with Marianne, plan his return to Wiltshire, and of course, come up with some way of persuading Kit to spend the rest of his life with Henry.
23
Kit
“I’m selling the club,” Kit said.
“You never are!” Mabel exclaimed, sitting forward in her chair and making Nell Gwyn—who had been perched on her shoulder—squawk and rise up in fluster of outraged feathers.
“I am,” Kit confirmed.
“To that Sharp fellow?”
Kit nodded. “What do you think?”
“Depends on the price,” Mabel said promptly, canny as ever.
Kit told her the arrangements and was relieved when she nodded her approval.
“You’ve done well, my lad,” she said, and her eyes grew a little misty. “I wish your mother was here to see this. She would be that proud.”
He smiled, touched. Mabel Butcher was a tough woman, but even now, all these years on, she got a tear in her eye when she mentioned his mother. Kit had been thinking of Minnie Redford more often lately, remembering how much fun she had been when he was small, how proud he had been of having a mother so much lovelier than everyone else’s. Remembering too, less happily, the first time he’d seen her with a bruise on her face, and the times he’d seen her sadness, her exhaustion, her worry.
He wished he could have had just one chance to lighten her load, instead of making it always heavier.
“She knows,” a soft voice said, and when Kit looked up, it was to find the usually silent Gracie watching him with a calm expression. “She’s looking down on you from heaven, Mr. Redford.”
Kit was embarrassed to feel a lump rise in his throat at her gentle assurance. He didn’t believe in angels and heaven, but something in Gracie’s certainty made him at least want to do so.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
“What will you do with yourself now, then, ducky?” Mabel asked. “A comfortable retirement? Your mother and I always used to say we’d retire to Southend. She fancied the seaside.” She sighed.
“You could still go there,” Kit said, but she waved that off.
“I’d only have been going for Minnie,” she said. “I’m London born and bred, and I plan to die here too.”
“You’ll live forever,” Kit said scornfully. “You and that bloody parrot.”
Nell whistled loudly. “Bloody parrot! Don’t be rude!”
Mabel chuckled, affectionately stroking the parrot’s head with the crook of her finger. “Ah, Nelly, my clever darling.” Then glancing at Kit, she said, “So? Retirement?”
“I’m too young for that,” Kit said, smiling.
“Another business then? Or the country? There’ll always be money in land.”
Kit cleared his throat. “You remember how you said I needed to find someone? For the other side of my fireplace?”
“What?” Mabel shrieked, sending Nell Gwyn squawking yet again. “You’ve finally got yourself a new fancy man?”
Kit shifted uncomfortably. “It depends what you mean by new.”
Mabel’s gaze narrowed speculatively. “Someone you already know…” she mused, tapping her chin. “One of the boys at the club, is it?” But already she was shaking her head. “Is it someone I know? Wait”—she clapped her hands, grinning—“is it Jean-Jacques?”
“No!” Kit exclaimed, offended. “He’s married, and I’m friends with his wife!”
Mabel scowled. “Shame,” she said sourly, and went back to tapping her chin. “Who then? I can’t think of anyone. You’ve never been one for romantic feelings, Kit, despite being so soft-hearted. Not since that bloody duke—” She broke off at the expression on his face, her own transforming into one of pure disbelief. “Oh, no, Kit! Never tell me it’s him after all these years!”
Kit said, “I’m afraid so. Henry found me and—”
“That lying, cheating—”
“And he’s explained what happened in the past,” Kit spoke over her. “He had no idea, Mabel. It was all the fault of his man of business.”
“And you believe this rubbish?” Mabel hissed.
“Just listen,” Kit insisted, and proceeded to tell her the whole story—or at least, most of it.
By the time he was finished, she looked somewhat mollified, though her mouth was still tight with disapproval.
“I can’t believe you wouldn’t let him give you the money!” she exclaimed. “I think you’re touched in your top loft, Kit. He owed you that.”
Kit laughed softly and shook his head.
Nell Gwyn whistled noisily and hopped from Mabel’s shoulder to the arm of her chair.
“Woo-hoo!” she shrieked. “He loves you; he loves you not.”
“You should listen to Nell Gwyn.” Mabel told him sternly. “I swear this old girl’s practically a prophet.”
The parrot launched herself from the chair in a lazy flap of wings, landing on top of her cage.