Page 49 of How to Cross a Marquess (The Way to a Lord's Heart 3)

“Tom didn’t want to come,” John repeated as she swathed him in the larger garment and wiped his face with a handkerchief from the pocket. “He tried to talk me out of it.”

“I coulda argued harder,” said Tom. He was only wet to the thigh, and he seemed to be recovering rapidly.

“No, I’m to blame.” John stood straighter. He looked small and forlorn in the folds of Roger’s coat. “You mustn’t punish Tom.”

Fenella could see that all the older males were impressed by his determination to take responsibility. “Come into the gig,” she said. “We must get you home and into dry clothes.” She beckoned Tom as well.

“I can ride,” said Tom. “I’m not so wet. Only my shoes and stockings.”

The fact that John didn’t insist on riding as well showed how shaken he was. The others mounted up. Tom caught the reins of John’s horse to lead him.

They started back, John hunched on the seat beside Fenella as if awaiting a blow. As the minutes passed without a word, he slowly straightened. “Aren’t you going to scold me?” he asked finally.

“You seem to have a good sense of what you did wrong,” Fenella replied.

“Yes, but it was idiotic, to go out onto the sand. Tom said I shouldn’t.”

“He was right.”

“And I did it anyway. Like a fool.”

“You seem to be sorry,” Fenella said, while she thought that being a parent was a more complicated task than she’d previously realized.

“I am! Dreadfully sorry.”

“Would you be sorrier if I scolded you?”

John considered this novel idea. “I don’tthinkI would be,” he said finally. “Perhaps I would feel worse.”

“If I talked to you about how I had given you a good deal of freedom, and you had let me down? And about how you might have gotten Tom killed?”

John hunched lower again. “Yes. Then.”

She couldn’t bring herself to rail at a child who seemed so full of regret. “Well, we will take those points as understood then. Be sure you remember them.”

He gaped at her. “You aren’t going to punish me?”

“Oh, I’m certainly going to dothat. You are now confined to the house and garden. The stables will be instructed not to give you a horse, should you ask.”

His face showed chagrin, then acceptance. “But, for how long?”

“We will see,” said Fenella.

“Criminals get a set sentence in court,” said John, some of his rebellious spirit surfacing.

“Would you like me to say for the remainder of your visit to Clough House?”

“No! Never mind.”

Fenella nodded. At the moment she was inclined to keep him under her eye until she sent him back to school. Hideous visions of telling her sister that her son had drowned at Lindisfarne were only now receding from her brain. She glanced over to see that John had lifted a corner of the napkin covering the basket she’d brought. “There’s cakes in here,” he said.

“Yes, for Mrs. Dorne. Who’s ill. And old.”

“Oh.” He let the napkin drop. They moved on along the road. John pulled Roger’s coat closer around him. “It’s just that I’m so hungry,” he added. “The water was dashed cold. And I’ve had nothing to eat since breakfast.”

Having seen the prodigious amounts of food this one small boy could consume, Fenella relented. “Go on then.”

She expected him to dive in; instead, he signaled to Tom. When the older boy rode closer, John offered him the napkin filled with cakes. Tom took some with thanks and a grin. Only then did John devour one of the small pastries, in two enormous bites. “Good,” he mumbled around the large mouthful. In a remarkably short time, the basket was empty.

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