Page 67 of Too Scot to Handle
“My lord, Miss Anwen. I trust you are aware that the orphanage cannot endure the sort of talk that would circulate had any but myself witnessed your display of exuberance for one another’s company.”
This was one reason Colin was desperate to announce their engagement, so that pompous old fools had no grounds to pass judgment and pontificate.
“I do apologize,” Anwen said, “but as you know, Mr. Hitchings, the Windhams and the MacHughs are very closely connected, and I hope my respect and affection for Lord Colin are obvious to all.”
Oh, nicely done.
Hitchings blushed. He shuffled papers, he cleared his throat. The old boy was shy in the presence of a lady, and why shouldn’t he be? The orphanage was a male preserve, but for the influence of Anwen and her committee.
How lonely Hitchings must be.
“You came out here with information in hand,” Colin said. “Is the matter urgent?”
From the mews across the alley, some boy shrieked with laughter, and then a loud clatter followed, along with more laughter.
“They love those ponies,” Hitchings said, his tone both bewildered and aggrieved.
“Who wouldn’t love a pony?” Anwen replied. “They’re very dear, much like the boys.”
Hitchings sent Colin a look. All boys are hooligans.
Colin certainly had been. “Do your papers have anything to do with the ponies?”
Hitchings looked at the papers as if they contained a draft of Wellington’s eulogy. “I’m afraid so, indirectly. Perhaps Miss Anwen should excuse us?”
Hitchings trying to be mannerly sent alarm skittering down Colin’s middle.
“If it has to do with the orphanage,” Anwen said, “then I’d rather know sooner than later.” She twined an arm through Colin’s, which Hitchings noted with a raised brow.
“His lordship has proposed a scheme to turn the empty wing into gentlemen’s quarters,” Hitchings said. “Unusual notion, but worth exploring. Desperate times calling for desperate measures, and all that. I took it upon myself to inspect the unused wing, something I haven’t done in a year.”
At some point in the last few weeks, Hitchings had lost his air of perpetual affront, and replaced it with a dogged weariness. He taught every day, he occasionally went out on private errands in daylight hours, and he sat quietly at board meetings unless called upon to recite.
The boys certainly weren’t complaining at the change, though funding had to be troubling the headmaster, as did having his authority gainsaid on occasion by a board that had never taught a single Latin declension.
“The building is old,” Anwen said. “We know that. What did you find?”
Hitchings’s expression became downright doleful. “Rising damp. The unused wing of the house is far gone. Deuced blight is everywhere that fires aren’t routinely lit. I blame myself, but economies being what they are, and English weather being what it is, half of this building is not going to stand much longer without substantial, expensive repairs. I’m sorry.”
* * *
The news got worse.
As Anwen trailed Colin and Mr. Hitchings about the House of Urchins, she made a list. The windows in the unused wing hadn’t been glazed for some time, and thus rain had worked its way in and attacked the walls and sills.
The ceilings in some rooms were also suffering water damage, or had at one time. Numerous stains were apparent, but how recently they’d developed was not clear.
The lower floors, being more frequently heated, showed less damage from the damp, but they were far from presentable in the unused wing. The boys’ wing was in better repair, and the cellars closest to the kitchen’s heat looked mostly sound.
As Colin and Mr. Hitchings had tramped from one floor to another, the smaller boys had followed them with worried gazes.
“We don’t have this difficulty as much in Scotland,” Colin said as he settled beside Anwen on the seat of his phaeton. “We build with stone, and then haven’t enough wood for the moisture to get into. Our weather is cold enough that we keep fires going year ’round, whereas here, you often let the parlor fires go out in summer despite the damp.”
Anwen longed to lay her head on his shoulder and wail, but that wouldn’t solve the problem.
“Will Hitchings keep his mouth shut until after the card party?”
A tiger rode behind them, which was a gesture on Colin’s part in the direction of greater propriety. Anwen suspected Colin was also taking a precaution against any “pranks” that might involve his vehicle and team.
