Page 4 of It Takes Two to Tumble
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not staying if you leave.”
Ned looked to be on the verge of tears and Ben knew there would be no recovering the boy’s pride after that, so he strove for a light tone. “Lucky me,” he said, hoisting his valise onto his shoulder. “It gets dashed lonely at the vicarage—I haven’t any dogs or sheep or anything like you have here, just dust and books and old Mrs. Winston who comes to fix my supper. It’ll be good to have someone to discuss serious topics with.”
“You’re funning,” Ned said skeptically.
“Never in my life,” Ben said with a wink. “Your father might have been looking forward to spending time with you, you know.”
Ned snorted. “What does he care about any of us? He can go...” The child paused with his mouth open, as if debating how crudely to finish that sentiment. Ben raised a curious eyebrow. “Back to sea,” Ned finished.
“Quite,” Ben answered, leading the lad downstairs. “And so he shall. But this is his house, after all, and he is your father, and that has to count for something. So you might as well get to know him a bit.”
“Did you get to know your father?” Ned asked with that sixth sense children have for drawing attention to the topic one least wished to discuss.
“I was rather closer to my mother,” Ben said diplomatically.
“She died, though. Just like mine. You don’t visit your father. Cook says he lives over at Fellside Grange, and that isn’t even an hour’s walk.”
“Mrs. Morris ought to be a spy. How can I visit my father when I’m keeping the lot of you out of prison?”
“You’re funning again.”
“Not even slightly,” Ben said dryly. “Come on, let’s go downstairs and see if we can find things to pawn if we need to bail Jamie out of jail.” This earned a laugh from Ned as they stepped off the bottom stair into the great hall.
They found Captain Dacre standing in the doorway of the library with his arms folded across his broad chest and the same exhaustingly furious expression he had in his portrait. Really, Ben had known as soon as he saw that portrait that the captain would cut up his peace. Why couldn’t people just make an effort to get along? Wasn’t life hard enough without going out of your way to cast stones into other people’s paths? Why did some people have to be so disagreeable?
Why did some men have a way of looking even more dangerously handsome when they were angry than they did when they were pleasant? It made no sense. Ben liked jovial, mild-mannered sorts. He had no use for unpleasant people.You could think of a couple interesting uses for the captain, though, whispered the part of his brain that he always tried to ignore.
“What’s the meaning of this?” the captain growled, interrupting the lewd turn of Ben’s thoughts just in time. “It’s no wonder the children have become rude and wild if this is the way you speak to them. I’ll be writing to the bishop by the next post.”
Ben had spent a decade trying to make the most of his short temper, stretching it out by seconds and fractions of seconds until he was, for all purposes, a patient man. But Captain Dacre was trying his already-worn patience dearly. He counted to ten before speaking. “You can write to the entire bench of bishops.” Ben’s post wasn’t Captain Dacre’s to dispose of. Ben’s patron was off in London spending money he shouldn’t and doing whatever else young aristocrats did in town, and worrying about provincial vicars certainly did not number among his amusements. “But if you’re here, where are the twins? Come along, Ned. We’ll likely have chickens to catch and magistrates to bribe before I go back to my own house.”
He was about to congratulate himself on having defused the situation when he felt the grip of a strong hand on his arm. All his equanimity evaporated, and he felt that old familiar fury rising up in him. Fury, and something else. Something worse. It was all he could do not to clock the captain in the jaw, because that seemed like the best of all the possible bad ideas currently holding his mind ransom.
Chapter Three
“Into the library,” Phillip said through clenched teeth. “Now.”
“Ned,” the vicar said, his voice infuriatingly level, “track down the twins and let them know that there’s a treat in the kitchen if they get back without committing any criminal mischief.” Ned—and it annoyed Phillip that his son had acquired a nickname and he hadn’t even known about it—hesitated a fraction of a second before nodding solemnly and heading outdoors. Only when they were alone did the vicar speak again. “You may let go of me,” he said, his voice barely louder than a whisper. He spoke with the careful, quiet deliberation of a man who was keeping his temper in check.
So the vicar was angry.Good, Phillip thought. Be angry.Let’s have this out, whatever it is.Because all Phillip knew was that he was angry—at the world, at himself—and he didn’t want to think about why. He tried his damnedest to funnel all his swirling fury towards the vicar, because he seemed as apt a target as any. He gave the vicar’s arm a tight, punitive, unnecessary squeeze, just to make sure he wasn’t the only one ratcheting up to a fight.
“Into the library,” Phillip repeated before releasing his grip. “Now.” Once inside, Phillip shut the door loudly behind them.
“Let me speak plainly.” The library curtains were drawn so Phillip couldn’t see the vicar’s face, couldn’t tell whether its too-handsome features were disorganized by anger. “This is your house and they are your children, but they hardly know you.”
Phillip’s vision darkened with rage, and he was glad for the shadows, because the worst part of it was that at that very moment, he feared the vicar was all too correct. He was about the least competent parent imaginable, hardly a parent at all, but he was the only parent his children had left, and he would not allow them to become lazy, ill-mannered miscreants. “You have no right—”
“No, I don’t. I don’t care, though. I’m not leaving your children alone with a virtual stranger who doesn’t seem kindly disposed to them.”
Phillip sucked in a breath. “I have no intention of harming my children.”
“Oh, I’m certain you don’t. You’d likely call it discipline. But I’m not interested in semantics. I won’t leave your children alone with someone who seems determined to make enemies of them. They’ve had precious few allies these past few years.”
Phillip felt the blood rush to his face, and he wasn’t sure if it was anger or embarrassment or sheer bloody confusion. The vicar was right. He had no place here at Barton Hall and he never had. He was a damned good sailor, and he knew it, but he was useless on land. At sea there was work to do, and he relied on that constant work to blow away the cloud of darkness that sometimes descended on him. “Get out,” he growled.
“First of all, you seem to be under the impression that I’m your servant, which I’m afraid I’m not, and if that’s how you speak to your servants you’ll soon find you don’t have any.”
“I’m aware that you’re not my servant,” Phillip said, clinging to the last shreds of his self-control. “But since you’ve seen fit to intervene in the managing of my children, the least you could have done was not bungle the thing.”
