she’d wedded an old man whose failure to give her children had ensured almost everything he had went to his nephew at his death. There’d been no reason for her father to think things would not work out as he, and even Moira, had thought they would.
Freddy heaved a weary sigh and pushed himself out of the chair.
‘Perhaps you should go upstairs and rest,’ she suggested, not liking how haggard he appeared this morning. It’d been a long time since he’d looked this low and she feared the events of this morning had ruined all the progress he’d made in the last few months.
‘No, I must speak with Miss Kent about Nicholas’s clothes and the Falkirk party.’
‘I can speak with her if you’d like and remind her to be mindful of the cost of having the clothes made up.’
He reached out and clasped her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘That’s very thoughtful of you, but I think it’s time I took more of a role in my son’s care.’
‘Of course.’ She covered his hand with hers, encouraged by his willingness to handle matters. Perhaps it meant the dark times were finally fading and he wouldn’t be as dependent on her as he had been before. The thought heartened and troubled her.
Nicholas’s laughter followed by the high voice of his young nurse echoed through the house. The sound of it seemed to brighten Freddy even more and he let go of Moira.
‘I’ll speak to her now.’
Moira followed her brother out of the study and into the hall, glad to see him walking with his head up, at last thrilled to greet his son instead of displaying the uninterest in him, his estate and everything he’d shown after Helena’s death. Even before their father’s passing, Fallworth Manor had been in some straits due to a number of bad harvests. Freddy ignoring it all after Helena’s death had made matters worse. It’d taken a great deal of hard work by Moira over the last two years to make it finally turn a profit instead of sinking deeper into debt. However, there was still a long way to go before any of them could live comfortably on the income.
They reached the entrance hall, met by the drumming of small footsteps down the back hall and the dark hair of her nephew as he rushed to meet them.
‘Here’s my sweet angel.’ Moira knelt down and held out her arms.
‘Aunt Mara.’ Nicholas threw himself against her and wrapped his chubby arms around her neck.
She rose, holding the squirming three-year-old who smelled of milk and wet dirt. ‘How is my little love today?’
His deep green eyes widened with excitement. ‘Birdy day.’
‘You saw a bird today?’
He slipped two chubby fingers into his mouth and nodded.
‘Nicholas and I just returned from the park,’ Miss Kent, the young nurse, explained when she approached. Only eighteen with a round face and petite figure, she was the youngest daughter of a baronet who lived near them in Surrey. With few prospects in the country, she’d come to Moira to offer her services and had proven an excellent choice for Nicholas’s nurse. ‘We took some old bread to feed the ducks.’
Freddy took Nicholas from Moira and held him firm against his chest. ‘Perhaps Cook can give you a few more crusts and you can feed the birds in the garden.’ His suggestion made Nicholas clap with delight. Freddy smiled at the boy and then Miss Kent, who blushed and stared at the floor. ‘Miss Kent, if you’ll come with me and Nicholas to the nursery, we can discuss Nicholas’s new clothes and the Falkirk party.’
‘Of course, my lord.’ She dipped a curtsy to Moira then started upstairs after Freddy, who carried Nicholas, asking more questions about the park and what he’d seen.
Moira brushed little dusty fingerprints from her skirt, trying to ignore the twinge of jealousy in her chest. She loved the boy as much as she did her brother, but no matter how much she took care of Nicholas, he was not hers. She had no child to comfort her in her widowhood. It was the largest regret of the many she carried from her marriage.
‘You spoil Nicholas,’ Aunt Agatha remarked, entering the hall from the sitting room. She wore a copper-coloured morning dress which followed the curve of her ample and well-concealed bosom before flaring out to drape her stout form. Tight curls pinned to the sides of her head were touched with grey and further decorated by a turban of yellow silk pressed down over her coiffure.
‘I can’t help it.’ Moira attempted to straighten the rather lopsided arrangement of lilies in a vase on a side table.
‘Some day, you’ll have your own to spoil. After all, I don’t see why you shouldn’t. Some gentlemen prefer a lady of, shall we say experience.’
‘Aunt Agatha!’ She wasn’t sure what astonished her more, Aunt Agatha’s bluntness or how little experience Moira had garnered with Walter before his heart troubles had taken him. Intimate relations were the one aspect of marrying again she did not look forward to. She’d never cared for the deed the few times Walter had bothered her, but she’d done her duty as a wife, praying each time it would result in a child. She stilled her hands on the lilies. This sacrifice had been the most bitter because it’d been for nothing.
‘It’s true. After all, with your husband’s estate and the bulk of his wealth having gone to his nephew, gentlemen won’t pursue you for your fortune,’ Aunt Agatha proclaimed and Moira snapped a brown lily off its wilting stem and laid it on the table, biting back a few choice words. Her aunt’s candidness was growing more vexing with each passing year. ‘Besides, with Freddy ready to face society again, I don’t expect him to remain unmarried for long and then you will be nothing but the widowed aunt, and we can’t have that. But let’s not fret about it now. We have the whole Season to worry about it.’
Having dropped her truth, and careless of the craters it left, Aunt Agatha patted Moira’s arm, then headed down the hallway.
Moira stared at the blue willows painted on the vase, the reality she’d suspected since leaving the country revealing itself a little too loudly for her liking. If Freddy did remarry, his new wife would become the mistress of Fallworth Manor and Nicholas’s care would become her responsibility, and not Moira’s. Should Moira fail to take this Season, she might find herself without purpose at Fallworth, with no real place and nothing but endless and lonely days to fill. Having Aunt Agatha state it with her usual bluntness didn’t help ease her concerns. Neither did seeing Mr Dyer again.
She frowned at the memory of Mr Dyer rather than the tilting flower arrangement. When she’d crept along the hallway, her heart racing while she’d carried the weapon after hearing the raised voices downstairs, she’d never imagined it would be Mr Dyer she’d meet. Moira’s cheeks reddened at the memory of her aunt, in this very hall, laying out to him in blunt terms how his lack of station made him an unsuitable suitor. During her aunt’s tirade, Moira had stood by, unable to meet Mr Dyer’s eyes. With her father’s health failing, she hadn’t been willing to cause him more grief or to throw the house into further turmoil by defying him or her aunt.
Except her father was gone now and Mr Dyer had returned. The flicker of life which had been dormant for so long flared inside her, growing brighter at the thought of him.
He didn’t come here to court me. She walked back to the study to retrieve the pistol and return it to its box, trying to put the encounter, and his proposal, out of her head, but she couldn’t. What he’d told her, like his confession about his work, had changed everything she’d come to believe about him since their failed engagement.
In the study, Moira slid the pistol off the table and turned it over in her hands, admiring the fine scrollwork on the metal. Even after she’d treated him like a common thief, he’d had enough confidence in her to believe she could assist him with something as important as saving England.
I wonder if I could help him? It wasn’t her habit to deny anyone seeking her assistance, but she couldn’t involve herself in something like this. She’d returned to London to re-enter the world, not to entangle herself in