“I want to pitch a fit, not act reasonable,” Sebastian yelled. “I am not a reasonable man.”
“Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed.” Elias laughed. He reopened the book, his attention drifting off its pages. Music seemed to echo around him. Workers laboured in the gardens, chatting as they tilled manure into the moorland soil. Kitty played her pianoforte in the main house, and somewhere in Cadwallader’s sprawl, he imagined a maid hummed.
“Come. Let’s go indoors.” Sebastian returned his top hat to its perch.
“I’m reading.”
“You were reading.” Sebastian grabbed Elias’s book and sprinted toward the manor, his legs flailing as he cut across the front lawn. According to the Darlings’ governess, nobody hated the word no like Sebastian. He always managed to get his way.
“Bad form!” Elias rose with a sigh and followed his cousin to the main house. Since the bonfire party, he and Sebastian had developed a mutual toleration of each other. They weren’t friends, but they got on well enough to spend time together.
Although most of their activities ended with Sebastian running solo into the distance.
Cadwallader Park gained popularity from its grounds. Besides pastures, the estate contained an orchard, topiary maze, and gardens that curved around the east wing. Such marvels distracted from the less impressive residence, a home built like a castle. It blended into the terrain, a fortress of chimneys, noticeable only due to the ivy that clung to its grey stone.
Elias had yet to grow accustomed to the manor’s dreary chambers. He considered the windows too narrow, the ceilings too low. A hatbox compared to Windermere Hall. Still, the house seemed far warmer than Lady Welby’s disposition.
Fitz met his cousin at the herb garden. “Would you play tag with me, Elias? Please? Miss Karel will not play.” The nine-year-old abandoned his toy horse and governess, tackling a rosemary bush to block Elias’s path. “Please.”
“Sorry, Fitz. I must finish my lessons and dress for dinner. How about tomorrow? We can play games all afternoon.” Elias ruffled the boy’s copper hair.
“Hello, Mr. Welby,” Stephanie Karel called from her blanket. She waved a bundle of letters, notes written by a soldier in the militia.
“I hope you received good news, Miss Karel.” Elias hid a smile, for he knew the governess spent more time writing poems to her suitor than educating the Darling children. He had edited her work on several occasions, even lent her books by Lord Byron. To his surprise, he rather enjoyed her sonnets. Perhaps Kitty and Fitz would become poets.
Elias saluted his young cousin, then hurried into the kitchen yard. He inhaled smoke and earthy aromas that reminded him of Windermere Hall.
“Master Sebastian ran upstairs.” The valet pointed at a back door. He leaned against the house and sucked on a pipe. “You be lookin’ for him, Mr. Welby?”
“Yes, well, he stole my book.” Elias inched past a chicken and pig. Somehow the animals managed to escape butchery and wandered the yard, both caked with mud.
“Again? My, you best wear your books on a chain.”
“Capital idea. Now to invent a chain that’ll withstand Sebastian,” Elias said with a laugh. He sneaked into the manor’s scullery and climbed service stairs to the main floor.
Dinner preparations, a daily chaos, were underway. Mrs. Darling paced the main rooms, her ash-black hair tugged into disarray. She yelled commands at the butler, who followed at her heels and muttered a series of “Yes, ma’am,” “Of course, ma’am,” “Right away, ma’am.” Kitty enhanced the commotion by playing her pianoforte in the parlour.
“We cannot serve baked apples for dessert. Are you mad?” Mrs. Darling marched into the foyer, ignoring Elias as she berated her butler. “What’s next? Will you recommend porridge for the main course? No, go tell the cook to prepare blancmange. Baked apples . . . Ha!”
Elias straightened when Mrs. Darling glanced at him.
“Do not linger, Nephew. Go dress for dinner.” She charged toward the parlour, shouting orders at everyone in earshot. “Cease the music, Kitty. I cannot think. Where is Mr. Darling? Has anyone seen my boys? Find Sebastian and tell him to wash. Fitz, you left your toys in the hall.”
Mrs. Darling meant well. She adored her family, more so her role as wife and mother. Elias understood her enough to keep his distance. He knew his aunt cared about him, for she invited him to gatherings and forced his practice of the arts. Still, he’d learned that married women required space to mother their young and on occasion, their husbands.
“I’ll find Sebastian,” Elias yelled. He ascended the arched staircase and moved toward his cousin’s bedroom. The manor, although smaller than Windermere Hall, contained dozens of narrow corridors. After weeks of getting lost, Elias had finally mastered the maze.
He passed the study lent to him by Mr. Darling. The room contained shelves packed with books, mostly volumes of historical text and fiction the Darlings no longer read. Still, Elias treasured the space. It made Cadwallader seem more like home, not a boarding school or prison.
Lord Welby still hadn’t written. Each day, Elias checked the post for letters. He’d found messages from Mrs. Capers, a parcel of shortbreads from Anne, but nothing from the lord.
His father must’ve forgotten about him.
A wave of emotions rushed from somewhere deep and dormant, swelling until it sucked the air from Elias’s lungs. He sagged against the wall and gasped. His father’s lack of attention shouldn’t bother him, for he knew only distance and stern approval. To have and then lose would give reason for feeling, but he’d never had, so he could not lose. Nevertheless, he felt loss. A deep loss.
Loss that brought tears to his eyes.
Such a response seemed dramatic, a lapse of gentlemanly behaviour. He should consider himself fortunate. Other children, even some of the boys at Eton, grew up with violent fathers. They suffered worse than a lack of correspondence.
Elias sighed. He rested his head against the wall, a memory lighting the back of
