Be My Bride (3 page)

“And she has a pleasant disposition,” James asserted.

“And she can bake better cakes than this,” John muttered, setting the confection firmly on his gold-rimmed plate.

Daniel glanced around at their earnest faces. The idea was too far-fetched to go any farther. “Well, gentlemen, I’m quite flattered by this regard, but I assure you your mother wouldn’t have me.”

“Don’t see why not,” James replied. “You’re a much better choice than this Colonel Hathaway fellow. And you like us.”

Daniel ran his hand back through his hair. Why couldn’t he seem to get them off this subject? Was some part of him actually entertaining the notion that he could court and win a beauty like Cynthia Kinsle? She’d laugh him out of the house. “Truly my lads,” he insisted. “Your mother and I would never suit.”

John’s frown was more of a pout. “Why do you both keep saying that? Mother’s the mother and you’d be the father. You just need to explain that to her.”

“It’s hardly that simple, John. Surely your mother would expect a gentleman to court her properly.” He realized he wasn’t convincing anyone in the room, including himself, and hurriedly added, “I wouldn’t even know what to say to her.”

John was quick to reply, reinforcing Daniel’s opinion that the boy was masterminding this affair. “You need to visit her at Uncle Jonathan’s. Talk about things ladies find interesting, like clothes.”

Daniel kept a straight face although the thought of discussing the merits of silk over kerseymere with Cynthia was laughable in the extreme. “Clothes, eh? Somehow I don’t think . . .”.

“Or gardening,” John insisted as if sensing reluctance. “You can talk about your gardens.” He nudged his brother. “Couldn’t he, James?”

James, always solemn, nodded. “Yes, that should suffice.”

The grin broke free as he tried to imagine Cynthia rhapsodizing over rosebuds. “Your mother likes gardens, does she?”

“And you should bring her presents,” John encouraged him. “Everyone likes presents. A package of pins, perhaps, or a tea strainer.”

“Really?” He tried to look appreciative of the well-meant advice, but his mouth hurt from holding back the laughter.

“And candy,” chimed in Adam. “There’s nothing sweeter than candy.” He sighed longingly, and Daniel, seeing the obvious hint, reached obligingly for the nearby crystal candy dish, allowing a chuckle to escape. As they helped themselves all around, he was relieved to hear them return to their usual conversation of whose turn it was to pick the game and how they might elude their uncle the next day.

As he listened to them, a part of him kept toying with the idea of courting Cynthia, but he shook his head. He had courted a number of young ladies over the years, but none had stirred his heart enough to offer. He had decided the love spoken of by the poets was obviously beyond him. Yet, a companion would be pleasant, and certainly he was beginning to realize what a hole would be left in his life when Cynthia eventually remarried and the boys moved away. But did he care for them enough to risk a life with the redoubtable Cynthia as his wife?

He kept the boys busy the rest of the afternoon with a “tiger” hunt through the grounds. It wasn’t until he had called for his carriage to take them home that John broached the subject again.

“So, Mr. Daniel, when shall we tell Mother that you’re going to call?”

There they were again, three faces raised entreatingly to his. He wondered how any parent ever found the strength to say no. But say no he must before this madness went any further. He was about to do so, with as much force as necessary, when he noticed the tension in John’s face. His blue eyes were over bright, and there was a decided tremor in his lower lip, not unlike the way Adam looked before he cried. He’d never seen the boy want anything so much, and he found he couldn’t be the one to deny him.

“Perhaps I can find time in the next few days,” he heard himself say. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt for your mother and I to get reacquainted.”

Chapter Three

Cynthia watched her sons working at their copy books, the sunlight from the high windows in the schoolroom making halos on their golden heads. The creak of her rocker kept up a steady rhythm. She blinked to keep herself from falling asleep.

“Done,” her middle son declared, and she rose, putting aside the sock she had been mending, to look over his work. The neat letters marched across the page in orderly rows.

“Very nice work, James,” she said with a smile, giving his narrow shoulder a gentle squeeze. Of all her sons, he least reminded her of Nathan. James’ temperament more closely resembled her brother’s -- meticulous, thoughtful, and self-contained. She did not have to worry when she set James some task; she knew it would be completed to her own and his satisfaction.

Next to him, John hunched over his own work and quickened his pace, but not before she caught sight of the ungainly scrawl. She shook her head. If James was the cautious one, John was more likely to throw caution to the wind in some scheme he wanted to enact. He was entirely too much like his father, a fact that endeared him to her as well as worried her.

“This isn’t a race, John,” she cautioned. “Take your time, and do it properly. James, you may read while we wait for John and Adam to finish.”

Adam sighed gustily and bent back over the copy book, pudgy fingers straining on the pencil. He was still young for this work, she felt, but if there was anything Adam hated, it was being treated like a baby. He wanted to study everything his brothers studied, do everything his brothers did, be everywhere his brothers were. The current bane of his existence was that he still wore short pants. She had been saving for material to make him long pants, but so far it had been much easier to cut off the tattered legs of pants his brothers had outgrown and refit them to his chubby body. 

Someone coughed politely in the schoolroom door. Turning, she saw her brother standing there, narrow face closed as usual.

“Good afternoon, Jonathan,” she said, straightening. “What brings you up to see us?”

“You have a gentleman caller,” he replied, moving into the room with his manservant behind him. “If you would be so good as to come with me? Tims can watch the boys.”

Surprised, she nodded and smiled encouragement to the boys. As she followed him back into the corridor, she wondered who could possibly be calling on her. It couldn’t be news about Nathan. How many times had she tensed to a sudden knock at the door thinking this was the day they would tell her he had been killed? When it had finally happened it had almost been a relief. But surely the only other reason a man would call on her would be regarding Nathan’s effects. Had the Admiralty learned something new?

She hastened her steps, but she hadn’t made it to the stairs when a hiss pulled her up short. Jonathan didn’t seem to notice, continuing on. Looking back, Cynthia saw John hurrying after them, her hair brush in one hand.

“Here.” He shoved it at her. “You’ll want to look your best.”

Frowning, she accepted the implement. “Thank you, John. You followed me just to give me this?”

He looked away, shuffling his feet. “Well, I thought you needed it.”

Cynthia had a sudden vision of him putting some creature in her bun as she was bent over James’ work. She reached up to touch her hair. Nothing seemed to be moving. “John,” she said slowly, eyes narrowing, “is there something I should know?”

He backed out of reach. “No. Why do you ask?”

“No reason, I suppose,” she replied, attempting to hand him the brush. “But if I am hideously embarrassed at this meeting, young man, you will answer for it this evening.”

He swallowed. “Just be nice, Mother. Please?”

She frowned again, but he was already turning to hurry back toward the schoolroom. She slipped the brush into the pocket of her gown for retrieval later (and use on the seat of a certain young man’s britches if her suspicions proved true) and continued downstairs.

She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t the sight that met her eyes. Daniel Lewiston was pacing her brother’s austere sitting room. His clothes, a dark blue superfine coat and matching trousers with a lighter blue waistcoat, were immaculate. What was more out of character, however, was that his meaty hands clutched an obscenely large box with lettering identifying it as coming from a famous Wells confectioner. It was obviously sweets and could only be a present for the boys, one he wasn’t sure she’d let them accept. She decided to put him at his ease.

“Mr. Lewiston, how nice of you to call,” she greet him with a smile.

He started, then managed a smile as well. “Mrs. Jacobs. Very good of you to receive me.”

“Yes, it was, wasn’t it,” Jonathan quipped, seating himself in one of the fine white-lacquered chairs near the windows overlooking the terrace.

Cynthia quelled his amusement with a frown and took a seat on one of the closer chairs to give Daniel the excuse to sit as well. He glanced at the chair across the room near Jonathan, then sighed and chose the one closest to her instead. Offering her a weak smile, he pushed the candy box toward her in much the same way John had just pushed the brush.

“I . . . I thought you might like these.”

“Me?” She stared at the box in surprise. “I thought they were for the boys.”

Next to her, Daniel felt himself blushing. Blushing of all things! By God, was he such a coward? He straightened himself and set the box into her lap. “No, Mrs. Jacobs,” he replied firmly, “I assure you they are for you.” When she continued to stare at the box, he couldn’t help adding, “Of course, you may share them with the boys if you desire.”

Cynthia glanced up at him in confusion. The intent look he gave her back offered no clues. “Thank you,” she replied for lack of anything better to say.

Satisfied, Daniel sat back in the chair. She continued to divide her attention between the box of candy and his face, and he realized the silence was stretching. He wracked his brain for something to say.

“They’re very good chocolates,” he tried.
Look at me, reduced to prattling
! “If you like chocolates, of course.”

“Actually, I prefer stick candy,” Cynthia replied. “I’ve always had a sweet tooth for rock.”
What an inane conversation! Whatever is his purpose?

Daniel nodded. “A wise choice. Doesn’t get your fingers nearly as dirty. Not that you’d ever dirty your fingers, of course.”

Cynthia felt a laugh bubbling up. Luckily, Jonathan responded for her.

“You’d be surprised how dirty her fingers get taking care of those boys, Daniel.”

He managed another weak smile at the jest. Cynthia frowned her brother back into silence. The quiet stretched once more. She was obviously waiting for him to say something. Daniel squared his shoulders.

“The boys tell me you like to garden.”

Cynthia blinked. “Garden? Mr. Lewiston, I haven’t been near anything resembling a garden in ten years. Certainly nothing like the rose gardens your mother used to tend. Do you still have them?”

There was something decidedly wistful about her tone of voice. He supposed she couldn’t have seen many gardens at that, not if she’d been living near the Bristol docks as Jonathan had intimated. “Yes, the gardens are still there, although I admit I don’t spend much time in them. I’m not all that keen on roses.”

She smiled. “Oh, but who couldn’t like roses? I always thought your mother was so fortunate: all those bushes, all those colors and shades. There must have been enough blooms to brighten every room in the house.”

So, she did like gardens. It was a pleasant surprise. No one had been able to do justice to the roses since his mother had passed on. His sister Clementine had scolded him about their sad state on her last visit. Perhaps if he married Cynthia . . . . He cleared his throat and attempted to change the subject. “Actually, I far prefer the maze.”

She hadn’t thought of the Lewiston maze in years. She could feel herself brightening just remembering the fun they had had there. “Oh, I’m so glad to hear you kept that as well! After all the times we lost you in there, I’d have thought you’d want to tear the thing to the ground.”

He smiled, sharing the memory. “You five were scamps, no doubt about it. But for all Jonathan and I shouted and chased you about, it was a great deal of fun. To tell you the truth, I miss it.”

Cynthia frowned, but he seemed sincere. “You cannot mean it. Your sisters and I were awful to you. I don’t know how you put up with us.”

He looked away. “I suppose one is willing to put up with a great deal when one is lonely.”

She started, and although he still refused to meet her gaze she found she had to believe him this time as well.

“Well,” Jonathan put in, “I’m sure our Cynthia has outgrown all that.”

Looking at her in the black widow’s weeds, Daniel could almost believe him. “Then that’s a pity.”

She felt herself blushing under his steady regard and lowered her eyes. He seemed to understand how she had been feeling lately, that there seemed so little to enjoy in her life outside the boys. A rose garden to tend or a maze to wander through would have been most welcome.

“But surely you came here to discuss something more than gardens, old fellow,” Jonathan prompted.

Daniel frowned at him. He knew he wasn’t making tremendous headway, but Jonathan’s prodding would not help. Perhaps he’d said enough for one day. He rose. “No. I just wanted to bring your sister the candy.”

“I don’t understand,” Cynthia replied, returning his frown.

He smiled at her. “No, I didn’t think you would. Good day, Mrs. Jacobs, Jonathan.”

She rose, and Jonathan rose with her. Together they saw him to the door. “Yes, well, thank you for the candy, Mr. Lewiston,” Cynthia told him, relieved that the confusing visit was at an end. “I will be sure to share it with the boys.”

“Yes, you do that,” he said with a nod as Jonathan opened the door. “Tell the boys I look forward to their next visit.”

Her brow cleared. That was it. The candy was a bribe to keep the boys coming to visit. She supposed she had been a bit forceful the first time she had seen him again. “I’ll let them know. Good day.”