Honourable Doctor, Improper Arrangement. Mary Nichols

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      ‘Yes, it was.’

      ‘I assumed you were the children’s governess.’

      ‘Children?’

      ‘Those you were playing with in the park. Very happy you all looked too.’

      ‘They are my cousin’s children. Jamie is ten, Charlotte, eight, Henry, six, and little Rosemary is four. I love to take them out when their governess has a day off. They are such a delight to be with.’

      ‘You have no children of your own?’

      ‘Sadly, no.’

      ‘One day, perhaps.’

      ‘Perhaps.’ She did not want to go into that on so slight an acquaintance. ‘I thought at first that you were a schoolmaster.’

      ‘Did you? Why?’

      ‘Because of the competent way you handled little Joe and the strict tone of your voice when you spoke to him.’

      ‘One has to be firm with children.’

      ‘Naturally, but not hard or cruel. Their young minds can be so easily bruised.’

      ‘Oh, indeed. We are at one on that.’

      He had first hand experience of bruises, both physical and mental—they had stayed with him all his life. His own governess, Miss Nokes, had been a tyrant who had tried beating his lessons into him. He had soon learned not to complain because his uncle would not believe him and told him, ‘Miss Nokes knows what she is doing. If you misbehave, you must be punished.’ The fact that his back was lacerated and purple with bruising carried no weight at all. ‘It is time you learned to take your punishment like a man. You should be more like Charles. He never complains.’ Simon supposed it was only natural that his uncle should favour his own son over his nephew, but he made no effort to hide it and Simon was left feeling like a cuckoo in the nest.

      What the beatings had done for Charles, who was three years older, was to make him as cruel as the governess. He could not take his anger out on the real perpetrator and so he vented it on animals, his horse and dogs, and any wild animals he found. Simon had often nursed an injured animal, binding up its wounds and hiding it until it was well again. He had been glad when he was sent away to school, only to find that was even worse for thrashings, which he endured stoically, while vowing that if and when he had children they would never be beaten.

      Strangely enough, it was the army that allowed him to be himself, to find an occupation that gave him fulfilment. The army existed to kill, but on the other hand it offered him comradeship and a purpose to his life, especially when he found his doctoring skills could often make the difference between life and death, between a man being crippled and having a whole body. There had been times when he had not succeeded, but no one blamed him—they knew he was doing all he could.

      He had been silent so long that Kate wondered what he was thinking. His expression, so easy and relaxed a few moments before, was severe and uncompromising, his jaw set. Had she said something to upset him? ‘I suppose being a schoolmaster and being a doctor are not so very different when it comes to children,’ she said for want of something to say.

      His face relaxed and he smiled, his innate good manners taking over from his grim memories. ‘One looks after the body and the other the mind.’

      ‘But mind and body are one when it comes to the whole person.’

      He laughed suddenly. ‘That is a very profound statement for a summer afternoon, but I suppose having a father who is a Reverend makes you more thoughtful than most.’

      ‘Perhaps. But he has no parish. He gave it up when—’ She stopped suddenly as if about to utter an indiscretion. ‘When he decided to write a book about comparative religions and needed to be in London close to sources of research and bought the house in Holles Street. My grandmother lives with us. I will introduce you to them….’

      ‘I am hardly fit to go calling,’ he said, looking down at his clothes, sadly crumpled after dealing with Joe. ‘Perhaps you will allow me to call on you tomorrow afternoon, when I am fit to be presented. And then I can let you know how Joe is settling down,’ he added. Why, when he had decided that women were best kept at a distance, did he suddenly want to learn more about her? She was unsettling him.

      ‘Yes, I shall look forward to that.’ They were turning into Holles Street. She pointed to one of the houses. ‘That one.’

      He pulled up, jumped out to hand her down, doffed his hat and watched as she let herself in the door, then climbed back to go to his lodgings in Piccadilly, musing on the events of the day. Was it fate that brought him to that spot in Hyde Park just in time to help rescue the little urchin? Fate or not, he wanted to see Mrs Meredith again, though he told himself it was only because he wanted to enrol her help for the Society.

       Chapter Two

      Lady Morland was sitting in the drawing room, a cup of tea in her hand and a plate of sugar plums at her elbow when Kate entered the room. ‘Good heavens, Kate, whatever has happened to you?’ she queried. She was a little plump, due to her partiality for sweetmeats, but was still, at seventy, very active both in mind and body. ‘Have you had an accident? Have you been set upon and robbed?’

      ‘No, nothing like that. I am sorry I am late, Grandmama, but I have had such an adventure.’

      ‘You had better tell me at once, for a more bedraggled sight I never did see. It is to be hoped no one of any note saw you or it will be all round town.’

      ‘Oh, Grandmama, of course it will not. I am not one of the ton, I do not move in such exalted circles, you know that very well.’

      ‘But you will when the Viscount comes back. He will take you out and about and there must be no hint of gossip. You know how particular he is.’

      She did. Viscount Robert Cranford, one-time Colonel of a line regiment and now a diplomat, was very particular indeed, which was why Kate sometimes wondered why he had picked her out for his attention. She had first met him when he called to commiserate with her on Edward’s death. He had known and admired her late husband as a valiant fellow officer and felt he owed it to him to visit his widow. He knew and understood the grief felt on losing a loved one, he had told her; his wife had died, leaving him with two daughters to bring up. They were being cared for by his sister, Mrs Withersfield, on his estate near Cookham. ‘When Harriet’s husband died and left her in rather straitened circumstances,’ he had explained, ‘I offered her a home. It has worked very well because, being so often away from home myself, I needed someone to run the house and look after the girls.’

      Her grandmother had plied him with refreshments and invited him to call again. He had done so several times while he was in England; when he went back to Spain, he and Kate had kept up a regular correspondence. After the war ended, he had left the army to pursue a career in the diplomatic corps and was working at the British Embassy in Paris. He had proposed by letter three months before.

      She had adored Edward and there had never been a moment’s doubt about her answer when he asked her to marry him, coupling it with a declaration of undying love that had delighted her. Six months after the wedding, he was dead. Did the love die with him? She did not think so, but it changed, became a lovely memory, not something of the present, and should СКАЧАТЬ