“Careful,” Orion said, pausing on the path. “That one is French and has serious thorns. A gardener at the Château de Neuilly traded me a pair of bushes for a few bottles of wine. Said the rose originated on the Île Bourbon.”
“Perfumiers would pay you a fortune for these roses.” She bent closer and took another whiff of pink blooms.
“I traded champagne fit for a king for that specimen. I was trying to sneak my best vintage into the cellars of the Duke of Orléans, but I suspect my wine never got beyond the servants’ hall.”
Miss Pearson made a pretty picture, sniffing the roses by the light of a gibbous moon. Something of poignancy tried to gild the moment, with the cricket offering its slow song, and the thorny roses perfuming the night air.
She’d hugged him, was the problem. Nobody hugged Orion Goddard and he liked it that way. Needed it that way.
“Your champagne was well spent,” she said, straightening. “Do your boys maintain this garden?”
His boys. They were his, though Rye didn’t dare think of them in those terms. “They do, with some guidance from me. Shall we go in?”
“I suppose we ought to. Benny can’t spend the night in that stable.”
“I’m sure he has on many an occasion. Benny is my best sentry. Likes his privacy and thinks deeply as a matter of habit. The other fellows don’t quite know what to make of him, but they worried at his absence.”
“You worried at his absence,” Miss Pearson replied, as Orion ushered her into the hallway that led to the pantries and kitchen.
“Nearly panicked,” Orion said. “The lads have eaten, so if you’re hungry, we’ll have to forage. Drew!”
The boy trotted across the corridor from the servants’ hall. “Sir?”
“Benny ate something that disagreed with him, and needs a clean set of togs brought over to the hayloft. A basin of warm water and some rags wouldn’t go amiss either, though he’ll want privacy if he has to clean up. See to it, please.”
“Aye, sir.” Drew bowed to Miss Pearson—where had the lad picked up that nicety?—and scampered up the steps.
Miss Pearson began opening the kitchen’s cupboards and drawers. She was on reconnaissance, clearly, and because Orion knew only the basics of survival when it came to the kitchen—bread, butter, jam, cheese, that sort of thing—he let her explore.
The tray on the hob held a bowl of lukewarm soup, as well as bread and butter. Many a night Orion had subsisted on the same, but he was truly hungry, and for once wanted something more substantial.
“The chophouse will be open for another hour,” he said. “We can manage sandwiches if that will suffice.”
Miss Pearson left off pillaging and gave him the oddest look. “Sandwiches will do, and we begin by washing our hands. What is Benny’s full name?’
“Benjamin,” Rye scrubbed up at the wet sink and moved aside so Miss Pearson could do likewise. “The boys all choose their names when they come to live here. Drew, for example, is Andrew Marvell Goddard. Drew was smitten with the poet’s epitaph, ‘...the ornament and example of his age, beloved by good men, feared by bad, admired by all, though imitated by few; and scarce paralleled by any…’ or something like that. That Marvell stopped the crown from hanging Milton impressed Drew as well.”
Miss Pearson rummaged in her basket and set a tin on the work table. “And you gave the boys your family name?”
“Goddard is the only name I have to give them.” The only name Orion had to defend, and he’d made a bad job of that mission, thus far. With Jeanette safely married and another good harvest all but complete, he’d see his named properly cleared.
“And the rest of Benny’s name?”
“Benjamin Hannibal Goddard, his middle name chosen for the famed Carthaginian of old. Why?”
Miss Pearson swung the kettle over the coals on the raised hearth that took up half of the kitchen’s outside wall. She’d made a pretty picture in the garden, and she made a different sort of pretty picture in the kitchen.
Rye should have tarried longer in France, where a call upon a certain good-humored and friendly widow in Reims figured on his itinerary.
“You had no idea, then?” Miss Pearson asked as she withdrew a loaf from the bread box and took a knife from a drawer.
“No idea of what?”
She wielded the knife with a mesmerizing sort of competence, the slices perfectly even. “Not Benjamin Hannibal, Colonel. The child’s name is Benevolence Hannah.”
Orion was hungry enough to risk snitching a slice of bread. He tore a crust off and stuck it in his mouth. Reasonably fresh, probably made that morning.
“Strange names for a lad.”
Miss Pearson paused in her artistry and slanted him a look.
The bread abruptly got stuck in Orion’s throat.
Benny’s indisposition that had visited last month, and was back again a few weeks later. The use of grime as camouflage for cheeks that would never grow a beard. The reticence around the other boys, the knit cap worn in all weather.
“Rubbishing hell.”
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