“She won’t know you’re keen on her if you’re always so serious-like,” Tom said, because clearly, Lord Colin was not the brightest of fellows when it came to the ladies.
“Tom’s right,” Dickie said, sniffing at his fingers. He liked to brush them over the lavender bushes and then not wash his hands until supper. “Miss Anwen likes you. She says any question we have about manners that we don’t want to ask her, we’re to ask you because you are a very fine gentleman.”
Lord Colin propped one boot on the upper step of the garden terrace and swatted at his toes with a handkerchief. He managed to look gentlemanly doing even that, which in Tom’s opinion was damned unfair.
“You lads are giving me advice on how to woo a lady?” his lordship asked, dusting off the second boot.
“Somebody had better,” John said. “When I brought in the lemonade for your meeting upstairs, you were acting like Miss Anwen wasn’t even sitting at the same table. You’re not supposed to ignore the girl you like. Only utter gudgeons and Methodists think like that. The ladies can ignore us, but not the other way ’round.”
Lord Colin straightened and put his handkerchief away.
Joe watched him, expression thoughtful. “Wrinkles.”
“Because I didn’t fold my linen? Joseph, you will become a scientist, so closely do you monitor your environment.” Lord Colin withdrew the handkerchief, folded it so his initials were visible, and tucked it in his pocket. “Better?”
Joe smiled, something that had begun to happen about two weeks ago. The first time he’d smiled was when Dickie and John had got into a manure battle in the mews, horse droppings being ever so well suited to serving as missiles. Dickie had ducked behind the muck wagon, lost his footing, and nearly pitched into a day’s worth of manure.
“The ladies will join us in a few minutes,” Lord Colin said. “If any man has a suggestion for how I ought to improve my standing in Miss Anwen’s eyes, let him speak now.”
“He means, if we have advice so she’ll be sweet on him,” Tom said. “Joe, what do you think?”
Joe studied Lord Colin, who cut a murderous fine figure in his riding attire. He’d promised to teach them all how to drive the ponies, but first each boy had to learn how to hitch up and unhitch. John had figured it out on his own, but Tom never seemed to get all the straps and buckles right so John was trying to show him, step by step.
At Lord Colin’s request for advice, a smile started in Joe’s eyes, then caught at the corners of his mouth and spread over his whole face, like the smell of baking bread fills a house on a rainy day. He puckered up his lips and made a kissy sound, and got a good punch in the ribs from Dickie for his suggestion.
“Miss Anwen’s a lady,” Dickie cried. “You show some respect.”
Dickie was reminding everybody to show respect lately. He followed up his scold with a shove in John’s direction, and John, of course, shoved him back.
“I do respect Miss Anwen,” Lord Colin said, mussing Dickie’s hair, “and I would never presume on a lady’s person, but do you suppose she might be tempted to presume on mine? I would treasure her kisses.”
“She likes you,” Tom said, because this point had apparently not sunk into his lordship’s handsome skull. “And you’re an idiot if you don’t like her back.”
“Bring her flowers,” Dickie suggested. “Something that smells good, not like John.”
“Everybody brings the ladies flowers,” Tom scoffed. “Just like everybody pities orphans. Miss Anwen doesn’t just pity us and go on her way, she pays attention to us.”
“She taught us to knit,” John said. “Lady Rosalyn mostly scolded us for not knowing how.”
“Perhaps Miss Anwen would teach me to knit,” Lord Colin said.
Joe shook his head, which meant pounding some sense into his lordship was up to Tom.
“You can do the flowers and the flirting bit, just like everybody else, or you can pay attention to her. She likes you, she’s pretty, and she cares a lot more about us than Mr. Montague Moneybags does. If you want her respect, you make sure she has yours first. The kissing part can come later.”
“Tom will throw you in the honey cart if you hurt Miss Anwen’s feelings,” Dickie said. “John, Joe, and I will help him.”
Lord Colin’s smile faded. “Thank you, gentlemen, for sincere and wise advice, and a truly impressive threat. I like Miss Anwen exceedingly and esteem her greatly.”
Lord Colin might have had more to say, except the side door opened and a parasol appeared. When the hand on that parasol turned out to belong to Lady Rosayln, no Miss Anwen at her side, any fool could have figured out which lady his lordship was not sweet on.
Lady Rosalyn came down the steps, her parasol in one hand, her skirts clutched up in the other, as if good green grass was so much pony poop.
“Your lordship, I’m afraid this tour will have to be brief. Miss Anwen will be along directly, but I must soon take my leave of you.”
Her ladyship was beautiful, in a golden, perfect way, and she smelled good, and she acted as if four hardworking boys weren’t standing right there ready to show her where the kitchen spices grew, and where the Holland bulbs would go.
Those decisions had been made by committee, which meant Tom and the other boys had had jolly loud arguments over damned sunlight, sodding drainage, bloody soil quality, and other particulars.
Tom was considering wishing her ladyship a cheerful bloody damned good day, when Joe gave a slight shake of his head.
A gent never takes offense when a lady’s manners slip. Lord Colin had assured them on many occasions that gentlemanly manners were a matter of behavior not birth, so Tom considered himself a gentleman in training.
He wasn’t at all sure Miss Anwen’s pretty friend was a lady, though. He’d put that question to Lord Colin when Lady Rosalyn was no longer clinging to his lordship’s arm like manure stuck to the bottom of a fellow’s best Sunday boots.
* * *
Colin’s happiness had blossomed along with the garden at the orphanage. Between hard work, stock donated from the vast Moreland gardens, and the benign weather of an English spring, weeds and bracken had been replaced with flowers, herbs, and medicinals.
Chaos had been replaced not only with order, but also with beauty.
And in Colin’s life, warmth and hope had replaced duty and busyness. Hamish had sent along news from home, and almost admitted to missing Colin, but the pull of Perthshire was balanced by the satisfaction of progress at the orphanage.
And by Anwen’s kisses. Respect was all well and good—the boys were right about that—but Colin also treasured Anwen’s affection.
“You fellows should be ever so proud of this accomplishment,” she said, after she’d admired each plant and flowerbed. “You’ve reduced Cook’s market expenses, enhanced the appearance of your home, and created potential for income if we have flowers and herbs to spare. Job well done, gentlemen.”
Four notably clean faces beamed. Tom shoved Dickie, who kicked Tom’s foot, and all was right with Colin’s world.
Almost.
“I agree with Miss Anwen,” Colin said, snapping off a white climbing rose from a trellis the boys had woven of sticks. “Job very well done, and I must think of a way to reward the fellows responsible. I’m open to suggestions, so consider what would be appropriate.”
“A reward?” Dickie asked, scrunching up his nose. “Like for peaching on your mates?”
The boys occupied the garden’s lone bench, a simple plank affair that had probably been a tree when Duke William had paid a call from Normandy.
“A prize,” Anwen said, brushing Dickie’s mop of dark hair back from his brow. “Just like the prizes given out for writing the best essay, doing all the sums accurately in the shortest time, or having the neatest dormitory.”
Tom sat a little taller at the mention of yesterday’s sums contest. He’d earned an extra helping of pudding for his talents, which he’d given to the smallest boys, claiming to be too full to enjoy it.
Anwen was brimming with ideas for how to motivate the children with benefits and rewards rather than the birch rod. Old Hitchings had grudgingly reported an improvement in scholarship over the last month, even as funds had dwindled and board meetings had become exercises in futility.
“Lord Colin wants us to think of the prize we’d like best.” Tom frequently served as interpreter, whether for Joe’s silences or Anwen’s genteel flights.
Joe took the rose from Colin and held it out to Anwen. “H-home.”
The sight of the young boy, gaze hopeful, offering a single word to go with his blossom did queer things to Colin’s heart.
“He’s got that right,” John said. “We’d like for this place to stay open.”
“Aye,” Dickie said. “We’d manage, but the little ’uns would be up the chimneys and down the mines or worse.”
“That wee Walter’s too pretty by half,” John said.
“The orphanage has plenty of funds for the present,” Colin said, before John could expound on the risks a pretty boy faced in London’s underworld. “But I think four ponies might need their stalls set fair before luncheon.”
The day was lovely, and setting fair was a periodic excuse to get outside, away from the desks, lectures, and Latin. The boys were off the bench and down the garden path in the next instant, their farewells bellowed in Anwen’s direction as they scampered away.
Colin propped a hip on the stone wall and realized he was more or less alone with his lady love, but in the location least likely to afford them privacy.
“Two things bother me of late,” he said.
She plucked a sprig of mint and took a seat on the bench. “Your friendship with Mr. Montague has become strained.”
Colin didn’t dare sit beside her, because if he sat beside her, he’d want to take her hand, and if he took her hand, he’d have to kiss the sensitive spot on her wrist that smelled of lemon blossoms and memories.
“That is one bother. How did you know?”
“He’s testy. You make a motion, he lets the discussion go on so long that there’s no time to vote on it, and then he doesn’t bother to show up at the next meeting. You offer a quip, he can barely bring himself to smile. I’d hoped the whole business with the mischarged bills was behind you.”
“I paid the bills within the week. Moreland even complimented me on dealing promptly with my debts. I think that’s part of the problem.”
Anwen patted the bench beside her, clearly willing to hear whatever troubles Colin cared to share with her. This aspect of their courtship—the heart-to-heart friendship Anwen offered—pleased him even more than her passionate nature.
“Madam, I don’t dare sit beside you.”
She twined the mint around her white rose. “Whyever not? We’re in full view of half the neighborhood.”
“Because if I sit next to you, I’ll want to sit too close. If I sit too close, I’ll want to take your hand. If I take your hand, I’ll want to kiss your wrist, and if I kiss your wrist…”
She knew exactly where wrist-kissing could lead, because he’d shown her that destination an entire week of hot dreams and cold baths ago.
“Tell me about Winthrop Montague, sir.”
Colin took some consolation from Anwen’s smile, which assured him that she’d be happy to discuss wrist-kissing later.
“The objective of the mis-charging exercise,” Colin said, “was to shame me. I was to go hat in hand to the various tradesmen, and explain that I needed time to address the situation. To ask for forbearance from the clubs within weeks of being admitted would have been galling, to say nothing of my new tailor, my bootmaker, Tatts, and so forth.”
Not galling, but rather, impossible. Colin would have sold his horses, borrowed from his sisters, and taken work with MacHugh the fishmonger rather than let those bills linger.
“This lark grows complicated,” Anwen said. “I like it less as time goes on, and I hated it to begin with.”
“If I’d asked Win what to do about the money, begged him for a loan he couldn’t make, complained to him about being in dun territory, then I would still have his friendship.”
“Such as it was.”
Anwen was very clear that Winthrop Montague had behaved badly.
“Are you angry with him on my behalf, or because he’s shirking here at the orphanage? He warned me I’d be replacing him eventually.”
“That was before Lord Derwent dodged off for the race meets. I understand that these men don’t take the orphanage seriously, Colin. The directors have never shivered through the month of January fighting for a place to sleep in a church doorway. Win has stopped even pretending to care.”
Hitchings came out of the building, a sheaf of papers in his hand rather than his birch rod.
Colin lowered his voice. “Win’s unlucky in love, and apparently getting unluckier. The ladybird he longs to call his own is considering the protection of a duke’s heir, and Win’s nigh mad with frustration.”
Colin could tell Anwen such things. She wasn’t easily shocked, and Colin, being very lucky in love himself, felt an awkward pity for Win.
“Mrs. Bellingham again,” Anwen said. “Perhaps Winthrop should hold a card party to sponsor his aims where she’s concerned. Surely half the club members in Mayfair would turn out to support that worthy goal.”
She was furious with Win, and Colin couldn’t blame her.
“Win will be at your card party, and so will his friends.”
Hitchings was gazing about, as if he expected four boys to pop out from the hedges. In bright sunlight, the headmaster looked pale and tired, and yet, he was clearly intent on some goal other than allowing Colin more privacy with Anwen.
“Winthrop Montague is chairman of the orphanage’s board,” she said, untangling the mint from the rose’s stem. “If he fails to attend the card party, my aunt will skewer his social aspirations for the next five years.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. That explains why all of his friends accepted their invitations. I asked the duchess to extend her hospitality to each of the men responsible for trespassing on my good nature and my exchequer. Your dear aunt agreed that such graciousness was appropriate under the circumstances.”
Before Colin could draw his next breath, Anwen was off the bench, her arms locked around his neck. “Oh, that was diabolical, Colin! No wonder they hate you, and it’s so…It’s brilliant.”
The scents of mint and rose blended with Colin’s delight at gathering his lady close. He’d expected the joy of being affectionate with her to wane, to mute into something more dignified, but every time he wrapped his arms around Anwen—every time he saw her, or even thought of her—his heart leapt.
As did another part of his anatomy.
“You approve?” he asked, taking a half step back, but keeping hold of her hand. “It’s not quite revenge, but it’s a statement. Rosecroft pronounced it a gentlemanly rebuke.”
As had Edana and Rhona, who’d found torn hems, pressing thirst, or sudden fatigue cropping up whenever Win’s friends had asked them to dance. Rosecroft had had a word with his countess and his regiment of lady sisters and sisters by marriage.
Win’s friends were sitting out quite a few dances, and they weren’t exactly flooded with invitations either.
Such a pity.
Anwen’s smile would have lit up a Highland sky on a January night. “Your gentlemanly rebuke is perfect. The orphanage will be the better for their attendance at the card party, and their pride will be the worse. I love it.”
A throat cleared in the direction of the terrace.
Colin released Anwen’s hand as boots scraped on the stone steps.
“Hitchings, good day.” Hitchings had been notably quiet at the board meeting earlier in the day. He looked positively glum now.
“My lord, Miss Anwen. I trust you are aware that the orphanage cannot endure the sort of talk that would circulate had any but myself witnessed your display of exuberance for one another’s company.”
This was one reason Colin was desperate to announce their engagement, so that pompous old fools had no grounds to pass judgment and pontificate.
“I do apologize,” Anwen said, “but as you know, Mr. Hitchings, the Windhams and the MacHughs are very closely connected, and I hope my respect and affection for Lord Colin are obvious to all.”
Oh, nicely done.
Hitchings blushed. He shuffled papers, he cleared his throat. The old boy was shy in the presence of a lady, and why shouldn’t he be? The orphanage was a male preserve, but for the influence of Anwen and her committee.
How lonely Hitchings must be.
“You came out here with information in hand,” Colin said. “Is the matter urgent?”
From the mews across the alley, some boy shrieked with laughter, and then a loud clatter followed, along with more laughter.
“They love those ponies,” Hitchings said, his tone both bewildered and aggrieved.
“Who wouldn’t love a pony?” Anwen replied. “They’re very dear, much like the boys.”
Hitchings sent Colin a look. All boys are hooligans.
Colin certainly had been. “Do your papers have anything to do with the ponies?”
Hitchings looked at the papers as if they contained a draft of Wellington’s eulogy. “I’m afraid so, indirectly. Perhaps Miss Anwen should excuse us?”
Hitchings trying to be mannerly sent alarm skittering down Colin’s middle.
“If it has to do with the orphanage,” Anwen said, “then I’d rather know sooner than later.” She twined an arm through Colin’s, which Hitchings noted with a raised brow.
“His lordship has proposed a scheme to turn the empty wing into gentlemen’s quarters,” Hitchings said. “Unusual notion, but worth exploring. Desperate times calling for desperate measures, and all that. I took it upon myself to inspect the unused wing, something I haven’t done in a year.”
At some point in the last few weeks, Hitchings had lost his air of perpetual affront, and replaced it with a dogged weariness. He taught every day, he occasionally went out on private errands in daylight hours, and he sat quietly at board meetings unless called upon to recite.
The boys certainly weren’t complaining at the change, though funding had to be troubling the headmaster, as did having his authority gainsaid on occasion by a board that had never taught a single Latin declension.
“The building is old,” Anwen said. “We know that. What did you find?”
Hitchings’s expression became downright doleful. “Rising damp. The unused wing of the house is far gone. Deuced blight is everywhere that fires aren’t routinely lit. I blame myself, but economies being what they are, and English weather being what it is, half of this building is not going to stand much longer without substantial, expensive repairs. I’m sorry.”
* * *
The news got worse.
As Anwen trailed Colin and Mr. Hitchings about the House of Urchins, she made a list. The windows in the unused wing hadn’t been glazed for some time, and thus rain had worked its way in and attacked the walls and sills.
The ceilings in some rooms were also suffering water damage, or had at one time. Numerous stains were apparent, but how recently they’d developed was not clear.
The lower floors, being more frequently heated, showed less damage from the damp, but they were far from presentable in the unused wing. The boys’ wing was in better repair, and the cellars closest to the kitchen’s heat looked mostly sound.
As Colin and Mr. Hitchings had tramped from one floor to another, the smaller boys had followed them with worried gazes.
“We don’t have this difficulty as much in Scotland,” Colin said as he settled beside Anwen on the seat of his phaeton. “We build with stone, and then haven’t enough wood for the moisture to get into. Our weather is cold enough that we keep fires going year ’round, whereas here, you often let the parlor fires go out in summer despite the damp.”
Anwen longed to lay her head on his shoulder and wail, but that wouldn’t solve the problem.
“Will Hitchings keep his mouth shut until after the card party?”
A tiger rode behind them, which was a gesture on Colin’s part in the direction of greater propriety. Anwen suspected Colin was also taking a precaution against any “pranks” that might involve his vehicle and team.
“Hitchings has become something of a puzzle,” Colin said as he gave the horses leave to walk on. “It’s as if when the boys began to apply themselves to their studies, Hitchings came unmoored from his birch rod and he’s been drifting since. Do you have any idea where he goes on his periodic jaunts up the alley?”
“Ask the boys,” Anwen said. “They miss nothing, and they might have followed him from time to time.”
She hoped the children were making fewer unscheduled outings, but they were boys. In many ways they were more self-sufficient in their minority than a proper lady would ever be, even should she attain widowhood.
“You are a wee bit dispirited,” Colin said.
“I’m despairing.” Anwen and her beloved were honest with each other. No reason to depart from that policy now. “The building is huge and full of problems—expensive problems—that somebody should have spotted before the orphanage was established there.”
When Colin might have offered reassurances—the difficulties weren’t that great, the repairs weren’t that expensive—he remained silent, and that was honest enough. When he handed Anwen down in the Moreland mews, she pitched into him and wrapped her arms about him.
“I don’t want to go into that house and be interrogated about the meeting’s agenda, what outlandish reticule Lady Rosalyn carried today, and whether heartsease or roses would make better centerpieces for the card party buffet.”
Colin stroked a gloved hand over her hair. “You want to cry? I do, or get drunk. Home is a feeling in the heart, but it’s also a place, and for those boys to lose the place they live will upset them, even if we can establish the orphanage in new quarters. For too long, they’ve had nowhere to call their own and moving will be hard on them.”
Anwen had been so muddled, so angry, she hadn’t figured out even that much. “You think we can move the orphanage?”
As the grooms led the team away, Colin turned her under his arm and walked with her across the alley to the garden.
“In some ways,” he said, “starting over elsewhere would be best. The old building is hard to heat, drafty, and badly laid out for the function it now serves. I gather the premises was once a grand townhouse, or several fine properties built together, and thus we have no connecting corridor between the two dormitories, no stairs from the classrooms to dining hall, and so forth.”
“I never noticed that.”
“I’ve stuck my nose in parts of the building you haven’t, and you notice the boys. They are what matter.”
The Moreland House garden was lovely, as only a well-tended English garden could be, and yet the flowers and sunshine did little to cheer Anwen.
“Maybe we should cancel the card party,” she said. “Maybe we ought not to be taking people’s money for a doomed endeavor. We can find places for the dozen boys we have. They weren’t supposed to spend the rest of their lives at the House of Urchins. I know that.”
She also knew that without Colin at her side, she’d be upstairs in her bedroom, crying as quietly as she could.
Colin drew her behind a lilac bush that hadn’t a single blossom. “Is that what you want to do? Admit defeat, care for the wounded as best you can, then retreat?”
He draped his arms over her shoulders and kissed her. The touch of his lips was tenderness itself, as gentle as his inquiry. That he’d ask Anwen what she wanted meant worlds, and gave her the purchase she needed to consider her answer as she leaned into his embrace.
“The building is ill, far gone, Colin, and bringing it back to health will mean resources are diverted to architectural matters that ought to go to the boys. Fixing that place up, even if we had the means, would involve all manner of disruption to the boys, as well as extra effort for somebody to supervise the project. I know you want to return to Scotland in a few weeks and the board of directors will do nothing without you wielding the birch rod.”
“Interesting analogies—the illness and the birch rod. We don’t need to solve the entire problem today, though. We have some time.”
In the circle of Colin’s arms, Anwen calmed. He was right. They had time to think—or to plan a different path for the boys. They had time to consider options.
“The card party is Friday,” Anwen said. “I won’t have an opportunity to get back to the orphanage before then. Somebody should tell Winthrop Montague what Hitchings found. Mr. Montague is still the chairman of the board.”
Colin kissed her again, more lingeringly. “He’s still a donkey’s arse too. I’m keen to leave London if for no other reason than to get away from him and his ilk.”
In Colin’s embrace, Anwen found comfort. In his kisses, she found a reminder that this was the man she’d soon marry, and she hadn’t had nearly enough privacy with him since making that decision.
“We had a note from Mama and Papa yesterday,” she said, sliding a hand around Colin’s hip. “They’ve begun their homeward journey.”
“So have I,” Colin muttered.
His kiss intensified, from the garden variety that might be quickly stolen behind the hedge, to the voracious, plundering passion that obliterated Anwen’s awareness of anything but him. His warmth, his strength, his heathery scent, his taste.
“Mint,” Anwen said against his lips.
“I prefer it to parsley.”
For all the pleasure Colin’s kiss brought, all the reassurance and desire, Anwen also sensed a question in his touch.
They had agreed to marry, and had become close, physically and otherwise. Anwen had assumed she’d end her social season with a wedding and a journey north to her new home. In his caresses and kisses and even his silence, Colin was asking a question:
Could Anwen travel hundreds of miles north on her wedding journey, making a new home with Colin in Scotland, when she knew the boys at the House of Urchins might soon have no home at all?