Joan Smith by The Kissing Bough Read Free Book Online Page B

timidly, “I am Aurelia, Edward Townsend’s daughter, sir.”
    “Eh? Who the deuce is Edward Townsend? There are no Townsends hereabouts.”
    “Papa is a brewer,” she said.
    “Ah, a brewer! Excellent. Bring me a glass of ale, miss.” Mistaking her for a serving wench, despite her elegant gown, he reached out his fevered finger and pinched her chin.
    She emitted a frightened squeak and jumped back. “Let us go, Nick,” she said. “He touched me!” Nick looked unhappily surprised at her reaction.
    “Ha ha! I’d like to do more than touch you, saucy wench!” Lord Goderich cackled. “Come here and give me a kiss.”
    Aurelia said, “Ohhh!” in horrified accents, and fled from the room.
    “Now, Uncle, behave yourself,” Nick said, laughing in spite of himself. “Miss Aurelia is my girl.”
    “And a mighty tasty morsel she is, too. Is she good in bed?”
    “Time will tell.”
    “You don’t want to let Ramsey’s gel get wind of what you are up to, lad. Mistresses are fine in their place, but you shouldn’t have brought her here. Don’t sow your wild oats in the home paddock.”
    Nick saw there was no point repeating that Aurelia was his fiancée. Rational conversation was so difficult that he said, “Are you on for a battle, Uncle?”
    “Get the soldiers,” was Goderich’s reply.
    Nicholas arranged the soldiers on the counterpane and they engaged in a short battle. When it was over, he put his arms around his uncle and hugged him. He was astonished at how fiercely his uncle returned the pressure. When he stood back, there were tears in the old man’s eyes.
    “That felt good,” he said. “A man needs a human touch from time to time, even an old relic like myself. I miss my good lady. I do.”
    “I’ll come to tuck you in tonight.”
    “You do that. You’re a good lad, Ronnie.”
    Ronald was Lord Goderich’s son, who had died so young. Goderich had been like a father to Nick, and he was pleased that his presence could bring some pleasure to the old man in his last days. He remembered his uncle as a vibrant man, riding to hounds, or sitting at the head of his table, at other times receiving callers in his study. The most important man in the parish—and now he had come to this pathetic figure, begging for a human touch. Nick was in a pensive mood when he joined Aurelia, who had waited all the time in the corridor.
    “I don’t want to go in there anymore, Nick,” she said. “That old man frightens me.”
    “He frightens me, too,” Nick said. “I don’t like these reminders of mortality.”
    They went, hand in hand, to the staircase. Nick clung to her as his uncle had clung to him, as if holding on to life.
    “Then we won’t have to see him again?” she asked.
    A sharp rebuke rose in his throat, but he quelled it down. It wasn’t Aurelia he was angry with, but life, or more accurately, death. Goderich could mean nothing to her.
    He said, “Naturally I must visit him. He is my uncle—for all practical purposes, my father. There is no need for you to see him, if it displeases you.” But he thought it would be nice if she could have put up with the old man, for his sake.
    “He called me a wench!”
    “He called me Ronald.”
    “There you are, then. He doesn’t even recognize you. He cannot leave the estate and title to anyone else, can he? Marie said it was entailed.”
    “No, he can’t.”
    Aurelia noticed that Nick was unhappy, and naturally assumed that she was the cause. To atone for whatever she had done wrong, she said, “You should let him see you in your regimentals, Nick. I wager he would like that.”
    “So he would. I shall be sure to visit him in full regalia.”
    Pelham had drawn a table up in front of the grate when they went below. He and Jane were gathering the ingredients for the mulled wine, which would be made over the grate after dinner. Jane looked up when Nick and Aurelia entered, and knew at once that something was bothering Nick. His eyes wore that