Ingrid’s mouth gaped and she flushed. “I would not!”
“Well then, learn mathematics and you will always have the upper hand.”
Ingrid bent over her book with a sigh. Heather, who was quietly applying herself to her own list, glanced at Annis with a sympathetic smile. If only all her charges were as sweet and biddable as Heather. With the darkest hair of the three Layne sisters and less spectacular in looks than her elder sister, she had a tendency to fade into the background in company, her shy, retiring nature making her quite self-effacing.
Annis persevered until lunchtime when the midday meal was served in the schoolroom for all the children. Plates were almost empty when the schoolroom door opened, and a shaggy head appeared round it. Viscount Ashford. His eyes roamed the room and found Annis looking at him with a raised eyebrow. He smiled which made his somewhat uneven features light up. Coming into the room, he closed the door with a backward flick of the hand.
He was dressed with extreme casualness, possibly in deference to the heat, in shirtsleeves, an unbuttoned waistcoat, a pair of buff-colored breeches, and scuffed boots. His hair was too long to be fashionable and looked like it needed a comb. He had eschewed a neckcloth altogether, and his shirt was open at the neck.And a fine neck it was, too!A solid column withjust the hint of hair at the base. Annis flushed faintly at this nakedness, an unexpected wave of awareness of his masculinity hitting her in the solar plexus. His dress was bordering on improper, but he seemed blissfully unaware of it.
“Miss Pringle, I understand you have an outing planned for this afternoon?”
“I do, my lord,” she said, rising from her place at the trestle table and attempting to cover her momentary discomposure, slightly shocked at her own visceral reaction. “I am taking the children to see the ruins.”
“Then you will require an escort. Can’t send you out with a whole detachment of infantry and no accompanying officer,” he said with a grin.
She smiled back at his military analogy. Really, he might dress like a shag rug, but he was charming when he wanted to be. And it was kind of him to offer to help. Suddenly this afternoon’s outing seemed more fun and less of a chore. Not that she minded looking after the children, of course. “Thank you, yes. That would be welcome.”
“Good. I’ll see you downstairs in half an hour, shall I?”
“Papa!” Little Charlotte tugged at her father’s sleeve.
“Yes, poppet?” he said crouching down to her level.
“Look!” she held out a drawing. “This is for you!”
“Thank you, sweetheart.” His face softened as his eyes took in the stick figures in the picture.
“It’s a family portrait,” said Charlotte seriously. “See? You,”—she pointed to the biggest figure—“Mama,”—a figure with long red hair—“and Lizzie, me, and Ewen.” Three smaller figures. The viscount’s face twisted, and he kissed the little girl on her reddish-blonde curls. “Thank you, darling, I’ll put it up in my room.” She smiled and gave him a hug.
He hugged her back with one arm while he held the drawing in his other hand, then straightened and watched her climb backinto her chair to resume her dinner. Lizzie waved at him as she stuffed something in her mouth and Ewen watched him with big eyes as he chewed on a piece of cheese. He waved back at Lizzie with a lopsided grin and stroked Ewen’s untidy mop of brown curls.
The viscount cleared his throat and made an attempt to hide his obvious emotion. Annis’s heart contracted for the poor man.
She had met him on many occasions, as he was a frequent visitor to The Castle, but they’d had little opportunity to actually speak of anything beyond the commonplace. Her position had kept her mostly confined to the schoolroom over the last several years, and it was only now, as the girls were older, that she and they had been invited to attend evening meals with the family and their guests. It was only during the recent wedding festivities that they’d had occasion to converse a little, and all of that had been related to his offspring, whose charge had fallen on her shoulders at the time.
He was not precisely a handsome man, although he was well proportioned, being just under six feet in height and broad through the shoulders. She had remembered him being a trifle stout on previous occasions, but he seemed to have shed those extra pounds more recently, and he wore an air of lean hunger about him that was strangely compelling. There was a weariness to his eyes also that spoke of the suffering he had endured in the past few months. No one at The Castle could remain in ignorance of the tragedy that had befallen him. Annis’s soft heart was wrung by the cruelty of fate. To lose a beloved wife in such a way.
“I will see you shortly, Miss Pringle,” he said with a nod and left the room, the drawing still clutched in one hand.
After the meal, Annis assembled her noisy troops downstairs in the entrance hall. The viscount ambled slowly down the stairs while she was counting heads. Despite his earlier emotion, heappeared cheerful enough now, as he smiled at her lazily and immediately took charge of his son, who was too young to walk to the ruins under his own power.
“Miss Pringle, are all the troops assembled?” he asked.
“They are, my lord.”
“Excellent. Company, right foot forward, out the door in pairs, please,” he instructed. “And wait for myself and Miss Pringle by the fountain, understood?”
“Yes sir,” responded the children in unison.
Annis glanced at her regular pupils who were smiling at this display of orderliness from their guests. Heather and Ingrid stood at the back of the line. At the front were the two youngest Watson boys, Japheth and Ezekiel, behind them came the Fitzgerald girls, Elizabeth and Charlotte, then the Watson twins, Hepzibah and Emanuel, then bringing up the rear, Mary, Ingrid and Heather. Ingrid inched forward to walk with Hepzibah who was closer to her in age, and Mary and Heather naturally fell in together.
Annis adjusted her bonnet and followed the viscount down the front steps and across the gravel driveway to the large fountain forming a roundabout in the center of the approach to the house.
“I think we should lead from the front, don’t you, Miss Pringle?” asked the viscount.
She nodded. “As you wish, my lord.”
He waved at Heather and Mary. “Girls, alert us if anyone is having trouble keeping up!”
