Page 68 of Too Scot to Handle
“Hitchings has become something of a puzzle,” Colin said as he gave the horses leave to walk on. “It’s as if when the boys began to apply themselves to their studies, Hitchings came unmoored from his birch rod and he’s been drifting since. Do you have any idea where he goes on his periodic jaunts up the alley?”
“Ask the boys,” Anwen said. “They miss nothing, and they might have followed him from time to time.”
She hoped the children were making fewer unscheduled outings, but they were boys. In many ways they were more self-sufficient in their minority than a proper lady would ever be, even should she attain widowhood.
“You are a wee bit dispirited,” Colin said.
“I’m despairing.” Anwen and her beloved were honest with each other. No reason to depart from that policy now. “The building is huge and full of problems—expensive problems—that somebody should have spotted before the orphanage was established there.”
When Colin might have offered reassurances—the difficulties weren’t that great, the repairs weren’t that expensive—he remained silent, and that was honest enough. When he handed Anwen down in the Moreland mews, she pitched into him and wrapped her arms about him.
“I don’t want to go into that house and be interrogated about the meeting’s agenda, what outlandish reticule Lady Rosalyn carried today, and whether heartsease or roses would make better centerpieces for the card party buffet.”
Colin stroked a gloved hand over her hair. “You want to cry? I do, or get drunk. Home is a feeling in the heart, but it’s also a place, and for those boys to lose the place they live will upset them, even if we can establish the orphanage in new quarters. For too long, they’ve had nowhere to call their own and moving will be hard on them.”
Anwen had been so muddled, so angry, she hadn’t figured out even that much. “You think we can move the orphanage?”
As the grooms led the team away, Colin turned her under his arm and walked with her across the alley to the garden.
“In some ways,” he said, “starting over elsewhere would be best. The old building is hard to heat, drafty, and badly laid out for the function it now serves. I gather the premises was once a grand townhouse, or several fine properties built together, and thus we have no connecting corridor between the two dormitories, no stairs from the classrooms to dining hall, and so forth.”
“I never noticed that.”
“I’ve stuck my nose in parts of the building you haven’t, and you notice the boys. They are what matter.”
The Moreland House garden was lovely, as only a well-tended English garden could be, and yet the flowers and sunshine did little to cheer Anwen.
“Maybe we should cancel the card party,” she said. “Maybe we ought not to be taking people’s money for a doomed endeavor. We can find places for the dozen boys we have. They weren’t supposed to spend the rest of their lives at the House of Urchins. I know that.”
She also knew that without Colin at her side, she’d be upstairs in her bedroom, crying as quietly as she could.
Colin drew her behind a lilac bush that hadn’t a single blossom. “Is that what you want to do? Admit defeat, care for the wounded as best you can, then retreat?”
He draped his arms over her shoulders and kissed her. The touch of his lips was tenderness itself, as gentle as his inquiry. That he’d ask Anwen what she wanted meant worlds, and gave her the purchase she needed to consider her answer as she leaned into his embrace.
“The building is ill, far gone, Colin, and bringing it back to health will mean resources are diverted to architectural matters that ought to go to the boys. Fixing that place up, even if we had the means, would involve all manner of disruption to the boys, as well as extra effort for somebody to supervise the project. I know you want to return to Scotland in a few weeks and the board of directors will do nothing without you wielding the birch rod.”
“Interesting analogies—the illness and the birch rod. We don’t need to solve the entire problem today, though. We have some time.”
In the circle of Colin’s arms, Anwen calmed. He was right. They had time to think—or to plan a different path for the boys. They had time to consider options.
“The card party is Friday,” Anwen said. “I won’t have an opportunity to get back to the orphanage before then. Somebody should tell Winthrop Montague what Hitchings found. Mr. Montague is still the chairman of the board.”
Colin kissed her again, more lingeringly. “He’s still a donkey’s arse too. I’m keen to leave London if for no other reason than to get away from him and his ilk.”
In Colin’s embrace, Anwen found comfort. In his kisses, she found a reminder that this was the man she’d soon marry, and she hadn’t had nearly enough privacy with him since making that decision.
“We had a note from Mama and Papa yesterday,” she said, sliding a hand around Colin’s hip. “They’ve begun their homeward journey.”
“So have I,” Colin muttered.
His kiss intensified, from the garden variety that might be quickly stolen behind the hedge, to the voracious, plundering passion that obliterated Anwen’s awareness of anything but him. His warmth, his strength, his heathery scent, his taste.
“Mint,” Anwen said against his lips.
“I prefer it to parsley.”
For all the pleasure Colin’s kiss brought, all the reassurance and desire, Anwen also sensed a question in his touch.
