Alaric. Jane couldn’t help repeating the name to herself as she escorted Callie back to the schoolroom to report to her sisters. It suited him. There was something noble, honorable, old-fashioned about the name. She’d probably be scolded for her cheek in using it the next time he saw her, but it would be a small price to pay for the pleasure that had darted across his face at her comment.

“It’s not fair,” Abelona said when Callie told them about her conversation with their father, nearly verbatim. “Callie gets a different name. I want one too.”

“Very well,” Jane said. “What do you want to be called?”

“Abby, but Larissa said that’s where the monkeys live.”

“I think you mean monks,” Jane told her, trying not to smile. “What about Belle?”

Abelona beamed. “I like it! Thank you, Mrs. Kimball.” She hugged her tight.

“Well, I don’t want to change my name,” Larissa said with a toss of her head. “I sound like a princess.”

“Too bad we’re only the daughters of a duke,” Callie said. “You’d make a very good princess.”

Larissa raised her chin. “I’ll be a princess one day. All I have to do is marry a prince.”

Not marriage again. Jane had never been so glad to see Betsy and Maud in the doorway. “Bedtime!”

Unfortunately, her charges were still discussing the matter over breakfast. Belle was of the opinion that all princes lived far away. Callie was certain she’d heard someone say they were all old and sickly. Nothing Jane tried would get them off the subject. She finally sent them to their rooms to change into their riding habits. She didn’t much care for the outfits, which were all done in black wool with severe lines more suited to dowagers than young ladies. Perhaps she could prevail on Alaric to let them journey to London when the weather warmed to see about new clothes. That ought to make Larissa happy for a time. And Jane could check on Miss Thorn and Fortune.

She couldn’t understand why Mr. Mayes hadn’t been able to locate her benefactress. Miss Thorn’s place of business on Kensington Road had had a nice placard in the window proclaiming it the offices of the Fortune Employment Agency. Jane had only been there once, but she remembered the elegant desk, the wicker basket in the corner with a blanket and pillow for Fortune. Why abandon the place? Had something terrible happened?

“Borrowing trouble,” she muttered to herself as she fastened the frogging on her plum-colored wool riding habit. Mr. Mayes had Miss Thorn’s home address now. He’d find her, and all would be well.

Knowing they weren’t expected at that time of the morning at the castle stables, she asked Simmons to accompany them in case more staff was needed. But when they reached the space pressed deep in the stone of the wall at one side of the courtyard, with narrow exercise pens beside it, he balked.

“I’m a footman, not a groom,” he protested. “I was glad to leave off farming to get away from this sort of work. Besides, Mr. Quayle would lock me in irons if I was to touch one of his horses.”

“Aye, I would at that.” An older man with grey hair as dark and unruly as a storm cloud came out of the smaller stable leading an elegant sable-coated horse for Larissa. Jane recognized Mr. Quayle, whom she had met since Belle’s unicorn had been brought up to the castle.

“If you’ll give us a moment, Mrs. Kimball,” he said now, “we’ll have things ready for you. I’m afraid the, er, unicorn isn’t quite up to riding today.”

“I’ll speak to her,” Belle promised. She turned and headed for the exercise pens, where Jane caught a flash of white. Simmons followed her. It was his duty to look after the girls, but Jane rather thought he was trying to escape the work required of the grooms.

“You may want to ride west today,” the master of horse told Jane. “Some interesting doings at the lock.”

“Mr. Parsons says it’s a folly,” Callie piped up as she waited for another groom to turn a black horse for her to mount. “I like follies. Grandmother’s friend Lady Carrolton has one.”

Mr. Quayle scowled. “It’s no whim. Parsons has served inside the castle for too long. He’s never had to live through a spring flood.”

Jane glanced through the opening in the courtyard to the fields stretching beyond. With the waters of the Thames swirling in the distance, it was all too easy to imagine the acreage covered with water. She must have shivered, for Mr. Quayle hurried to assure her.

“Now, don’t worry. His Grace has the matter in hand.” The master of horse nodded to the groom bringing out a dapple-grey horse for Jane, her saddle on the broad back.

“Do you want me to fetch Lady Abelona?” Mr. Quayle asked.

“I’ll go,” Jane said. “Callie, tell Mr. Quayle about your new names.”

The master of horse turned to Callie as she launched into her recitation.

Belle had moved around the edge of the stable until she was out of sight. But as Jane turned the corner, it was Simmons’s voice she heard first.

“They’ll never let you ride her, you know,” he was telling Belle as she clung to the fence edging the pen. “She’s too much horse for a little girl like you.”

“She’s not a horse,” Belle said stubbornly. “She’s a unicorn. You just can’t see her horn right now.”

Jane smiled at the childlike faith. Simmons snorted. “Unicorn. There’s no such thing. They’re just humoring you because they think you’ll cry.”

Belle stomped her foot. “I won’t.”

He bent to put his face on a level with hers, mouth turned up in a familiar sneer. “You will. Because next time you’ll be the one with spiders in her bed.”

“Not while I live.” Anger fueled each step. Jane marched up to him and seized his ear before he could rise. “Apologize to Lady Belle, at once!”

“Sorry, sorry,” he muttered, trying to wiggle out of her grip.

“You’ll be a great deal sorrier by the time I’m finished with you,” Jane promised. “Go back to the house and tell Mr. Parsons I refuse to see your face in the schoolroom wing again. And if you dare to set foot in that space, we’ll just see where the spiders end up.”

She released him and took Belle’s hand. “Come along, Lady Belle. You can continue to ride a nice pony until your unicorn is ready for you.”

She did not so much as look at Simmons as she swept back to the stable yard.

Mr. Quayle regarded her as she returned. “Everything all right, Mrs. Kimball?”

Callie’s eyes were wide. “She told Simmons to go away. I heard her.”

Jane’s face was on fire. “We would appreciate a pony, Mr. Quayle, and the help of a groom as usual.”

With a nod from the master of horse, two of the grooms hurried to help.

Jane struggled to regain her composure. It was bad enough that Simmons treated her disrespectfully. He wasn’t the first, and she could take care of herself. How dare he treat Belle and Callie that way? He was nothing but a bully, and she wouldn’t have it. If Mr. Parsons thought otherwise, he was in for a reckoning too.

She was merely glad that Belle seemed to have recovered. She chatted away on the back of her black pony, a young groom with hair nearly as dark leading her. Belle pointed out butterflies bobbing across the fields, hawks circling above. Larissa rode along, head up, as if she really was a princess surveying her domain. But Callie kept glancing at Jane out of the corners of her eyes as if she was in awe of their governess.

They found the lock easily enough, near the westernmost edge of the island where a group of men gathered at the shore. From here, she could see the wooden gate jutting out from either side of the stream, meeting in the middle and bowing slightly downstream. Shut now, water trickled through the joining. Two wide beams topped the gates, anchored by chains secured to a capstan. One of the chains had been laid out on the muddy ground, and the workers were all eyeing the fellow who was running his hands down the massive links. He rose just then to tower over them. Jane’s heart started beating faster.

“Your Grace,” she said, and all the men turned to look in her direction.

“Mrs. Kimball,” he said, wiping the grease from his bare hands with a rag he’d tucked into his breeches. “Girls. Lovely day for a ride.”

“Father,” Larissa said, voice sounding much like her grandmother’s, “you’re dirty.”

“Am I?” He glanced down at the mud speckling his boots and breeches. “Why, so I am.” He winked at her. “Don’t tell Her Grace.”

He sounded almost happy. Perhaps he was merely glad to see the sky for once.

“What are you doing?” Callie asked.

He nodded to the men to continue their work, then moved closer to Jane and the girls.

“Testing the lock,” he said, taking the halter of Belle’s pony and leading her and the beast away from the workers, with her sisters, Jane, and the grooms following. “As we talked about Sunday, the spring rains can make the river swell. The water covers our crops, fills our tenants’ houses.” He pointed to the side stream leading back toward the castle. “Many men in the area dug our stream deeper this past summer. When we open the gates, the river will flow into the channel, helping to lower the water level around the island and directing it downstream, away from our lands. At least, that’s the hope.”

She heard it in his voice. Very likely everyone in the castle would be fine, but he was worried about his tenants, his neighbors. Jimmy would have approved.

She started. That was the first time in days she’d thought about Jimmy. Was her heart starting to heal at last?

 

~~~

 

Funny. Just telling Jane and the girls about his plans eased the tight muscles in his shoulders, as if a burden had been lifted. But he couldn’t rest easy just yet. The true test of the lock would be when the river rose.

“We shouldn’t keep you,” Jane said. “But it sounds like a grand plan. General Wellington’s sappers would be jealous. They were always figuring how to go over or under a moat.”

“I imagine they were.” He stroked the horse’s neck, but he knew he was only delaying their departure a moment. “Enjoy your ride, ladies.”

He watched as they turned the horses and ambled back the way they had come.

“Good for their ladyships to see you taking an active interest in the land,” Willard said as Alaric joined him near the lock.

“It’s their home as well,” Alaric agreed. He nodded to the chain. “I think we have it this time. Let’s give it a try.”

“You heard His Grace,” Willard called to the waiting men. “Open the gates.”

The mechanism was designed to allow a single man to operate it. Willard had organized the local militiamen to staff it, so it could be opened day or night. The fellow on duty now, a veteran with one wooden leg from the knee down, set the process in motion. Slowly, nearly too slowly for Alaric, the chain tightened on the capstan. Each clank, each purr of the machinery, made him tense anew. But the gates eased open, and the river tumbled in. Maybe this really would work.

Only when he’d seen the gates close again successfully did he feel comfortable leaving his steward and riding Decatur back to the castle. He even gave the gelding his head, letting him run with the wind. The air felt clean, moist, winter’s chill gone. It wouldn’t be long now. He could only hope they were ready.

Quayle took Decatur’s reins as Alaric swung down from the saddle.

“Everything all right with Mrs. Kimball?” his master of horse asked.

Alaric shook his head. “Don’t tell me. She doesn’t want the girls to ride sidesaddle.”

Quayle frowned. “She never said as much to me.”

“Then let’s not give her any ideas,” Alaric told him, giving the horse a pat. “Was there something else concerning you?”

The older man nodded to a groom, who came to take the horse for its rubdown. “Have a look at Lady Belle’s unicorn, will you?”

Alaric fell into step beside him. The white horse pranced around the exercise pen as if eager to run. “She looks well. That’s not why you brought me here.”

“No, Your Grace,” Quayle murmured, hand on the top rail of the fence. “We had a little trouble this morning. It’s not my place to deal with the indoor staff, so I’ve never said a word to Simmons when he escorts the little ladies to see me, even if he seems a bit hard on them at times.”

He thought he knew where this was going. “I take it Mrs. Kimball had no such trouble.”

“Ordered him out of the schoolroom, she did, and I’d have done the same. What sort of man threatens a little girl with spiders in her bed?”

Spiders. A terrified little girl screaming in the night with no one to comfort her. The world quieted. The blue sky seemed to be turning red, but he knew the approaching storm was inside him. He thanked his master of horse and headed for the house.

Parsons met him at the door. “Your Grace, I must speak to you about Mrs. Kimball.”

Alaric drew up short. “Is this about Simmons?”

Parsons sighed. “Yes, Your Grace. He’s been assigned to the nursery for six months now, brought in on the recommendation of Her Grace. You know why he was hired.”

He knew. The Simmons family had been the one his father had insisted on evicting. Culling, he’d called it, as if uprooting a family was akin to selling an extra calf from the herd. When the man’s son had approached Willard about a position, explaining that his father and mother were gone and all he wanted was to return to the place where he’d been raised, Alaric had agreed to hire him. Alaric was the duke now. He had every right to soften his father’s harsh edicts.

Yet he knew what his father would say now. Alaric had given Simmons a chance, acted from his heart, not his head, and look at the results.

“I remember why Simmons returned to the island,” he told the butler. “But being a long-time tenant cannot excuse his behavior.”

Parsons frowned. “No one’s ever complained about his service before, yet Mrs. Kimball insists that he be given another post. He insists she is incompetent for hers.”

“Mrs. Kimball is incorrect,” Alaric said, and no one could have missed the triumph that flashed across the butler’s face. “Simmons is not to be given another post. He is to be discharged. Pay him what he is owed, and tell him I want him out of the castle by morning.”

Parsons stared at him. “But Your Grace…”

Alaric met the fellow’s gaze. “Careful, Parsons. You are trying my patience. You are in charge of the indoor staff. Either you knew Simmons was mistreating my daughters and doing nothing, or you failed to see the damage being done under your own nose. Neither inspires confidence in you.”

The butler turned white. “Of course not, Your Grace. I will keep a closer eye on all the staff, I promise. I would never want anything to happen to those dear girls.”

“Good. Then send Simmons packing, because if I see him before you do, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

He was still steaming when he returned downstairs a short while later, having changed out of his dirty trousers and boots. He’d thought about going to his daughters, apologizing in person, but he’d wondered whether that might only make matters worse. He’d followed Evangeline’s advice, left the girls to the care of others, mostly women. The one man in the mix had failed them, and he couldn’t convince himself it was entirely Simmons’ fault.

Until Simmons broke into the library.

He still wore the livery of the House of Wey, but his olive coat was askew, and his shirt was untucked. Parsons and another footman puffed in his wake.

“I won’t let you do this,” Simmons shouted at Alaric, face florid. “I won’t be forced off the island again.”

Alaric rose slowly, met the fellow’s outraged glare.

“I never understood why my father evicted yours,” he said. “But if his lack of judgement was half as grave as yours, then I stand by his decision. And my own.”

Parsons took hold of one arm, the footman the other. Simmons shook them off.

“It’s that governess. She’s lying. Can’t you see she’s wrapped you around her finger?”

Alaric stiffened, but Parsons succeeded in grabbing Simmons’ arm again.

“So sorry, Your Grace,” the butler gritted out, tugging the former footman away from the desk. “Come along, Simmons. Don’t make matters worse for yourself.”

Once more Simmons broke free, rushing toward the desk. Alaric met him, blocking his way forward, hand braced on his shoulder. “My decision has nothing to do with Mrs. Kimball. I will not have my daughters mistreated. You had a duty to them, and you failed. You can walk out of this house of your own volition, or I will throw you out. Choose wisely.”

Simmons eyed him, the muscles in his face working. He raised his head. “I’ll go, but you haven’t seen the last of me.”

“Yes, Mr. Simmons,” Alaric said, “I have. Because my next act as magistrate for this district will be to have you clapped in irons to be tried at the next assize.”

Simmons turned and strode from the library.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Parsons said, face glistening with sweat. “I’ll just make sure he leaves.” He and the other footman hurried in pursuit.

Alaric drew in a breath. He’d rarely had to discharge staff or agents. The people he’d had chosen or inherited from this father were largely reliable, even-tempered. One or two had needed encouragement to do their tasks efficiently, but never had he encountered such belligerence. The fellow would bear watching.

Because Alaric refused to be derelict in his own duty again.