Page 7 of Sense and Suitability
God help him.That prayer had become his refrain of late. No one else could help him. Not if he wished to save the estate and marry a woman who would accept his family. It would take a miracle, and he wasn’t too certain God had any left to spare for him and his brood.
Simon stood, grateful at least that where Ben bettered him in height, Simon excelled in breadth of shoulders.
“Take heart.” Ben failed to control his grin. “Your somewhat... colorful past and current predicament lend you an air of mystery. Ladies will find you a vast deal more alluring. Work up a brooding scowl or two, and you’re nigh irresistible.”
Simon snorted. A scowl? That he could manage. What with a strong-willed brother off fighting the French, a runaway sister, and his three youngest siblings, who were one step shy of feral.
“See, that expression will do quite well.” Ben gestured toward Simon’s face. “The ladies will swoon.”
Simon pinned Ben with a look. “Why are we friends?”
Ben’s laugh echoed off the parlor walls and offered a momentary levity, but the respite was short lived.
The library door creaked open, just wide enough to allow twelve-year-old William space to slip into the room. Pale and thin, the boy’s pallor had the matrons at church constantly murmuring over his health, but since the sun rarely touched the boy’s face, there was no other tint he could possess.
He offered Ben a tentative nod—a small but significant improvement from the last time Ben had visited—before fixing his gaze on Simon.
Simon’s chest tightened. “What is it, Will?”
The boy flinched, shrinking under Simon’s scrutiny. Simon silently cursed himself. Had he been too sharp? Or was William simply that skittish? Perhaps both. He’d been gone far too long, chasing the faintest traces of Arianna while his youngest siblings grieved and floundered without the proper guidance of their eldest brother. Another failure to add to his growing ledger.
“Lottie’s gone missing,” he stammered, his words barely audible. “Mrs. Patterson sent me to fetch you.”
“Not again,” Ben groaned. “Didn’t this happen on my last visit?”
Simon refrained from admitting that Charlotte’s disappearances were a near-daily occurrence. “Which direction did she go?”
William looked away and shrugged. “I w-wasn’t outside.”
Of course not. The boy likely had been sitting by one of the upstairs windows reading or painting. Simon placed a hand on William’s shoulder. “Thank you for letting me know, Will.”
William’s body eased under the touch, and he offered the faintest of smiles. It was enough to cement Simon’s resolve. He’d failed these children before, but no more. In the absence of their parents, he would do whatever it took to protect them. To be a better man.
He had to. There was nothing else for it.
Simon dashed from the room and down the hall, bypassing the grand staircase to his left, the unused ballroom on his right, and the dining room, which now rarely hosted family members, let alone guests. Ben followed on his heels.
At the main back door, Mrs. Patterson awaited them, her apron streaked with mud and her expression one of weary exasperation.
Oh, dear Lord, Simon inwardly prayed.Please don’t let her leave us.
Mrs. Patterson was the linchpin holding their fraying household together, especially in Aunt Agatha’s absence. She’d been steadfast for years, even when Simon’s selfishness before his parents’ deaths might have driven her away. Surely the kindly housekeeper could see his efforts to atone for those past failings, even if they didn’t always manifest in his siblings’ behavior.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Patterson. If I’d been here more regularly—”
“Charlotte had her tendencies before you left, sir.” She sighed and studied Simon for a moment, those clear eyes softening around the edges. “But it’s good you’re here now because the more eyes on this brood, the better.”
Her ready kindness humbled him all the more. She deserved sainthood, without a doubt. “I’m here to stay,” he whispered—the words as much a promise to himself as to her—then stepped back, clearing his throat. “Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”
“I haven’t the foggiest, sir.” Mrs. Patterson wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, glancing down at the muddy smears onher apron without so much as a sigh. “But let us hope it’s not back to Mr. Dean’s stables. Last time she went there, they nearly shot her for trying to ‘rescue’ one of his horses she claimed was being mistreated.”
Simon drew in a breath and cast a glance to Ben from his periphery. His friend’s look of confusion twisted into a slight hue of horror. A legitimate assessment for someone who hadn’t lived through the last few months learning the idiosyncrasies of the lot.
Lottie had gone positively wild since their mother’s death, and Arianna’s disappearance had only exacerbated her defiance. It was as though Lottie aimed to challenge the entire world.
Beyond the back door, the late-morning skyline stretched before Simon—a pine forest to the left, pastures rolling out to the right, and the Hemston property abutting their land at the far edge. Somewhere past these familiar boundaries lay St. Groves, quiet and indifferent to his mounting struggles.
“Miss Sophia is in the water puddles with the dogs again.” Mrs. Patterson looked up at him, holding his gaze. “This time, she’s catching frogs and refuses to come inside to be bathed.”
