The Dancing Master Page 35

  “Might help if we had a competent constable,” Barlow muttered.

  “Or one who wasn’t quite such a wrasslin’ enthusiast,” Jones added, then excused himself to check things in the kitchen.

  A new thought struck Alec. He looked at Barlow and began, “If her ladyship ever decides to hire another clerk . . .”

  Immediately, he noticed a wary light in Barlow’s eyes, his hand tighten on his glass.

  Alec quickly continued, “I hope you will consider Ben Thorne. An excellent young man.” And Alec would love nothing better than to help Ben escape the clay works—and the Wilcox brothers’ clutches.

  “Thorne, you say?” Barlow pursed his lips in thought. “I shall consider it.”

  Alec knew better than to ask for his old job back. And, truth be told, even though he feared he would never resurrect his academy or his career, he had no wish to return to the Midwinters’ employ.

  Mr. Jones returned and leaned an elbow on the counter. “So are ya going to try again?” he asked Alec. “Plan another grand opening?”

  Alec shook his head. “I don’t think so. My uncle advises against it.”

  The innkeeper’s lower lip protruded. “I’m sorry to hear it. What will ya do?”

  Alec shrugged. “Reopen quietly. Teach a few private lessons.” He sighed. “And hopefully avoid more trouble.”

  If in the ballroom a lady asks any favor of a gentleman, he should under no circumstances refuse her requests. Well bred gentlemen will look after those who are unsought and neglected in the dance.

  —Rules of Etiquette & Home Culture

  Chapter 25

  Fergus Desmond insisted on coming into the village to repair the academy door latch and lock but would accept no money for his work. “The least I cahn do, lad,” he’d said with a sad smile.

  Alec made what other repairs he could on his limited budget and began teaching dance to a few local children and Mr. Pugsworth. He resumed fencing lessons with Walter, which Sir Herbert had insisted on paying for.

  He was teaching a lesson to young Timothy Strickland when his own mother entered, white-faced. She walked directly to the back room, gesturing for Alec to join her.

  He felt Timothy Strickland’s puzzled gaze on his profile.

  “Sir? Was that the left foot or the right?”

  “Right,” Alec mumbled vaguely. “Um. Pardon me a moment, Tim.”

  He followed his mother into the office. She stood there, unmoving, porcelain features brittle and hands clasped. She reminded him of a bone-china figurine. Breakable. Or perhaps, already broken.

  She looked up at him with red eyes. “I am sorry to disturb your lesson.”

  “That’s all right, Mamma,” Alec said gently. “What is it?”

  “I’ve had a letter. From your father.”

  Alec’s heart thumped. “What did he . . . ? Wait. Give me a moment.”

  Alec stepped from the office and addressed his young pupil. “I am sorry, Tim. Something has come up. May we reschedule your lesson for tomorrow? No charge for today, of course. Be sure and tell your mamma.”

  “Very good, sir. Good-bye, sir.”

  The boy grabbed his hat and turned toward the door. Spying a few boys on the green, he jogged off to meet them.

  Alec returned to his mother. “Now, what did he say?”

  “He writes that circumstances have changed.”

  “How so?”

  “Miss Underhill is Miss Underhill no longer. Apparently, your father was not her only conquest last year. The other fellow was a bachelor and offered to marry the girl, and he convinced Mr. Underhill to dismiss the civil case.”

  “The suit has been dropped?”

  “Begrudgingly, but yes. It seems the new husband didn’t want his marriage to be the talk of London.” She lowered her head and uttered a bleak little sigh. “Unlike mine.”

  She extracted the letter from her drawstring bag and handed it to him. Alec read it without eagerness. His father explained that he had spent the last several months living in a hovel in France, afraid to reveal his citizenry lest he incur wrath over the war. He thanked God the French he’d learned at his father’s knee had not failed him altogether.

  His father’s sheepish tone surprised Alec. He seemed more remorseful and repentant than he had been initially.

  I know I did wrong, Joanna. And I am sorry. Deeply sorry. But I have never strayed before and never shall again. Can you forgive me?

  Perhaps you think me a coward. Perhaps I ought to have stayed and faced the civil trial. But the damages he was seeking! I had nowhere near that amount. It would have ruined us.

  We were already ruined, Alec thought. He read on.

  I never meant to stay away forever. Only ’til the thing died down—as I knew, or at least hoped, it would. But I realize it would be presumptuous for me to show up there now, to presume you would be ready and willing to accept me back into your life. Especially since you are, I assume, living under your brother’s roof and his protection.

  I am enclosing my direction—my solicitor’s letter reached me here without trouble, so apparently the post is getting through unimpeded at last. I will await word from you.

  Alec looked up. “What do you want to do, Mamma?”

  She hesitated, twisting her hands. “I don’t know. He wants me to forgive him, but I don’t know if I can.” Her eyes filled with tears. “In time, perhaps. If I felt he was truly repentant. But even were I to forgive him, I am not sure I could ever trust him again.” She pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of her bombazine gown and dabbed at her eyes. “I . . . need time to think.”

  Alec nodded. “Of course you do.” He briefly embraced his mother and then walked her home.

  Together, they told Uncle Ramsay about the letter. The man listened somberly and confessed himself torn. On one hand, he was tempted to advise his sister to refuse the man outright, and let his assumed demise rest as it was, since Lady Amelia had apparently not told anyone. Joanna Valcourt had weathered enough scandal already and was due to suffer more gossip and recrimination if her “dead” husband showed up in Beaworthy.

  But when he looked at his sister in black, face wan and growing thinner by the day, he could not deny that her mourning—though quite real—was doing her looks and her health no favors.

  In the end, he left the decision to her, and said he would support her in whatever course she chose.

  She promised to think about it, and to pray.

  Nearly a week had passed since Julia’s hoped-for meeting with Tom Tremelling, but there had still been no word from him. Alec Valcourt was busy with his academy and seemed to have little time or inclination to seek out her company. Meanwhile, her mother had redoubled her smothering watchdog efforts, even though Julia had not tried to venture out again at night.

  Finally she managed to leave the house one afternoon when her mother was busy meeting with the parish clerk. She put on sturdy walking shoes and sought out John Desmond.

  She found him beside the forge, painting over the outside wall. Even so, she could still see most of a word someone had scrawled there in red paint. Killer.

  Jackanapes. She inwardly cursed the culprit, whoever it was.

  She said, “You’ve had a visitor, I see.”

  “Yes. Unfortunately it’s a repeat performance.” He held up the pail. “At least we already had the paint on hand from the last time.” He smiled gamely. “And how are you today, Miss Midwinter?”

  “You may call me Julia, you know. You have before.”

  He paused in his work. “I don’t know that your mother would approve of my taking that liberty.”

  “Well, she is not here to complain, and Miss Midwinter seems too formal, considering our relationship.”

  “Oh?” He eyed her somewhat warily, she thought, one brow quirked.

  She said briskly, “I took your advice. I asked Mother to write to Lieutenant Tremelling, inviting him to visit. But he has not come, nor even bothered to write back.”

>   “I’m sorry to hear it. Perhaps the letter did not reach him, or duty keeps him away.”

  “So Mother says. But I know better. I think if he really were my father he would come—would have come ages ago.”

  He set down the brush and pail and turned to face her. “I told you, lass. I’m not the man.”

  “But”—she ducked her head—“you risked your own safety to rescue me that day at the hurling match. And stood up for me with Alec Valcourt against the Wilcox brothers. . . .”

  “I did, yes.” He wiped his hand on a cloth. “Though any man would have done the same.”

  She shook her head. “Not any man. But a father would. Would you tell me if you were? Or did Lady Amelia extract a promise of secrecy from you?”

  “No, lass. No secrets.”

  He looked at her, a deep sadness in his eyes. “I’m sorry you don’t know who your father is, but you know who you are, don’t you, lass?”

  “Pfff.” Julia scoffed. “Not who I thought I was.”

  “But you know whose child you are?”

  “If I’m not yours, I suppose I am the daughter of a lieutenant who prefers shipboard life to me.”

  “No, Julia. You are a child of the king.”

  “Did King George have an affair with Lady Anne as well?” she quipped.

  Desmond shook his head, eyes troubled. “Do you really not know what you’re worth, lass? To your heavenly Father?”

  She looked at him, uncertain, then shook her head. “You say that now. But if you knew me—my temper, my thoughts. How I’ve treated my mother. How I’ve flirted with men . . .”

  “I don’t need to know. But God already does.”

  Julia shrugged off the uncomfortable thought as if it were a shawl of itchy wool.

  He continued, “God created you for a purpose from the beginning of time, Julia. And He sacrificed His beloved Son to redeem you for all eternity.”

  She shook her head. “If my heavenly Father is anything like my earthly one, He doesn’t want anything to do with me. I have no doubt greatly disappointed Him.”

  “Haven’t we all?”

  “Are you saying it doesn’t matter?” She sneered. “That we can do whatever we want and God still loves us?”

  “It does matter. Sin grieves God’s heart and our own as well. Can you honestly look back and not regret those wrong things you’ve done?”

  Julia was tempted to give a flippant answer, to ignore the hollow ache inside, and lie. Instead she felt her chin tremble. “I do regret them.”

  “Then turn from those things, and ask God to forgive you. He will. He has. And yes, He loves you in spite of it all. He loves you, Julia. No matter what.”

  She shook her head. Her throat tight, she said, “I don’t deserve it.”

  “No, of course you don’t. None of us do,” he said gently. “That’s why it’s called grace: unmerited favor.”

  Grace? Julia’s attention was snagged by the word. The name . . . Her name.

  Desmond fell silent, looking at her with those kind, knowing eyes. She grew increasingly uncomfortable as the silence stretched between them, with nothing to distract her except her own thoughts. Her conscience.

  She said, “I would not have taken you for a religious man.”

  He winced. “No doubt, considering my past. Even now I don’t know how religious I am, but I know I’d be lost without Christ.”

  “That’s how I feel. Lost.”

  “Then, my girl, are you ready to be found?”

  Still Julia’s heart resisted. “How do I know you are telling me the truth about Lady Anne? Can you prove it?”

  “No, I can’t,” he said. “But let me make two things plain to you.”

  She looked up at him, struck by his earnest tone.

  He took one of her hands in his larger one. “I am not your father. I could not be. I never touched Lady Anne beyond the chaste contact of the ballroom.”

  Petulant, Julia began to pull away. “So you said—”

  But he held her hand fast. “And the second thing. If I were your father, I would never deny it.” His eyes held hers. “And you would never need doubt your father loved you.”

  Julia’s heart pounded at his words.

  He squeezed her hand and released it. “Now, best head on home, lass. Lady Amelia would not be pleased to know you’ve spent more time in my company.”

  “Do I really remind you of Lady Amelia? You said so the last time I was here.”

  He glanced at her. “Yes, your bearing and your voice remind me of her a great deal. Though now that I’ve spent more time with you, I can see similarities to Lady Anne as well.”

  “How so?”

  “In temperament. Lady Anne was a charming girl. Quite gregarious.”

  “Lady Amelia said something similar, although from her it was not a compliment.”

  He nodded. “Amelia was quieter. Thoughtful. Intelligent. Yet she had a dry wit which never ceased to catch me off guard. She was unaware or at least unaffected by her own beauty, whereas Anne was very aware of hers. Lady Amelia was generous and graceful.” He grinned. “And an excellent dancer.”

  “My Lady Amelia?” Julia asked, incredulous.

  “Ah . . . well. Don’t tell her I told you.” He winked.

  Julia shook her head in disbelief. “Are you trying to tell me that, in her younger days, she was . . . amiable?”

  “Very.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “If it were not unfathomable, Mr. Desmond, I might think you were in love with her.”

  He looked down at his work-worn hands, then met her gaze once more. “It was all a long time ago, Julia. Lady Amelia has married and raised a fine daughter and lived an entire twenty years since then.”

  “And you?”

  He looked somewhere beyond her, and Julia saw pain flicker across his eyes. “I have lived twenty long years as well.”

  Julia waited for him to say more, but he did not. He only stood there, staring off into the distance, or into the distant past.

  Her mother was pacing the library and pulling on gloves when Julia returned. Her hat and reticule lay on the desk nearby.

  “I was just coming to look for you,” she said. “I’ve been worried sick. Where have you been?”

  Julia looked at Lady Amelia with new eyes, trying to see what Desmond saw—that quiet, modest woman full of wit and kindness and grace.

  Her mother added, “Tell me you were not off somewhere with that dancing master again.”

  “I was talking with a dancing master—but not Mr. Valcourt.”

  She stilled. “Then who?”

  “I think you know.”

  Her face paled. “Why would he . . . ? Is he trying to ingratiate himself? To win your trust?”

  “I went to see him, Mother. Not the other way around.”

  “Why would you?”

  “Because I wanted to learn the truth.”

  “The truth according to him is not necessarily the truth, Julia.”

  “One could say the same of you, my lady. Or your sister.”

  She frowned at that. “What did you tell him? Does he know who you are?”

  “He knew only that I was your daughter, until I relieved him of that misapprehension.”

  She paled all the more.

  “Twice now I’ve asked him if he is my father, which is quite humiliating now that I think of it. . . .” Julia flopped into a chair.

  Her mother asked in a shaky voice, “And what did he say?”

  “He said he is not, insisted that he never touched your sister except to hold her hand while dancing.”

  She exhaled a jagged breath. “And you believed him?”

  “Yes. Eventually. Though I did not want to.” Julia smiled a little sadly to recall the scene, and her heart throbbed with the resounding bleak conclusion. “So Lieutenant Tremelling really is my father, but he has no interest in seeing me—even though we’ve written and asked him to come. Does he think coming here would be admitting Anne lied
all those years ago?”

  “Perhaps.” Her mother exhaled a long breath. “But I’ve thought of another possible explanation.” She paced across the room once more.

  “Go on,” Julia prompted.

  Lady Amelia pressed her lips together, then began, “Lieutenant Tremelling wrote to me more than a month ago. That in itself was not unusual, for he wrote regularly over the years to keep us apprised of his whereabouts.”

  “Why?”

  “I sent occasional notes about how you fared.”

  “And money?”

  “Yes, Julia, I sent money. But I never saw it as a bribe. Not directly. My father had made no provision for Anne in his will, beyond her dowry. Yet I’d always thought that if she and Father had lived, he might have softened in time, and done something for her. And Lieutenant Tremelling would have benefited as well. That’s how I justified it. And, yes, I thought if he found himself destitute, he might very well show up here and demand more, or try to take you away . . . so Barlow or I sent a little something whenever he wrote.”

  She paused to draw breath. “But this letter was different. With the war over, he wrote that he was feeling uncertain about the future, and proposed a change. . . .”

  “What change?”

  “He laid out two possible scenarios for his future after the navy. In the first, he would relocate here to Beaworthy. He asked if there might be some position for him here on the estate, where he might have the opportunity to make your acquaintance without insinuating himself into your life. But I already had Barlow as my manager, and at the time Mr. Valcourt was our clerk. Tom Tremelling was a lieutenant in His Majesty’s Royal Navy—was I to offer him a place as a footman? A groom? And I admit I did not welcome his presence here—or the inevitable questions that would arise about the fate of his and Anne’s child. Besides, you had already elevated Barlow to iconic father figure. How much more so would you have idealized Lieutenant Tremelling?”

  “He wouldn’t have been a father figure. If he is my father.”