Candice Hern (15 page)

Grace shrugged. "It was difficult to deny him when he asked to see where his money will be spent. But I would hate to see your boy come under the influence of a notorious libertine and gambler."

"I doubt John would do any harm to Toby. Despite what he may have become, I knew him as an intelligent boy and an honorable young man. That core of goodness is still there inside him, I'll wager."

A core of goodness? At the center of the worst rake in London? It was difficult to believe. And yet, he'd shown a remarkable interest in Marlowe House. Though it had seemed genuine at times, Grace had suspected it was merely an act, an excuse to get near her. Could she have been wrong about him? But no, this was the man who'd publicly ruined at least one young woman. No man of honor would have done such a thing.

"Besides," Jane continued, "Toby needs to know about Martin. He and John were close friends ... a long time ago." She smiled as she watched her daughter edge closer to the bench. "Sally has more vivid memories of her father, but see how she listens while pretending to pull weeds. She is too wary of men to get closer, but she wants to hear the stories, too."

Grace experienced a pang of tender concern as she considered what had might have made Sally wary of men. Yet certain aspects of Jane Fletcher's past intrigued her, especially the parts that involved Rochdale. She glanced at the bench again to find him in animated conversation with the boy, who stared up at him with worshipful eyes. Grace knew the seductive power of the wretched man. Was he charming Toby, too?

"You trust him, then?" Grace tilted her head toward the pair on the bench, though Jane would surely know who she meant.

"Of course."

Grace smiled. "You must be the only woman in London who does."

"Ah, but you see, I don't know the London milord. It's the bright-eyed boy from Suffolk I remember, and he's the one I'll trust."

It was hard to imagine Rochdale as a bright-eyed boy, but Grace supposed that even a hardened libertine began life as an innocent. "You were childhood friends?" It was none of her business, but Grace was bursting with curiosity. Jane gave her an understanding smile, and Grace felt her cheeks flame.

"He was more Martin's friend than mine," Jane said. "They were both horse mad, and spent lots of time in the stables or riding about. I was just a tagalong girl, a few years younger and always underfoot. My father, he was gamekeeper at Bettisfont, the Rochdale estate, and Martin's father was one of the tenant farmers. I thought nothing of it at the time, but I expect it was a bit unusual for his lordship's son to find his playmates among our class. He was an only child, though, so I suppose he was lonely."

Jane bent to pick up the pruning sheers in the basket at her feet, then began fingering the borage plant she'd been pruning earlier. She located a fine, tall stalk and snipped it off, then tossed it in the basket. "We had grand times together at Bettisfont, the three of us did," she said as she worked. "We knew every rock and tree on the estate and beyond. Sometimes we'd play at knights and dragons, and sometimes we'd just lie in the tall grasses and watch the clouds or talk. John was the most serious of us, what with his book learning and all. He's the only boy I ever knew what loved schooling so much. He used to tell us about books he'd read and I'll tell you plain that I didn't always understand him, not being much interested in books myself. Lord, but he did love his books. Always talking about some Greek or Roman fellows and their lofty ideas." She laughed. "Martin would look at me and roll his eyes. He didn't understand it any more than I did, but we were fond enough of John to let him go on and on."

Grace began to think they were talking of someone else. It seemed unlikely that a bookish child would grow up to be a rake and a gambler. "Rochdale was a studious child?"

"That he was. Idolized that tutor of his. Phelps, I think his name was. He wasn't all that keen on going away to school when he got older, but after his lordship married again, John was anxious to go away. He didn't much like his new stepmama or her daughter, I think, though he never said so outright. He loved school, though, Eton first, then Oxford. He came home as often as he could and told us of his studies. Became quite a scholar, our John did. I truly believe if he hadn't been his lordship's only son and heir, he'd have gone into the church."

"The
church
?" Grace almost sputtered in astonishment. Surely she had misheard.

"That's what Martin and me thought, sometimes. John would go on and on about Man and God and the meaning of life, ideas well above our understanding. He quoted the Bible a lot, too. We used to think it was sad he didn't have an older brother to inherit the title so he could have taken orders. Old Lord Rochdale would never have allowed it, though."

Grace was beyond astonished. She watched Rochdale as he spoke with the boy, a slightly wicked grin on his face. It could not be true. The very idea of Rochdale as a man of the cloth was not only laughable, it was ... blasphemous.

Jane chuckled. "I expect it seems odd, seeing as what he's like now. But if you'd known him back then, you'd understand."

Grace shook her head. "I confess I'm finding it difficult to do so." She looked over at him as he and Toby laughed together. Rochdale and the church. It was unimaginable. It was no fluke, then, that he knew his Bible well enough to realize she'd misquoted it.

The bishop always said you could find good in everyone if you looked hard enough. Perhaps she hadn't looked hard enough at Lord Rochdale. "How could a person change so drastically?" she mused aloud.

"I think it must have been the fire that finally broke him."

Grace turned back to Jane, who had moved on to collect sprigs of thyme. "Fire?"

"It all started long before the fire, though. Things were never quite the same after his lordship remarried. We were all happy for him at first, glad to see he'd found someone else. His first wife, John's mother, left him, you know. Ran off with some foreign fellow when John was a boy. But the new Lady Rochdale ... well, if you ask me, she married his lordship for money, and pissed it away like water. Didn't much like the country, either. They spent more and more time in London, and he began to let things go untended at home. Repairs weren't made to the main house or estate cottages. Fields were allowed to go fallow. Drains weren't cleared. After a few years, his lordship cut back on the staff. My pa was one of the first to be let go. He found new work up in Lincolnshire. Died a few years later, poor soul. He'd spent his whole life at Bettisfont and it near broke his heart to leave. And I made it worse, not wanting to go with him. Martin and me, we were crazy in love by then."

She paused and gave a wistful smile. She must have been remembering those days with Martin, so Grace did not prompt her to continue, though she was anxious to hear about the fire. After a moment, Jane gave a sheepish laugh and went on with her story.

"Martin and me, we got married, and so I stayed behind with him at Bettisfont to tend our own patch of tenant land. But there was no support coming from the estate, and we all began to suffer hardship. Lots of folk just up and left, taking off in hopes of finding a bit of land to work on some other estate. My Martin, though, he was stubborn, so we stayed on. John came home from Oxford as often as he could — he was courting the daughter of a local squire — and he always visited with us and brought provisions. He had great rows with his father over money and the condition of the estate. They almost came to blows over his stepsister's marriage portion. Thinking back, he started to change a bit then. He was still good-hearted as ever to us, but he was becoming more cynical, and angry all the time. Then there was the fire."

"What happened?"

"Bettisfont, that beautiful old pile, burnt clean to the ground, and his lordship with it. He'd run back in to find his wife. Poor man didn’t know she'd already got to safety. He never made it out."

Grace shuddered. "Dear heaven, how awful. Were you there when it happened?"

"We were. Martin had finally given up on the farm and signed up to soldier for King George. We were just packing up our things to follow his regiment when the fire happened. It was heartbreaking, John losing his papa like that. And the house was gone — nothing remaining but the stables and a few outbuildings. Martin and I left a few days later. Thirteen years ago. It was the last time I saw John — Lord Rochdale, that is — until today."

So, he'd lost a beloved father and his family home at the same time. What a dreadful situation for a young man to face alone. Grace supposed that sort of tragedy would change anyone. Rochdale was certainly changed from the scholarly young man who might have been destined, by temperament if not position, for the church. Perhaps that cynicism Jane mentioned had taken root inside him, then spread and clung like lichen. She wondered if Jane was right about that core of goodness still being a part of him.

Grace feared she could never look at him again without searching for signs of that bright-eyed, bookish, good-hearted boy he'd once been.

* * *

She was staring at him. His eyes were on the team and the road ahead, but he could feel Grace's gaze upon him like a bare hand, could see out of the corner of his eye that the poke of her bonnet was turned in his direction. At any other time, Rochdale would have been pleased, knowing he'd in some way intrigued her. But he doubted it was his handsome person that captured her interest just now. She'd had too long a conversation with Jane Fletcher, and he suspected much of it was about him.

It was bad enough that he'd had to face Jane and her children, though the boy Toby was an engaging child. He did not want Grace or anyone else probing into his past. Instead, he would do his best to keep conversation on topics related to Grace and her charity work, which he hoped would distract her from other less desirable topics.

"You must know," he said, "how impressed I was at what you've accomplished at Marlowe House. It's much more than I expected. In fact, I have decided to substantially increase the amount of my contribution."

The traffic had slowed enough that he was able to divert his attention from the road to look in her direction. Her eyes grew large and her mouth opened into a perfect O, then broadened into a full smile. "Your generosity overwhelms me, Lord Rochdale. I hardly know what to say. A simple 'thank you' seems inadequate."

"I am pleased to do whatever I can. It's an extraordinary operation, obviously doing a great deal of good."

"Thank you, my lord. I am very glad you came today. It is sometimes easier to understand the impact of charity when the recipients have names and faces and are not merely numbers on a ledger. I daresay it helped to see a woman you know in residence, did it not?"

Rochdale stifled a groan. He ought to have known that all conversational gambits would lead to this. "Yes, it did make a difference to see Jane Fletcher and her children. I was stunned to see her, in fact. I had no idea she had reached such dire straits. Thank God she found Marlowe House. Do you know anything of her life in London before she came here?"

"We don't ask questions. We assume that the situation was desperate, that is all. If you are wondering how desperate, I cannot tell you. We encourage our residents to look forward, not backward. They cannot change the past, but they can shape a new future."

"Yes, Jane told me that was the gospel preached here."

"And she told me you had offered to find her a new situation. That is very kind of you, my lord."

He did not reply. Instead, he returned his attention to the team and hoped that was the end of the topic of Jane Fletcher.

"Do you have a particular situation in mind?"

Damn. She was not going to let go of this bone so easily. "Not yet. I've only just learned of her circumstances, after all. But I will look around for something for her. Some place in the country, I should think." Jane and her children would never again live anywhere near the streets of London, if he had any say in the matter.

"On one of your own estates?"

Rochdale gave a mirthless chuckle. "I have no estates, Mrs. Marlowe. A house in London, the villa in Twickenham, and stables in Suffolk. Nothing more."

She was suspiciously quiet for a long moment, then said, "You never rebuilt the estate at Bettisfont."

He heaved a sigh. "No, I did not. But I do stable many of my racehorses and hunters there."

"Why did you not rebuild? I beg your pardon, it's really none of my business. But Jane did imply that you had loved the place."

"I did. And I spent many years paying for it. My father had mortgaged it several times over. I inherited a scorched patch of entailed earth and a mountain of debts."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. Jane hinted that things had deteriorated somewhat before the fire."

Rochdale snorted. "That is something of an understatement. That woman, my stepmother, bled him dry. He mortgaged away his future, and mine, to keep that old cow and her Friday-faced daughter in fine silks and luxurious furnishings. While the tenant farms failed, Lady Rochdale redecorated. While the Bettisfont staff was reduced to a bare minimum, her ladyship fired off her daughter in London with every luxury imaginable." The last time he'd seen his father alive, they had argued over the dowry he'd promised the wretched girl's fiancé. Guilt over that final conversation had weighed him down for years.

"Good heavens," Grace said. "Could he not have tempered her spending?"

He shook his head. "My father was a weak man where women were concerned."

He could feel her gaze hard on him again. It was easier when she knew him as nothing more than a profligate seducer. Thanks to Jane and her loose tongue, Grace was compelled to poke and prod and figure out if he was something else altogether. Rochdale had spent the last dozen years and more trying to forget what a bloody young fool he'd once been. That boy had died in the fire as surely as had his father. He hated talking about those days and was sorry Grace had learned so much about that time from Jane.

And yet, a tiny corner of his brain encouraged him to let her probe. It kept her interested, which could be a benefit to his objective.