Page 26 of A Sham Engagement

She bristled. “But there must have been a moment after you proposed to the girl, and let me tell you that proposing at a ball is not at all the done thing, when I could have been introduced. She met your father, after all.”

Jack sighed. “If all you want to do is meet her, then that can easily be arranged. Come for tea on Thursday afternoon, and I’ll invite Elenora and Lady Wetherby at the same time.” But probably not Lady Dandridge and her daughter, nor those two rather plain younger sisters whom he’d observed eyeing him with definite fascination, tinged with a little scorn, when he’d visited. What did they have against him? Who knew with girls that age.

Mollified, his mother smoothed her skirts. “That will be most interesting.” She paused. “Will little Edward be present?”

Jack froze, for once unsettled. He bit his top lip. “I think not. She need not meet him yet.”

“If she is to be your wife, then she needs to. She needs to understand that she takes on more than just you.”

Jack shifted uncomfortably, and not only because of the deception he was getting more and more involved in. “I don’t think it would be a good idea just yet.” Would it ever be? “I don’t want to shock her.” Although, was she the sort of girl who would be shocked by anything? He hadn’t received that impression of her as yet. Despite her propensity to speak her mind, she seemed a level-headed and sensible young lady.

His mother nodded. “Perhaps that is wise. He might be better off if you sent him back to Broxbourne Park with his governess. The fresh air would do him good, and he is inordinately fond of animals, he tells me. Especially cows, for some unfathomable reason. Quite the little budding farmer.”

“No.” Jack shook his head. “I like to have him with me. He’s not going to Broxbourne unless I go too.”

His mother’s mouth thinned as she pressed her lips together. “As you wish. But when his discovered presence causes trouble between you and your betrothed, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She stood up. “And now I need to go, or I’ll be late to dine with your father. You know how he likes everyone to be punctual. Do you care to accompany me? I know he’d be pleased if you did.”

Jack rose too but shook his head. “Thank you, Mother, but I prefer to remain at home this evening. You may pass on my regards to Father though.”

When she’d gone, Jack rang the bell for Alcock. “I think I will take my supper in the nursery this evening.” Perhaps today’s events with finding Josie and taking her to Mrs. Sharpe’s care had made him more aware of his own responsibilities. Perhaps he just wanted to see for himself that all was well up there. It would be, of course, for the nursery staff were of the best, and paid well for their devotion.

Two flights of stairs brought him to the generous nursery floor, above which only the servants’ quarters in the attic remained. Four doors opened off the wide landing—to the night nursery, the day nursery, the schoolroom and Miss Douglas the governess’s room. As the clock in the hall outside the parlor had just been chiming five when his mother had left, and Miss Douglas would have finished the day’s lessons, Jack pushed open the door of the day nursery and went inside.

A small, dark-haired boy was lying full length on the rug playing with a set of tin soldiers, and, over by the window, Meg, the young nursery nurse who had been one of Jack’s first “rescues,” was sitting beside a lamp darning a pair of stockings.

The little boy, clad in a navy blue skeleton suit, scrambled to his feet, a smile of delight spreading across a face very like Jack’s in appearance. “Papa! You’re home!” He ran into Jack’s arms and Jack hugged him tight against his chest, breathing in the scent of small boy that soap was struggling to disguise. Such a contrast to the last child he’d held close as he carried her to Mrs. Sharpe’s. With luck and good care, soon she would be as clean and well fed as this one.

He released the child. “Good evening, Edward. What battle is it you’re recreating here?”

The child dropped to his knees on the rug and picked up one of the soldiers. “Bosworth Field. This is Henry the Seventh, and that over there,” he pointed, “is Richard the Third, shouting for his horse.” Henry VII had a decided bend in one of his legs as though someone had trodden on him.

Jack knelt down beside his son. “And who do you want to win? That’s the important question.”

Edward tilted his head to one side in thought. “We-ell… I know I ought to want Henry to win, and I know he did, but I’m not sure I like him much. And I’m not sure, either, that Richard killed the Princes in the Tower. Miss Douglas and me, we were talking about that in the schoolroom today, and she thinks it wasn’t Richard. And Stanley, that’s him over there, is going to be a traitor. So I don’t like him at all.”

Jack laughed. “That’s my boy. You have the enquiring mind of a true historian, Edward. You’re making me very proud. And as well as that, let me also commend you for your knowledge of Shakespeare.” All of a sudden Edward’s chatter reminded Jack of Elenora’s. Both keen historians, even though Edward was as yet only seven. A precocious child, intelligent beyond his years. His chest swelled with pride even as he wondered if Elenora had been so as a child.

The little boy beamed. “Miss Douglas is teaching me all about the Wars of the Roses because I asked her to. It’s so very interesting. When we were learning about the two princes, I imagined what it would have been like if I’d been Edward the Fifth, the poor little imprisoned prince. Stuck in the Tower of London. Although he wasn’t in a cell, I don’t think, like a criminal. He was allowed to use his bow and arrows. We read that.”

“I named you for him, as the fate of the princes in the Tower is one of my interests.”

Edward nodded. “I know, but they were victims, and I think I’d’ve preferred to have been named after King Richard. He was very brave trying to attack Henry all by himself. Edward was only a little boy and never did any fighting. He was too young, like me. But one day I’ll be able to fight all right. I want to be a soldier for the king.”

Jack stood up as the door opened and Thomas, one of the footmen, brought in a tray. “Enough of old battles, my little professor. Time to feed the inner scholar. I’m eating here with you this evening.”

The next morning brought Jack back to Betterton Street. He’d promised Josie he’d return and make sure she was all right, and he wasn’t a man who liked to break a promise. Especially not one he’d made to a child.

This time, Mrs. Sharpe herself opened the front door to his knock. A short woman whom childbearing had rendered rotund, she had about her the same aura of quiet peace that Jack had noted the first time he’d encountered her a good few years since, in the disreputable alehouse her husband had kept in the back alleys of Southwark. She’d taken off her habitual apron in order to open the door, and stood before him, neat, precise, yet above all, matronly. The perfect woman to run a home for vulnerable, rescued street children.

A welcoming smile spread across her pillowy cheeks. “Milord Jack.” She bobbed a curtsy, something he’d asked her countless times to desist from doing. “I was wondering if you’d be back today. The little mite you brought us yesterday were convinced you’d come.”

Jack smiled back at her as she stood aside to let him into the narrow hallway of number 23. To the right, a door opened into her inner sanctum—her parlor—kept only for the most formal of occasions and in order to teach her girls, all from the slums, how to behave in a decent household so they could obtain jobs as housemaids or shopgirls or even nursery nurses. Meg, who’d come from Mrs. Sharpe’s a year ago, was proof enough of how her loving care worked.

Jack passed this door and headed for the back of the house where the warm and homely kitchen lay. Much his preferred location in Mrs. Sharpe’s house, just as it was for the children.

However, as it was morning, all the children must be in the tiny schoolroom he’d had equipped in the front room of number 24, next door, being taught by the older of Mrs. Sharpe’s two resident daughters. Only one of her charges remained, seated with young Lucy Sharpe at the kitchen table in front of the cozily burning range, each with a slate in their hands. It seemed his latest rescue’s education had already begun.

Josie had undergone a transformation. The dirty, straggly hair of yesterday had been shorn to less than an inch in length—necessary to be rid of any parasites—and her face shone as though it had been well-scrubbed. Instead of rags, she wore a clean but shabby dress with a starched white pinafore over it. Her eyes, already not quite so sunken and shadowed, lit up with excitement as they fell on Jack. “You came back. I told ’em you would.” Her voice held a definite hint of triumph.