Page 38

“At long last!” Aunt Millward tucked her arm through Jane’s, and they started down the garden path toward the orchard together. “Between the chaos of arriving later than expected last evening and keeping up appearances with your parents this morning, I have not been given one moment alone with you since I arrived.”

Jane smiled. “Flattered though I am that you wish to spend time with me, I would venture a guess that you have another, more compelling purpose for seeking me out.”

“You always have been too perceptive by half,” her aunt grumbled.

“And that is a bad thing?” Jane asked with a chuckle.

“I cannot blame you for it, I confess. Especially as it is one of the many things I admire about you.”

Jane squeezed her aunt’s arm. “Thank you, Aunt. You are good for me.”

“I wish I could say the same,” Aunt Millward said. “Do you have any idea how many sleepless nights you’ve caused me this past fortnight? Good heavens, young lady. You cannot leave London with the mystery of Asher Barton yet unsolved and not send any correspondence afterward. I have been aching to know if you have seen the boy, as has Lord Bloxley.”

“Lord Bloxley?” Notwithstanding her aunt’s flair for the dramatic, Jane had not expected her to mention the earl so casually.

“Of course,” Aunt Millward said. “I saw him at the Bushnells’ ball, and he told me as much.”

It was only natural that the earl would be anxious for word on Miss Brown’s son.

“I’m afraid we had been here over a week before I was able to go to High Brodmore, but I have written to him since then. And he has replied.”

Aunt Millward’s eyebrows rose. “Well now. That is something.” She pointed to a gap in the privet hedge that separated the wide lawn from the trees beyond. “Unless my uncle removed it, there used to be rather a nice bench just beyond this hedge. I think the sun will have dried off the morning damp by now.”

They walked a few yards farther, and sure enough, situated beneath a large apple tree with a beautiful prospect of the distant rolling hills was a sturdy wooden bench. Aunt Millward pulled a handkerchief from her reticule and used it to whoosh away an unsuspecting ladybird before taking a seat with a thankful sigh.

“Come,” she said, patting the spot beside her. “You had best join me because I shall not move from this place until you have told me everything.”

Jane carefully lowered herself onto the bench. She stretched out her injured leg and rubbed it absently. The dull ache had been her constant companion for so long now she scarcely noticed it. “I hardly know where to begin,” she said.

“The beginning,” her aunt said. “Leave nothing out.”

“You were there at the beginning.”

Aunt Millward inclined her head. “Fair enough. Tell me all that has happened since you arrived in Berkshire.”

Jane took a moment to organize her thoughts. Her first meeting with Asher at the village green had been less than a week before, and yet her steadily increasing worry for the child had seemed to weigh a little more with every day that had passed since then. Sharing her concerns with Lord Bloxley had helped, but their correspondence was yet another thing she could not speak of openly. She was more than ready to share the burden with someone else, and she valued her aunt’s opinion.

“I first saw Asher at the village green,” she began.

Her aunt nodded encouragingly, and Jane continued to tell her of her interaction with Mr. Stanley at the butcher’s shop, along with her impressions of both him and his son, Charlie, and all that had happened in the other visit. When she told her aunt of Asher’s response to the spiced buns, Aunt Millward broke her silence.

“He had never eaten a spiced bun before?” A blackbird took off in a flurry of feathers. “I may not have had children of my own, but even I know that a growing boy needs more sustenance than a piece of bread and a bowl of gruel.”

“It would seem that that is the normal fare for the Foundling Hospital boys,” Jane said.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Lord Bloxley spoke to a child who lived with the Stanleys a few years ago,” Jane said and went on to tell her aunt what the earl had shared in his letter regarding his second visit to the hospital. She shrugged miserably. “I cannot understand it. Surely the Stanleys are not so indigent as all that. They have access to meat from the butcher’s shop, and yet Asher is not eating any of it.”

“I shall make it a point to ask Mrs. Stanley exactly that tomorrow,” Aunt Millward said, straightening her shoulders decisively.

“You are seeing her tomorrow?” Jane asked.

“We both are.” Aunt Millward was on her feet again. She extended her hand to Jane. “And this time, when we visit the Stanleys’ house, we shall take pasties for Asher.”

“But will that not seem very strange? I was there but three days ago.”

“I don’t care two buttons how it appears to anyone else; all that matters is that Asher is well.”