Page 4 of Miss Dauntless
“Find anything interesting?” Tremont asked.
“Spectacles. Vicar forgets where he puts them, and he hasn’t a mama to remind him, so he has extra spectacles. Miss Dorcas used to remind him, but she married Major MacKay. I like Major MacKay. He says God made small boys lively, so it’s not my fault that I climbed on the roof of the lych-gate. Did you ever climb on the roof of a lych-gate?”
“I did not. Earls are forbidden from doing that sort of thing. My father permitted me to climb my share of trees, though, where I went for a sail among the fjords of the Viking north, then returned to my homeland in my longship. My brothers-in-arms and I made many a victorious raid upon the wealthy castles of Normandy.”
Tremont had forgotten his outings in the boughs of the surveying oak. They had come to an abrupt end when Papa had died.
“I’m a Viking, too, sometimes.” Tommie closed the drawer he’d been rifling. “I’m quite tall when I’m a Viking, and I wear fur robes. Mama was wroth with me for the fur robes.”
“You used her best cloak.”
“Her night-robe. It’s warm and soft and smells like Mama.”
Another memory assailed Tremont, of being a small boy, newly saddled with a title, and hiding—from whom or what he could not recall—among his mother’s morning dresses. His older sister, Lydia, had found him and given him one of Mama’s shawls to sleep with. Not the first or last time Lydia had found him.
“Let’s return you to your mother’s side, my young friend.”
“I was a good vice chairman, wasn’t I?” Tommie marched down the corridor ahead of Tremont, but for all the confidence in the boy’s step, his question held uncertainty.
“The best I’ve ever had. You do a recognizable rendering of a toad, too, which is more than I could manage at your age.” Tremont’s road to a gentlemanly command of the arts had been long, wearying, and pointless in the end.
“Toads are easy. They’re toad-shaped with big toad eyes. Mr. Prebish looks like a toad when he’s yelling about the lilies of the field and giving glory to God. He means he wants the church to buy his flowers. Mama says we shouldn’t yell in church, but when I asked where should we yell, she said we should yell when small boys vex us past all bearing.”
“And you said, ‘What if that happens in church?’”
Tommie stopped at his mother’s elbow and looked abruptly bashful. “I ask Mama a lot of questions.”
Mrs. Merridew tousled the lad’s hair. “You make me think, Tommie. You make me use my brain, and that is a good thing. Let’s get you into your coat and be on our way.” She passed her son a coat that was a bit too short in the sleeves for his arms.
She was avoiding Tremont’s gaze, which might have been embarrassment about the boy or about the coin. Other congregants milling about had doubtless seen Tremont pass her that coin and seen her accept it.
“Allow me,” Tremont said, taking her cloak from her and holding it out. She submitted to the courtesy without commentand then bent to rebutton the buttons Tommie had done crookedly.
Probably on purpose, the little blighter. Tremont was abruptly tempted to button his own cloak crookedly. Instead, he draped that article about his shoulders and did something he rarely allowed himself to do—he yielded to an impulse.
“Might I walk you home, Mrs. Merridew?”
She straightened. “I beg your pardon, my lord?”
Women had the ability to make two words—my lord—convey a wealth of meaning. Those two words could communicate a willingness to become Tremont’s countess, his mistress, or his intended. They could also convey caution, though they never had before.
“We’re losing the light,” he said, “you have a small child to keep track of, and I don’t see anybody else on hand to provide you an escort. I’m offering my services, as any gentleman ought to. The linkboys won’t be at their posts yet, and you likely wouldn’t bother with them when traversing familiar ground in a decent neighborhood anyway.”
Major MacKay chose then to intrude on the discussion. “You’re seeing Mrs. Merridew home? Then I will be on my way. Dorcas will want a full accounting of the meeting, and she will be most pleased to know the committee acquired a vice chair.” He squeezed Tommie’s shoulder, bowed to Mrs. Merridew, and bustled off, humming Burns’s ditty about men being the practice version of the species and ladies being nature’s finer article.
Mrs. Merridew watched MacKay go, her expression caught between bemusement and vexation. “I must yield to your good manners,” she said, settling a plain straw bonnet on her head. “Tommie, you will mind the earl’s example. He will walk us home and provide you with a demonstration of how a gentleman escorts a lady.”
True to her word, Mrs. Merridew delivered the boy a homily about an escort’s duty. Tremont matched his steps to the lady’s, lest he jostle her arm or hurry her. He walked on the outside, the better to shield the lady from splashing or mud from passing vehicles.
She forgot the part about the gentleman offering his left arm indoors, the better to keep his sword hand free, or perhaps she did not want to bring up swords around the boy.
Tommie, capering about on the walkway, had a thousand questions. Why not hold hands, which would make it easier to prevent a lady from falling on her face if she stumbled? Why was getting mud on a lady’s skirts worse than getting mud on a gent’s trousers? The laundress had to deal with either mess. Why didn’t the lady just tell the gent not to walk so quickly if his legs were longer, or why didn’t the person with shorter legs set the pace because Mama was much taller than Tommie, and shealwayswaited for him even though she was a lady?
Tommie chattered all the way to the steps before a modest town house. No light shone through the foyer windows, and nobody had yet lit the mandatory streetlamp either. When Tremont expected Tommie to charge up the stairs, the boy instead disappeared into the gloom leading down to the half basement.
“Thank you for your company, my lord,” Mrs. Merridew said, “and for your kindness to Tommie. Most people consider him a trial to the nerves.”
His mother did not, though Tremont suspected that Tommie challenged his mama’s patience frequently.
