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Waving Theo to silence before she could protest again, Lady Amelia continued. ‘If you love Charles as you say you do, you must know the best thing for him would be for you to marry! Give him a father to pattern himself after, someone who could teach him all those manly pursuits so important to gentleman, and introduce him to the clubs and societies he must frequent to be accepted by his peers. As for the other children... I don’t wish to set your back up, but it really would be better for them to be placed in an institution where they can learn a vocation. You do them no favours, to raise them above their stations.’
Ignoring her aunt’s words about Charles, which had the uncomfortable ring of truth about them, Theo said, ‘I don’t intend to raise the others above their stations. In fact, arranging for their proper care is the main reason I decided to come here. I have to admit, I’m looking forward to having a settled home again myself, something I’ve not had since we left India.’
She left unspoken her fear that making a life alone in England, the ancestral home in which she’d never lived, whose ways often seemed as strange to her as India’s would to her aunt, might prove a daunting task.
No matter, she would master it. She must, for the children and for herself.
‘I did wonder why you chose a manor in Suffolk. As I understand the provisions of the will, Richard left you numerous properties, along with your mama’s considerable fortune. Why did you not settle on one of them?’
‘The solicitor informed me that all the properties are let to long-term lessees, whom I wouldn’t wish to displace. So I asked Mr Mitchell to find me a suitable country manor to rent, something with a sturdy outbuilding nearby of sufficient size to be turned into a dormitory and school. A place where the children can learn their letters and be taught a trade.’
Her aunt laughed. ‘Goodness, that sounds like a great deal of trouble! Wouldn’t it be simpler to send them off to the parish? It’s only two children, after all.’ At the look on Theo’s face, she said, ‘It is just the two?’
‘Well, you see,’ Theo explained, well aware of her aunt’s probable reaction to the news, ‘Colonel Vaughn told me before we left Brussels how much he appreciated what Papa and I had done for the orphans. After Waterloo, I...found two others, and in a reply I’ve just posted to his letter enquiring about the possibility, I assured him I would be happy to take in more.’
‘Theo, no!’ her aunt cried. ‘You can’t mean to bury yourself in the country and turn into some glorified—orphanage matron, looking after the children of who knows who!’
‘Who else will look after them, if I don’t? Should I just stand by and see the offspring of our valiant soldiers end up in a workhouse? Besides, I need something useful to do with my life, now that...now that I won’t be running Papa’s household any longer,’ she finished, proud to have made it through that sentence without a tremble in her voice.
‘My dear Theo, you’re far too young to behave as if your life is over! I know you believe you buried your heart when Marshall fell at Fuentes de Oñoro. But I promise you, one can find love again—if you will only let yourself. I’m certain Lieutenant Hazlett wouldn’t want you to dwindle away into an old maid, alone and grieving.’
‘At seven-and-twenty, I imagine society already considers me at my last prayers,’ she evaded. Though it had been more than five years now, she still couldn’t speak of the horror of losing Marshall. Loving so intensely had led to intolerable pain, all she could endure. She had no intention of subjecting herself to that ever again.
Besides, she could never marry someone without telling him the truth—and she didn’t dare risk that.
‘I’ll not argue the point—for now!’ her aunt said. ‘But I would like to persuade you to come to London. Though I perfectly understand why you felt it your duty to remain with Charles’s mother during her Hour of Need, I was so disappointed when you didn’t come stay with me as we’d planned. I’ve hoped since then we’d have another chance for me to spoil you a bit, after all the time you’ve spent in the wilds, billeted who knows where, never knowing where your next meal might come from, and with the worry of impending battle always weighing on you!’
‘One never completely escaped the worry,’ Theo admitted, ‘but battle was the exception. Most of the time was spent training, moving between encampments, or billeted in winter quarters. Provisions were generally good, with game to supplement the soup pot. As for accommodations...’ she chuckled, remembering ‘...Papa and I shared everything from a campaign tent to cots in a stable to the bedchamber of a marquesa’s palace! It was a grand adventure shared with marvellous companions, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’
It had also brought her Charles, and, she thought as a stab of grief gashed her, a fiery passion she didn’t expect ever to experience again.
Which also reminded her that not all the companions had been marvellous. After the devastation of her fiancé’s death, one officer who was no gentleman had sniffed at her skirts, certain she must eventually succumb to the blandishments of a man of his high birth and social position.
The only benefit of leaving the regiment was she’d never have to deal with Audley Tremaine again.
‘Game in the soup pot and a cot in a stable!’ her aunt cried, recalling her attention. ‘Call me pudding-hearted, but I prefer a bed with my own linens under a sturdy roof, awakened by nothing more threatening than the shouts of milk-sellers.’
‘Campaigning would not have been for you,’ Theo agreed. ‘But I must leave you now to check on the children. Constancia—you remember Constancia, the nursemaid I brought with me from the convent after Charles was born?—will show you to your room. I hope you’ll make a long visit!’
‘I am due back in London shortly, and you’ll have much to do, getting your establishment put together. Unless I can dissuade you from this enterprise? Coax you to leave the children with those used to dealing with orphans, and concentrate on your own future?’
‘Abandon them to a workhouse?’ Theo’s heart twisted as she thought of those innocents turned over to strange and uncaring hands. ‘No, you cannot dissuade me.’
Lady Amelia sighed. ‘I didn’t think so. You’re as headstrong as Richard when you get the bit between your teeth. The whole family tried to talk him out of going to India, but no one could prevail upon him to remain at home, tending his acres like a proper English gentleman, once he’d taken the idea in his head.’
‘I do appreciate your wishing to secure a more suitable future for me,’ Theo assured her. ‘But having never lived in England and being so little acquainted with the society’s rules, I fear I’d be an even greater disappointment than Papa, were you to try to foist me on the Marriage Mart.’
‘A lovely, capable, intelligent girl like you? I don’t believe it! Though I admire your desire to aid those poor unfortunates, I refuse to entirely cede my position. I still think marriage would be best for you and them, and I shall be searching for a way to make it happen!’
Theo laughed. ‘Scheme, then, if it makes you happy.’
‘It’s your happiness I worry about, my dear. You’re still so young! I want you to find joy again.’
Joy. She’d experienced its rapture—and paid its bitter price. She’d since decided she could make do with contentment, as long as Charles was safe and happy.
‘I expect to be happy in my life, helping those “poor unfortunates”,’ she told her aunt firmly as she kissed her cheek.
So she must be, she thought as she walked out of the room. It was the only life left to her, a choice she’d sealed years ago when she left that Portuguese convent with a swaddled newborn in her arms.
Chapter Two
By the time Dom, beyond exhausted by the long walk home, arrived back at Bildenstone Hall, all he wanted was a glass of laudanum-laced brandy and something soft on to which he could become horizontal. Instead, he was met at the door by the elderly butler, Wilton, who informed him the Squire, Lady Wentworth and Miss Wentworth awaited him in the parlour—and had been waiting more than an hour.
‘Send them away,’ Dom ordered, limping past the man, desperate for that drink to ease the headache that was compounding the misery of his throbbing wrist and shoulder.
‘But, Mr Ransleigh,’ Wilton protested as he trailed after Dom, ‘the Squire said the matter was urgent, and he would wait as long as necessary to see you today!’
The words trembled on Dom’s lips to consign the lot of them—the Squire, Lady Whomever, the girl in the lane, Diablo and the butler—to hell and back. With difficulty, he swallowed them.
While Dom hoped to socialise as little as possible, he’d known that, once the Squire learned the owner of the most extensive property in the county had taken up residence, courtesy demanded he pay a call at Bildenstone Hall. Though his head pounded like an anvil upon which a blacksmith was hammering out horseshoes, he knew that it would be the height of incivility to send away sight unseen so distinguished a neighbour.
