“Oh, yes,” Andrew said reverently, and Kendra watched Trick bite his lip to keep from laughing.
“Mrs. Jackson, there you are.” Trick waded through the sea of children, making his way toward a plump, matronly woman with gray curls and a pleasant face. He fished a black pouch from his surcoat pocket and handed it over. “Here you go. I apologize for being late. I’ve been…busy.”
“I can see that.” The woman smiled at Kendra.
“Mrs. Jackson, may I present my wife—”
“Mrs. Kendra,” Andrew supplied in a worshipful tone.
Kendra didn’t have the heart to correct him. “I’m glad of your acquaintance, Mrs. Jackson.” She executed a tiny bow, for all the world as though they were at Whitehall Palace.
Mrs. Jackson beamed. “Likewise, your gr—Mrs. Kendra.” Kendra heard the metallic clink of coins as the woman sifted through the pouch. “So generous, Mr. Caldwell! The children are grateful—as ever,” she added, with a wink for Kendra.
He waved that away, looking embarrassed. “It’s my pleasure. I’ll not let the poor things starve so long as I have the means to help.”
“Starve?” Mrs. Jackson’s belly jiggled beneath her apron as her laughter rang through the heavy summer air. “They’re better fed than half the parish. Why, I daresay some villagers pray nightly to be orphaned so they may find themselves at Caldwell Manor.”
Caldwell Manor? Did Trick finance this entire operation, then? Kendra looked toward her husband, his golden hair glinting in the late afternoon sun, and her heart softened a little.
He laughed. “Let’s hope not. A hearty meal is a sad substitute for parents. How is little Susanna?”
“Much better. Her fever is down and she’s sitting and taking milk. I trust she’ll be up and about in a day or two.”
“I’m pleased to hear it. Maybe I should pay her a visit.”
“By all means. She’ll be cheered to see you.”
“Kendra? If you’ll excuse me?”
Without waiting for her agreement, Trick climbed the six front steps in three strides and disappeared into the house. Wearing only breeches and a shirt, no cravat and no coat, he looked decidedly unduke-ish. Through that battered oak door passed someone who had accomplished Kendra’s own dream, opening an orphanage.
Stunned, she stared after him while the children scattered through the garden, picking up balls and hoops.
Two girls tugged shyly on her skirts. “Will you play with us, Mrs. Kendra?”
She smiled down at them. “What would you care to play?”
They settled on blindman’s buff, and the game went on for a while, other children joining in. When an impish lad named Thomas stole the blindfold and ran away laughing, the others raced after him. Kendra tried to follow but got halfway around the house and stopped. Thanks to her high Louis heels, the merry chase had far outstripped her ability to keep up.
Trick had been right to suggest a plain gown—next time she’d wear flat shoes, too. Wondering what was taking him so long, she made her way over to where Mrs. Jackson was hanging laundry.
“Have you an idea where my h-husband”—her tongue tripped over the word—“might have got himself off to?”
“Of course,” the older woman said, tossing a nightshirt back into the basket. “I’ll show you the way to the sickroom.”
She led her around the corner of the house and up the front steps. “I bless your husband nightly for saving these children.”
“Bless you for caring for them,” Kendra returned, glancing around the entry. Though the house and its furnishings were well-worn and far out of date, it was clean and cheerful. “Are the children receiving an education?”
“Mercy, yes. His grace has seen to it that tutors attend to that. All but the youngest can figure and read and write—”
“Girls, too?”
“Yes, indeed. Your husband has some odd ideas.”
They skirted a few wooden toys on the floor as Mrs. Jackson led her down a corridor. “Are they instructed in the classics? Latin and—”
“Nay, not as yet. I cannot imagine what children like this would be needing with Latin. But with the duke directing things, you never know what will happen next at Caldwell Manor.” The woman’s ample bosom quivered with a good-natured if slightly befuddled chuckle. “Here we are.”
In the room Mrs. Jackson indicated, a young girl, perhaps five or so, sat propped among pillows in a four-poster bed that looked as though it had rested on the same spot for a century or more. Kendra paused in the doorway.
“They’re busy,” Mrs. Jackson whispered.
Trick sat in a straight-backed chair by the bed, an open book in his lap. The girl leaned forward, apparently engrossed in whatever he was reading. Feeling like an eavesdropper, Kendra listened as well.
“‘Then have I gained a right good man this day,’ quoth jolly Robin,” came Trick’s throaty voice. “‘What name goest thou by, good fellow?’”
“And what did he say?” the child asked.
“The stranger answered, ‘Men call me John Little whence I came.’”
The girl’s blond curls bounced as she shook her head. “No, it’s Little John!” she corrected, her brown eyes wide with delight.
Trick glanced up from the leather-bound book. “Aye, but that was Will Stutely’s doing. He loved a good jest and said”—he looked back down at the book—“‘Nay, fair little stranger. I like not thy name and fain would I have it otherwise. Little art thou, indeed, and small of bone and sinew; therefore shalt thou be christened Little John, and I will be thy godfather.’ Then Robin Hood and all his band laughed aloud until the stranger began to grow angry…”
Kendra could only gape. She felt like one of the Graiae, three sisters who had but one eye between them. What was she seeing? A highwayman, telling a story to an ill orphan? Or a duke? Right now, he looked like neither.
She backed away from the doorway. She didn’t know this man, not in the least.
SIXTEEN
“ROBIN HOOD,” Kendra said on their way home, in that forthright way of hers that
