without supper, and I will run away! I hate Latin and I hate the Bible and I hate sums.”
A basically sweet little boy was moved to blasphemy. Oak locked the door, lest Forester join the discussion uninvited. “Let’s discuss this on the balcony, shall we?”
“I don’t want to discuss anything. I want to go to London with M-Mama.”
The look of horror that came over Alexander’s face at the quaver in his voice was the embodiment of misery. Shame, anger, fear… Oak took the boy by the hand and led him to the balcony.
“Have a seat,” Oak said, folding himself onto one of a pair of wrought-iron chairs. “Who told you that your mother was traveling to London?”
Alexander sniffed, his gaze on the parkland that rolled away from the Hall’s back garden. “She is leaving Merlin Hall, and it’s your fault.”
“No, actually, it isn’t. Not entirely. Your mother has been receiving invitations to visit in the capital for some time. My brothers and I merely make handy escorts. What would be so terrible about biding at Merlin Hall in her absence?”
A memory surfaced, of Alexander unable to sit on a log, unwilling to go for another hack on Charlie, though the boy loved to be in the saddle.
“Mr. Forester. That’s what would be so terrible. Him and the bloody birch rod.”
Blasphemy and profanity. “He birches you?”
“Sometimes twice a day, and if I cry, I get extra stripes. I hate him.”
I hate him too. “And he told you if you complained, he’d just pile on more stripes?”
Alexander nodded. “A gentleman accepts his lot without complaining. I never wanted to be a gentleman, and if Mr. Forester is a gentleman, then I would rather be a highwayman instead.”
Oak passed Alexander his handkerchief. “Blow.”
Alexander honked and folded the linen neatly before offering it back to Oak, who set it aside.
“I truly will run away, sir. I hate him and he’s mean and he says mean things about Mama and Catherine and Miss Digg. He even said mean things about Papa, and Papa’s dead. We’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead.” Alexander made speak ill one word, though his ire conveyed clearly enough.
“Running away is, on rare occasion, the sensible thing to do,” Oak said. “I am running away from the place where I grew up, if my actions are viewed from a certain perspective.”
Alexander’s brows drew down. “Did somebody beat your arse too?”
Do not smile when a small boy is desperate to be taken seriously. “Not recently, but I was lonely and needed to make my way in the world. I did not see a way to do that at Dorning Hall.” Oak had seen Grey and Beatitude awash in domestic bliss, Hawthorne married to the lovely widow, and Valerian falling for the prettiest heiress in the shire.
He’d scarpered, though at least he’d bolted in the direction of his lifelong ambitions.
“Did you run away to Merlin Hall, Mr. Dorning?”
“I am on my way to London. I stopped here because I love art and wanted to help your mama by restoring some of the older works your papa collected. I will sell them in London, because Merlin Hall doesn’t need them anymore.”
“I will run away to London, then. Catherine says Papa knew everybody in London. Nobody will beat me in London.”
Oak longed to hug the boy tight and never let him go. In London, a lone child would be snatched off the street and sold into a hell no one should endure.
“Alexander, what problem are you trying to solve by running away?”
“Mr. Forester.” Said with a universe of disgust. “He’s a big problem. He says I’m a slow top, but you were a slow top at Latin, and Mama doesn’t know any Latin at all.”
“I agree with you that he’s a problem and that he has failed you as a tutor and as an example. You try hard to learn, and if your progress is slow, your tutor is partly responsible. Do you know who has the power to make Mr. Forester go away for good?”
“God could send the Angel of Death to strike him down. Cook says Mrs. Tansbury could give him the bloody flux with one of her tisanes. He’d probably beat me for that too. Mr. Forester would, not God.”
And when had Cook said that within a child’s hearing, and more to the point, why? “What else did Cook say?”
“That if Mr. Forester kisses Catherine the way he kisses Miss Digg, Cook will do him an injury. Bracken told her