The terrace doors burst open, flooding the room with light. Cynthia jumped in surprise. Then, heart pounding in her throat, she fell back from the huge dark shape that stumbled toward her. One of the chairs toppled over with a crash, and she reached out instinctively to protect John. Surely some sort of a madman had blundered into the house! She could hear Adam and James shouting and peered closer but all she could make out in the bright sunlight was a misshapen form that seemed to have three heads.
“Ah ha!” the largest of the heads yelled at her oldest son. “Now I have you!”
“No, you don’t!” John contradicted, pulling away from her to dash into the entry hall and clatter up the stairs. The creature made to follow him and as it ambled past her, she finally brought it into focus. A tall man, heavy, disheveled, and thoroughly out of breath, with Adam riding one shoulder and James the other. She was so surprised that they were past her before she could stop them.
“James, Adam!” she commanded, gathering her wits. The behemoth slid to a stop at the foot of the stairs, one hand clutching the carved newel post. His massive shoulders straightened as if he knew he was in trouble as well. Not a madman, then. She couldn’t imagine who would be so bold as to dash about with her sons on his shoulders, but the game clearly had to stop before Jonathan caught them. Two heads swung back with wide blue eyes in an uncanny mimic of her late husband. She offered them her sternest gaze, ready to scold both her sons and the man who carried them. “Is this how you behave in your uncle’s house?” she demanded.
Seven-year-old James looked thoughtful, reminding her more of Jonathan than her Nathan. Four-year-old Adam wiggled on his perch, further wrinkling his black short pants.
“I’m afraid it’s my fault,” rumbled the gentleman in a voice that was familiar, although deeper than she seemed to remember it. He turned carefully so as not to upset the boys, and Cynthia realized it was Daniel Lewiston.
He was much changed since the last time she had seen him, then a young man of eighteen whom she had found impossible to understand. His mahogany brown hair was shorter although that only made the waves more noticeable. His eyes seemed darker, but then the gray had always reflected his emotions. She wondered what he was feeling now -- embarrassment if the crooked smile on his large, full-lipped mouth was any indication. However, probably the biggest change was the state of his usually tidy clothing. Now there wasn’t a patch that wasn’t snagged, smeared, or rumpled. But then, her sons in the best days seemed to have that affect on people.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Lewiston,” she said with a smile, concerns fading. Surely Jonathan would know Daniel was playing with the boys. Daniel had obviously had a hand in helping her children recover their usual high spirits, although whether that was a blessing or a curse just now she wasn’t sure. “It’s good of you to take the blame for these antics, but I very much doubt you had to hold my sons’ feet to the fire to get them to agree to this game.”
Daniel found it harder to smile back. Cynthia Kinsle had always been able to send a shiver up his spine. It wasn’t so much that she was beautiful, although that might have intimidated others. Her hair, soft and rich as the honey of its color, those thick-lashed eyes as dark as violets, and her slender figure would have made her the toast of the ton, if she had ever come out as expected. She’d certainly broken every heart in the neighborhood before eloping with a handsome naval officer of dubious family. His mother and hers had mourned, so sure were they that she and Daniel would make a match. He had never had such delusions. Cynthia was clever and spirited, and she delighted in making fun of a certain gangly youth. Just standing near her made him feel maladroit. They would never have suited.
But there was something different about her now, standing there with the sunlight making her widow’s weeds look nearly purple. Perhaps it was the dark circles under her eyes or the way her long fingers plucked at the dress, a dress that reminded him of why he was playing with the boys in the first place. “You’d be surprised how much coaxing it took to get them to have a little fun,” he replied. Adam wiggled again, and he reached up and set the little fellow on his feet, with James beside him.
“No,” she said quietly, “I would not be surprised in the slightest. Unfortunately, Mr. Lewiston, my sons do not have the luxury of having fun whenever it so pleases them. James, Adam, go find John and take yourselves upstairs to your room. I’ll join you shortly.”
Daniel offered them a smile, but they hung their heads and shuffled upstairs. He supposed they were in for a scold, and he turned to Cynthia to explain again that any misconduct was entirely his own fault. The unshed tears in her violet eyes stopped him.
“Are you all right?” he felt compelled to ask.
Cynthia refused to let him see her cry. She was tired from the journey and suddenly sick of being the one to stop the games and never the one to play them. Most likely he hadn’t meant to criticize how she was raising her sons, but the words stung just the same. Like it or not, they were no longer on their own. They would have to live according to Jonathan’s rules. “I assure you, Mr. Lewiston,” she managed, “I’m quite all right. Thank you for taking time to play with the boys. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
“Of course,” he bowed her out, telling himself he ought to be relieved. But if anything, he was more troubled than he had been in days and he wasn’t surprised to find, as he turned to the terrace, that clouds had moved in to spoil his perfect summer day.
Chapter Two
In the library doorway, Daniel’s butler cleared his throat with a phlegmmy rattle. “They’re here again, sir.”
Daniel glanced up from his perusal of the plans for the new school he was building for the village. “’They,’ Evenson?”
“The young Masters Jacobs, sir.” Daniel could see that his man was trying to keep the impassive demeanor his position required, but his graying hair looked wilder than usual and there seemed to be a tick working on his firm jaw. Nevertheless, the library seemed suddenly brighter. Daniel arose eagerly, shrugging into his old tweed coat. “Splendid. Where have you put them?”
“I hesitated to put them in the withdrawing room without anyone there to watch them,” Evenson replied. “Especially after the incident with your great aunt’s vase.”
Daniel made a face remembering their game the day before. While it was easier for him to have them visit here where he had no fear of disrupting Jonathan, the house was definitely taking a beating. “Were you able to find enough of the pieces to get it back together? The Countess dotes on it so . . .”.
“Your great aunt will never know the difference,” Evenson assured him, “so long as she doesn’t pick it up.”
“Very good, Evenson.” He paused in the doorway to listen, glancing up and down the darkly paneled hall, but his fortress of a mansion was as quiet and still as usual. He glanced back at his man with a frown. “So, where did you put them?”
From down the corridor came a deafening crash of metal on hard wood. Daniel was dashing toward the sound with Evenson at his heels before the first echoes started reverberating to the arched ceiling.
Three pairs of wide blue eyes met his in front of the door at the end of the hall. Daniel rolled his own eyes before turning to Evenson. “The Armory?”
Evenson cleared his throat again. “Yes, well, I thought it would keep their interest, and it was my understanding that everything was nailed down.”
“And so it was,” James said calmly, looking slightly less pale than the other two. “All except him.”
Daniel looked to where he pointed. What had been an ornamental suit of armor just inside the doorway was now a haphazard jumble of dented metal. “Ho, what happened to Sir Cedric?”
“Adam did it,” John declared.
Adam gasped and immediately burst into tears. “I . . . did . . . not!” he wailed, setting the echoes jarring through the house once again.
“Easy now,” Daniel said as calmly as he could, his glance taking in all three of them. James was biting his lower lip in exactly the same way Jonathan had used to do when he was about to get caught for some misdeed. Adam was sniffling pathetically, his baby face a-wash in self-pity. John was studying the wall of swords on his right with remarkable intensity. It was impossible to tell who had caused the disturbance, but then, Daniel reflected, it probably didn’t matter.
“No harm done,” he assured them. “I’m sure we can put Sir Cedric back together again. In fact, wasn’t there some rhyme to that effect?”
“’All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again,’” James quoted helpfully.
“Nonsense,” Daniel declared in their skeptical faces. “Who needs a lot of soldiers anyway? What say we have a go at it, just the four of us?”
Adam nodded, brightening over hiccupped sobs. James looked pleased at the idea. John narrowed his eyes. “Can’t we just leave it for the servants?”
Daniel put an arm around his shoulder and guided him farther into the room. “Never leave your mistakes for another man to fix, John. Besides, I’d wager the three of you know far better what a proper knight should look like than our friend Mr. Evenson here.”
“Assuredly, sir,” Evenson obligingly agreed.
“There, you see? We’ll work here for a bit, and when we’re done Mr. Evenson will have tea and cakes waiting in the withdrawing room.”
Luckily, Sir Cedric was far easier than the infamous Humpty Dumpty to put back together again. The wooden frame on which the various pieces of armor had been hung had merely been tipped over. Once righted, the boys were able to identify the pieces and hang them back into place, with much merriment as gauntlets were mixed with stockings and the breast plate with the helmet. By the time they retired to the withdrawing room, they were in a much happier mood.
“This surely is a fine, big, house,” John commented as they sat munching on the cakes Evenson had brought them, their voices echoing in the large, drafty room. “Of course, it isn’t quite as fine as Colonel Hathaway’s, is it, James?”
James frowned. “Colonel Hathaway?” He jumped suddenly, and Daniel had the distinct impression that John had pinched him under cover of the tea tray. “I . . . I’m not sure who you mean, John.”
Daniel smiled at the boy’s attempt to tell the truth and still support his brother.
“You remember Colonel Hathaway,” John insisted. “Mother’s beau?”
Daniel found he had little interest in hearing about Cynthia’s latest conquest, and he cleared his throat in a warning to change the subject.
“Mother has a bunch of bows,” Adam piped up.
“That’s right, Adam,” John encouraged, casting a sidelong look at Daniel but ignoring the obvious hint. “And her favorite is the Colonel.”
Adam frowned, but John pushed another cake onto his plate, and he turned his attention to attacking it eagerly.
Probably another charming military man, Daniel thought, but the bitterness of the thought surprised him.
“In fact,” John declared boldly, “Colonel Hathaway is probably going to be our new father.”
The last bite of cake was suddenly hard for Daniel to chew. James choked on his own piece. Adam’s blue eyes widened.
“He is,” John insisted, somewhat belligerently, Daniel thought. “I heard Uncle Jonathan say Mother had to marry. He doesn’t have the blunt to keep us all, isn’t that so, Mr. Daniel?”
“I’m sure your uncle can care for you as long as needed,” Daniel assured him, although he knew how strapped Jonathan must be with four extra mouths to feed. The smaller Kinsle estate had never been prosperous, and what little had been left Jonathan had poured into his library on inheriting. He had hardly expected that his sister, who hadn’t been home in nearly ten years, to suddenly appear with three nephews he hadn’t known he possessed.
“I don’t recall whether I like Colonel Hathaway,” James remarked thoughtfully.
“Oh, he’s all right,” John said with a shrug. “I daresay he’ll be gone as much as Father was. And even when he is in the country, he’ll be out at his club. We won’t see him much.”
“Mother won’t like that,” Adam said with a pout.
“Mother doesn’t have a choice,” John informed him. “She has to marry whoever asks her. Uncle Jonathan said so.”
The conversation was definitely unsuitable for young gentleman, and Daniel wasn’t entirely sure it was suitable for his own hearing. But he wasn’t their father, and the best he could do was rattle the dishes on the tea tray to focus their attentions elsewhere.
“Poor Mother,” James said with a sigh, ignoring him.
“Poor us,” John amended. “Father may not have been home much, but at least he loved us. We won’t be so lucky this time.”
Adam’s bottom lip trembled, but he sucked it in manfully as he slid down from the leather chair to the Aubusson carpet. “Colonel Hathaway might love us.” When John scowled at him, he stuck out his chin. “He might! We’re lovable, aren’t we, Mr. Daniel?”
Something constricted in the vicinity of Daniel’s heart. “You are indeed, my lad, all three of you.”
“If you were our father I daresay you wouldn’t leave us for some silly club,” James asserted with a sniff.
“All fathers need time to themselves,” Daniel tried to explain to them. “But I’m sure whoever is lucky enough to be your new father will want to spend time with you.”
Adam had wandered closer to him and now climbed happily into his lap. “Why can’t you be our father, Mr. Daniel?”
He should have seen it coming. The spark in John’s eyes told him the conversation had been manipulated in just this direction. James and Adam were waiting eagerly for his answer. He’d have to pick his words carefully if he were to keep from depressing them further.
“Any man would be proud to be the father of three such fine, smart, boys,” he assured them.
It was obviously not enough. Adam frowned. “Then why don’t you ask Mother?”
Daniel kept a determined smile on his face. “Well, your mother and I have known each other since we were children, Adam, but we’ve never been particularly attached to each other.”
“But she’s awfully pretty,” Adam argued.