Page 78 of Miss Dauntless
“Tremont fancies you,” Tommie said, sounding older than his years. “MacIvey says so, and he fancies Mrs. Wink, so he knows the look.”
“MacPherson told you that?”
Tommie grinned. “He bet Bentley we’d hear wedding bells. I don’t want to leave, Mama. I like my bed, and all my storybooks,and old Arthur, even though he isn’t keen on being carried about. I’ve learned how to groom Tidbit and to milk the goats and knead Cook’s bread dough. MacIvey is teaching me how to play the fiddle, and Charlie says I can help him with the boots too.”
More than that astonishingly long list of accomplishments, Tommie had learned what it meant to be part of a household, a family of sorts.
“Everybody has been very kind to us, and we will miss them, but we will also make new friends where we’re going.”
“If we don’t like it far away, can we come back?”
Matilda heard the sound of misery beating desperately on a locked mental door. “Eventually. Travel is expensive, though, so we won’t be larking back to England anytime soon.”
Tommie yawned hugely. “Can Tremont come with us?”
“His place is here. The men need him, and his family needs him.” England needed him, needed his integrity and acumen, his voice of reason and compassion in the Lords.
“I still don’t want to go.”
Neither do I.“We will pack tomorrow, and Tremont will take us to an inn by the docks. We’ll depart Tuesday at midday when the tide begins to ebb.” Tremont would think them bound by boat to Portsmouth, the first leg of a transatlantic journey. Matilda would try very hard not to disabuse him of that assumption.
“Where we’re going is beautiful,” she went on, “and they put chocolate into not only warm milk, but also little cakes and cream puffs. They don’t speak quite as we do, but the people are reported to be friendly.”
By some.
“I would rather stay here, Mama. Maybe you should go ahead without me, and when you are sure we will like it, I can follow you.”
“Not a chance I will leave my best boy behind, Thomas Merridew. All too soon, you will grow up and take your place in the world. I am still your mama, and I will not embark on an adventure without you.”
“Will they have ponies where we’re going?”
“Yes, and cats and goats and dogs and sweet buns.” If God was merciful, Matilda could find a job as a companion or governess in a household that didn’t mind that she had a small child. She might even eke out an independent existence teaching deportment, music, and drawing.
Harry had taught her resilience, if he’d done nothing else.
Tommie curled onto his side and closed his eyes. “If you don’t like living here, Mama, why don’t we just go back to the stinky house?”
“I’m selling the stinky house.” Giving it away, to a man who’d done nothing to earn it.
“Doesn’t Tremont like us?”
Where on earth…? But Matilda, raised to have no faith in herself whatsoever, knew where such a question came from. “Tremont likes us quite well, and we like him—very much. I never promised I’d take this position for anything other than the short term, Tommie, and I am determined to leave London now that the chance has arisen.”
“I don’t want to go,” Tommie mumbled. “Where’s Cope?”
Matilda tucked the stuffed horse into Tommie’s embrace. “Right here. Go to sleep, and we’ll enjoy a farewell cup of chocolate tomorrow if you can manage to behave yourself. Sweet dreams, Tommie. I love you.”
“Love you too, Mama.”
Matilda blew out the bedside candle and stayed for a moment, watching her son drift into dreams by firelight.
We have been so happy here at the house without a name.When Tommie’s breathing eased into the soft rhythm ofslumber, she tucked the covers up around him and his beloved horse and crossed the corridor to her sitting room.
Tremont sat by the fire with a book, or possibly he dozed. He was in one-quarter profile to the door, and the sight of him, long legs crossed at the ankle, coat hung over the back of the sofa, imprinted itself on Matilda’s heart.
I want decades of this, decades to come upon him at the end of the day, lost in thought or communing with the latest pamphlet on the Irish question.
“I did not want to intrude,” he said, rising and remaining by the fire. “Tommie’s asleep?”
