Miss Dauntless, page 3
Town had emptied for the winter. The probability of renting out the rest of the house was not great, and spring was far away. Tommie did need a new coat. The mending was ruining Matilda’s eyes to the point that she could barely see to read Tommie his stories by the end of the day. She could move in with Aunt Portia—the last, dreaded alternative to destitution—but Portia was barely managing.
She was also unrelentingly serious.
Tremont was comely, clean about his person, and he’d be willing to bind himself to terms under a written contract. Matilda’s duties under that contract would be merely… to welcome him and him alone into her bed for coin.
For coin. For the ten thousandth time, the admission trudged through her mind: Papa was right about me.
And behind that thought, a more insidious, seductive thought: At least I would be paid. At least Tommie would be warm. If I’m to be ashamed of myself, might I please suffer that indignity with an occasionally full belly?
Tommie managed to make a rock bounce once, and he was in alt. Passersby smiled at the man patiently correcting the child’s form and finding him another good skipper. Tommie was soon busy amassing a collection of smooth, flat, round stones, while the entire armada of waterfowl—swans, ducks, and geese—paddled madly for distant shores.
“Shall we sit?” Tremont said, gesturing to a bench. “The bank will be denuded of rocks, or Tommie’s arm will fall off before his interest flags. I’m not sure even that eventuality would dissuade him from his purpose.”
The bench was warm, despite the chill in the air. Tremont took a seat a proper foot away from Matilda while Tommie scoured the bank.
“About your offensive topic, my lord.”
“The topic that I hoped would not offend, but that has grown rather pressing.”
“I must refuse your proposition,” Matilda said, the words leaving her more sad than angry. “I refuse not because I judge women for doing what they must—or what they claim to enjoy—to survive, but because I hold to the quaint notion that some activities should be undertaken only out of mutual affection and esteem.”
She expected a polite, gentlemanly rejoinder about this most impolite topic. An insistence that she hear his terms, a little touch to her sleeve, and an allusion to wild sexual pleasure. The oldest Prebish boy had referred to paradise and raptures and heavenly transports—oddly theological terms for a lot of heaving and panting.
“You haven’t heard my proposition.” The earl sounded a trifle confused, but then, he was probably a stranger to refusals.
“I’ve heard enough others like it, and while I should doubtless be flattered that a peer would notice me in any capacity… I am not flattered. Silly of me. No offense intended, my lord.”
Silence greeted this declaration.
“We can skip the bakery,” Matilda said, swiping at the corner of her eye with her glove. “Tommie must not become accustomed to luxuries. That way lies nothing but misery.”
Tommie’s rock bounced three times, and Matilda dutifully clapped and cheered, while Tremont declared the job well done.
“Let’s go.” Matilda rose with as much dignity as she yet possessed. “I believe we’ve said all that needs saying.”
Tremont rose, as a gentleman must. He peered at her as if she’d suggested they attend a flying-pig race.
“I am cudgeling my brain for what the philosophers, etiquette books, or even newspaper advice columnists would suggest in such a situation, and my mind is a mortified blank.”
“Most women would find you to be in every way a desirable specimen, my lord, but I’m not… That is… Please just take me home. If our paths should cross again, we will pretend we did not have this conversation.”
“But we did,” Tremont said, “and though you are mistaken about my intentions, this discussion convinces me more than ever that you are the perfect candidate for the position I have in mind. You have fortitude and integrity, and you are tolerant.”
Matilda was prepared to push his lordship into the water if he made a pestilence of himself, but Tremont remained at a proper distance, and his expression held only faint puzzlement. No sneering, no leering.
“You aren’t considering me for the post of mistress?”
“I am not.” He looked as if he might say more, but he remained silent, and his gaze went to Tommie, still whipping rocks into the water.
Matilda sank back onto the bench. “I have just made a first-class cake of myself, haven’t I? Put my foot in my mouth and covered myself with mortification. I apologize, my lord.”
He came down beside her. “I apologize on behalf of my gender, because apparently, others have been less than respectful toward you. The fact is, I need your help, Mrs. Merridew. I honestly, sincerely need your help, and I am happy to pay you for it.”
Tommie was picking through his pile of pebbles and choosing several to stash in his pockets. What sort of boy hoarded rocks? A very poor boy.
“I’m listening, my lord. I am a hard worker, and I set my pride aside the day I realized I was to become a mother.”
“No, you did not, which I understand more than you might think. Let’s take this discussion to a tea shop, shall we? Major MacKay has acquainted me with several in the area, and I believe Tommie will fall in with the suggestion readily enough.”
Tremont rose and offered Matilda his hand. His gloves were spotless and likely lined with fur. Matilda allowed him to assist her and took his proffered arm, all the while trying to keep her teeth from chattering.
So that’s how a man propositions a woman.
Tremont could not express that thought, but it circled in his brainbox on wings of consternation.
The boy Tommie babbled away, about skipping stones across the Channel, someday owning a kite big enough to take a boy into the sky, porridge being much better with butter and honey, and at Christmas last year he’d had his oats with cinnamon.
Tremont, meanwhile, wondered who had presumed on Mrs. Merridew’s good name.
“You must forgive me, my lord,” Mrs. Merridew said quietly. “I leap into situations, make unsupported assumptions, and build castles in Spain. My father said imagination was my besetting sin and that I would pay for it.”
“I am the opposite.” Tremont tipped his hat to some dowager swaddled up to the eyes in furs. “My sister says I am a careful thinker, but the more accurate term is that I am a plodder. It’s within the realm of honesty to say I am simply dull-witted.”
“You are not dull-witted.” Mrs. Merridew took the boy by the hand as they approached a crossing. “You were three steps ahead of St. Mildred’s wiliest committee members and got exactly what you wanted from them. They consider themselves the souls of benevolence for taking a chance on your soldiers, when, in fact, they’ve spent two years tiptoeing around how to retire the sexton.”
“He is not a young man,” Tremont said. “I look for churches with aging sextons, if you want to know the truth, but Tommie won the day for me.”
A fancy coach rattled past. The Dorning crest registered vaguely in Tremont’s awareness. Recognizing crests had become a sort of game for him when he’d been living in the stews. Avoiding the enemy and passing the time.
“How did Tommie win the day?” Mrs. Merridew asked, setting a course across the intersection.
“He is charming, in his innocence and candor. He charmed them, and I slipped in behind his advance guard. The tea shop is up on the left.”
“Tommie is as charming as a rat terrier with a loud bark. My husband had real charm.” This was said with an interesting hint of wrath.
“Whereas I lack charm,” Tremont replied. “I have manners, though. My mama and sister saw to that. Then I grew all impressed with my own consequence—a young peer is susceptible to such nonsense—and went off to war. Combat was a humbling experience.”
He held the door for her and wondered if Tommie’s voluble nature was contagious. Spain was better left in the past, and Waterloo should be consigned to complete oblivion.
“Most men find war glorious,” Mrs. Merridew said.
“Then most men are either cursed with a faulty memory or they are liars. The table at the back is quiet. MacKay prefers it.”
Mrs. Merridew paused inside the doorway and inhaled through her nose. The little shop smelled of baking bread and sweet spices, and Tommie had gone quiet.
“The hot chocolate they serve here is not to be missed,” Tremont said. “One of few consolations for the colder weather.”
They got through the business of cloaks and bonnets, and Tommie took the seat facing the window, leaving Tremont to face the lady.
“How do you know Major MacKay?” she asked when Tremont had placed their orders.
“His cousin is married to my sister. I am thus a cousin by marriage to him, and he is cousins with a host of other luminaries, all of whom are panting for the chance to find me a countess. I did not directly rejoin my family after Waterloo, and in recent years, I have been occupied with some business matters here in London. This, they claim, is very remiss of me.”
That recitation put a pretty bow on years of wandering the stews and more recent efforts to collect fellow former soldiers who were also prone to wandering the stews.
Mrs. Merridew produced pencil and paper from her reticule and passed both to the boy. “Toads were too easy for you. Draw me a dragon, please.”
Tommie set to work with a focus that was doubtless characteristic of his mother.
“You are not capable of finding your own countess?” she asked.
“I have tried telling my matchmaking relations that I am better suited to that task than they are, but I haven’t taken the time to tend to it. They are right to feel a sense of urgency. The heir in line for the Tremont title is a rascal kicking his heels in America. The notion that my cousin might become the earl is insupportable, and thus I must stop lollygagging and find a wife. That’s where you come in.”
Mrs. Merridew sat up straight. “I am not in the business of finding wives for peers, my lord.”
“Alas for me, though you are in the business of making unruly males behave with a modicum of civility. I house a dozen former soldiers at lodgings not far from here. They are good fellows, but rough, and if they are to set up as groundkeepers and gardeners for hire, they must learn some… some decorum. Everything from basic table manners to that business of how to escort a lady. For good and sufficient reasons, they don’t listen to me—not about that. But they will listen to you.”
The food arrived—bowls of steaming pepper pot soup and a tray stacked with half sandwiches—and Tommie sent his mother a questioning glance.
“His lordship will say the grace,” Mrs. Merridew announced, “bearing in mind that the Almighty appreciates brevity.”
As did little boys and hungry earls. “We thank Thee for this food,” Tremont recited in his best earlish drone, “and for the delightful company, and also for dragons. Amen.”
The sketch disappeared into Mrs. Merridew’s reticule, and Tommie’s table napkin went onto his lap. The boy’s manners were exemplary for his age, though when the hot chocolate arrived, he did get whipped cream on his nose. Mrs. Merridew addressed that situation with brisk measures, though the moment sent Tremont’s thoughts careening in odd directions.
“You seek a deportment instructor for your men?” Mrs. Merridew said.
“Something like that, but more as well. You would live on the premises. We have a cook, housekeeper, and some other domestics. The laundresses come around on Mondays, and the men take care of the heavier work themselves. They need somebody to preside over meals, hold parade inspections, schedule chores, rebuke excessive profanity, that sort of thing.”
“A headmistress, then.”
“I had a mother and a sister to guide me onto the path of gentlemanly manners, and for a time, a father. Even my rapscallion cousin was some help when it came to tying cravats or lighting cheroots. These men have nobody, and they are willing to learn. They simply know more of marching and fighting than of holding doors or doffing their caps.”
“You should help them, Mama,” Tommie said. “I’m not grown up yet, but I know all about escorting a lady now. Nobody likes to feel stupid.”
Mrs. Merridew considered the boy for a long, quiet moment. Out of the mouths of babes…
“Let us proceed,” she said, “on a trial basis. I will do what I can with your recruits for, say, thirty days, and then we will reevaluate. If I am effective, they might not need me for much longer than that.”
She truly had no sense of her own appeal. If she was effective, the men would devise strategies for keeping her on the premises until they were all proficient in French, drawing, pianoforte, and the quadrille.
“I cannot express clearly enough how relieved I am to have your assistance,” Tremont said. “Will fifty pounds do?”
She studied her tea cup. “Per annum?”
Did she rate herself on a par with tippling bachelor curates relegated to obscure rural pulpits? “I had that amount in mind for the first month. Don’t say it’s too much until you’ve met the men.”
“Very well, I won’t. I will also reserve judgment until you and I have agreed upon a curriculum of sorts. Are these men literate?”
“Some of them.”
“I can write my name,” Tommie said, looking up from his cup of chocolate. “Mama makes me practice, and the letter T is my favorite. I write the T and the M grown up. The other letters are small.”
“Capital,” Mrs. Merridew said. “The big letters are capital, majuscule, or uppercase. The others are small, minuscule, or lowercase.”
“Why does one letter have three names?” Tommie asked. “Why not just big and little, like people?”
Tremont wanted to put a hand over the boy’s mouth, because Mrs. Merridew had not agreed to any stated compensation, and that term mattered. A contract was not binding unless consideration—such as a promise of payment—was offered and accepted.
“People have several names too,” Mrs. Merridew pointed out. “I am Matilda, Mrs. Merridew, and Mama, depending on who addresses me. You’d best finish that chocolate before somebody comes around to clear the dishes.”
Tommie drained his cup to the dregs, and his mother passed him her unfinished serving.
“Please say you will take the fifty pounds,” Tremont said. “We can discuss the rest of it later, when you have had a chance to consider what subjects might benefit the men most, and I have given the same topic some thought. If you get the men to ‘please pass the salt’ and using ‘dratted’ instead of the less genteel options, I will be most appreciative.”
“Then you set the standard too low,” Mrs. Merridew replied. “These fellows bested the shrewdest military leader the world has seen in many a century. They were born the sons of shopkeepers and yeomen and became an army of unprecedented ferocity. They can master table manners.”
“Mama sets great store by table manners.”
“Manners maketh the man,” Tremont said. “At least in the opinion of some old Etonian. Will you please help me, Mrs. Merridew?”
Mention of the money made her uncomfortable. Tremont should have seen that sooner.
She watched the boy delicately spooning whipped cream into his mouth. “I will help you.”
“Thank the Merciful Creator. How soon can you change your residence?”
Mrs. Merridew fixed her gaze on a plate of tea cakes, each one decorated with a tiny icing flower, and remained silent. She was not glib. When she spoke, she spoke confidently, but she wasn’t above pausing to reflect.
“No time like the present,” she said, taking one tiny tea cake. “If you will send along some of your men, I can have the necessities packed in a few hours.”
To pack up a life should take longer than that.
“We mustn’t forget Copenhagen,” Tommie said. “Cope is my horse. He’s stuffed, but I’ve had him since I was little. Papa gave him to me.”
“By all means, bring your horse,” Tremont said, thinking of a stuffed dog named Charles. “I will come by your new abode tomorrow morning to see that you’re settled in.”
He expected second thoughts and last-minute renegotiations. Instead, Mrs. Tremont allowed Tommie one tea cake, and both mother and child were quiet on the walk back to their dwelling.
“You were wrong about something,” Mrs. Merridew said as Tommie scampered down the steps and let himself into the house.
“I am frequently in error and even more frequently in doubt,” Tremont replied. “Don’t you lock your door?”
“Tommie knows to find the key beneath the boot scrape. You said you have no charm.”
“Nor do I any longer aspire to acquire any.” Forlorn hopes were notoriously bad odds.
“You do have charm, my lord. Whoever told you otherwise wasn’t paying attention.”
She disappeared down the steps, and Tremont set a measured course in the direction of the men’s house. The encounter had gone splendidly, in that Mrs. Merridew had agreed to take a lot of unruly former soldiers in hand.
And yet… That misunderstanding in the park had been awkward indeed, also intriguing.
“Nobody observing me for five minutes would accuse me of having charm,” Tremont muttered. He flipped a coin to the crossing sweeper, who touched a finger to his cap in response. “That wretched crossing sweeper has charm—and cheek.”
By the time Tremont reached the men’s residence, his mind had turned to another topic altogether. Mrs. Merridew had said that most women would find him “in every way” to be a desirable specimen. Of course they would—he was titled, in good health, and wealthy, though none of that was a result of his own exertions.
What qualities did Matilda Merridew consider desirable in a man? The question intrigued him more than it ought to.
Chapter Three
“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.”
