Page 2 of The Wilful Widow
“’It’s all right,” Alexander sighed, bending down to scoop the child into his arms. “I’m sure your mama won’t be cross. What’s your name?”
“Beatrice.” The little girl smiled gratefully up at him. “She wouldn’t be cross, except that Lord Ashbrook gave me the dress and said I must wear it for the Yuletide Ball, and Mama said I must take extra special care of it...but now look at it! There’s a tear in the skirt and mud too! Oh, I hope we don’t pass Lord Ashbrook on the way in.” Beatrice’s lip trembled. “He’ll be even crosser than Mama. I only climbed the apple tree to be out of everyone’s way and now look what’s happened.”
Alexander had met Lord Ashbrook that afternoon and had formed a none-too-flattering impression of the fellow with his handsome looks and cynical sneer. He seemed the type who’d take a dim view of small girls roaming the grounds on their own and coming back covered in dirt.
“Lord Ashbrook is too busy with other things to be cross over such a trifle as your spoiled dress,” he reassured her as Jessamine walked beside him up the slope toward the grand manor house. “Like his impending marriage.” He glanced across at Jessamine who said under her breath, “To the most notorious widow in the land.”
Alexander sent her a warning look, though Beatrice fortunately appeared not to have heard this disparagement of her mother, for she said dully, as she looked over Alexander’s shoulder, “Mama says I must be good for Lord Ashbrook and…and grateful for all he’s done for us. But he won’t think I’m good now, will he?”
Ignoring this, Alexander said in jollying tones, “So your mama is marrying Lord Ashbrook, is she? Well, when I saw him this morning, Lord Ashbrook was eagerly awaiting your mama’s arrival back from whatever business took her away so early this morning, so my guess is that he’ll have far more important matters on his mind than your dress.”
The child bit her lip. “Do you think so?”
“I’m sure of it,” Alexander said, feeling a degree of satisfaction that she was so easily reassured. “And you don’t look like a naughty child, so I’m sure he’ll understand that this was all just a little mistake. Just as your mama will.”
“Maybe he won’t even know.” She sounded more hopeful now.
Alexander nodded. “I’m sure he won’t. In fact, if you like, we can make a secret plan so that neither he nor your mama willeverknow.”
“Really, Alexander,” Jessamine murmured beside him, prompting him to say even more encouragingly, “Yes, I’ll arrange for your dress to be washed and mended and returned in time for the ball so no one except you and I and Miss Forbes, here, will ever know.”
Her mouth dropped open, and she stared at him as if he were possessed of magical powers. “Can you really do that?”
“I can do most things I put my mind to,” Alexander said, earning himself a roll of the eyes from Jessamine who said with a smile, “You do have a way with the ladies, Alexander.”
“Indeed, I do,” he agreed readily enough. “I never renege on a promise.”
“Is that a promise?” asked the child as if he’d offered her gold.
Alexander nodded solemnly as they reached the house, emerging around a twist in the graveled path just as a smart new carriage drew up at the portico.
The sound made Beatrice fling her head up and she cried out in alarm, “Stop, go back! It’s Mama! And Lord Ashbrook will be there to greet her. They’ll see my dress and know I’ve been naughty!”
Alexander stopped, then took several steps backward, saying with a shrug as he elicited Jessamine’s opinion, “I suppose there’s no harm in taking her through the kitchens, is there?”
“I suppose not but…what a silly girl you are, Beatrice,” Jessamine scolded her, “if you think Lord Ashbrook is going to be cross about your dress.” She sent Alexander a secret, smug smile. “Gentlemen don’t notice that sort of thing.”
“Lord Ashbrook notices everything and he…he’s always telling me what a naughty girl I am. I can’t bear for him to know it’s true.”
“Your mama will make it all right,” Alexander soothed her. “Mamas are angels. Mine certainly was.”
But Beatrice wasn’t to be comforted. “She won’t believe me because Lord Ashbrook is always so nice to me when Mama is there but…but he’s so horrid when she’s not. Oh please, sir, please promise you’ll see that my dress is cleaned and mended before Mama makes me wear it to the Yuletide Ball.”
Alexander nodded, committed now, as they reached the servants’ stairs at the rear of the house. It would not be so difficult. One of the servants would do it for him if he handed over a coin or two. He’d ask Hobson, his valet to organize it. Just so long as he remembered.
But Beatrice had thought ahead of him. “I’ll send you a message,” she whispered just before he reached the nursery. “With instructions. You mustn’t say anything to anyone. You promised, after all. And you said you always keep a promise—didn’t you?”
Chapter 2
Lady Quamby looked at the festive trimmings in the drawing room then at her sister.
“As good as last year’s?” she asked.
“Beautiful,” Fanny said. “You always overreach yourself, Antoinette, and this is no exception.”
“It’s an exception that you pay me a compliment when you’re always so horridly critical.” Antoinette tweaked the mistletoe strung across the room with a glance at the two children under whose instructions it had been erected.
“Generally only in regard to men,” Fanny said under her voice, adding, “So, Katherine? George? What entertainment have you in store for the grown-ups?” Then, with a frown, she added, looking about her, “And where is Beatrice? I hope you’re being nice to her.”
