Chapter Twenty-One

Myfanwy was beside herself when her aunt called, asking if she would like to go for a drive. Myfanwy jumped at the chance; she needed the fresh air. More importantly, she needed an escape from that townhouse.

A week on from the benefit match, Samuel and she weren’t necessarily fighting, but they weren’t speaking either. To make things even more awkward, they maneuvered around the rooms, avoiding one another with polite indifference, plastering smiles on their faces in front of Annabelle and Aaron and dropping them the moment the children were gone. Exhausting, it was, and confusing. Discussing their unusual relationship wasn’t something she or Samuel were particularly good at, and now that deficiency was even more pronounced.

It was like they were stuck in a dance neither of them knew and were determined not to stomp on the other’s toes. But the more they clammed up, pretended to read the other’s mind, stepped ever so lightly, the more they lost any sense of rhythm and hurt one another. Myfanwy didn’t know how to stop the music.

She didn’t return until late in the afternoon, but it still felt too soon. Maybe it was because she never let her mind travel far from Samuel these days.

“Here we are, my dear. I’m not dropping you off at an empty house, am I?” Aunt Abigail asked, craning her head out the window as the carriage slowed to a halt. “Do you think Mr. Everett is in for the night?”

Myfanwy hid her smile as she climbed out of the conveyance. Her aunt had also been extremely inquisitive over Samuel’s whereabouts when she picked Myfanwy up for their leisurely drive. The man had made an impact on her. “I’m not sure, Aunt, but it is no bother. I don’t mind eating alone.”

“Oh no, that won’t do.” The older woman followed her out of the carriage. “I simply must walk you inside. You know, if you lived with me, you wouldn’t have this problem,” she remarked in her loving but know-it-all manner.

Myfanwy turned to her aunt with a ready smile. “But if I lived with you, I wouldn’t look forward to our drives as much.”

That comment did much to placate Aunt Abigail, though she played it off with a disgruntled chuckle. “You’re just pleased because I said I would ask about that cottage we saw for sale.”

Myfanwy’s stomach leaped at the mention of the sweet little house they’d found on the outskirts of town—and the beautiful field that accompanied it. “It was perfect, wasn’t it?”

Aunt Abigail humphed. “Perfectly small.”

“I don’t need a large home.”

“Well, you certainly won’t get it in that cottage.”

Myfanwy rolled her eyes amiably and started up the stairs. “The land was perfect too.”

Aunt Abigail’s boots slapped on the stone steps. “What would you even use all that land for? I hate to inform you, my girl, but you’re not exactly heralded for your green thumb.”

That was true. And her aunt hadn’t even witnessed the bedraggled roses in the garden.

Myfanwy reached for the doorknob. “You know exactly what I would use it for.”

“I know, dearest,” Aunt Abigail answered morosely. “I was just hoping you’d changed your mind.”

“Ha! You should know better than that!” Myfanwy laughed as she swept open the front door to a deserted foyer.

“Where’s Benjamin?” Aunt Abigail asked, twirling in a circle as if the butler was trying to sneak up on her.

“I’m not sure. He must be busy.”

“This place,” Aunt Abigail grumbled, taking off her cape and handing it to Myfanwy as if she were the new Benjamin. “You went from a viscount’s house to a madhouse. I truly never know what to expect when I come here—”

High-pitched giggles bounced into the foyer, cutting off the tirade. The older woman froze as more peals of childish laughter struck them. Her impenetrable scowl deepened, as if the cheerful sounds were the noises one usually heard in a productive slaughterhouse.

More gaiety skipped over to them, only this time it included a masculine element that Myfanwy detected easily. Was Samuel laughing? How was the world still spinning?

“Who is making all that…” Aunt Abigail began, gliding toward the drawing room.

“Wait, Aunt! I have to tell you—”

But Abigail avoided Myfanwy’s outstretched hand, sailing right past her as if she were nothing more than a pesky fly. The cat was out of the bag now. Myfanwy had planned to tell her aunt about Annabelle during the drive; however, the right time never came. Myfanwy had ultimately concluded that there might never be one, and that she would ponder another time next year to break the joyful—and unforeseen—news. The busy woman wasn’t supposed to follow her into the house and ruin Myfanwy’s carefully planned procrastination.

“What in the world is going on here?” Aunt Abigail boomed.

The laughter immediately died.

Myfanwy winced. She didn’t want to go into that room. No one could make her. Maybe she could just pretend she hadn’t heard anything. She could tiptoe right up the stairs and hide under her covers while Samuel explained her father’s furtive double life and long-lost love child to his only sister, who had lived the majority of her adulthood as chaste and faithful to her dead husband’s memory.

Yes. That was what she would do. Heartened by her decision, she picked up her skirts and took her first step up the staircase—

“Myfanwy! Come in here. Now!”

She blew out a defeated breath and spun right around. Apparently, she wasn’t getting off that easy. She lumbered to the drawing room, her head so heavy it felt like it was sinking into her ribcage.

But the image she found as she entered the room picked her spine up so swiftly that it was as if someone had stretched her from end to end.

Dolls.So many dolls. And toys. So many toys of all kinds and shapes and colors littered the drawing room so that there were no seats to be found, and those that could be were already being used by uppity dolls. And in the middle of this whirlwind of childhood delight sat Annabelle and Aaron on the floor…with Samuel, red-faced and carefree right next to them.

On. The. Floor.

Myfanwy stalled next to her aunt, who grabbed her wrist as if her life depended on it. The woman’s voice wavered when she finally spoke again. “Myfanwy, dearest. Please tell me that all these dolls belong to you.”

*

An hour later,Aunt Abigail’s hands were still shaking in her lap, though at least her mind had settled—slightly. “So, again,” she said, her expression telling everyone that she wished she could be anywhere but in the claustrophobic drawing room of dead doll eyes. “You are basing all this—my brother’s reputation—on a child’s hair color?”

The child in question had been whisked upstairs by Sarah soon after Myfanwy and her aunt entered the domestic scene. It was clear to everyone that playtime was over. Samuel and Aaron now sat across from the women—in proper chairs—looking like they were readying for a firing squad.

“It is an unusual color, you have to admit,” Samuel replied. His voice was hoarse and unused, since this was one of the few times that he’d been able to interject in the past hour. “And the boy filled us in on the rest. He can account for the viscount’s…interest in the mother.”

Aunt Abigail squinted at Aaron, who wilted under the scrutiny. “So, you’re running a bloody orphanage now?”

Samuel’s jaw firmed. “Hardly.”

Abigail hopped up from her chair, pacing the little open space that she could.

Had Samuel truly bought all these toys for Annabelle? Myfanwy wondered. And it wasn’t all for the girl—Myfanwy noticed that Aaron’s clothes were clean and new, and there was a smattering of boys’ toys included in the heap. Toy soldiers and a train set were scattered among the laces and tea sets. When did Samuel have the time? And why hadn’t he asked Myfanwy to help?

Aunt Abigail’s frantic mumblings soon blotted out all of Myfanwy’s tumbling thoughts. “But my brother wouldn’t do this. He loved his wife. And he would never have a child out of wedlock, and then abandon it.”

“He was providing for the child and the mother,” Samuel explained, nodding to Aaron. “He wanted to marry the actress, but…” His words trailed off. Apparently, he didn’t have the heart to finish the sentence. The viscount died.

Abigail’s skirts fanned furiously as she turned on him. “But how do you know for sure? This could all be some story, some fiction to steal the money from your pockets.”

Men much older and distinguished than Samuel had melted under Abigail’s inquisition before, but he held his ground. “I know,” he said. “I believe the boy.”

Those plain words knocked the steam out of the older woman. Aunt Abigail slumped next to Myfanwy on the settee once more, seemingly down, but not out.

“What will you do?” she said, her fire doused. “You can’t keep all these children under your roof, Samuel. It’s not right. You’re never home. You’re not…fit.”

Aaron found his backbone and came to his feet. “Who says he’s not fit?”

Myfanwy smiled at the poor lad, who swiftly lost his nerve and glued himself to Samuel’s side again after another of Abigail’s annihilating looks.

Samuel patted the boy on the knee and broke the stalemate. “You’re right,” he answered diplomatically. “I’m not fit. But what would you have me do? I hired an investigator, and he informed me that the mother’s parents are still alive and live a few hours north of here. I plan on visiting them in the coming days.”

Myfanwy was thrown. When had he hired an investigator, and why hadn’t he told her? A feeling of loneliness—otherness—swept over her, as if she was on the outside looking in. She hadn’t truly had that feeling in years. It made her want to hide in a broom closet, closing herself off from everything.

“Good,” Aunt Abigail replied. “And if the grandparents don’t want them, then you can put them in an orphanage. A nice orphanage,” she amended quickly. “One where they can find respectable, God-fearing parents to take care of them. People who need and want them. People who will do a decent job of it.”

Samuel stared down at his hands as he rubbed his fingers. “I could do a decent job of it,” he said softly. He flicked his head toward Myfanwy. “I’ve kept her alive, haven’t I?”

Abigail swiveled her neck back and forth around the room, wide-eyed, like a deranged parrot. “Are you trying to be funny? Please, dear boy, please tell me you are joking. My niece might still be alive, but her reputation is dead in the water. She never attends ton events unless I force her, she plays cricket more than she answers calls, and she still plans on eschewing marriage to live alone in the bloody country. Under your watch, she’s become positively feral. And you think you should be praised for that?”

Abigail placed a hand on her bountiful chest as if attempting to settle her wild and disappointed heart. She closed her eyes and inhaled dramatically. “Samuel,” she started again, minutely calmer. “I do not say these things to hurt you, but you need to know you are out of your depth. You are a cricketer. An entrepreneur. A”—she tapped her teeth together—“tavern owner, but you are not a guardian. I’m sorry. I know you had a relationship with my brother, and he made you promise things…” Her voice wandered off before she fixed on Myfanwy, her countenance increasingly impotent. “I’m so out of joint right now I think I just might allow you to buy that house we saw today. If you don’t want to live with me, fine, but you cannot stay here. People will talk. They’ll say he’s housing his bastards—”

“What house?” Samuel asked, the words coming out of him like a shot.

That lovely feeling that Myfanwy experienced earlier in response to her quaint cottage didn’t return. “It’s nothing,” she replied, her gaze in her lap.

“It’s not nothing,” Abigail interjected. “It might just be the answer we need. You can’t stay here. What will people think?”

Samuel rose to his feet. The action was so smooth and unhindered that Myfanwy was instantly reminded of their massaging sessions, and finally her stomach made an appearance, fluttering in that delicious, nervous way.

“She’s not going anywhere,” Samuel stated firmly. His bad eye glowed like a pearl, and Myfanwy heard Aunt Abigail let out a rare squeak. “You talk about being proper and then in the same sentence allow your only niece to live alone God knows where. That is not happening. I promised your brother I would watch over her, keep her hale and content, and dammit, that’s what I’m doing. Look at her, for Christ’s sake,” he said, throwing an arm Myfanwy’s way. “She’s damn near perfect. She’s healthy and strong and so smart it makes me want to beat my head against the wall half the time. So, she doesn’t want to marry any of those imbecilic idiots in the ton? She should be applauded for that, frankly. She sees the world in her own way and wants to change it instead of allowing it to change her. She’s not settling for a future; she’s taking the one she wants no matter what stands in her way—” Samuel’s voice caught, and he pinched his lips together, almost as if he was upset that he’d let himself go this far, this long. His eyes were wide, unblinking, like his speech was as much of a revelation to him as it was to her.

Myfanwy was on the edge of her seat. She wanted him to go longer and farther. Did he truly think those things about her? Did he think her perfect? After a week of silence between them, she was greedy for any sign—any sense of clarity—that he still felt something for her. Wanted something more from her.

Samuel breathed heavily out of his nose and tore at his wavy hair before letting his arm fall to his side. “She’s bloody lovely,” he said, his ragged voice just above a whisper. “And I know I didn’t have anything to do with that, but I didn’t get in her way either. I can do the same for the others.”

“You mean you’d keep us?” Aaron asked, his freckled young face open with pure, unadulterated hope. “Forever?”

“Christ, not forever, but…yes, until you’re ready to leave.” Samuel sighed. “But I have to speak to your grandparents first.”

Myfanwy’s entire body burned with admiration like a thousand torches had been sparked inside her. “Yes, Aaron. Forever,” she told him. The boy ducked his head immediately, flicking away something from his eyes.

Aunt Abigail tsked. “Forever is a long time, Mr. Everett.”

Samuel’s smile was weak, but it was still there when he looked at Myfanwy. “Not when you’re happy.”