Jo Beverley - [Rogue ] (14 page)

And in handling people, thought Judith, but didn't say it. "You've never told me about your family."

She thought he might avoid the broad hint but he didn't, though she noted he looked down as he spoke. "I was the only child. My mother was a great heiress, and it was her money that enabled my father to launch his diplomatic career. It's an expensive business, you know, for the government is rarely generous." He fiddled restlessly with a spoon. "My father loved to wander, never wanted to put down roots. My mother would go anywhere to be with my father."

Judith smiled. "It sounds like a wonderful love match."

His hand stilled. "On her part it was."

Was that, thought Judith, why he'd developed his aversion to one-sided love in marriage? "And were you always with them?"

"Oh yes. My father was often busy, and my mother became accustomed to my company. She wouldn't leave me anywhere, even if they were going into a dangerous situation. My father virtually had to use force to send me to England for my schooling."

Judith felt her skin crawl at this vignette of his family life, but she tried to be charitable. "Poor woman. She knew she was losing you for years. Surely it is possible to gain a good education abroad."

"Most definitely. But not what one learns at a good English school."

"Which is?"

He looked up. "Why, to be an English gentleman."

Judith studied him, head on one side. "I'm afraid, my lord, the teaching didn't take."

His eyes widened. She thought for once she might have shocked him. "Are you saying I'm not a gentleman?"

"An English gentleman would know a turnip when he saw one."

He laughed in a delightfully open way. "How true. So you are completing my education most admirably. Let us go and continue it."

But when they were out on the street, complete with an absurdly large box of cakes, she said, "I really must get back. The Hubbles will be wanting to go home soon."

He looked around wistfully. "This has been fun. There will be other days, other markets, but I've learned that these special moments do not come again."

She knew exactly what he meant. For a while today she had been happy as she had not since her girlhood. "There will be others," she promised.

He nodded. "There will be others."

Judith returned home in a very perilous state. She knew now that it would be possible, and all too easy, to fall in love with Leander Knollis.

The children were delighted with the cakes, but ecstatic to see the ring, solid proof that all was to go ahead. Judith had not realized they had doubts.

Bastian took a formal stance in front of Leander, hands clasped behind his back. "Lord Charrington?"

"Yes, Bastian."

"If you are to marry our mama, what are we to call you?"

Leander looked across at Judith, but she gave a small shrug. She had not considered the matter.

He looked back down at the boy, and at Rosie who had come to stand by him, very much interested. "What would you like to call me?"

Bastian glanced at his sister. "We're not sure we should call you Papa."

"I see. Well, you can call me my lord, or sir."

Another meaningful glance. "We'd
like
to call you Papa, but..."

"But I'm not your Papa. I understand. Let's see, there's pater, which as you know is Latin, and père, which is French. Padre is Spanish. Vater is German... Or simply father might do."

The children were clearly discontented by the offerings and fretted by the problem. "I... We wondered whether we could call you Papa Leander."

Judith almost laughed at the expression that flitted over Leander's face but of course, with his training, he hid it well. "If that is how you wish to address me, I am amenable." At their continued anxiety he said, "Yes, you may."

They broke into smiles and disappeared into the front room with a cake each. A bundle of black and white fur trotted after in the hope of crumbs.

"Good Lord," said Leander, "it makes me sound like a buffoon in the
commedia dell'arte!"

Judith let the laughter out. "Hopefully with time they'll shorten it. Perhaps when there are other children who just call you Papa."

They stilled, and looked at each other. He came over and cradled her face in his hands. "I knew there would be dimples...."

Her lips were still parted with laughter, and he kissed her briefly, but openmouthed. It spoke of intimacy far more strongly them a probing tongue for it contained no striving, no anxiety. It was one kiss among many, part of a lifetime of kisses.

Judith was left shaken, and trying to hide it.

He turned for the door, then stopped and pulled some papers out of his greatcoat pocket. "I forgot. Lucien drafted these settlements and he wants you to look at them before he has his solicitor put them into final form." He added dryly, "Beth scrutinized them, so they should be in order."

"There's no need..."

"Don't shake my faith in you as a practical woman. It's best to have these things clear."

When he'd gone Judith ignored the papers. She wasn't sure she could cope with more largesse. She went mechanically through the business of preparing vegetables to go with yesterday's cold mutton, but her mind was elsewhere.

She had discovered an overwhelming desire to break through Leander's sleek veneer and see him laugh, and play, and that pointed to her danger. She could no longer be sure she wouldn't fall in love with him, hadn't already fallen in love with him. It was ridiculous not to be in control of such a thing, but it was like shivering in a draught, or perspiring in the heat. A simple reaction.

And, of course, the very affliction made it less possible for her to cut free, for then she would lose him forever. More than that, she would leave him vulnerable to a woman far less well disposed than she. She at least meant to deal honestly with him.

He did need her. She could sense, ridiculous as it seemed, that in her he found something to fill some of the gaps in his life.

Gaps left by his parents? His mother had clung to him, but she clearly hadn't given him what a child needs. It sounded as if she had used him to try to fill the gap left by a neglectful husband. In the process she had stolen his childhood. She could imagine him at Bastian's age, already the perfect gentleman, squiring his mother to functions in Rome, or Vienna.

"Mama, what's the matter?"

Judith realized she was just standing with half the potatoes in the water, and the others turning brown on the chopping board. She quickly threw them in the pot, and turned to the children. "I'm just tired after such a long day, dears. Set the table, Rosie. Bastian, fill the kettle. Supper will not be long."

Like a dam bursting, the questions started. "Will we have rooms of our own?"

"How many horses do you think Papa Leander owns?"

"Will we have servants?"

"Will we have cream cakes every day?"

"Is Temple Knollis bigger than Hartwell?"

"Bigger than Lord Faversham's house?"

"Will we meet the king?"

Judith could answer a definite no to the last one, for the poor king was mad. For the rest she said, "I think we should treat this as a mysterious adventure, dears. We'll discover each new thing as it happens, together. I'm sure, however, that all the discoveries will be wonderful."

When they sat to the meal, Rosie said, "I hope when we go to Temple Knollis, we'll
never
have to eat cold mutton again."

Judith frowned, but how silly it was of her to be continuing with her frugal housekeeping while preparing for opulence. All the same, it seemed important to go on as they usually did. Perhaps it was a talisman against the bubble bursting.

When the children were in bed she reluctantly unfolded the papers. After reading them she let them fall. And she'd been feeding her poor dears cold mutton!

Her pin money, just for personal expenditures, was to be in the thousands of pounds, and hers to spend as she wished. There was a meticulous note in parentheses that the arrangement was that she be responsible for ensuring that this money did cover her requirements. Beth Arden apparently believed that rights were best guarded by responsibilities.

There was a generous allowance for the children in addition to the provision of their household of servants, which would be Leander's responsibility. The allowance was to be under Judith's direction. There was even a small personal allowance for each child's independent use, with provision for it to increase at each birthday. That was added in a separate hand, and she suspected it to be Leander's work.

She would be hard put to prevent him spoiling her children beyond belief.

Every eventuality was allowed for, including future children, and widowhood. Her widow's jointure would ensure a life of ease.

There was even, to her surprise, a provision for them living apart. If either or both should decide to live apart from the other, Judith was to have custody of Bastian and Rosie and receive two thousand pounds per annum, regardless of the cause of the separation, or any legal actions of any party.

Even though this implied that he would take custody of any children born of their union, it was extraordinary. She could turn around the day after the wedding and never speak to Leander again, and he would be obliged to pay her this money. That he was willing to sign this document was a great act of trust in itself.

For a moment she wondered if he was too sweet-natured, almost to the point of foolishness. But then she remembered that moment in her parents' house and the way he had said, "I am never put upon." She had not doubted him then, and didn't now.

He trusted her. He trusted her to deal honesty with him in financial matters. He trusted her to deal honesty with him in all ways, and she was betraying that trust.

She closed her eyes and rested her head on her hands. It was a tortuous situation, but all she could do was trust that she could give what he wanted without, by mischance, giving more.

Chapter 7

One afternoon, Patrick Moore, the local carrier, drew up before the cottage and unloaded a stack of boxes into her front room. Judith knew they contained the clothes. Called by children's natural instinct for treats, Bastian and Rosie came running to help her open them.

Rosie was ecstatic over her pink dress, Bastian a little self-conscious about his suit, which was made in imitation of a grown-up one, but pleased all the same. They couldn't be expected to be thrilled about new underwear, and yet she sensed their satisfaction at yet more tangible signs of the change in their lives.

Rosie absolutely
had
to try on her lovely dress, and so Judith helped her into it. She combed her daughter's hair out into a gleaming fall of pale gold silk and ran her hand over it. It was lovely hair but she feared that Rosie, like her father, would have to resort to curling papers to be fashionable.

Rosie stood on the kitchen table in an attempt to see herself in the small mirror, then jumped down to set her skirts swirling in a dance. Judith had to capture her before she dirtied her finery.

"Now you, Mama. Show us your dress."

Judith gently took out the peach silk gown, marveling again at the beauty of the fabric. It slithered through her fingers like sin. The gown had only simple ruffles and piping to decorate it.

"Put it on, Mama!"

"Not now..."

"Please!"

In the end she gave in and went up to her small room under the eaves to slip into the gown. In the same box there was an underslip of creamy silk, butter-soft cream kid gloves, sheer silk stockings clocked with peach butterflies, and white lace garters, threaded with peach satin.

Judith looked around at her iron bedstead, the warped planks of the floor, and the damp-stains on the whitewashed walls, and thought the clothes should crumble like fairy gold to be in such surroundings.

In the end, though, she put on every item, wincing slightly as the silk caught on her still-roughened hands. She put the gloves on to save the fabric from damage.

She couldn't fasten the buttons at the back, but looked in the mirror all the same. She could see herself from the waist up, and the gown was utterly beautiful. Even in the dim room it made her skin glow, though the effect would be improved if she didn't have a smudge on her forehead from black-leading the grate.