Page 15
~ Miss Mercy Feathers in a letter to Hester Shepherd
Proprietress at Haven Home and Academy for the Enrichment of Young Women
Grosvenor Square, London
Marquess of Trentholm’s manor
The next afternoon
Ronan paced in his father’s study as he awaited the solicitor, Joseph Bralen’s, arrival. A sideways glance to the mahogany, inlaid longcase clock angled and patiently tick-tocking in the room’s corner revealed the solicitor was twelve minutes late.
Guardian to Masterson’s daughters?
The knowledge was surreal, and over four-and-twenty hours after Benjamin gleefully blindsided Ronan with the news, he still couldn’t quite grasp the reality of the situation.
His family had judiciously decided the forthcoming meeting should only include the relevant parties: Ronan and the pesky solicitor.
Nonetheless, he was no addlepate. His father and Sanford—likely his other well-meaning but intrusive family members as well—would be upon him like cloying fog upon the Thames in wintertime the second Bralen set a foot onto the stoop afterward.
Releasing a lungful of air from between his clamped teeth—causing Ronan’s lips to puff out in a childish fashion—he pointed what surely must be an agitated gaze ceilingward for a handful of steps.
He hadn’t been this tense and apprehensive since the sinking of the Nightingale. Although this trepidation was of a wholly different sort. This time, his life wasn’t in physical peril, but as surely as there was a God in heaven, his contented, comfortable, and highly enjoyable bachelor’s existence was about to undergo a catastrophic change.
He cupped his nape to ease the knotted muscles there.
Mayhap not.
He might not have to give up his comfortable rooms and either move to his father’s manor house—gargling glass shards was preferrable—or find a suitable townhome in London.
Or…could he simply leave the girls in their current residence and visit once or twice yearly?
Now, there was an idea worth pursuing.
Yes, that idea held real merit. Indeed, it did.
After all, many children, particularly progeny of the peerage, were left in the care of devoted servants.
Your parents will never permit it. Never.
An inconvenient but irrefutable truth there.
As unfashionable as it might be, the Trentholms were of the unpopular opinion that children thrived and were prone to far fewer temperamental or behavioral displays when their parents were frequently involved in their lives. Mother and Father would disapprove of Ronan shunting his soon-to-be wards off to a country estate to molder away.
He cringed at the less than appealing tableau that popped to mind at the thought.
His own blasted conscience seemed determined to thwart him at every turn.
What was more, Ronan still wanted to plant Benjamin a facer over his blatant delight that Ronan had been so put upon. In fact, should his smug brother show his face today, Benjamin would not depart Ronan’s presence without him blackening his brother’s eye.
How dare he openly gloat about Ronan’s misfortune?
What a deuced, bloody inconvenience.
He’d planned to sail to America again in April or May at the latest.
Besides, what was he supposed to do with two girls?
What, pray tell, did he know of raising gently bred young women?
