Ellen hung her head. "It is, indeed. I shall never forgive myself."
The man fell back on the sofa with a groan. "So the child is here. What am I to do with him now?"
There was silence.
The old man sighed. "I suppose I'd better clarify something: I am not the true guardian, either."
"No?" said all three, Edmund, Ellen and Mr West at once.
The old man shook his head, and it was a wonder it didn't creak. "No. My son is the child's guardian."
"Your son." Edmund frowned.
"Captain John William Carew." The old man stared off into the distance.
Ellen, Mr West and Edmund looked at each other. Mr West shook his head, and Edmund shrugged. None of them were acquainted with Captain Carew.
"So Captain Carew was your son," Mr West chimed in helpfully. "And he is Noni's true guardian. And?"
"Was. He died in Italy four years ago." The old man roused himself from the depths of his thoughts and looked at them. "He survived the horrors of the Peninsular Wars and Waterloo, only to die of a cold in a poor street inn somewhere in Tuscany."
"I'm so very sorry," Ellen said. "That's tragic indeed."
"Yes. You see, the problem was that he had a friend, a certain Giovanni Battista, who'd served in the Royal Sicilian Foot Regiment, and in the chaos of the battlefield, he saved my son's life. A few moments later, Battista himself was shot, and before he died, he extracted a last promise from my son: that he would take care of his newborn. The child's mother had died in childbirth. And the fool that my son was, he made that promise. So after the war, he trudged off to Tuscany to find the child. It was worse than finding a needle in a haystack, but my son was a man of his word and would keep his promise." The old man's pale, watery eyes looked at her sightlessly.
"It sounds like your son was a hero," Ellen said quietly.
"Of course he was. Got the Waterloo medal and all. But then he felt it was his duty to find the child and bring him back to England. Well, he found him. Only John fell ill and died on the way. I dare say if he'd never set foot on Italian soil to find that child, a child that's not even his, he'd still be alive today."
What was there to say? He was a bitter, grieving man, blaming a child for his son's death.
"And then?" Ellen asked breathlessly.
"He wrote me a letter before he died, begging me to find the child and take care of him. I sent my people out to find him, and it took them four bloody years to find the boy. But they found him. Had him delivered to that seminary right away."
Ellen rubbed her forehead wearily. "It's an incredible story. Both you and your son are to be commended for keeping your promises. But now we are back at the beginning. The seminary cannot take the boy. What is to be done?"
There was silence. Then the old man's voice, as tired and rusty as a creaking door hinge, said, "I dare say bring him down, and I'll have a look at him. It was my son's last wish that I care for the boy. If he kept his word, then so shall I."
Ellen's heart weighed down heavily. "May I suggest you take the nurse with you as well? He will do much better with someone he knows, and you will not have to worry about finding a suitable nurse for the child."
The old man's face brightened. "That is a practical suggestion. Then let it be done."
Noni did not sheda single tear, but Ellen was close to breaking down.
Saying goodbye to Noni was heart-wrenching and cruel. With an iron will, she pushed her feelings down and kept a cheerful disposition. The child was not to know that her heart was breaking. Noni looked at her curiously, clearly not understanding why he was expected to go with that old man.
"Lord Tennbury is your real guardian, Noni," Ellen explained as she knelt on the floor in front of him.
The child looked at her with big, serious eyes.
"We'll visit you soon, I promise." Ellen smiled weakly.
Susie, his nurse, took the child's hand, and he willingly followed her out the door.
Mr West slipped away, muttering that he had work to do.
"I'm so sorry," Ellen told Edmund for the hundredth time when they were left alone in the hall. She'd run out of words. Her eyes burned with unshed tears.
