News about one’s children received from strangers is rarely good. The Countess of Chadbourn stared at the missive in her lap grateful her own children still resided in the nursery. Responsibility for her teen-aged brothers had become the very devil.
“Worry fixes nothing,” she reminded herself picking up the unopened letter and tapping it on her desk. She had, after all, expected this message as soon as she prevailed upon Mrs. Bosworthy to check on the boys. She had only met the woman once, but knew she lived near Wembley, had boys in the school, and would have access to local gossip.
Spy might be a more accurate term since Catherine begged the woman to be discrete and let neither the boys, nor their tutors, nor the house-masters know of her interest. Rather more discomforting was the fact that she had requested it be kept from her husband.
Within a year of her marriage her new husband, the earl, had insisted that Freddy and Randy go to school along with his nephew Charles, who was also their cousin. Catherine resisted for a year, insisting they needed time to adjust to the change in circumstances. The earl—Will— remembered school fondly and expected all three boys to do well. Within months first one and then all three wrote to complain about conditions. It was, her husband informed her, normal. “Don’t be overprotective,” he said. “Boys need to grow tough.”
A year later when the complaints stopped, he seemed to be proven correct. Freddy at least appeared to be thriving, and the boys showed no signs of problems for three terms, until the younger two moved to a different house. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she knew something was wrong. Randy had become more and more withdrawn. During the most recent holidays he looked downright ill. When asked he shrugged. He said the oddest thing. “It is just how things are done.” She tried talking to Will who gave her the most provoking superior look and said, “Women don’t understand these things.”
What was she to do? She turned to another mother, one who lived close enough to snoop. She flipped the wax seal from the missive with more force than strictly necessary, unfolded it, and gasped. She was out of her chair and down the hall in minutes.
“Will, Will! You must listen to me,” she insisted, flying into his study. “You have to read—“ She stopped. Will raised his head from his hands and faced her with a bleak expression. Letters of his own lay open on his desk.
He swallowed hard. “What is it, Catherine?”
“It’s about Randy.” She hesitated when her husband blanched.
He waved a hand rather helplessly over his own letter.
Catherine sank into worn leather chair. “Bertha Bosworthy has heard that some upper form boys are using Randy for a whipping boy. She says they’ve told him he has to take his cousin’s share of punishments because Charles is a duke and they aren’t allowed to touch him. She says the local physician told her he has seen Randy three times and the last time—“ She looked down at the letter to make sure she got it right. “—he told her last time Randy may have been ‘violated.’ Do you know what that could mean?” She looked up and saw her husband, pale as death, a sick expression twisting his handsome face. Apparently he did know.
Will pushed himself to his feet slowly as if infinitely tired. “I’m going down there,” he said. “I’ve had a letter too. Freddy set fire to Randy’s house-master’s office. It almost took the whole place down. He’s been thrown out.”
“Good!” Catherine said. “He probably deserved it. The house-master I mean, not Freddy.”
“I have no doubt he did,” Will said with a nod at the letter in her hand. “I also had one from Fred. All it said was, ‘Randy had a problem. The three of us took care of it.’”
He walked around the desk and pulled her into his arms. “I’m so sorry Catherine. I misjudged the situation. I’ll get them out of there.” He kissed her soundly and started for the door.
“Do it quickly,” she said at his retreating back, “Before one of those horrid gossip rags like The Teatime Tattler gets wind of it and we have, ‘Earl’s ward sets fire to school’ screaming from every headline in London.
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This bit of fiction has been enlarged and published as A Mother’s Work is Never Done, a short story that describes Will’s efforts to comfort Randy.
You can obtain a ***FREE*** copy of it on Smashwords.
Catherine and Will’s love story can be found in A Dangerous Nativity, which also introduced the boys, Fred, Randy, and Charles. They, in turn, will find their own happiness as adults in my next series. The first, The Renegade Wife will tell Randy’s story. It is due out in October 2016, with the other two books to follow in 2017.
You can find more about A Dangerous Nativity and Caroline Warfield’s other books here.
One did not need to ask who “She” was. The main topic this past year has been the doings of Lady Georgiana Hayden, in residence at Helsington Cottage, an unnatural creature if ever I saw one. When her great aunt sat in residence she kept to herself and provided little fodder for our little discussions. At first the niece did the same, but that was before her true eccentricity exhibited itself for all to see.
“Woman she may be,” Abigail intoned, drawing attention back to herself, “But lady she is not. My Ernest told me…” Here she dropped her voice so we all had to lean in. She looked around at each of us to make sure we were attentive. How could we not be? “She approached one of the fellows in his premises.”
I would have pointed out that my husband, sole proprietor of one of the better bookstores—all of Cambridge knows Groghan’s Scholarly Bookshop—told me she orders highly inappropriate books and manuscripts. He only services her order because, after all, if he didn’t another store might. He makes sure she pays a pretty penny. I didn’t get a chance to say it.
