Page 3 of Teach a Rogue New Tricks
Lola swept toward the door. “Are you going to join us on the lawn? You should be safe from my brother-in-law if you stay away from his daughters.”
Cass slid his gaze toward the window, still tracing an unknowable pattern on the chair’s arm. They were laughing out there. He could hear the echoes of it, even up here. They called to him. He used to laugh like that with his family. A long time ago. “No. They are too good for the likes of me.” At least for now, at least until he’d accomplished his improving plan. Then, maybe, he could earn back his place within his family.
“Silly boy,” sighed Lola. “Do as you please, then. You can’t hide away forever.” She quirked him a small smile and disappeared into the hallway, but not before he heard the words “Lonely boy,” whispered as soft as breathing itself.
Lonely? Yes. Painfully so. He deserved the pain. He could try to do better. Reform. Only option, really. He almost had everything he needed—Franklin’s book, a plan, and soon, hopefully, a woman to teach him how to be good.
Chapter Two
Adasat under the swaying shadows of a willow tree and squinted at the babe across the small garden. It was cute… if she squinted. And when it wasn’t screaming. Otherwise, it—and all other babies of her acquaintance—resembled a decidedly odiferous and loud pile of wrinkled laundry. Yet the baby—not more than a month old—held the attention of everyone in the garden. Every adult orbited around it like the Earth around the sun. Except for Ada. Her aunt and uncle, her stepmother and sister—they could have the child’s coos and gurgles.
Ada wanted to know more about the man. He stood in the second-floor window of her aunt and uncle’s townhouse, looking down, hands clutched behind his back. She couldn’t see details other than dark hair and a form that filled the window frame.
Who was he?
“Ada, come see baby Daniel.” Her younger sister waved her over to the center of the universe. “Do come. He’s a doll!”
Ada rose. The short distance between her perch under the tree and the baby might well afford a better view of the unnamed man. Alas, reaching her sister’s side, she realized her position under the tree proved better. Here, out in the open, the distance proved too short and the angle too bad. She’d have to crane her head all the way back to watch the man, and anyone could see her and wonder what she looked at.
Nora pinched her arm.
“Ow!” Ada rubbed the stinging spot.
“Don’t scowl at the baby, sister!”
“I wasn’t scowling.”
Nora tapped Ada’s shoulder. “You were.”
“Not at the baby at any rate.”
“Fine. Butdolook.” Her voice held decided notes of adoration, nay, obsession.
Ada looked. She pulled her lower lip between her teeth to keep the exclamation of adoration at bay. The little pile of laundry, unappealing though she found its squishy red face to be, could still turn her heart to mush if she let it. Something about its tiny hand fisted around a full-grown finger, the vulnerability of a giant head wobbling on a tiny neck. She snorted. Not today, Daniel. The time for babies would come. Now, at this season of her life, she wanted adventure.
And to know the name of the man in the window.
Nora’s nose scrunched up. “Oh dear.”
The pungent aroma of a full nappy assaulted Ada’s nose. She stifled a laugh. The little bundle had lovely timing. Saved that smell for her, he did. The tight circle around the baby dissipated like a wind on a dry day—aunt, uncle, father, and stepmother, there one fresh breath and gone the next putrid one. Cowards, the lot of them.
Ada took the baby from Nora without thought. “I’ll take him to the nursery.” Her eyes flicked momentarily to the window. No matter she did not know the location of the nursery. She’d just pop her head into every room until she found it and save the most likely rooms for last.
If she happened to meet anyone—men standing in windows, for instance—while on her mission… how lovely to make new acquaintances.
“You should let someone else do it,” Nora said. “You don’t have to take care of everyone anymore. Why do you keep looking up at the house?”
Ada jumped, clutching the baby, who did not seem to care about the state of his backside, tighter. “Am I?”
“Mm-hmm. You’re going to hurt your neck craning it back like that every few seconds.”
Caught. Well. No use denying it now. “There’s a man up there. In the window.”
Nora looked up. “I don’t see him.”
Ada’s face whipped to the edifice. He’d gone. “He stood there but a moment ago. I wonder who he is. You used to live with Aunt Lola, surely you know all her acquaintances. Which one would visit but refuse to join the rest of the company?”
Nora cut a frantic glance at their father. “Shh! I’d prefer him never to find out where I’ve spent most of my time in the last year, thank you very much.”
