children?” Helena blurted. Did he mean the poor? Or just poor boys?
Papa stiffened beside her. “He’d insist the government school every urchin.”
At a soft shuffle at the door, her fiancé’s gaze riveted behind Helena. “Speaking of children, mine are here at last.”
A flutter twisted in Helena’s stomach as she and Papa stood. Would they like her? She would be their mother. Not in the real way, but she would try to make a worthy substitute. She’d always wanted to be a mother, after all.
Four children—two boys and two girls—assembled like infantrymen into a line, although the smallest girl needed the assistance of the young maid with mouse-brown hair and a beak nose.
Lord Ardoch made introductions, and the children performed precise bows and curtsies. “’Tis an honor, Your Grace,” they each said to Papa. Mama would approve of their deferential bearing at being condescended to by a duke.
But Helena didn’t wish them to feel condescended to by her. She turned to the eldest, a girl, and not Lord Ardoch’s child. Margaret Allaway was his deceased wife’s orphaned niece. A pretty girl, Margaret had the lean, angular look of an adolescent experiencing a rapid shoot of growth. The top of her reddish-brown head reached Helena’s nose.
“How do you do, Margaret? I understand you are thirteen? My youngest sister, Andy—Andromeda—is your age.”
“How do you do, Lady Helena?” Margaret did not return Helena’s smile.
Next came the boys, twins, seven years old and—how would she ever tell them apart? They were identical, from their bright eyes to their pointy ears to the light brown hair curling over their collars. The first, Alexander, mashed his lips together as if to stifle a laugh. His brother, Callum, stared at her shoulder as if his life depended upon holding his gaze there.
Mayhap she should address them both at once. “I hear you are busy lads.”
“Yes, Lady Helena.” One side of Alexander’s lips twisted up more than the other. It gave him a mischievous look. Callum grinned in exact imitation of his brother. Was there nothing contrary in their appearances?
A shaft of anxiety twisted in her abdomen.
She turned to the littlest girl, a round-cheeked blonde with clouded eyes.
“Louisa.” Lord Ardoch’s voice broke in before Helena could greet the child. There was a touch of something careful in his tone. “Lady Helena, Louisa is—”
“Five years old, I expect,” Helena interjected. What had he been about to say? That Louisa was blind, in case she’d forgotten? When Lord Ardoch had written to propose, he’d told her his youngest could see nothing but light. Did he fear his daughter’s blindness would bother her? Or did it embarrass him?
The back of his fingers stroked Louisa’s rosy cheek. “Her birthday was last week.”
No, he wasn’t embarrassed. Just protective.
“Papa gave me a cradle for Tabitha, and the boys aren’t allowed to touch it,” Louisa announced.
Perhaps that was for the best, considering how Alexander and Callum stifled snickers. “Is Tabitha your doll?”
“She is indeed,” Lord Ardoch said.
“From Mama ’afore she went to heaven.” Louisa’s statement was matter-of-fact.
At the front of the line, Margaret stiffened. Oh, dear. Perhaps Margaret missed her aunt, or feared being shuffled off because she was an orphaned relation. Well, Helena would give Margaret plenty of support during the adjustment. And surely, in no time at all, they would be a happy family.
Papa cleared his throat. “Very good, Lord Ardoch.”
With a paternal nod, her betrothed sent silent approval to his brood. They executed one last bow or curtsy and filed from the room with the birdlike maid. He watched their backs as they went, smiling, like a loving father.
Helena smiled, too. Had he known her request to meet the children was a test? To see if he was a man of his word?
It wasn’t the children she’d needed to observe. Rather, it was whether or not Lord Ardoch loved them. Because if he loved his children, his motivation for marrying her was true.
He wanted her for his children’s sake. He did not want her for himself. And that was what she wanted above all. To not be wanted by a man, not after what Frederick did to her. If she was never going to be hurt again, she must spend her life alone.
* * *
Alone. John was so accustomed to silent corridors and solitary meals and empty arms, it felt almost strange to be at Comraich, with its noise and activity. How sad that it felt strange, too, to hold Louisa in his arms.
Her breath was warm and milky on his cheek as he carried her down the main staircase to the ground floor Monday morning. “You’ve grown, little one.”
“I am five now. Of course I have grown.”
“And in eight years, you shall be as grown up as Margaret.”
Her brow furrowed. “Will I turn as sour?”
“Your cousin is not sour.” Moody, perhaps, but that was the age. At the bottom of the stairs, he gestured to the bird-boned nursemaid, Agnes, to take Louisa. “We leave for the wedding at a quarter to eleven. Ensure the children are ready, please.” There was still plenty of time for the boys to work out their fidgets, as they seemed to be doing. Overhead, their stomps reverberated across the oak plank floors.
“Yes, m’lord.” Agnes’s head bobbed.
He bid Louisa farewell and made his way outside. Dismal clouds thickened overhead, stirred by the chill wind nipping John’s cheeks and nose. His wedding day would be damp, to be sure.
But not without all the usual trappings of tradition. He traipsed over the grass until he spied MacArthur, the wizened-faced gardener with a white forelock escaping a tweedy cap. The man had served here since his father’s time, and had seen John bring one bride home. Now the gardener would see John bring another here, this afternoon.
MacArthur spied him and bowed. “M’lord.”
“Good morning, MacArthur. Forgive my disturbing you, but where is the patch you mentioned?”
“On the nort’ side of the great oak, m’lord. I’ll fetch some for ye, if ye like.”
“No, thank you. I shall see to the matter myself.” Every bride deserved a posy, and it seemed fitting that a husband should gather the wedding blooms for her himself.
Comraich had traditions, although he’d neglected them for some time. When Catriona was alive, he’d been too preoccupied in London to be home a great deal, and she didn’t seem to mind overmuch. “You have your occupations, and I have mine,” she’d say every time they parted, the wave of her hand more like a shoo than a farewell. Surely she meant to ease his guilt over his long absences in London.
At least, until Louisa’s birth.
John winced as pain stabbed inside his cheek—he’d chomped it again. He shook his head and looked ahead for a glimpse of white close to the ground, but he couldn’t shake the image of Catriona from his mind.
He should have spent more time at Comraich with her, but he had a duty to the Crown, and even though he’d not been eligible to sit in Parliament until the session started this coming January, he spent more time in London, it seemed, than he did at home.
So how could he know where the wedding blooms grew anymore?
He tromped through the wet grass, allowing the familiar smells of damp earth and cattle to fill his lungs. For all his absences, he loved this place. And by the end of the day, he’d have a wife who would care for it while he executed his duty.
His eye caught on something