Page 12 of A Delicate Deception
“Quite,” Lex said tightly.
“All right,” Sydney said, trying to collect himself. “I’ll bring her back to Manchester presently. I’ll engage a nurse and housekeeper. And I’ll need to hire a house.” He could hardly bring the child back to his bachelor lodgings.
“She’s not going anywhere,” Lex snapped, and it was the first time his mask of cool indifference slipped that day.
“I beg your pardon?”
“She was sick all over my trousers, my carriage, and my valet a dozen times in the past week. That’s what took us so long to get here. I didn’t want the creature to expire. And to be perfectly clear, I’m quite done in as well. I’m staying here until I recover my senses, or until the damp brings the sweet release of death, whichever comes first. In any event, Sydney, you’ll be pleased to know that Carter already made up a bed for me in what he assures me is a room with four solid walls and a ceiling. I didn’t ask about the status of the floor but trust his judgment implicitly. He’s gone to the village to find a girl to take after our, eh, niece. It’s a pity the house is barely habitable, though.”
“Nobody told you to attempt to inhabit it,” Sydney said. “I would have come to you in London. We could have gone to any of your properties. We could have stayed at an inn.”
“No, we couldn’t,” Lex said. “I needed you to meet the child in private, because I didn’t know what you’d want to do about her.”
The child in question was, at the moment, sitting contentedly on the dusty flagstone floor studying Sydney’s watch and comparing its time with that of an elderly longcase clock. The latter refused to settle upon a proper number of minutes per hour no matter how diligently Sydney tinkered with its workings.
“What on earth did you imagine I’d want to do?” Sydney asked, peeved. “Hide her in a convent? She’s quite plainly my brother’s child.”
“Is she?” Lex asked softly.
“What do you mean, is she? I know it’s been a while but surely you remember what Andrew looked like.”
“Of course I remember,” Lex said. “But I can’t see her, you idiot. Can’t see much of anything.”
Sydney took note of the cane that was propped up against Lex’s leg. And he realized Lex hadn’t once turned his head towards Sydney during the entire time they had been speaking. “Not from the fire,” he said. Sydney had been in Durham when the fire broke out, and so a week had passed before he learned that his brother and sister-in-law were dead and his friend insensible after having been hit by a falling beam during his attempt to rescue them.
“Yes, of course from the fire. And I’m not completely blind. I can see light and sometimes movement, but not enough to identify whether a French urchin is related to my brother-in-law. In any event, I’ve gotten quite used to it and I find pity excessively boring, so save it. Besides, even if I had known that she was Andrew’s, I still didn’t know if you’d want the world made aware of her existence. You know perfectly well that a good many people won’t have anything to do with their baseborn relations. To be honest, I don’t know what to think of you since Andrew died. You certainly don’t want anything to do with me.”
This was simply too much. “You never wrote back! I wrote you six letters, and your secretary responded to each and every one of them.”
“Because I can no longer read, you imbecile. And having my secretary read aloud letters from a former lover is rather lowering, not to mention a wonderful way to find oneself in the stocks.”
“But I didn’t know you had lost your sight!” Sydney said, so exasperated he hardly registered that Leontine had found a small fire iron and was using it to pry open the casement of the broken clock.
“You would have if you had visited. And don’t tell me you never go to London. I’m quite aware that you testified before Parliament about steam or some such thing.”
“Lounging around a ducal palace is not my idea of a good time, Lex. That much hasn’t changed in the past two years.” That had, in fact, been one of the many reasons their brief liaison had never become anything more. Sydney had needed to do things, to build things, towork, and Lex had been unapologetically idle and profligate. Sydney wanted no part of that world.
“As arrogant as ever, I see,” Lex sniffed.
“I, arrogant? This from you, of all people.”
“You don’t need to be a duke to be arrogant.”
“It certainly seems to help,” Sydney retorted.
“Arrogantandrude. What would your mother say?”
The thought of what his mother would say was enough to make his mouth twitch into the beginnings of a smile. “She’d urge you to forsake Mammon and cast your sights heavenward,” he lied. What she would actually do was attempt to persuade Lex to sign some kind of petition about mill workers, then leave with a hefty subscription to one of her favorite charities.
“She’d think I was charming.” Lex buffed his fingernails on his lapel.
That was probably true, blast it. But the thought of his mother reminded him that this child was not only Andrew’s child and Sydney’s own niece, but his parents’ only grandchild. And Sydney was the only living relation she had this side of the Atlantic. Leontine was the very spit of Andrew, from her golden curls to her apparent unconcern for things like not taking crowbars to clock cases. Just looking at her made Sydney’s heart twist in a peculiar way.
He took a deep breath. He would not be cross with Lex for having dragged him to this place, because now he could give Andrew’s child a good life. Not only was this what Andrew would have wanted, what Andrew would have done if he had been alive, but it was Sydney’s duty. This time at Pelham Hall was a necessary evil, a pause on his way to righting wrongs and doing what was needful. He could do that.
The fact that this would give him time for more morning rambles with Amelia did not figure whatsoever into his complacency, he decided.
When Amelia set out the next morning at her usual time, she rather hoped to find Sydney waiting for her. That was a stupid thought, because she hadn’t asked him to walk with her again, and she couldn’t very well expect him to read her mind.
