Page 16 of A Moonlit Christmas Kiss (Regency Christmas Kisses #3)

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Letters to Dazzle, Daze and Disappoint (part 1)

Warrick Estate, English Countryside

Misery had no schedule, it seemed.

Two months later, Warrick’s being still ached with loss. With love, with remembrances of his gone-too-soon mama. His body still sat—when he wasn’t sweating under The Tyrant’s orders—broken.

Little did they know it, but his brothers (now back to Knight and King, at Warrick’s prompting) savored their last few weeks at school. The third term expired shortly and tuition funds had become extinct; telling them they would not be returning in September when first term began was not a conversation he relished. One reason he’d encouraged them in their make-believe—fanciful imaginings in the here and now to soften the blows that were to come.

His own fanciful imaginings, to think that anything would mitigate the death of their dreams of Oxford and Cambridge…

He’d thought to relocate with the girls to the Feldon cottage. Less staff needed there. Less money to heat… But nay, for after the burial, both Sophia and the twins had insisted Mama had told them all her desire for them to remain with “Richard” at his estate.

It was the Richard that had done it. Had convinced him the children spoke his mother’s wishes true.

Sophia still thwarted him at every turn, but kept him—mentally, at least—nimble, anticipating both her protests and her persistent bargaining, something he appreciated, looked forward to even. Not that he would share that with her—his joy gleaned from their verbal sparring. Didn’t need to give the rebellious lass any more ammunition in her already wickedly mature arsenal.

But as to Julia? Sweet, silent Julia?

Some days he thought ’twas she who made his heart ache most of all.

Progress, of a sort, had come from an unexpected quarter, when, just last week, she had silently slipped around his wheeled conveyance and climbed into his lap. His lap! Her curled fists clenched around a dirty blanket—one she refused to relinquish for a washing. Lips clutched around her thumb, she had scaled his unfeeling legs and pressed against his chest, allowed his arms to encircle her delicate form, and she had sighed. Sighed loud enough to reach through the astonishment holding him in thrall and hard enough to ruffle the open neck of his shirt.

Cradled against his chest, it took her but moments to fall into a heavy sleep. Her sucking motion slowed, stopped. Mouth went lax and damp thumb slid free…

With the unexpected action of her complete and utter trust, her confidence in his broken self to keep her safe, with the single event of her wondrous, innocent little body warm and solid against his own, she had wound herself so deep inside his heart, he knew he was forever slain.

“Precious girl,” he murmured, blinking the sudden moisture from his eyes. He kept his embrace about her shoulders and back intentionally loose, couldn’t frighten her with his relief, his dismay.

He may not yet have earned her words, but somehow, his patience and gentle coaxing had earned a modicum of her trust.

For now, that would do.

Warrick Estate, June 17, 1813

Miss Primrose,

Selfishly, I pray this letter finds you, and not completely satisfied in your current position.

Unselfishly, I pray with all sincerity this letter finds you still gainfully employed at the home of Lord and Lady Ballenger.

Though I have no doubt Lady Harriet would still benefit from your care, I have now found myself in possession of a pair of “daughters” (half-siblings really, but given our age disparity, and the emotions they both engender within me, well, I cannot imagine worrying over or loving them any more were they my own in truth).

Without cavilling about, let me state my earnest request:

Should you in any way be amenable to coming to either Thropmoor, and the Feldon cottage there, or to the Warrick estate, not horribly distant from where Lord and Lady Redford reside, as a governess in my employ?

Upon learning of some deplorable tactics recently used in the chastisement of young Julia, I relieved their most recent governess of her duties with haste and now seek a much more competent and caring replacement.

Have you any willingness to consider my request, please know I will move heaven and the moon to make it a reality by acceding to whatever stipulations you may have.

Yours,

Warrick

She need not know this was the third governess he’d dismissed. Well, the first —the one that the girls knew and who had been with them in Thropmoor, had quit of her own accord, affronted at the very thought of “spending a single night under the roof of a known reprobate.”

Ha. Seemed his rollers for feet did nothing to improve his reputation in her eyes once his mother’s shielding presence was gone.

Although, he surmised her real reluctance to continue on might have more to do with rumors of his light purse than fear of him lifting her skirts.

He’d cared naught. Only sought to find a suitable replacement.

Yet, their second governess since the April burial that had changed so much? The immediately available one he had found upon scrambling to do so, the daughter of a local merchant. And though she claimed proficiency in teaching incomparable embroidery and impeccable manners, he found her more interested in surveying the silver and relieving the estate of whatever valuables she could easily carry.

Which brought him to the third governess…

Only the second week of the wretched woman’s employ and Sophia had confronted him in his study the day after his return from one of Arbuckle’s London torture sessions. “Warry, I need you to follow me. Posthaste and without carrying on.”

He looked up from a huge desk overflowing with reports on both his estate and the Thropmoor property. School tuition bills. Unpaid accounts. A burgeoning list of things still in arrears. Another of tenants visited. Of complaints lodged. Repairs needed. More invoices, both old and new, demanding funds he didn’t have?—

“Warry!” The dark-haired sprite pinched his forearm through the fabric of his shirt sleeve, his dress informal after the recent handful of days’ travel, of sweat and frustration.

“Hmm? What was that?” He yanked his attention away from his notes, pulling hard to get his mind off the ever-worrisome future to pay attention to the present. “Follow you? Where?”

“To Julia’s chamber.” Stated as though he could simply rise and walk there without a thought.

“The one on the second or third floor?”

“The third.”

He scoffed. Might as well ask him to fly to Jupiter.

Here at the estate, now that warming rooms wasn’t as dire, he’d given all the children their choice. Sophia and Julia shared one chamber on the second floor, but each had also claimed a spot in the nursery, for “playtime”.

He hadn’t seen either of them yet this morning, rising early and cloistering himself in his study. But that was odd, he realized now, glancing at one of the few hardy, comfortable pieces of furniture still inhabiting the cavernous study, well over half the shelves barren, volumes either stolen by the colluding steward or long since sold off. In general, little Julia kept him silent company most morns. But she wasn’t ensconced in the big leather chair, occupied by nothing more than thumb and blanket, staring off into space or his direction. As though to keep an eye on him, to make sure he didn’t disappear as her parents had.

Cowardly, he had taken to leaving early each morning of his biweekly London trips, long before anyone else awoke. Unable—or unwilling—to see the look of betrayal fill her teary eyes when she knew he was about to be off. He didn’t just disappear on her, nothing of the sort. Always spoke with her each day and evening before a trip, pointed out on a calendar the days he would be gone and when he would return… Yet the youngling could still fell his determination with a single, guilt-inducing glance.

Had he not been so whelmed by everything before him this morning—the twins’ school tuition bill upon the top of what had arrived during his brief absence, he would have noted hers. The fact that he hadn’t brought guilt storming up from the depths of every cell.

His gaze swept from the empty, worn burgundy leather to Sophia, impatiently staring him down.

The typically somber child looked more solemn than usual. He relinquished his pen, grabbed hold of the chair controls and moved a few rotations away from his desk, taking care not to intersect with her bare toes. “What are you not telling me?”

She grimaced. “’Tis something you need to see . Before Trugmoldy awakes from her ‘repose’.” The last was sneered.

Miss Tuckett, who had come highly recommended from the London agency that had sent her.

Miss Tuckett, who now “reposed” as she lazily did every day after nuncheon.

He’d worked through the mid-day meal? And still hadn’t noted Julia’s absence?

His conscience cringed. Clamored that he make this right.

And by calling the woman Trugmoldy , Sophia had just labeled her governess, Miss Tuckett, a whore.

It was more than troublesome, that the just-turned ten-year-old knew such a term. But what was more bothersome, to Warrick at that moment? How the determined, vocal youngster continued to barter with him—for everything . The fact that she wasn’t now sank dread into his chest.

The two remaining male servants were outside, repairing the simple cart he’d been using to visit tenants. He wouldn’t call them back in. He stretched his fingers, then clamped them tight. Flexed his biceps. Rolled his shoulders up and back. Clenched every muscle in his arms. They were strong. As strong as they’d ever been.

His legs now? Annoyance made him slap one withered thigh. Despite the recent weeks of torture by Arbuckle, and his own determination not to give up, naught had changed.

Could he do it? Was he strong enough?

The fact that he hadn’t outright told her nay told him he was about to gamble—on himself.

The back, servants’ stairs were more narrow. But would give him a modicum of privacy not afforded by the grander, primary staircase, should the hired governess rise during his efforts. For he knew she had taken to using those deeper, broader ones herself (without seeking permission).

So the servants’ staircase it would be.

Would he fit? Could he attain that third floor on his own?

By damn, he would give it a go.

“All right.” He nodded, saw her surprise.

And determined he would climb those damn stairs or turn insensible and fall into a fainting fit before he abandoned the effort.

Dragging his useless, floundering legs behind him, ignoring the dull ache burgeoning low in his back by the second landing, Warrick tensed his jaw. Gritted his teeth and clawed his weight up each tread behind the darting child.

The first series of stairs he’d accomplished easier than anticipated. The second? Became twice as difficult.

But now that he rounded the wall of the tiny, second-floor landing and stared up at the slim corridor, riddled with far narrower steps he had to surmount before reaching the third level? Doubts didn’t creep in. They surged. Swamped. Threatened to call a halt to his efforts thus far.

Breath heaving, he blinked. The contracting staircase loomed over him, blurring.

“Warry?” Sophia whispered, her slippers silent as she turned around and came back down the half dozen treads to where he rested, muscles burning. Lungs bellowing.

“’Tis dire, I promise. You need to see before Trug wakes.” She knelt beside him. Bunched the hem of her dress in one hand and lifted it to wipe his face.

’Twas only then he realized the sweat dripping from his nose and into his eyes. Slicking his shirt to his chest.

Pathetic. That such a puny effort rendered him spent.

Nearly spent. Keep going.

“Thanks, poppet.” The gruff words were out the moment she stepped back after dabbing his face. “Lead on.”

He’d arrived late last night, long after the girls were already abed, thought Julia had just been too slumbered to greet him properly, even though she’d hummed in welcome when he nudged open their door and whispered, “I am home now,” before rolling in.

She’d murmured a second sleepy, wordless welcome but dozed on as he’d approached the bed, her face hidden by thumb and blanket. Until she’d wiggled to face the wall. Away from him.

A light palm to her back and a retreat before he awoke Sophia, who slept deeper than them all.

Despite the hour, he had insisted on leaving London as soon as he and Arbuckle had completed the last of the trio of appointments and ordered the hired coachman to drive straight through, given the clear night and moonlight. If it meant pissing in a can but arriving to the estate, and back to the girls, hours sooner, the inconvenience, the discomfort was worth it.

At least he no longer need worry about soiling himself. The sensations heralding the need for relieving oneself had returned during the first half of 1812. Something to be thankful for, at least. Less laundry. Less humiliation. A fraction more independence, and as the months went on with his arse confined to sitting , he would treasure every iota he could find.

Once he’d been carried to the second floor, he’d stopped by their chamber before retiring to his own. He’d taken to keeping his older Merlin’s chair on the sleeping level, giving him some semblance of, albeit limited, mobility. Easier for the servants that way, to carry him bodily up and down only twice a day, morning and night, and be able to go about their business during the interim without attending to him. Let them focus on the other duties they graciously continued to do for the pittance he could continue to pay.

Some days—hell, some weeks—he wondered why he willingly tolerated Arbuckle’s torture—ah, treatment —given the utter lack of any changes. But after—literally—prostrating himself, beggaring his pride, to get the man to agree to treat him once more, Warrick had aimed to do everything the man commanded, though admittedly through copious sweat and swears.

But now? By the time he gained that final landing, the lower half of his back on fire with the effort, even his hair protested. Long enough he had taken to tying it back like an ancient rather than suffer the inconvenience of regular trims, it now fell about his face, damp strands dripping. Mocking the difficulty, the preposterous picture he must make, seal-walking (or should he say lumbering? ) his exhausted self down a thankfully flat passageway until he reached the locked door where Sophia stood, one impatient toe tapping, but the rest of her demonstrating the opposite: calmly waiting for him without chiding nor rushing.

How he must look, through her eyes, flashed in his mind. From one arm-clawed “step” to the next, he saw it clear as day. Oddly, though, for once, pitying emotions didn’t clatter about. Not disgust. Nor embarrassment. Nor that impatience shown only by her toe…

For once, just as though following the example of the—unusually—behaved child before him, he simply saw how things were. More difficult for him, than most, when it came to moving about. Something he finally accepted, it seemed, and now could move beyond.

Move beyond as well as he was able, because when he reached her, she pointed overhead.

The key, strung with twine, hung over the door, well out of Sophia’s reach. ’Twas but a moment to lift her confidently with his strong hands curved about her stiffened legs, braced around her calves, and raise her overhead until she grasped the key and tossed it down. A second later, he dispatched the lock and flung the door wide from his perspiring, nearly prone position on the floor, to see a shocking sight.

For his old nursery, the one that should have been filled with remnants of life and love…a stray tin soldier fighting across an imagined field…a chipped block, paint worn, tumbled among its brethren…colorful marbles clustered in a jar…was naught but a barren, senseless void. Nothing in the vast room save for scuffs from sold-off furniture, dust from little use and a silently crying, brutally shivering child in the far corner. No blanket to console. No thumb in her mouth, for her arms were bound behind her. Lips glued shut.

The rage he felt could not be expressed.

“Oh, sweetheart.” His already fractured heart, grieving over the loss of so much, split clear in two when he saw the bruises surrounding Julia’s lips. “Is this why you turned away when I saw you last night?”

A tumult of black and red, of hate and regret thundered through him until he roared loud enough to wake the dead, certainly a reposing prostitute of a governess.

“She started pinching her,” Sophia informed him after he ignored the fire blazing in his back and scrambled through the doorway.

As to the six-year-old? The moment she saw it was him, despite his roar of rage, she charged forward until she slammed into his chest, painful whimpers emerging from her compressed lips. Bound, she could do nothing but burrow into him.

He fought the shambling trial of rearranging his dead limbs, until he could rest against the wall thus freeing his hands. He tore through the pitiful ropes holding her prisoner, hauled her small body off the floor and held her close to him as secure as he could convey. Her tiny arms gripped tight around his neck. Tugged on the hair at his nape, that which had not yet escaped the tie about it.

“Hold on, sweetheart,” he murmured, petting the back of her head, patting her back, the sight of those bruises about her lips slamming into his heart. Rocking her from side to side as he clung tight and provided what shelter he could. “We’ll get your lips unglued as soon as we can and nothing like this will ever, ever?—”

He bit down, cut off his words before he started spewing oaths no child should witness.

“When pinching didn’t make her talk, Trugmoldy started locking her in here. Told her that silent girls were a nuisance, and if Julia didn’t start speaking, she would make her.” Beneath that dark cap of curls and contrariness, Sophia’s cheeks flushed with ire. Her brown eyes hopping mad. “I hate Miss Tuckett. Hate her.”

The stalwart young guardian paced between him and the open door, hands flying as fast as her words, as she mimicked punching someone. “I hate her for Julia and I disdain her for myself. The unconscionable tyrant.” Disdain? Unconscionable? Some errant part of his brain thought, At least her vocabulary was increasing... “Contemptible bitch.”

Whoa. Pride over her vocabulary and intellect gave way to embarrassed amusement. “Who have you been listening to, to learn that ?” Against him, Julia finally ceased her shivering as his neck grew damp from her tears. Every muscle he possessed either ached with emotion or screamed from exertion. And today wasn’t even half over. “Soph, whatever we might both think of Miss Tuckett, calling her a bitch is not something appropriate nor allowable. Not out loud, anyway.” She shot him a grin at that allowance. “Keep that to yourself, hmmm?”

How miraculous. How marvelous. How bloody astonishing that he could be seething with anger far beyond anything he had known before, yet possess the wherewithal to actually parent ?

“Very well. But you will dismiss her, correct? Not let her harm Julia again?”

And you? he thought to ask, but didn’t. You saucy, stubborn minx. What has the vile governess I never should have hired done to you? How can I ever make it up to you?

“Soph,” he swore with more satisfaction than he should have, “that contemptuous bitch who thinks herself a teacher won’t spend another night under our roof. Nor will she ever find employment in these environs again, I guarantee you that.”

The clutch around his neck loosened; the weight against his chest deepened. Julia of the bruised, reddened mouth and chapped, swollen lips had fallen blessedly asleep. How in blazes was he to get them both down the stairs without waking her?

How the devil would he get her lips pried apart without hurting her?

“Will you take us with you when you travel to London?” Sophia asked in her direct way. “Promise not to leave us with another governess?” He’d been going every other week, to see Arbuckle, the trips both arduous and expensive. Not something he could legitimately continue, not now, with the girls back on their own, without sufficient nor trusted servants to see to their care.

It came down to either taking them with him, to London for his appointments—out of the question. Or Arbuckle traveling here.

But would he? Would the contrary, grumbling surgeon who had never really wanted to treat a peer in the first place trouble himself to travel once more, and repeatedly?

Warrick had strong doubts on that front.