A Lady's Dream Come True - Grace Burrowes Page 0,90

angry about it.”

I am angry about it. “Let’s find your mother.” Oak rose and bent to gently hug the boy before Alexander could scuttle back into the studio. “You are a wonderful little fellow, and on whatever heavenly cloud is reserved for great artists, your father is very proud of you. I am proud of you.”

Alexander, for the briefest and most precious of moments, hugged Oak back, then scampered away.

“Alexander and I have something to discuss with you.” Oak sounded more serious than Vera had ever heard him. “The matter is somewhat pressing.”

Everything was pressing lately. If Vera was to leave for London, she’d best give the order for the maids to start packing, but she hadn’t. Tamsin and Jeremy had to be dealt with, and she hadn’t decided on a strategy for those hurdles either. The household hadn’t been without family in residence for years, and instructions should be left for Cook and Mrs. Hepplewhite, and how would Bracken feel about a remove to London?

In the middle of all those questions loomed the real problem: How to part from Oak Dorning?

Alexander clutched Oak’s hand, and Oak stood beside Vera’s son as if that was normal, as if Alexander had every right to cling to his hand.

Would that he did. “Please have a seat,” Vera said. “My lists can wait.” Not that she’d started on them.

“I would rather stand, Mama, if you please.”

Oak was trying to convey some message to Vera, about forbearance or urgency. She could not tell which.

“Then you may stand,” Vera said, “and you have my complete attention.”

Alexander sent Oak an unreadable look and dropped his hand. “Can’t you tell her, sir?”

Oak shook his head. “Courage, lad. Your mother has loved you since before you drew breath. She will love you when she’s wearing wings and playing a harp.”

That was true. That was absolutely true, and even as that thought went flitting through Vera’s mind, another more ominous truth chased it off.

“Alexander, is there a reason you are reluctant to sit?”

Another glance at Oak, then a nod. “A gentleman doesn’t… That is, Mr. Forester… My bum…” Alexander knuckled his eyes. “He birches me all the time. For nothing. For forgetting things he never taught me, for a sum being off by one. He birches me for crying when he birches me. I hate sums. I hate Latin.” A shuddery breath followed. “I hate everything, and I’m going to run away, but Mr. Dorning said I must speak to you first. I must not leave you without my protection, but, Mama, I cannot stay if you are leaving Merlin Hall.”

Of all the reasons Alexander might have had for interrupting Vera’s morning, she hadn’t seen this one lurking among them—or had she? Vera’s belly became a pit of sick foreboding, while Oak sent her that steady, searching look.

Alexander’s dignity must be protected every bit as fiercely as his safety, and Vera must effect that miracle without dissolving into rage or tears herself.

“Is your bum sore?” she asked.

Alexander nodded. “I sleep on my belly, but I don’t like that. Mr. Forester keeps asking me if I want a pillow. He’s not being nice, he’s being mean when he asks.”

“He will soon be unemployed,” Vera said, rising and coming around the desk to take a chair beside Alexander. “I never gave him permission to physically discipline you. It never occurred to me that he’d use a birch rod on a six-year-old.”

Alexander bristled. “I’m almost grown up.”

Oh dear. “True, but because you are almost grown up, how would Mr. Forester’s means of chiding you work next year, when you are even taller and stronger than you are now? One of these days, you might have planted him a facer, and because you are faster than he, he would soon be unable to best you. Is the schoolroom merely a place to demonstrate pugilism?”

“You mean I could birch him right back?”

No, no, no. Fisticuffs and violence were no way to resolve anything, but Vera again caught Oak’s eye, and he seemed marginally less stern.

“Mr. Forester would never see it coming,” Vera said, brushing Alexander’s bangs from his forehead. “The poor man would be smarting into next week if you gave him a birching. I’m glad you told me about this, Alexander.”

Alexander bore her touch easily for once. “I’m not peaching?”

“Of course not. You are telling the truth. I hope you will always tell me the truth. And I am being absolutely honest when I tell you Mr. Forester was wrong to beat you.