Page 11 of How to Cross a Marquess (The Way to a Lord's Heart 3)

“I don’t remember my parents. Grew up scrambling, like, on the streets of Bristol.”

John’s interest increased by leaps and bounds. “My name is John Symmes.”

“Grandson of one of the local gentry,” Tom answered. “I heard.”

“You live around here?”

“No, come up for a visit. With Lord Macklin.” Leaning out, he indicated a tall, somewhat intimidating-looking gentleman amid the parishioners.

John tried to figure out their association. Tom didn’t seem like a servant exactly. But he couldn’t be a relation of that high-nosed man. Not with the history he’d mentioned and the way he spoke. Still, better to err on the side of the complimentary. “Are you his grandson?”

Tom laughed. “Not hardly. I’m… Well, I don’t rightly know what. I heard his secretary call me ‘the earl’s current project.’” He grinned.

It was an immensely engaging grin. John felt a tug of liking for this older, homely boy. Which was a rare experience in his life. “What does that mean?”

“I reckon Lord Macklin wants to make something of me.” Tom’s grin widened. “Not going to work, howsomever.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You ain’t alone in that. Do you like walking?”

“Walking?”

“Tramping about the countryside. I’m partial to it myself. Like company, too. You could come along.”

“I’m not allowed out by myself.” Much as it pained him, John had to admit it. He felt it simply wouldn’t be right to lie to this new, intriguing acquaintance.

“Well, you wouldn’t be. You’d be with me. You could tell that aunt of yours that I never get in trouble. I’m right careful. And we’d just be looking about, ye know. ‘Reconnoitering,’ they call it.”

“It isn’t Aunt Fenella. It’s Wrayle.”

“Rail?”

“He’s my jailer.” John enjoyed saying it. Daring to say it.

“Eh?” said Tom.

“They call him a servant, but he isn’t really.” Now that he was launched, the words went faster. “My parents assigned him to watch me.”

“Why?”

There was something about Tom that made you want to be honest with him, John thought. He hoped they could be friends. He would like that very much. But Tom had to know the truth first. That was the only way it could be. And so, although his heart sank, John proceeded to tell it. “I like snakes,” he said. “They’re quite interesting. And when we were last in London, I found a shopkeeper who sells exotic animals. He had a boa constrictor!” John’s enthusiasm for his subject swelled. “A sailor brought it back from the Americas. Fed it on rats on the ship. It was a quite small specimen, really, and they’re not poisonous.”

“Boa constrictor,” repeated Tom as if interested in the sound of the words. “That’s a kind of snake?”

John nodded. “So I bought it and sneaked it home. To observe and learn, you know. But it got loose from its cage somehow, and it…” He stopped, swallowed, and then rushed on. “It ate my little sister’s new kitten.” Here was the depth of his disgrace. John saw again the horror in his sisters’ eyes, heard the heartbroken weeping. He cringed.

“Yer joking.”

John looked for signs of disgust in Tom’s face, and found none. He shook his head.

“Ate it, you say? I’d think a kitten could outrun a snake.”

“Constrictors throw their coils around their prey and crush them before they swallow them.” The kitten’s tail, still protruding from his snake’s mouth, had been the terrible, irrefutable evidence that sealed both their fates.

“Garn!”

“I never meant it to get near the kitten! Indeed, I don’t know how it escaped my cage. I promise you the wire mesh was quite sturdy.”

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