To Beguile a Beast (Legend of the Four Soldiers #3)(70)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

The children chattered for the next hour or so as they bumped and rolled out of London proper. Jamie did most of the talking, describing their kidnapping and the long carriage ride to London with the perfidious Wiggins. Alistair noted that the boy hardly mentioned his father at all, and when he did, it was always as “the duke.” The children didn’t seem to hold any filial regard for their father. Perhaps that was just as well.

Just outside of London, the carriage rambled into a small inn yard and halted.

Helen leaned forward to look outside the window. “Why are we stopping here?”

“A small bit of business,” Alistair replied evasively. “Wait here, please.”

He jumped from the carriage before she could bombard him with any more questions. The coachman was just descending his box. “A half hour you said, sir?”

Alistair nodded at the man. “That’s right.”

“Juss enough time for a pint, I reckon,” the man said, and went into the inn.

Alistair looked about the yard. It was a quiet little inn with no other carriages. Only a dogcart with a dozing mare stood on one side under the stable eaves. A gentleman came out of the inn. He put up a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun and then caught sight of the carriage and Alistair. He let his hand drop, then walked slowly toward Alistair. The gentleman wore a gray bobbed wig, and as he approached, Alistair saw that his eyes were a bright harebell blue.

The gentleman looked past him to the carriage. “Is she—?”

Alistair nodded. “I’ll be in the inn. I’ve told the coachman we’ll stop for a half hour. It’s up to you if you want to use all of that time.”

And without waiting to see what the man would do, Alistair strode to the inn.

“WHAT IS HE about?” Helen muttered under her breath as they waited in the carriage.

“Perhaps Sir Alistair has to use the necessary,” Jamie said.

That made her eye her son suspiciously. Jamie was five years old, but apparently a five-year-old boy’s bladder wasn’t very large because—

A single knock came at the carriage door. Helen frowned. Surely Alistair wouldn’t knock at his own carriage? Then the door swung open, and she entirely lost her thought.

“Papa,” she whispered, her heart in her throat.

She hadn’t seen him for fourteen years, but she’d never forget his face. There were a few more lines about his eyes and forehead, his bobbed gray doctor’s wig looked new, and his mouth was more pinched than she remembered it, but it was her papa.

He stared at her but didn’t smile. “May I come in?”

“Of course.”

He climbed in the carriage and sat across from them. His coat, waistcoat, and breeches were black, making him very somber. He didn’t seem to know what to do now that he was in the carriage.

Helen put her arms around her children. She cleared her throat so that she might speak clearly. “These are my children. Abigail, who is nine, and Jamie, who is five. Children, this is my father. Your grandpapa.”

Abigail said, “How do you do, sir?”

Jamie merely stared at his grandfather.

“Jamie.” Papa cleared his throat. “Ah. Well.”

Papa’s Christian name was James. Helen waited to see if he’d say anything more, but he seemed a little stunned.

“How are my sisters and brother?” she asked, her tone formal.

“All married, Timothy just last year to Anne Harris. You remember her, don’t you? Lived two houses down, had a terrible fever when she was but two years old.”

“Oh, yes. Little Annie Harris.” Helen smiled, but it was bittersweet. Annie Harris had been only five— Jamie’s age—when she’d left home to live with Lister. She’d missed an entire lifetime out of her family’s daily life.

Her father nodded, on firmer ground now that he had something familiar to discuss. “Rachel is married to a young doctor, a former student of mine, and expecting her second child. Ruth married a sailor and lives in Dover now. She writes often and comes to visit every year. She has but one child, a girl. Your sister, Margaret, has four children, two boys, two girls. She had a babe stillborn two years ago, another boy.”

She felt tears closing her throat. “I am sorry to hear it.”

Her father nodded. “Your mother fears that Margaret still grieves.”

Helen took a fortifying breath. “And how is my mother?”

“Well enough.” Papa looked at his hands. “She does not know I’ve come to see you today.”

“Ah.” What more could she say to that? Helen glanced out the window. A dog was napping in the sun on the inn doorstep.

“I should not have let her send you away,” Papa said.

Helen turned to stare at him. She’d never guessed that he hadn’t been completely in agreement with Mother.

“Your sisters were not yet married, and your mother worried for their futures,” he said, and the lines on his face seemed to deepen as she watched. “Also, the Duke of Lister is a powerful man, and he made it plain that he expected you to go to him. In the end, it was simply easier to let you go and wash our hands of you. It was easier, but it wasn’t right. I’ve regretted my decision for many years now. I hope you can forgive me someday.”

“Oh, Papa.” Helen went to the other side of the carriage to hug her father.

His arms were strong when they wrapped around her. “I’m sorry, Helen.”

She pulled back and saw that there were tears in his eyes.

“You can’t come home, I’m afraid. Your mother will not budge on that point. But I believe she’ll look the other way if you write me. And I hope that I can see you again someday?”

“Of course.”

He nodded and stood, briefly touching Abigail’s cheek and the top of Jamie’s head. “I need to go now, but I’ll write you in care of Sir Alistair Munroe.”

She nodded, her throat swelling.

He hesitated, and then said gruffly, “He seems like a good man. Munroe, that is.”

She smiled, although her lips trembled. “He is.”

Papa nodded and then he was gone.

Helen closed her eyes, her hand at her trembling mouth, on the very edge of breaking down in tears.

The carriage door opened again and rocked as someone climbed in.

When Helen opened her eyes, Alistair was scowling at her. “What did he say? Did he insult you?”

“No, oh, no, Alistair.” And she got up for the second time and crossed the carriage to kiss him on the cheek. She drew back and looked into his startled eye. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”