Summer Escapade Read online

  With a pang, Terence realized he had clearly extended his visit too long. Although his friends would doubtless say all that was polite, on such a joyous family occasion they must surely be wishing him in Jericho. But still, common courtesy demanded that he say his good-byes properly.

  “Would you please tell his grace that I wish to speak with him at his convenience?” Terence said rather stiffly. “I shall wait in the library.”

  The footman returned so quickly, he must have taken the stairs three at a time, and he was still grinning. “Begging your pardon, sir, but his grace wishes you to join him. Said as how he wants to introduce you to the newest member of his family.”

  Feeling very much out of place, Terence followed the footman upstairs to the master bedroom, where Colthurst was waiting by the open door. “I understand my congratulations are in order,” Terence said.

  “Don’t congratulate me,” Colthurst said, slapping him on the back, “Elizabeth did all the work.”

  Stepping into the room, Terence saw a tableau that was almost painful in its beauty—not a duchess and a second son, but simply a mother holding her baby in her arms, and when Colthurst moved to join his wife and new son, it only made Terence more aware of how much he himself had lost.

  Lost? Or deliberately thrown away?

  Watching the new parents cooing to the baby that was a part of each of them, Terence realized that hurt feelings and wounded pride were really quite trivial matters.

  So he had made a fool of himself—did that mean he had to compound his stupidity by renouncing the love of his life?

  After expressing suitable admiration for the baby, Terence excused himself and returned to the stable, where he was delayed by second thoughts. What made him think that the widow would ever forgive him for the hateful things he had said to her? Maybe it would be better just to return to Kent, where he could, after a suitable interval had passed, write her a letter?

  Abruptly realizing that he was falling back into his habit of worrying, something he had resolved not to indulge in any longer, he ordered a horse to be saddled for him before he could have second thoughts about the matter.

  Leaving his coachman clearly bewildered and his niece gazing at him mournfully, he set out on the road that had become so familiar to him in the last week.

  Just as the dower house came into view, however, his resolution failed him, and he reined in the horse. If only he had some inkling of the widow’s feelings! Did she return his sentiments? Did she have any real interest in him, or had it merely been concern for his niece that had motivated her to act as if she enjoyed his company? If only she had given him some sign, some hint, some token of her affection.

  But all she had given him was a list of rules for raising his niece. Disconsolately, he retrieved the crumpled paper from his pocket and stared at it gloomily. Marigold needs her own riding horse, the widow had written. She needs friends her own age and she needs to be allowed to—and here followed a long list of activities most girls were allowed to do and some that usually only boys were permitted—and she needs freedom to make her own decisions, and—

  With great delight Terence read the last thing the lovely widow had written: Marigold needs a mother.

  * * * *

  “But I hate darning stockings,” Sybil blurted out, eyeing the basket of mending sitting between them on the settee.

  “Which is exactly why I have chosen this as a suitable punishment for being deceitful,” Alicia replied, handing her daughter a darning egg and taking one for herself.

  “But there are so many to do,” Sybil said indignantly, “and besides, I only wanted to help Marigold.” She looked at her mother hopefully, but Alicia did not relent.

  Doing her best to hide her own feeling of deep sadness at the thought of having alienated Mr. Kinderley forever, Alicia explained about the dangers of doing bad things for good reasons.

  “Well,” Sybil said, picking up a stocking and staring in disgust at the hole in it, “despite how angry Marigold’s uncle was, if I had it to do over again, I would do the very same thing.”

  “Perhaps you will change your mind by the time we are done,” Alicia said. In her own heart, she echoed her daughter’s sentiments only up to a certain point. Yes, she would still want the girls to have concocted their scheme. But on the other hand, she could not help wishing that she had told Mr. Kinderley the truth the minute he returned from Scotland. Given the strong attraction he obviously felt for her, surely he would have been agreeable to staying on in the neighborhood?

  Suddenly her attention was caught by sounds of a commotion in the hallway outside the drawing room, and then the door was thrust open abruptly and Mr. Kinderley entered the room quite unannounced, a maid trailing behind him.

  “I asked him to wait, m’lady,” the girl said indignantly, but Mr. Kinderley cut her off before she could finish her explanation.

  “I need to speak to you in private,” he said, giving Alicia such an intense look, her heart began to race.

  Eagerly dropping the darning, Sybil jumped to her feet, but Alicia caught her arm before she could escape from her assigned task.

  “About this list you gave me,” he said, pulling a crumpled piece of foolscap from his pocket, and seeing it, Alicia immediately released her daughter’s arm.

  Giggling and grinning, Sybil scurried from the room, pushing the maid out ahead of her and firmly shutting the door behind the two of them. Too late Alicia realized she should have kept her daughter beside her for protection.

  Without any by-your-leave, Mr. Kinderley sat down on the seat Sybil had vacated. “So you think that young girls should be allowed to climb trees and go fishing and do other such activities,” he began innocuously enough.

  Alicia eyed him warily, then nodded her head, for the moment unable to speak without revealing her total loss of composure. Could he possibly have returned so that ... ? But she refused to allow such wishful thinking to lodge itself in her mind. He had come for advice, that was all. There was no more significance to be read into his return visit than there was in Mrs. Pennywell’s asking which kind of asters would look best in her garden.

  “And you think I should buy Marigold her own horse,” he continued, staring down at the paper in his hand.

  Wishing very much that she had never given him that wretched list—or at least that she had never added the last four words—Alicia said in a voice that trembled despite her efforts to control it, “Yes, I do think your niece should have her own mount.”

  “I suspect you are right,” he said, picking up the basket and setting it aside. Then before she would object, he moved so close that their knees were touching. “She tells me that Algernon says she has a great deal of natural ability as a rider.”

  Surreptitiously, Alicia eased away from Mr. Kinderley’s knee. Just as casually, he shifted his weight slightly, and somehow managed to be even closer, although his leg was no longer quite touching hers.

  “The only problem that I foresee with following your advice concerns the last item on the list. I have been racking my brain, but I cannot figure out any way to give Marigold a mother.”

  At his words, Alicia’s last hopes were dashed, but before she could regain her composure and say something polite, Mr. Kinderley’s arm was around her waist, and he was kissing her in a most determined way.

  Breathless, she emerged from the kiss to hear him say, “Do you not suppose an aunt with strong mothering proclivities would do just as well?”

  His question was clearly rhetorical, because without waiting for an answer, he kissed her again. This time her arms went around his neck, and she was not hesitant about kissing him back.

  “Do you know,” he said a long time later, “I have given much thought to Sybil’s cousins. They will doubtless feel much deprived if I steal you away from them.”

  “Do you plan to do that, Mr. Kinderley? Steal me away, I mean?” Alicia asked, looking up into smiling eyes.

  “Oh, yes, but not to Gretna Green. I definit
ely prefer a more proper marriage, although I am not at all sure I can wait three weeks for banns to be called. Perhaps a special license would not be considered too shocking? And you must call me Terence.”

  What was scandalous was their present behavior. Without giving her a chance to answer his question about the boys, Mr. Kinderley—that is to say, Terence—once again cuddled her close and began kissing her.

  But there was no problem, really. With plenty of visiting back and forth, everyone could be happy—perhaps not as happy as she was at this moment, but then few mortals achieved such earthly bliss.

  * * * *

  Marigold sat in the hay in the stable loft and tried her best to keep all five kittens in her lap at the same time, clearly an impossible task. But even their antics could not cheer her up. After her uncle had left her with Sweeney, she had climbed up here to be private and had cried until she had no tears left. But all that had accomplished was to give her red, itchy eyes.

  When her uncle returned, she would have to go with him, and if she had had any hopes of returning to Mrs. Wychombe’s Seminary for the next term, she was enough of a realist to know that she had destroyed her chances forever. Just thinking about it made a few last tears well up in her eyes, but resolutely, she brushed them away.

  “So here is where you are hiding,” a familiar voice called out, and Marigold turned to see Sybil’s face peering at her from the top of the ladder. Then her friend scrambled up the rest of the way, threw herself down on the hay, and appropriated two of the kittens.

  “Why are you so happy?” Marigold asked, “And what are you doing over here at Colthurst Hall? Have you run away from home?”

  Sybil, who was grinning from ear to ear and looking quite like the cat who lapped up the cream, replied, “I am not sure I am going to tell a cross-patch like you. Such a long face when we are going to be sisters.”

  “Sisters?” Marigold asked, removing a kitten who was climbing up her sleeve. “Whatever are you talking about?”

  “I should not tell you, for I was eavesdropping when I heard, although on the other hand, it is not my fault that my mother did not notice the connecting door was open to the blue room. It is not as bad as if I had deliberately opened it myself, just so I could listen and see what they were doing.”

  “So what were they doing? Sybil, if you do not tell me at once what you are talking about, I shall ... I shall ... I don’t know what I shall do, but it will be truly dreadful.”

  “Well, actually we are not going to be sisters. When your uncle marries my mother, then we will be cousins, will we not?”

  “When they marry? Oh, how wonderful!” But then Marigold’s heart sank. “This is one of your little acting games, isn’t it? Without quite telling a lie, you are trying to make me believe that my uncle has asked your mother to marry him.”

  “I shall swear on a Bible if you wish,” Sybil said with a grin. “Although now that I think on it, your uncle did not actually make my mother an offer in form.”

  “I thought as much,” Marigold said glumly.

  “They just sat there kissing each other for the longest time, and then they began talking about special licenses and your uncle said he did not wish to wait for banns to be called.”

  “And your mother agreed?”

  Sybil thought for a minute. “Do you know, I don’t think she did, at least not while I was watching in. They started kissing again, and it was so boring, I came away to tell you. Really, I cannot fathom why grown-ups seem to delight in such things. If Algernon ever tries to kiss me, I shall draw his cork.”

  Marigold agreed that it was indeed beyond understanding.