Page 14 of Miss Dignified
Interesting suggestion. Bowen, having been transferred to the quartermaster’s ranks after his injury, might well prove useful at dealing with ledgers, wage books, and invoices. Dylan rose, because Mrs. Lovelace was on her feet, and too quickly for him to have held her chair for her.
Who had started that game, and what purpose did it serve? “If we are to be convincingly smitten, Mrs. Lovelace, you must allow me to show you minor courtesies.”
“We are not to be convincingly smitten until your sisters arrive, and then we are to be only subtly smitten. Good day, sir.”
She curtseyed, Dylan bowed, and then she was off about her appointed rounds. Dylan sat and appropriated her unfinished cup of tea.
Mrs. Lovelace was willing to support his efforts to preserve his bachelorhood. She cheerfully dealt with all the back-door callers and had seen a useful place in the household for Bowen Brook, a post that Dylan would never have thought to offer.
The tea was good and still hot, though Mrs. Lovelace used a light hand with the cream and honey. Dylan sipped Mrs. Lovelace’s tea and pondered their exchange until he’d reached and examined a conclusion that appeared to fit the available facts.
Mrs. Lovelace was anally, a partner of sorts, willing to exert herself on behalf of Dylan’s causes.Thatwas what she’d meant when she’d said she was fond of him. Part of Dylan was wary of such a conclusion, for allies could turn into enemies, but another part of him—the lonely part—was pleased.
Inordinately pleased. For who would not want to have Lydia Lovelace as an ally?
“How do you go about finding a brother missing in London?” Lydia posed the question to Bowen in the quiet hour after supper. The junior staff had decamped for darts night at the local pub, leaving Lydia and the new house steward to a peaceful evening in her sitting room. Captain Powell’s dwelling had no servants’ hall, so Lydia left her sitting room door open until she retired for the night.
Bowen could not be much above five-and-twenty, but his hair was already more gray than brown, and he had an older man’s habit of pausing before he spoke. His manner was quietly cheerful, though he walked with a slight limp that appeared to pain him.
“If a man wants to disappear in London,” Bowen said, taking a battered flask from a breast pocket, “you don’t find him. Not if he dunna want to be found. I’ve looked everywhere I know to look and then some, and William hasn’t been seen in days.”
Press gangs no longer roamed port cities, but gangs of another sort did. “Do you fear he’s come to harm?” Lydia certainly feared for Marcus.
“Will’s a canny sort. He’d charm his way out of most troublin’ situations. He’s gone off once or twice before. Always comes back to us with a tale to tell.”
Who wasus?Or was that the ruralusLydia had heard so frequently back in Shropshire?
She rummaged in her workbasket for her darning egg and shoved it into one of the captain’s stockings. The wool was thick and good quality, the knitting precise. One of his sisters had probably made the stockings, and the captain’s relentless tramping around London had taken a toll on the heels. He wore the right harder than the left, but surrendered to the need for mending only when both stockings were worn through.
Marcus had had the same habit.
“What sort of tales,” Lydia asked, “cause a man to disappear without notice and stay away for days?” Much less years.
“Tales that usually involve strong drink, stupid dares, wild schemes, or pretty ladies. Will is my lone brother, but he’s enough to make me pray that if I’m ever so fortunate to marry, I will be blessed with only daughters in my nursery.”
Lydia sorted yarn until she came up with a close match for the captain’s navy stocking. “My father wanted sons. I was a disappointment, but Mama eventually rectified the error.” She threaded her darning needle and moved the branch of candles on the table a few inches closer.
“Then beggin’ yer pardon, missus, but yer pa was an idiot. Sons can work hard, true enough, if they’re of a mind to, but they also go off to war, go to sea, get taken up for brawlin’, and otherwise create havoc. My mama made me promise I’d look after Will, and now I’ve lost ’im again.”
“He’s a grown man.”
“He’s me brother.”
A profound sentiment. Darning was an easy and satisfying task, something even wellborn women learned to do in childhood. The objective was to more or less reweave a patch of yarn over a hole, and while the result was usually an obvious repair, a few minutes’ work would render the stocking serviceable again.
“Where would you look for your brother if the captain permitted you to do so?”
Bowen had conferred with Captain Powell before dinner, but the captain had not confided any particulars in Lydia when she’d taken his supper tray to the library.
She needed to ask Dylan Powell directly about Marcus. How to find Marcus, what might have befallen Marcus. That was the purpose of her employment in his household, to gain access to the people who’d known Marcus in Spain and might still know of him. Indirection and casual questions hadn’t worked and time was flying.
Lydia worked her needle through the wool of the stocking, creating vertical rows of yarn across the hole, before starting the horizontal weave that would see the item mended.
“I’ve looked for William in the usual haunts young fellows prefer,” Bowen said, “though Will generally hadn’t the blunt to indulge such habits.”
“You need not spare my sensibilities, Mr. Brook.” He’d referred to cockpits, gaming hells, bordellos, and the like. Lydia could not see such venues having sufficient allure to keep Marcus from returning home. “Is William literate?”
“My mother was Welsh. Set great store by her letters, as most of her family did. That’s part of why the captain could talk the quartermaster into taking me on, even with my injury. I can read in English and Welsh and a bit of French and Latin too. I can handle the Irish and the Gaelic in conversation. I can cipher accurately, even when I’m not quite sober. Will isn’t much for book learning, but he knows all the songs. Our regimental warbler. Despite his injuries, he can still play the harp better than any angel ever did.”
