Page 4 of The Viscount Needs a Wife (All for Love #2)

She smiled back at his military analogy.

Really, he might dress like a shag rug, but he was charming when he wanted to be.

And it was kind of him to offer to help.

Suddenly this afternoon’s outing seemed more fun and less of a chore.

Not that she minded looking after the children, of course.

“Thank you, yes. That would be welcome.”

“Good. I’ll see you downstairs in half an hour, shall I?”

“Papa!” Little Charlotte tugged at her father’s sleeve.

“Yes, poppet?” he said crouching down to her level.

“Look!” she held out a drawing. “This is for you!”

“Thank you, sweetheart.” His face softened as his eyes took in the stick figures in the picture.

“It’s a family portrait,” said Charlotte seriously.

“See? You,”—she pointed to the biggest figure—“Mama,”—a figure with long red hair—“and Lizzie, me, and Ewen.” Three smaller figures.

The viscount’s face twisted, and he kissed the little girl on her reddish-blonde curls.

“Thank you, darling, I’ll put it up in my room. ” She smiled and gave him a hug.

He hugged her back with one arm while he held the drawing in his other hand, then straightened and watched her climb back into her chair to resume her dinner.

Lizzie waved at him as she stuffed something in her mouth and Ewen watched him with big eyes as he chewed on a piece of cheese.

He waved back at Lizzie with a lopsided grin and stroked Ewen’s untidy mop of brown curls.

The viscount cleared his throat and made an attempt to hide his obvious emotion. Annis’s heart contracted for the poor man.

She had met him on many occasions, as he was a frequent visitor to The Castle, but they’d had little opportunity to actually speak of anything beyond the commonplace.

Her position had kept her mostly confined to the schoolroom over the last several years, and it was only now, as the girls were older, that she and they had been invited to attend evening meals with the family and their guests.

It was only during the recent wedding festivities that they’d had occasion to converse a little, and all of that had been related to his offspring, whose charge had fallen on her shoulders at the time.

He was not precisely a handsome man, although he was well proportioned, being just under six feet in height and broad through the shoulders.

She had remembered him being a trifle stout on previous occasions, but he seemed to have shed those extra pounds more recently, and he wore an air of lean hunger about him that was strangely compelling.

There was a weariness to his eyes also that spoke of the suffering he had endured in the past few months.

No one at The Castle could remain in ignorance of the tragedy that had befallen him.

Annis’s soft heart was wrung by the cruelty of fate. To lose a beloved wife in such a way.

“I will see you shortly, Miss Pringle,” he said with a nod and left the room, the drawing still clutched in one hand.

After the meal, Annis assembled her noisy troops downstairs in the entrance hall.

The viscount ambled slowly down the stairs while she was counting heads.

Despite his earlier emotion, he appeared cheerful enough now, as he smiled at her lazily and immediately took charge of his son, who was too young to walk to the ruins under his own power.

“Miss Pringle, are all the troops assembled?” he asked.

“They are, my lord.”

“Excellent. Company, right foot forward, out the door in pairs, please,” he instructed. “And wait for myself and Miss Pringle by the fountain, understood?”

“Yes sir,” responded the children in unison.

Annis glanced at her regular pupils who were smiling at this display of orderliness from their guests.

Heather and Ingrid stood at the back of the line.

At the front were the two youngest Watson boys, Japheth and Ezekiel, behind them came the Fitzgerald girls, Elizabeth and Charlotte, then the Watson twins, Hepzibah and Emanuel, then bringing up the rear, Mary, Ingrid and Heather.

Ingrid inched forward to walk with Hepzibah who was closer to her in age, and Mary and Heather naturally fell in together.

Annis adjusted her bonnet and followed the viscount down the front steps and across the gravel driveway to the large fountain forming a roundabout in the center of the approach to the house.

“I think we should lead from the front, don’t you, Miss Pringle?” asked the viscount.

She nodded. “As you wish, my lord.”

He waved at Heather and Mary. “Girls, alert us if anyone is having trouble keeping up!”

Heather acknowledged the instruction, and the cavalcade set off for the ruins which were situated to the right of the current building beyond the front lawn, flanking the eastern wing of the house.

It was a fine, sunny day, warm as the previous several days had been, with a light breeze to temper the worst of the heat.

Two servants had also been instructed to follow in an hour with refreshments and blankets for the company when they reached their destination.

It promised to be a completely enjoyable afternoon.

“What other delights have you planned for the children’s entertainment during this visit, Miss Pringle?” asked the viscount juggling his son up onto his shoulders.

“A mock battle on the south lawn, a treasure hunt in the woods, a game of hide-and-seek in the rose garden, and a picnic by the lake. That will at least keep them busy until the end of the week. And will give me time to come up with some more ideas.” She picked her way across the gravel, feeling it even through the soles of her kid boots.

“You have an ingenious imagination, Miss Pringle. I could wish I were a boy again to enjoy your entertainments,” he said, putting out a hand to help her down a shallow set of steps.

The touch of his hand was warm and somehow comforting.

The governess was seldom the recipient of the courtesies shown automatically to a lady of birth.

“You’re very welcome to participate, my lord, there is nothing children enjoy more than having their adults spend time with them on their adventures.”

“Very true, Miss Pringle. As a boy I loved it when my father made the time to play soldiers with me.” The viscount waved away an insect.

“You are fortunate, my lord. Not many men of the upper classes deign to spend time with their children.” She glanced at his profile and decided that it might be his best angle. He had a rather elegant nose.

“No. That is why I try to spend as much time as I can with mine. It’s a precious period and doesn’t last long.”

“Papa!” interrupted Ewen, his little hands grasping his father’s hair and tugging to get his attention. “Look, the roons!”

“So, it is Ewen,” said his lordship, wincing and extracting locks of hair from his offspring’s fists.

The “roons,” or ruins, were the remains of the Norman and medieval keep from which The Castle took its name.

There was a crumbling wall and tumbledown tower that showed a stone staircase, just over six feet in height, on one exposed side.

Plus, a collection of half-submerged moss and creeper-covered stones—obviously parts of the original structure that had fallen and remained where they lay—were scattered about.

The approach dipped and then rose in a half circle before the structure—the remnant of a filled in moat, Annis surmised, based on her reading of the hopelessly out of proportion sketch of the original building plan that she had found in the duke’s library.

The viscount again offered his hand to Annis to assist her in negotiating the uneven ground.

She was glad of her stout kid boots as well as his hand.

“Thank you, my lord,” she said as they gained even ground again.

The children ran at the dip, racing down one side and up the other with a whoop of delight.

Heather and Mary, mindful of their dignity, traversed it at a slower pace.

When they were all assembled, Annis commenced her history lesson, conscious of the viscount sitting casually on the wall with young Ewen beside him, listening attentively.

She noticed he had given Ewen his fob watch to play with as a distraction.

His daughters hung about him, little Charlotte leaning against his legs and Elizabeth holding his hand.

Given what they had been through, losing their mother in such a tragic way, it was no wonder they stuck close to their father.

“Can anyone tell me what these stones represent?” she asked.

Hepzibah put her hand straight up. “They are the remains of the old castle,” she said.

“That is right. Can anyone tell me how old they are?”

“As old as Stonehenge?” suggested Japheth.

“No, not that old.”

“I know,” said Ingrid wearily. “As old as the Conquest—1066. Our ancestor was given the land by William.”

“Very good, Ingrid, I’m glad you were paying attention.”

Annis went on to elaborate on the Norman Conquest and what it meant for the formation of England. For the girls she spoke of the Bayeaux Tapestry and its record of the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings, adding a few details of the battle for the benefit of the boys.

Emanuel interrupted at this point to say, “The duke told us about his ancestor who fought for William in the battle.”

“When did you hear that?” asked Ingrid, inclined to be proprietorial about her brother’s stories.

“When he brought Sarah home before the wedding,” said Mary.

Annis went on with the lesson, talking about what it was like to live in a castle and why they were built.

“What did it look like? When it was new?” asked Mary.

“It had four towers, one on each corner. This is the only one left.” Annis gestured behind her. “There were curtain walls between the towers enclosing a courtyard, and there would have been a big portcullis gate cut into one of the walls. And the whole structure was surrounded by a moat.”