The noise was obvious even before they entered the nursery a few minutes later. Jean opened the door to find Geoffrey racing around the perimeter of the large room, yelling at the top of his lungs and waving a stick with a tuft of feathers fastened to the end. His high-pitched shrieks bounced off the peaked ceiling; his small feet pounded on the wooden floor.
Tom lay in wait at the far side of the chamber, ready to grab the child when he passed by, while Lily the nursery maid tried to remove breakable or hazardous objects from his path. Geoffrey skipped and leapt. Just before he reached Tom, he veered one way, then the other, causing Tom to stumble into the cone-shaped tent. It collapsed around the older lad, tangling him in folds of cloth.
Geoffrey laughed. He put the stick in his teeth and swarmed up the draperies on one tall window like a maddened cat. He swayed at the top, leering down at them with a mouthful of feathers. With his red-gold hair and celestial-blue eyes, he looked like a cherub gone wrong.
“I can’t get up there,” said Tom, beating back the encroaching tent and rising. “I’m too heavy. The curtains will come down, and Geoffrey with them.”
Geoffrey opened his mouth to say, “Ha!” The momentarily forgotten stick clattered to the floor. “I’m a mighty chief!” the boy declared. “You can’t catch me.”
“He likes to climb,” said Jean, remembering the incident at Cheddar Gorge. “He’s…a very lively child.”
“My dear, I work in the theater,” said Mrs. Thorpe. “This is nothing.” She stepped over to pick up the stick and examine the feathers. “This looks quite old.”
“The label on the shelf said it was Mohawk,” answered Tom. “I don’t know what that means. It’s part of the old lord’s collections, which we just went in to look at. I told Geoffrey to leave it alone.” Unusually, he sounded a bit weary.
Jean introduced them, then looked back up. “Geoffrey, this is Mrs. Thorpe. Now that she’s here, I can stay longer.”
The boy looked puzzled.
How was she to explain a chaperone to a five-year-old?
“A duenna,” said Tom. “I heard that word in Bristol. She’s like a…a nursery maid for young ladies.”
Mrs. Thorpe laughed.
“Come down and say how do you do,” Jean added as if this was a normal introduction. “You are one of her hosts, you know.”
Geoffrey cocked his head, surveying the group below him with solemn doubt. Then he smiled—a sweet, charming smile that reminded Jean of his father while being all his own—and slid down the drapery to alight at their feet. “Hello,” he said. His polite little bow was all a high stickler could ask. “Are you her nursery maid?”
“More a companion,” the older woman replied. She cast a shrewd eye over the group. “Like you and Tom, perhaps.”
“Oh.” Geoffrey nodded. “Where did you come from?”
“I’ve been staying in the village for a little while.”
The boy looked her over more closely. “Are you the mystery lady?”
The two women exchanged a surprised glance.
“They talk about her in the kitchen,” Geoffrey went on. “Because the other lord said he met her on his walks. Cook thinks she’s a French spy. Only Bradford said that’s daft because the war’s over. And anyway, what would she spy on here? Lily reckons she’s run away from a tie-rannical husband.”
Jean and Mrs. Thorpe looked at Lily, who flushed.
“I think Clayton knows,” Geoffrey added. “He looks like he does. But he won’t tell.”
“I was staying in a cottage for a bit of rest,” said Mrs. Thorpe. “Not hiding. Or spying.”
Geoffrey looked disappointed.
“I did meet a French spy once though.”
“You did?”
Mrs. Thorpe nodded. “Shall I tell you the story?”
An affirmative chorus encouraged her.
“Come and sit.” Mrs. Thorpe settled on a battered sofa. Her audience found seats around her, Geoffrey right at her side.
“The young man in question—his name was Etienne—joined a London theater company as a cover.”
“What’s a cover?” asked Geoffrey.
“He pretended to be an actor. Do you know what an actor is?”
The boy looked wary, as if he didn’t want to admit ignorance and yet wished for information.
“It’s like when you’re Robin Hood and I’m the sheriff,” said Tom. “That’s playacting. Only actors do it inside a big building in front of a load of people.”
“Like a barn?”
Tom shook his head. “A fancy building with velvet draperies and chairs. The actors have special clothes to wear. Sometimes there’s dancing.” Seeing that the others were looking at him, he added, “I saw a play once—part of one—in Bristol.”
“So the spy was pretending to pretend,” Geoffrey said.
He really was an exceptionally quick child, Jean thought as Mrs. Thorpe nodded. “But after a while, Etienne found that he enjoyed acting more than spying,” said the older woman.
“Why would he?” Geoffrey wrinkled his nose. “Didn’t he want to sneak around and find secrets? And fight with swords?”
“Well, I’m afraid he wasn’t very good at any of those things. And he was rather a good actor. Audiences loved him.”
Jean caught the twinkle in Mrs. Thorpe’s eyes. She wondered how well the lady had known this young Frenchman.
“So he just stopped being a spy?” Geoffrey asked with disgust.
“He might have, but someone, er, tattled on him. One of the other actors told the Home Office he was a spy. It seemed he would be arrested.”
“So then he had to fight.”
Mrs. Thorpe looked rueful, clearly aware that her tale wasn’t going over well with her smallest listener. “Etienne decided to go back to France,” she continued. “We, some people I know, dressed him as a young lady so that he could slip away to a ship.”
Geoffrey gazed up at her. “He ran away? Dressed as a girl?”
“Yes. It was his most challenging role, and he did it superbly. He made it home, too. After a while, he went to work in a theater in Paris, and he’s still there. He specializes in playing oafish Englishmen.”
“Really?” asked Jean.
“All quite true,” said Mrs. Thorpe with a graceful gesture. “You might say we shouldn’t have helped him, but he had no important information, and we couldn’t see him hanged.”
“That’s not a very good story,” Geoffrey said.
“Not much action was there? I’ll do better next time.”
The boy shrugged.
The door of the nursery opened, and Lord Furness walked in. At once, the room felt smaller to Jean; the air seemed to crackle with energy. He fixed her with a penetrating stare, as if no one else was present, and said, “Ah, there you are. It’s a lovely day. I thought we might take a walk in the garden.”
Geoffrey climbed down from the sofa and walked toward him. “There’s frogs in the pond,” he said. “I could show you.”
Benjamin tore his gaze from his lovely, baffling houseguest and looked down. His son looked back at him, blue eyes clear, though a little wary. Benjamin saw the problem at once. The nursery was Geoffrey’s territory. It was logical to conclude that anyone coming here was looking for him. In fact, Benjamin had searched several other parts of the house first. “Frogs,” he repeated.
“There’s baby ones, too,” Geoffrey replied. “They’re called tadpoles. Tom told me.” He made a wriggling motion with his hand.
Benjamin hesitated. He saw doubt begin to creep into his son’s face, quickly replaced by a stoic blankness. He couldn’t tell the boy he’d misunderstood the invitation. “I must have a look at those,” he said. “Have you ever seen a tadpole, Miss Saunders?”
“No.”
“You must come as well then.” Benjamin edged around to cut woman and boy out of the herd filling the nursery.
“I suppose that’s quite all right since Geoffrey is accompanying you,” said Mrs. Thorpe.
He’d thought only of the advantages of her presence when the Wandrells called. Now Benjamin realized there were a number of disadvantages as well. Mrs. Thorpe was another barrier between him and Jean Saunders. His new houseguest smiled at him as if she knew precisely what he was thinking.
“I should fetch my bonnet and—”
“No need. It’s quite warm. We’ll go as we are. You don’t care about a hat, do you, Geoffrey?”
“’Course not.”
No more than he would have as a child, Benjamin thought. Hats were good for nothing but falling off at inopportune moments and earning one a scolding for careless destruction of haberdashery. “Lead on,” he told the boy. He thought of offering Miss Saunders his arm, but settled for chivying her gently toward the stairs. She didn’t seem reluctant. Bemused, yes. That was all right.
It was a beautiful spring day. The sun was warm, punctuated by a few floating clouds. Flowers were in bloom, scenting the air all over the gardens. Bees hummed around them, and birdsong trilled. His grounds held several romantically secluded spots. Benjamin went over them in his mind, plotting various routes.
“The pond’s this way,” Geoffrey said to Miss Saunders.
That was one of them, Benjamin thought. There was a bench. But Geoffrey would be more interested in the muddy verge, he suspected.
A few minutes later, the boy squatted there, water lapping at the toes of his little boots. “There,” he said, pointing. “Tadpoles.” He looked over his shoulder and up at them, triumphant.
Miss Saunders bent beside him. “The things that are all head and tail?”
“That’s it,” said Benjamin. “Frogs start out that way. They develop legs later.”
“There are so many. You’ll be up to your ears in frogs soon.”
“No,” said Geoffrey. “Birds eat ’em. They pick ’em out of the water and swallow them down.” He lifted his chin and made a gulping noise. “They’ve gotten a lot already.”
Miss Saunders nodded.
“Must feel funny in their throats,” Geoffrey added. “Wriggling like that. They die in the bird’s stomach, I reckon.” He looked to his father for confirmation.
“I suppose they do.” Not an image to beguile a young lady. He would take her to the bluebell wood next time, Benjamin decided.
“I wanted to put some in a fishbowl and watch ’em,” Geoffrey went on. “But Tom said they’d likely die.” He glanced up again, as if hoping for a different answer.
“Very true,” said Benjamin. He had no idea whether it was or not, but he knew he didn’t want his house filled with newly mobile frogs.
“Fish are surprisingly fragile,” said Miss Saunders. “I had two goldfish. Not at the same time. They both died.” When her companions gazed at her, she turned her head away.
“Did you have a fish funeral?” Geoffrey asked.
“No. The servants just disposed of them.”
“I’d’ve had a funeral,” he declared. “Look!”
On the opposite side of the pond, a flash of color. In the next instant, a bird flew off with a tadpole in its beak.
“That’s a kingfisher,” Geoffrey said. “Tom told me.” He stood up to watch it disappear. “They’re kings because they’re the best of all the fishers.”
“Lovely,” said Miss Saunders.
She was lovely, Benjamin thought. He needed to speak to her, to hold her again. “Shall we walk?” he asked.
As he’d hoped, Geoffrey ran ahead of them. He found a sturdy stick and waved it about like a sword, beheading random bits of vegetation with great panache.
“You should get him a dog,” Miss Saunders said.
“You seem determined to populate my home with animals.”
She laughed. “It just seems natural that Geoffrey would have a dog. Look at him run and jump.”
“Did you have a dog? Along with your fish?”
“No.” She bit off the word.
Benjamin took the hint and didn’t ask further. “We had three when I was a boy,” he said instead. “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.”
“What?”
He acknowledged the oddity of the names with a nod. “My mother found them as tiny puppies in a shed that had caught fire.”
“A fiery furnace?”
“Not quite so bad, but it made her think of the Biblical story. They were her dogs. Papa had no interest in pets. We ended up calling them Shad, Mesh, and Ben, of course.”
“Animals weren’t allowed in my home. Mama thought dogs dirty and noisy, cats sly and cold.”
The more Benjamin heard about her mother the less he liked her. “Parrots? Rabbits? Hedgehogs?”
As he’d hoped, she smiled. “I never heard her opinion of those.”
“Heigh-ho!” shouted Geoffrey. He’d leapt onto a large, flat rock at the side of the path and was fencing with an encroaching thistle.
The stone, and the trees behind it, sparked Benjamin’s memory. “Ah,” he said. He went to a certain spot in the thicket, pushed aside one large leafy branch, and then another. A narrow, twisting path, just barely visible in the leaf litter, was revealed.
“Hey!” shouted Geoffrey.
“What is it?” Jean asked.
“Come and see.”
His smile was so impish that Jean went, even though the opening was dark and close. Slivers of sunlight did filter down through the tangled branches.
Lord Furness bent his tall figure and stepped inside.
“Hey,” called Geoffrey again. He pushed past Jean and plunged into the thicket. The opening fit him much better than the adults.
The path bent around great clumps of roots. Jean had to duck under swathes of bramble. At one point she was so hunched over, she was nearly crawling. Her chest tightened in the constricted space.
And then the way opened out into a strange half hut in the middle of the thicket.
Four posts held a roof of old planks inches over Jean’s head. There were no walls, only the thick vegetation. A scatter of flat stones covered the ground. It would be dry here in the rain.
“How did you know about this place?” Geoffrey demanded. Hands on hips, he confronted his father, looking outraged. “It’s mine! I didn’t even show Tom.”
“I made it,” replied Lord Furness. He had to stoop to stand in the odd little building. “When I was ten years old. It was my secret hideout.”
The boy stared up at him, his face shadowed. “It’s my secret hideout.” His voice held astonishment as well as resentment.
“I’m amazed you found it.”
“I’m an explorer,” declared Geoffrey. “I know every place in the gardens.”
“So did I. Still do, I suppose.” The man looked about as if remembering many happy days in this place. “Did you find the treasure?”
Geoffrey gazed up at him, startled. “What treasure?”
“Come and see.” He led the boy to the back edge of the little shelter. Kneeling, Lord Furness worked his fingertips under a flat rock that lay half in and half out of the cleared area. He pulled until it came free of the earth, then turned it over like the lid of a container and set it aside. “Help me dig,” he said to Geoffrey. “You can use your stick to loosen the soil.”
After another moment of hesitation, the boy fell to his knees beside his father.
They dug together, with rising enthusiasm. Jean watched them while fighting her need to run. This space wasn’t closed in, she told herself. It had no walls. She could leave whenever she wanted.
The task took several minutes. Father and son had grubby hands by the time they uncovered a small metal box and pulled it from the hole they’d made. “I buried this years ago,” Lord Furness said. “I’d almost forgotten.”
He set it down between them. Man and boy looked at each other, eyes gleaming in the dimness. Geoffrey looked like his mother, Jean thought, but he also resembled his father in more subtle ways. Their faces showed identical glee at the result of the treasure hunt.
Lord Furness pushed the box toward Geoffrey. “It’s yours now.”
The boy’s lips parted. He blinked, then set his small hand on the lid as if it was an emperor’s hoard. “What’s in it?” he whispered.
“You know, I don’t quite recall. Things I cherished, years ago.”
Geoffrey started to open the box.
“No,” said his father.
The boy snatched his hand away from the lid. His face went carefully blank.
“Open it when you’re alone.” Lord Furness added, “Don’t let anyone else see. Whatever’s in there, it’s your secret now.”
Their eyes met. Jean watched them share a moment of perfect kinship, perhaps the first they’d ever experienced. For this brief time, at least, they understood each other completely and agreed. Her throat grew tight, and tears stung. She blinked them back.
Geoffrey gave a small nod. He picked up the metal box and held it to his chest. His father smiled.
Jean wanted to savor their reconciliation, but the oppression she’d felt since entering this low space was increasing. She knew the walls of bramble and the low ceiling weren’t closing in on her. And yet it seemed as if they were. She had to get out into the open air. Turning, she looked for the path. A dizzying flash of panic suggested it was gone. Then she spotted the narrow opening and plunged through, snagging her hair on a spray of thorns as she hurried along. She ignored the pain as a few strands pulled out and rushed on. Her skirts tangled with more briars. She yanked them free and shoved at the final screen of branches.
The relief when she broke out of the thicket was immense. The light and air and space opened around her like a benediction. She stepped away from the thicket and drank in the garden vista. She took deep breaths to control her frightened panting and fought the terror that she hated so much. She would win; always, she would win.
Lord Furness emerged from the trees. “Are you all right?”
“Perfectly.” Jean refused to admit her weakness. She twisted the bits of her hair that had pulled loose back into place. Her fingers did not tremble. As ever, the strands resisted her efforts. No doubt she looked as if she’d been pulled through a thicket backward, as her mother used to say. At least this time she actually had been.
“Geoffrey is reburying the box in a new place that no one else will ever know.” He smiled, asking her to appreciate this.
“Good.” She looked at open sky, the far horizon. She was free to go wherever she wished.
“Funny the things one forgets,” he added. He bent to clean his hands on a tuft of damp grass.
Forgetting was not the problem, Jean thought. There was so much she would be delighted to forget.
“I hadn’t thought of that hideaway in years. I’m glad Geoffrey found it.”
Jean nodded. She began to walk. Movement was helpful in these instances, a sign from her body to her mind that she was unfettered.
Lord Furness fell into step beside her. Blessedly, he said no more. They walked in silence for a bit. Birds sang. Jean’s ruffled spirits settled. They passed a bench under a leafy arbor.
“Would you care to sit?”
They did. Bees hummed in the flowers above their heads. A sweet scent drifted down. After a while, Jean realized that she felt peaceful, which was surprising under the circumstances. Of course, this man also disturbed her peace. Was he going to talk of marriage again? She wanted him to, and yet she didn’t.
“I must thank you for returning Geoffrey to me,” said Lord Furness.
“What?” This wasn’t what she’d expected.
“If you hadn’t come to kidnap him, well, who knows how things would have gone between us.”
“I did not come to kidnap him!”
“I seem to recall a swoop down out of nowhere to do exactly that,” he replied with a sidelong smile.
He was teasing her. And, unexpectedly, she rather liked it.
“Whatever we call it, you restored him to me,” he continued.
“You did that yourself,” Jean answered. “You saw that a change was needed, and you made it.” Which was a rare gift, she thought.
“I never would have done so without your…instigation.” Benjamin liked this word that had come to him. It was exactly right. Miss Jean Saunders was a lovely, lively, occasionally maddening instigator. She’d hurtled into his closed world and shaken him. Shaken him to depths he hadn’t known he possessed.
Her lips were just a little parted. He ached to kiss her. Did she want that as much as he did? He leaned closer, exploratory.
She moved at the same moment, more quickly, and their mouths met with an awkward bump. Benjamin steadied them into a kiss. One searching, tender kiss before he made himself draw back as he ought.
She moved with him, plunging them into another, fiercer kiss. Her body pressed against his. Her arms slid under his coat, and he felt her fingertips on his ribs as if his shirt didn’t exist. Did she have any idea how thoroughly she roused him?
The question was submerged by a deluge of kisses. Rational thought sank out of sight, unregretted. Benjamin’s hands found the curves beneath her clothes. She murmured lusciously at his touch. He wanted to hear more of that—much more. To make this woman cry out with pleasure would be as satisfying as sating the desire that thundered in his veins. If only they could be rid of all these blasted garments.
“Hoorah!” Geoffrey came running up to them. He was astride his stick now, using it like a hobbyhorse rather than to execute innocent vegetation. “It’s time for a ride,” he cried. “Let’s go to the stables.”
Miss Saunders pulled back. Benjamin did the same as he wrestled with a mixture of thwarted desire and anger and chagrin. “You go ahead.” He waved his son away. “I’ll come along in a while.”
“Now,” declared Geoffrey. He pushed the end of the stick between them, jostling as if it really was a restive mount. “Fergus wants to see you.”
“He’ll see me later,” Benjamin replied. He struggled to get his surging emotions under control.
“But it’s time.”
Miss Saunders rose. “I should go in.” She sounded a bit breathless.
He stood beside her. “No, you should not. Go on to the stables, Geoffrey.” Benjamin was aware that his sharp tone was a step backward with his son. But it was the best he could do.
The boy—hands and knees grubby from his excavations, mouth turned down and sullen—gazed at them for a moment, then curbed a revolt from his imaginary mount and ran away. They watched him go.
“He’ll be all right,” Benjamin said as much to himself as to his companion.
“You should go and watch his ride.”
“I will watch Geoffrey ride on many future occasions. But not just now.” He sounded annoyed. He was annoyed at the interruption, but he mustn’t be. “I’ll speak to him later. He’s a child; he’ll forget.” Benjamin made himself take a deep breath. Miss Saunders was a guest in his house. He couldn’t ravish her in his garden arbor, or anywhere else. With that thought, a number of other tantalizing locations occurred to him.
“We can’t go on this way,” she said as if reading his mind.
“What way shall we go on?” popped out of his mouth. “Sorry. What I meant was, you should marry me.”
“Should.”
“Yes.” He struggled with impatience. To pull her back to him now would be a mistake. The spark in her eyes told him that. “It simply makes sense.”
“Does it?”
“Yes, Jean. It does. We enjoy each other’s company and have much in common. You care about Geoffrey. You like kissing me.”
She started to speak.
“You cannot honestly deny that. Not after the last few minutes.”
She looked away, but not before he saw agreement on her face.
“You could be happy here,” Benjamin continued, belatedly recalling that he was supposed to be wooing her. He didn’t need his uncle’s advice to know that ordering her to marry him was not wooing. “We could.”
She shook her head, more as if to clear it than in contradiction.
“What else do you intend to do?” he asked, irritation surfacing again.
“I have plenty to do!”
“Living the nomadic life you described to me? Wandering from house to house like a society gypsy. Will you still be doing that when you’re forty? Fifty?”
She turned away from him. Benjamin hoped it was because he’d made a telling point. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.
She sounded almost anguished. Which was better than indifferent, but far from what Benjamin desired. She’d been ardent and willing in his arms. Once out of them, she became someone else. He had to find a way to make her eager there, too. But would he have an opportunity to do so? She looked on the verge of running away again. Plans he’d made earlier in the day came back to him. “I need your help,” he said before she could speak again.
Blessedly, she turned back to him.
“Clayton wants to cut my hair,” Benjamin went on. “What do you think?”
Her dark eyes widened. She blinked at him in wordless astonishment.
“My uncle’s valet, you know. Clayton.”
“I know who he is.”
“My unfashionable locks fill him with despair. He’s after me to cut them.” Had he actually said unfashionable locks? Benjamin gritted his teeth. Desire had scrambled his brain.
“You want my help in getting a haircut?” she asked as if she couldn’t believe what she was saying.
“You’re something of an expert on hair.” Clayton had made this point. It had sounded reasonable when he said it. Benjamin couldn’t imagine why just now.
Miss Saunders put a hand to her luxuriant curls. She gazed at him as if she didn’t know whether to be offended or concerned.
“But that wasn’t it.” Why had he listened to such an idiotic idea? Clearly, she thought it was daft. As it was. He needed something far better. “What I wanted help with. That’s something else.”
“What then?”
What? He had to come up with something sensible. Quickly. And then, in a flash, Benjamin saw the answer. This would sway her. And the best part was, his request was perfectly sincere. “Finding Geoffrey a new attendant,” he said. He nodded, agreeing with himself. “He needs someone more responsible than Lily until he’s old enough to go to school. Of course, Tom is welcome to stay if he wishes.”
“You should do something for him,” she said.
“I intend to. But Geoffrey needs a proper nanny. And she will have to be a rather special person, I think.”
Miss Saunders considered. Benjamin thanked Providence that she looked interested now, not bewildered. “Active, not old,” she said.
“Kind, but firm,” he said.
“Intelligent and curious, to keep up with Geoffrey’s precocious mind.”
“Tolerant,” said Benjamin. “I want him guided, not stifled.”
“With a strong sense of humor,” his companion put in.
“An ability to laugh is indispensable,” he agreed.
She smiled. “I’m not sure where you’ll find such a paragon.”
He might have said that she was standing right in front of him, but he refrained. He didn’t want this delectable woman as his son’s nanny. “Will you help me find her?” he asked instead.
“I’m not sure how I can.”
“By giving me your opinion on the candidates,” he replied promptly. “And on how Geoffrey seems to like them as well. You notice all sorts of things that I do not.”
She looked flattered, which was good, though the compliment was honest. “I learned careful observation very young,” she answered.
The sadness that never seemed far from her reappeared in her face. He needed to know the full story behind that expression, Benjamin realized. Things wouldn’t be right until he did. But this was not the moment to press her.
“All right.” She nodded. “I’ll help you search for this marvelous creature. I’m glad to help.”
Benjamin felt an unexpected rush of joy. She wasn’t leaving! When he met her eyes, he thought he saw a similar emotion there. Or perhaps he only hoped so.