Page 16 of A Delicate Deception
That brought him up short. Was that how she was raised? If so, it explained a lot. Sydney’s mother was wont to say things like “waste not want not” and “don’t buy cotton unless you know it was grown by free labor,” and Amelia’s mother was telling her when to leave tea parties.
“I couldn’t possibly want you more,” he admitted. “Even if you had kissed me for another half hour.”
“Perhaps we could test that principle. Tomorrow, even.” She bit her lip and looked up at him with laughing gray eyes.
“I leave tomorrow for Manchester.”
“Oh! I see.” She looked so openly disappointed that he nearly kissed her again.
“For a fortnight.” He had to meet with the railway backers and then hire a house that would be suitable for Leontine. “Then I’ll be back for a little while.” He’d only be back long enough to collect his niece and take her to Manchester, but he didn’t want to say so. “I’ll look forward to seeing you,” he said. And then, because that wasn’t enough, he brushed his lips across her forehead. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too,” she whispered, and looked startled to have said it out loud. “Write me,” she said. “You know where I live. And I’ll write you back.”
Even as he said yes, watching the smile spread over her face, he knew it was a bad idea. And he knew he would enjoy it anyway.
Sydney was more than a little surprised to find Leontine sitting on the gravel drive in front of Pelham Hall. Before her was spread a motley array of treasures: a bottle cap, several springs, a lump of sealing wax, some string. What was not present was the nursemaid who was supposed to be minding her.
“Where is your nurse?” he asked, before remembering that the child could not understand English. Or maybe she could, because she gazed in the direction of the house and gave a very Gallic shrug. If she were the sort of child who lived to escape supervision, as her father most definitely had been, she would need a trained governess, not a village girl who had been pressed into service. Perhaps she also needed a dog. Something that could follow her around and keep her safe, like Amelia’s dog did for her.
“What are you building there?” he asked, crouching down beside her. She made a circular gesture with her hand and a buzzing sound. “A whirligig,” he said, comprehending. She laughed and attempted to repeat the word, which made Sydney laugh as well. “I agree, it’s a silly word. But your father and I used to make all manner of these. Here, let’s look at what you’re doing.”
For the next half hour he watched her work, only contributing some conveniently sized sticks and congratulatory sounds. When they had a finished object, they brought it inside.
They found Lex sitting once again in the great hall, alone. He spent a great deal of time alone in the ruins of a house that had once been a happy place, and Sydney didn’t quite know what to think about it. After he had admired the buzzing sound the whirligig made, and the maid had finally come along to bring Leontine to her tea, Lex tapped his cane on the floor. “Off to catch the stagecoach back to Manchester?” he asked, an odd edge to his question.
“You know I am. I need to arrange for a house and a maid, to say nothing of a governess for Leontine.” He had run through the numbers last night. He’d need to use the money Andrew left him—rightfully Penny’s, and only Sydney’s due to the fact that the couple had wed so hastily there had been no time for settlements or wills. Sydney hadn’t wanted to touch that money, it having all the taint of ill-gotten gains. But for Andrew’s child, it felt almost right. “I need to do my duty.”
“Of course,” Lex said. “Your duty. How you make caring for people sound like such a chore, I’d like to know. Like emptying chamber pots.”
Sydney strove for patience. “All I meant is that I’m all Leontine has in this world, and I’ll do right by her.”
“No, you aren’t. She has you, me, and Pelham Hall.”
“Pardon?”
“Really, Sydney, do keep up. If she’s Andrew’s child, this place ought to be hers.”
That brought Sydney up short. The prospect of passing Pelham Hall and all the memories and guilt that were tied up with it off to someone else felt like a millstone lifting from his neck. “Surely an illegitimate daughter has no claim on his property.”
“Not legally, of course, but since when do you give a fig about that? Surely, if she’s Andrew’s daughter she has a claim to his property according to some principle you hold.”
“Yes, principles, that’s what they’re called, Lex.”
“Are you smiling?” Lex asked. “It sounds like you’re smiling. Haven’t heard that since I got here.”
“But how do we go about proving she is who we think she is? How do I give it to her? Do I need to set up a trust?”
“You’re being very tedious today. Were you always this tedious? I dare say you were, and I let your physique distract me. Nobody needs to prove who she is. Just give her the house. You clearly don’t want it. Let the solicitors sort out the details and the child can stay here.” He yawned. “Meanwhile I require dinner. You really ought to hire a cook. I’m very disturbed by the lack of hospitality I’ve received here.”
“Dégueulasse,”Leontine said agreeably from the doorway. She had evidently escaped her nurse again.“C’estunevraieporcherie,ça.”
“Utterlydégueulasse, ma petite,” Lex agreed. “We must get your uncle to do something about it.”
Sydney knew it was useless to argue with Lex when he was in a mood like this. Or really, ever. Amelia, for all her missing shawls and her levity, her insistence upon fictional vows of chastity and her too-sweet cakes, was a sensible person, and he had a sudden urge to turn to her for confirmation that Lex was being impossible. He could go to Crossbrook Cottage now, he supposed, but that seemed like a violation of their rules of engagement. They had only ever seen one another alone and outside and altering this made him uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t identify.
Instead he climbed the stairs to the attic. Perhaps he’d find a doll or a couple of books that Leontine could amuse herself with while he was away, so that she needn’t spend all her waking hours attempting to flee her nurse.
Along one side of the attic were a series of rooms tucked under the slope of the roof, nestled into the eaves. He suspected these had once been servants’ quarters or lumber rooms. When he tried to open a door, he found it stuck, either the result of wood swollen by water damage or a hinge rusted in place. Pressing his shoulder to it, he jammed it open. Inside was an assortment of old furniture: a clothes press, a bedstead, a couple of chairs in need of mending. There was the baby’s cradle Andrew had built himself—no, he would not look at that. He worked his way along the series of doors, shouldering each one open and examining the contents within. None of the windows up here were broken, and the contents of the rooms were safe and whole. He felt like he was snooping in another person’s house.
