Page 12 of Miss Dauntless
“No, thank you. I left Tommie building a card castle in our sitting room, but he cannot remain unsupervised for long. If you are free this afternoon, might you tour the premises with me?”
“I do love how you talk, missus. Once we get the nooning behind us, thee and me’ll make a thorough inspection. The house is in good repair, thanks be. I cannot abide the rising damp. Wrecks a place from inside the very walls, like giving a dwelling the French pox.”
Matilda was torn between bewilderment and the urge to laugh. The analogy was effective, but…
But a lady did not expect to hear such a comparison, ever, and in some small, quiet corner of her heart, Matilda still wished she had made a lady’s choices.
“Your wee lad can tag after Jensen and Jessup if he’s bored,” Mrs. Winklebleck said. “They’ll find chores for ’im. He has a quick look to him, and he might even be some help. When he’s a mite older, he can help in the scullery or wash out water buckets in the stable.”
Honest work, but not exactly what Matilda aspired to for her son. The whole business of what to do with Tommie posed a puzzle, one Matilda would take up with Lord Tremont. Little boys left to their own devices invariably got up to mischief, and Matilda had no intention of allowing a lot of foul-mouthed soldiers to become a bad influence on her son.
She began mentally fashioning a means of explaining to Tommie thathewould have to be agoodinfluence upon the men, but she never got very far with that exercise. By the time Lord Tremont had arrived, Tommie had been missing for an hour, and Matilda was as close to hysterics as she’d ever come.
“If you’daxedme,” Amos Tucker thundered from Tremont’s left, “I’da told ye I already searched the attic!”
“If you’datoldme,”—Benjamin Bentley returned fire from Tremont’s right—“I’da not wasted me time and sneezed meself half to smithereens a-lookin’ fer the boy up there!”
Jessup and Jensen joined the crowd in the library, their mobcaps less than pristine. “We’ve searched the attics, my lord. No sign of the boy.”
A beat of silence went by, and then the arguments resumed, redoubled, and became a roar of orders, insults, and profanity. By the window, Mrs. Merridew stood with her back to the assembled household, her posture redolent of nerves on a very strained leash.
“Atten-SHUN!” Tremont snapped out the order in the tradition of infantry sergeants the world over. Chairs scraped back, chests and chins were thrust out, and silence rang though the library.
“Thank you,” Tremont said. “While your efforts thus far are much appreciated, we have yet to find the boy. Some organization will doubtless yield more satisfying results. The attics having been thoroughly searched, I want Jessup and Jensen to take the pantries, kitchen, and larder. Mrs. Winklebleck, will you search your own quarters and the servants’ hall? Biggs and Bentley take the first-floor bedrooms. Dantry and Davis, you will take the second. Mind the closets and wardrobes, look under every bed. MacIvey and MacPherson, the garden and alley, and don’t forget to look up. Small boys can get stuck in trees, as I have reason to know from personal experience.”
Tremont went on handing out assignments so that the child would be found and so that every member of the household could feel that they contributed to that happy outcome—or had done what they could to avoid a tragedy.
“And for the sake of all that is holy,” he went on, “look into any space that closes or locks. Trunks, cupboards, wardrobes, crawlspaces, every nook and cranny, every crevice and drain. Look for our Tommie as if he were your three-months-overdue pay packet. Tanner and Tucker, you are not to tarry at the tea shop. Ask after the lad, have a look around. Make a search of Mrs. Merridew’s former residence, including the adjacent alley, and then report back. No appointing yourself to scouting duty at the pub. Mrs. Merridew and I will expect reports from all points in one hour. Dismissed—and keep a sharp eye.”
Several of the men saluted, though most had shed that habit. They shuffled out the door, muttering and cursing, but following orders, as Tremont had known they would.
Mrs. Merridew had at some point turned from the window, though she kept her arms crossed over her middle.
“Thank you,” she said. “I have never heard so many raised voices at once. All I could think was, ‘The sweeps will get him.’ Whatever shall I do if the sweeps steal my boy?”
She was pale and still, though Tremont could feel the panic trying to shake her. He knew that battle for self-control, as did every soldier to take up arms.
“Has Tommie gone missing before?”
“Never. I barely let him out of my sight, but he seemed so happy here. He slid down the banister at least a dozen times, and I hadn’t the heart to scold him. If I’d been less permissive… less indulgent…” Her breath hitched, and Tremont steeled himself to endure the tears of a woman who’d probably given up crying the day she’d entered second mourning.
“We will find him,” Tremont said. “Little boys love to explore. They do not love to miss meals or worry their mamas. Tommie wants to be found.”
“He was so good at breakfast. No rude questions, no arguments. He ate every bite of his porridge.”
“Then we know he’s not hungry.”
Mrs. Merridew blinked and nodded while Tremont wished she would cry, wished she could collapse upon him in a heap of female misery so he could offer her the simple comfort of an embrace.
That was apparently not what she needed. “What is Tommie’s favorite thing?” Tremont asked. “His greatest joy?”
Mrs. Merridew worried a nail. “He was very impressed with that cup of hot chocolate at the tea shop.”
Were you impressed?Tremont kicked himself mentally. “Tommie is a canny lad. He’d know he couldn’t purchase another serving without coin. When does he lose himself in enjoyment? When is he most deaf to your maternal instructions?”
“That boy can focus keenly on a task,” she said. “My husband had the same capacity for single-mindedness. If Harry Merridew fixed on an objective, he let nothing and no one stand in his way.”
Tremont crossed the room, took Mrs. Merridew by the wrist, and drew her closer to the fire.
