadn’t any string,” Tommie said. “I thought there might be string or twine in the stable, and I climbed up the ladder, but then the ladder went sideways, and I… It’s too far to jump.”
A ladder did, indeed, lie on its side along the empty stalls beneath the loft. The shaggy bay pony munched his hay and watched the boy with no more interest than if Tommie had been a barn swallow.
“The situation is easily remedied,” Tremont said, righting the ladder and putting a boot on the lowest rung. “Down you go.”
Tommie abruptly resembled a recruit who’d seen his first glimpse of an advancing French army. His breakfast might soon make a reappearance.
“Better yet, stay where you are,” Tremont said. “I’ll fetch you down. If you slipped on the ladder, your mama would not forgive me, so please don’t fuss.” He was up the ladder and into the hay mow before Tommie could muster the pride to object.
Tremont crouched down when he’d stepped free of the ladder. “On my back, and latch on like an organ grinder’s monkey. If we bungle this, your mother will never let us live it down.”
“You won’t tell Mama I’m afraid? I went up all right, but when I looked down, my insides felt all funny, and the ladder made such an awful racket.”
“The ladder is none the worse for its ordeal, and neither shall you be. Grab hold of me, and we’ll be on the ground in no time.”
The boy held tightly, and the ladder took their weight. Tremont had barely divested himself of the child before Mrs. Merridew thrust two stone of feline malevolence at him. He grabbed at the cat, who managed to dig twenty saber-sharp claws into his chest at once. Tremont then suffered one fabulously rotten feline breath full in the face and a near swipe to his chin, before the beast leaped free and disappeared up the ladder into the hayloft.
“I wasn’t lost, Mama,” Tommie said as Mrs. Merridew knelt to hug him. “The sweeps didn’t get me. I was looking for a string, and I got stuck.”
“You were smart not to jump,” Mrs. Merridew said, brushing the hair from Tommie’s eyes. “You could have broken a leg if you’d attempted to make that leap. I am very proud of your common sense, Thomas Merridew, but in the future, if you’re inclined to go on a treasure hunt, you must tell me first, please.”
Tremont could read Tommie’s thoughts from the boy’s expression. I was only in the stable. I would have yelled for help soon. I’m fine, Mama. Tremont caught Tommie’s eye and arched one eyebrow in a fashion that Lydia claimed made him look like his father.
“Yes, Mama,” Tommie muttered, “but you cannot name that cat anything silly. He won’t like it.”
“What about Lancelot?” Tremont said, assisting Mrs. Merridew to rise. “That’s a fine name for a fellow who’s a favorite with the ladies.”
“Was Lancelot fierce?” Tommie asked.
“Yes, in a manner of speaking. Not always as chivalrous as he should have been, but brave and shrewd.”
“What’s shrivelrous?” Tommie asked.
“Honorable,” his mother said, brushing at his bangs again. “Gentlemanly. Lancelot sometimes broke the rules, and he wasn’t the most loyal friend to Arthur.”
“Not Lancelot,” Tommie said. “Arthur. The cat is Arthur, like the magical king.”
“Or the king with the magical sword,” Tremont muttered. “Into the house with you, Thomas. You will be surprised to learn that half the regiment was searching for you, and the ladies as well. You gave your mother quite a turn.”
This gentle scold produced a look of perplexity from the boy.
“No matter,” Mrs. Merridew said. “Into the house, and wash your hands and face. A stable is a dusty place, and the men will want to see for themselves that you are safe.”
Tommie grinned and scampered off. “I’ll go straight to the house, Mama. And I will wash both hands, and I will use soap, not just get my paws wet.”
“And your face,” Mrs. Merridew said with credible sternness.
Off he went as his mother watched his progress across the alley and into the garden. MacIvey and MacPherson sent up a shout, and somebody was soon banging the triangle that signaled mess call.
Mrs. Merridew remained standing in the door of the stable, while Tremont scrambled mentally for something cheerful and pithy to say. As usual, nothing came to mind, but what did that matter when Mrs. Merridew threw herself against his chest and commenced silently weeping?
Harry Merridew had been one man out of many, not a representative sample of the whole gender. Papa had been one man out of many. Aunt Portia had offered those observations a hundred times, and still, Matilda expected that every man would either judge her or… worse.
She wept on Lord Tremont’s shoulder, with relief, with exhaustion, with gratitude.
“You called him ‘our Tommie,’” she said, trying for some semblance of composure. “You barely know that child…”
Lord Tremont had the gift of calm. He made no move to set Matilda from him, didn’t pat her shoulder nervously, or let his hands hang uselessly at his sides.
He held her easily, as if they frequently came together for a little hug at odd moments of the day. Like a friend, or… Matilda had so little experience with undemanding embraces from grown men that analogies failed her.
“I know that boy,” Tremont replied. “He’s everything good and dear and terrifying about childhood. Were it not for the vigilance of my older sister, my mother would have disowned me before my eighth birthday in sheer defense of her wits.”
He had such a beautiful voice, soothing and substantial. Matilda allowed herself one last shuddery breath in his arms before she stepped back.
“And then you went for a soldier,” she said. “Every mother’s worst nightmare.”
Tremont passed her a plain linen handkerchief and took to politely studying the market pony, munching hay in its stall.
“The chimney sweeps must be a worse fear for you,” he said, “or the street gangs and abbesses. By the time a fellow takes the king’s shilling, he has some sense. At Tommie’s age, a boy is a bundle of curiosity and invincibility.”
The words confirmed that Matilda’s fear for her son was reasonable rather than hysterical. Why had nobody else—ever—given her those words?
“Tommie is smart, but you are right—he hasn’t any sense of how wicked the world can be, and he is all…” All I have in the world. Matilda blotted her eyes and fumbled for a more dignified turn of phrase.
“All you have of your husband?” Tremont asked, opening the door to the pony’s stall and retrieving the water bucket. He took a brush down from a hook on the stall door, gave the bucket a thorough scrubbing, and tossed the water onto the cobbles.
“I wasn’t about to say that Tommie is all I have of Harry.”
Tremont set the bucket beneath a pump in the stable yard and worked the pump handle. “I was all my mother had of my father, or so she claimed. I did wonder if Lydia was a gift from the fairies, and I cannot imagine what my sister felt to be so overlooked. She’s married to Captain Dylan Powell now, and I daresay the boot is rather on the other foot. If I lined up a hundred comely, accomplished, fascinating women, Powell would have eyes only for Lydia, and conversely.”
Tremont returned the bucket to the pony’s stall, gave the beast a scratch beneath his hairy chin, and closed the stall door.
“Lady Lydia’s marriage is happy,” Matilda said. “A blessing, that. We should go back to the house, but I will not leave this stable without thanking you for finding my son.”
“Now, Mrs. Merridew, I distinctly heard the boy say he wasn’t lost.” Tremont offered his arm. Despite the gravity of that gesture, something in his gaze suggested he was twitting Matilda.
“Tommie was lost to me,” Matilda said, wrapping her hand into the crook of the earl’s elbow. “And that is more than sufficient to justify my thanks. I must thank the men as well. How does one make such a gesture to a lot of fellows who pride themselves on their toughness?”
“They rather do, don’t they?” Tremont held the garden gate for her. “And yet, the men enjoy a joke probably more than most and were forever pranking one another in camp.”
“Did they prank you?” Even as she asked the question, Matilda realized that Tremont had gently led the conversation away from missing little boys and onto safer footing.
“After a few initial gestures of welcome, they did not. I was considered a very slow top as an officer. I am younger than most of them, and I had no experience on campaign whatsoever. We had an absolute snake for a commanding officer. Dunacre was all smiles and protocol when the generals came around, but delighted in ordering the men flogged or sent on forced marches in blistering heat. I suppose the rank and file pitied me because I was Dunacre’s preferred verbal whipping boy, though he could not order me beaten, in fact.”
“That’s awful, to have to fight the war on two fronts like that. Major MacKay said Napoleon was defeated in part because fighting in both Spain and to the east spread Napoleon’s forces too thin.”
“Those of us under Dunacre did fight a war on two fronts,” Tremont said, holding the door to the back hall for Matilda. “You are right about that, but the enemy was defeated, and now we face different challenges.”
“What happened to him?” Matilda asked, pausing on the threshold to study Tremont’s face. He exuded an air of amiable rectitude generally, but she had heard him in the library, doing more to organize the search in five minutes than the whole household had done in an hour of shouting and stumbling about.
Tremont could think quickly and strategically, despite his claim to be a plodder.
He’d divined how to find Tommie and thus where to find Tommie, suggesting a canniness that was kept well hidden, perhaps even from the man himself.
“Dunacre fell at Waterloo,” Tremont said. “Friendly fire, snipers—the stories vary. He was given a hero’s burial.”
Matilda thought back to Vicar Delancey’s eulogy for Harry. “More than he deserved. I’m glad he’s dead.”
The look Tremont gave her was hard to parse. Wistful, perhaps? “You are very fierce, Mrs. Merridew.”
She patted his chest. “So are you. That shall be our secret, though I suspect the men are on to you.”
She made her way to the library, where some of the searching party had reassembled. Tommie sat on Amos Tucker’s lap, holding forth about how dark the hay mow was and the great clatter the ladder had made when it plummeted to the ground.
“Let him have his moment,” Tremont said quietly, coming up on Matilda’s side. “He was brave. He kept his head. He meant no harm. You can scold him later for being a dunderhead too.”
And there it was again, proof that Tremont was not the dullard he portrayed himself to be. As Matilda watched a lot of former soldiers make much of a small boy, she wanted to cry. She instead squeezed Tremont’s hand, whispered a suggestion to him, and slipped from the room.
She heard Tremont announce that supper would be a roast of beef and that Tommie would choose a dessert from the selections available at the bakery. The safe return of any prodigal deserved a feast, news which was greeted with a great cheer from the men.
By the time Matilda reached the bottom of the steps, she was once again crying into his lordship’s plain linen handkerchief. Some prodigals who found their way home were given a feast in welcome.
Others were not.