y clearly and loudly. He’s a grand old man, tells stories about the Hell Fire Club, and came with my mother when she married my—” His voice simply stopped.
“We’ll see,” Jack said. She wanted to hug him, but she didn’t, not now. She said to Georgie, “Pumpkin, here comes Jeffrey. He looks nice, doesn’t he?”
“N-n-no,” said Georgie. “He looks like God.”
“Yes, he does,” Gray said, “what with all that white hair. Yes, I’ve always thought Jeffrey looked older than dirt.”
Georgie laughed a stuttering laugh.
Jeffrey couldn’t see the new baroness very well, but her voice sounded bright, and so he grinned at her fatuously and deigned to bow her into the Needle House drawing room himself, calling over his shoulder, “Mrs. Clegge? Where are you now? You must come out to meet her new ladyship. Ah, I think I can smell you. I do enjoy that lavender scent. Don’t forget your special lemon crumpets. The little girl will like the crumpets. I’m sure I heard a little girl, at least some sort of child. His lordship hasn’t spoken yet of a child, so I don’t know. Hurry now, Mrs. Clegge.”
“Actually,” Gray said quietly to Jack, “it’s Mrs. Clegge’s daughter, Nella, who’s now the housekeeper. But her voice sounds surprisingly like her mother’s. Jeffrey has never accustomed himself. He fancied the mother once a long time ago, but I was told she fancied the gamekeeper.
“Every so often, even to this day, Jeffrey kisses Nella on the cheek and tells her that perhaps someday they will eventually wed. Nella, thank God, is a sensible woman with a very big heart. She laughs and tells him he has far too much hair for her. That and he’s far too smart for any woman with only middling wits.”
Gray paused, stared out a wide window that gave onto the side yard at a deer who was grazing quietly, then added, “She also takes excellent care of my mother.”
Jack wondered at the pain it brought him to see his mother. Did he remember her tears, her screams, her escape to madness, when he looked her?
She looked back at Georgie, who was sitting very close to Nella Clegge, a stout woman with large hands and a kind face. It appeared that Georgie liked Nella’s lemon crumpets. Jack fidgeted the entire time her little sister ate her treat. She wasn’t hungry, nor was she at all thirsty. What she was, in fact, was terrified. She didn’t believe for an instant that Gray was her half brother, but she was afraid they wouldn’t be able to prove it. She knew, she knew it all the way to her bones, that without positive proof, Gray would insist upon an annulment. He would hate it; it would kill him, but he would do it. His honor would force him to do it.
When she couldn’t stand it, she said, “I can’t wait another minute, Gray.”
28
“I CAN,” he said, drawing a deep breath. “I could wait an eternity. But you’re right. Let’s go.”
Georgie, a lemon crumpet in her small hand, was quite content to sit on Nella’s lap, and look at Jeffrey, saying every few minutes, “H-H-He is God, isn’t he?”
“Well, little love,” Nella said, looking down into Georgie’s face, “you certainly look like the perfect little angel, so perhaps you’re right.”
The dowager baroness was in the largest bedchamber at the eastern end of Needle House. Actually it was a suite of three rooms, decorated with pale yellows and greens and white. Lovely rooms, Gray thought, wondering how much his mother had ever even noticed them. He’d spoken to Nella a few minutes before coming up. Nella had leaned away from Georgie and said, “She’s very quiet, my lord. She frets with the fringe on her various shawls, endlessly she frets. She’s healthy, her color good. Dr. Pontefract believes she’ll outlive us all. He spends quite a lot of time with her, just speaking of the weather, of places he visited when he was in the Navy, of the towns over in the Colonies. She’s not unhappy, my lord, don’t ever think that she’s in a pathetic condition. I don’t understand her world, but whatever is in it, she’s not unhappy.
“Perhaps she’ll venture out of her world and into this one if she understands that you’re married and her daughter-in-law is here to visit her. Now, I’ll keep my eye on the little girl. Those eyes of hers, they’re incredible, aren’t they? One blue and one gold; it’s marvelous. Ah, I’m going on and on. My husband just shakes his head at me when I chat with him. Forgive me, my lord.
“You and her ladyship go up. I’ll bring tea shortly. Your mother adores tea and my lemon crumpets. Mr. Jeffrey likes them too. They were my mother’s recipe.”
Gray found he was walking more slowly the closer he got to his mother’s rooms. Finally, though, he and Jack were there, outside the thick oak doors to the baroness’s chambers.
“You heard what Nella said. Over the years my mother occasionally speaks, occasionally knows who I am, sometimes even realizes who she is. I don’t know, Jack. I don’t know what we’ll find out from her, if anything at all.”
“I know,” Jack said. “I know. It’s all right.”
He gave her a twisted smile, then lightly tapped on the door before turning the knob and walking in. He kept Jack behind him. “Wait a moment,” he said, then walked over to the row of windows that faced the south, over a small garden, exquisitely planted, some of the flowers just beginning to bloom, and beyond to the home wood, a large area covered with oak and pine trees.
It was a beautiful prospect if one were mad and had nothing else to look at.
Gray came down beside his mother’s chair. He gently lifted her hand, kissed her fingers, and said quietly, “Hello, Mother. It’s me, Gray, your son. I’ve come here to visit you.”
The beautiful creature with lustrous thick blond hair plaited atop her head turned slowly to look down at him, on his haunches beside her. He had his mother’s light green eyes, the slant of her eyebrows, the darker color of both brows and eyelashes.
He hadn’t thought to ask Lord Burleigh if he resembled Thomas Levering Bascombe. As for the man he’d believed was his father, he simply didn’t remember if he bore any physical resemblance at all to him.
He squeezed his mother’s hand. “Mother? It’s your son, Gray. I’ve brought you a surprise.”
There was a flicker of interest in her eyes. She said, “A surprise? I do love surprises. Dr. Pontefract brings me surprises occasionally. What a lovely man.”
She was speaking. That was something. Her voice was low and soft. He said, “I’ve married, Mother. I’ve brought you a new daughter. She’s my surprise to you.” He motioned for Jack to come over, and she did, walking more and more slowly the closer she got to the woman who was Gray’s mother.