Page 20 of Miss Dauntless
“My Dorcas was right, then.”
Dorcas was Mrs. Major Alasdhair MacKay, also the daughter of the current vicar at St. Mildred’s. A brisk, practical sort of woman, who put Tremont in mind of his sister.
“Your Dorcas suggested I find a widow to manage my soldiers’ home, and she was right about that. A discerning woman, despite her choice of spouse.”
MacKay laughed and poured a few drops of water into a scant portion of whisky. “We can say that about many ladies. Perhapsyour Mrs. Merridew was one of them.” He passed over the glass and poured a more substantial portion for himself. “Slàinte!”
“Slàinte mhath.”
MacKay’s dark brows rose. “Do you speak the Erse, Tremont?”
“I picked up a bit in camp. You know how it was. Boredom upon boredom punctuated by the occasional attempt at mutual slaughter. If my sergeant took a bullet in the heat of battle, there I’d be, unable to tell the men to retreat or charge or form up… Another bullet to the bugler, and the day would have been lost. Bonaparte should have concentrated on neutralizing those two classes of soldier rather than on playing capture the flag. For our part, all field officers should have been made to learn all the commands in English, Gaelic, and German. To write them and speak them. That would have saved far more lives than stuffing our heads with Latin year after year at public school.”
MacKay gave Tremont the same look Dylan Powell occasionally aimed his way. As if some denizen of the hog wallow had become airborne.
“To answer your question,” MacKay said, gesturing to a wing chair before the blazing hearth, “Mrs. Merridew was already widowed by the time I set foot at St. Mildred’s. She was newly graduated from first mourning. I have the sense nobody raises the topic of her late husband out of consideration for her. He didn’t leave her much, I can tell you that.”
Tremont took the second chair. “One noticed the obvious, MacKay.”
“Obvious to you, perhaps. Dorcas had to speak very candidly to her father before he realized that Matilda Merridew was hanging on by her fingernails. The church began using her as a scribe. The bachelors and widowers send her their mending. She takes over in the nursery here one afternoon a week.”
“Thursdays,” Tremont said. “She insisted her half day be Thursday, and she plans to spend it watching your hooligan of a son.” Not MacKay’s son in a biological sense, though nobody could love a child more fiercely than the MacKays did that little boy.
“What else would you have us do, Tremont? Mrs. Merridew is proud, she’s proper, and she can’t exactly…” MacKay’s drink stopped halfway to his lips. “If you ruin her, Dorcas will geld you. She has a pathological loathing for those who take advantage of women. Mrs. Merridew is a lady, for all she’s not wealthy. And if Dorcas disdains to deal with you, I will do so instead. You proposition Matilda Merridew at your peril.”
“I am far from perfect, MacKay, but exploiting a lady fallen on hard times is not in my nature. I am simply curious, my besetting sin. The welfare of a dozen men and a half-dozen staff rests in her hands. I hired her without investigating her circumstances as thoroughly as I should have.”
A prevarication, that, so Tremont added the honest bit. “I am also impressed with her personally, but I would not bother her with expressions of my esteem if she’s still pining for her late husband.”
“You aren’t impressed, you are smitten, you poor devil.”
“Smitten?”
“You dwell on her in your mind,” MacKay said, sounding oddly wistful. “The thought of her replaces all your worries and idle imaginings. Her smile becomes your Holy Grail and her form the standard by which you measure all other females.”
“You forgot the part about no old master ever penned an air to compare with the melody of her voice and her laughter… I haven’t heard her laugh, MacKay. I must hear her joyous outpourings, or I shall perish… and so forth. I have no idea how this has happened, and I’ve hoped that the malady would fade as swiftly as it befell me, but she lectures me, MacKay.”
“About?”
“My perfect countess, how to go on with the men, and then she looks at that child… She is fierce and brave and shrewd, and all the while, she has the world thinking she’s just another genteel lady living a quietly penurious life on a quiet street and in a quiet neighborhood.”
“You seek to rescue her?”
“The boot rather goes on the other foot, Major. You should see what she’s done with the soldiers’ home in just a few days. The lady was born to command.”
“An odd thing to say about a woman, Tremont.”
“My father died when I was a boy. My uncle soon began pillaging the estate as my trustee, and thwarting him was left to my mother and sister, the housekeeper and staff. They hid what jewels my mother didn’t pawn. My sister kept household books for Uncle that bore no resemblance to reality. She and Mama and the tenants held the estate together while I was off playing soldier. For a woman to command takes all the same skills a man has, plus a complement of determination, thespian skill, and deviousness men never develop. Ask your Dorcas who ran St. Mildred’s when she was at the vicarage.”
“I take your point.” MacKay finished his drink and set the glass aside. “She’s still doing half her father’s job. Dorcas says you notice more than you let on. You should ask her about Harry Merridew, or better still, ask Vicar Delancey. He notices more than he lets on too.”
“I will do just that, though I must take my leave of you if I’m not to be late for tea with Mrs. Merridew.”
“You should move along, then,” MacKay said, rising. “That sky means business, and a fellow doesn’t make the best impression when he’s sopping wet and shivering.”
Tremont rose, though the cozy chair by the fire tempted him to linger. He’d accomplished his purpose—to learn what MacKayknew of Harry Merridew, though that amounted to precisely nothing useful.
“Who are Mrs. Merridew’s friends?” Tremont asked. “With whose children does Tommie play on fine days? With whom does she walk to services or linger in the churchyard?”
