Bear No Malice Read online

  The maid’s subdued expression gave way to one of frank curiosity as she looked from Julia to Tom.

  “Very well,” said Tom through clenched teeth. He reluctantly surrendered his coat and hat to the maid, removed the offending footwear, and followed Julia into the drawing room.

  After the maid closed the doors, Julia settled herself on a sofa, half reclining in a pose that looked relaxed to the unpracticed eye, but Tom wasn’t fooled. He made no such pretense, pacing about the room just as he had in the entrance hall.

  “Do sit down, Tom,” she said after a moment. “You’re making me dizzy.”

  He sat down in a chair as far away from her as possible.

  “Are you going to tell me what your business is with Charles?” When Tom didn’t answer, Julia exclaimed, “For heaven’s sake, can you make it any more obvious that you don’t want to talk to me? Oblige me by sitting a little closer so I don’t have to scream to be heard. I’m not going to attack you.”

  Tom rose and sat in the chair opposite her, making a mental effort at the same time to modify his attitude. He would not get what he wanted by antagonizing her. “I’m sorry. I wanted to speak to Lord Carrington about finding a situation for a boy.”

  “What boy?”

  Tom explained briefly how Jack had come to be living with him, concluding with, “I thought he might find a place in your household, perhaps as a stableboy or boot boy.”

  “You ought to speak to Grogan about that,” Julia said. “That’s the butler’s responsibility. I don’t think we need any servants at the moment, though.”

  “Jack is a quick learner. Is there any harm in trying him out? I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.” Tom hoped he didn’t sound desperate.

  Julia gazed at him coolly. “You must encounter many unfortunate children in the course of your work. Why does this one matter so much?”

  “They all matter. Jack sought me out, and I’m trying to help him.”

  “How admirable of you.”

  Tom wanted to shake her. “Look, Julia, you may treat me as badly as you like for my past behavior, but don’t punish the boy for what I’ve done. He needs a situation, and you’re in a position to give him one.”

  “I’d forgotten how intense you are when you want something,” Julia said. “Is there anything you can’t obtain through the sheer force of your will? That intensity was very attractive to me when I was your object, but now it just seems rather frightening. Don’t scowl at me like that, Tom. It won’t do any good.”

  “I thought you might appreciate the opportunity to save a child, given what you did to mine.”

  It took a few seconds for his meaning to dawn on her, but when it did, she sat upright, green eyes blazing. “What I did?” she hissed in a stage whisper. “What would you have had me do? Give birth to your bastard and tell Charles it was fathered by the Holy Spirit?”

  Tom was tempted to respond with a sarcastic comment about her desire to be portrayed as the Virgin Mary, but he managed to restrain himself. “Don’t be vulgar,” he said instead. “It isn’t becoming to you.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. I must remember I’m with a clergyman. We must both say and do only what is right and holy.”

  Tom stood abruptly and strode to the other side of the room. As he stood with his back to her, staring with unseeing eyes at a painting on the wall, he found himself praying for help. The conversation had gone in a direction he hadn’t intended, and he didn’t know how to repair the damage. For Jack’s sake, there had to be a way to turn it around.

  Tom took a deep breath and returned to the chair he had vacated. Julia’s face was averted, but he saw that she was trembling, and his anger evaporated.

  “Julia, I’m sorry for everything that has happened between us,” he said quietly. “I take full responsibility for my part in our affair. From the beginning, I knew better than to encourage any sort of intimacy between us, but I did it anyway. And I’m sorry I was no help to you in the matter of the . . .” He stopped. The word child was suddenly no longer just a word. For the first time he fully understood the reality of what Julia had done, with his tacit approval, and his throat closed.

  She looked at him with tears in her eyes. “Just when I want to hate you, you become human.”

  Tom struggled to compose himself. “I really did intend to see Charles today, not you,” he said finally. “I knew no good could come of further meetings with you.” He looked away, then said, “He came to see me a couple of months ago.”

  He didn’t need to see her face to know she was alarmed. “Why?”

  “I can’t tell you the substance of our conversation. He confided in me as his priest, and I can’t break that confidence.” Tom knew he sounded like a hypocrite. He met Julia’s eyes again. “I believe he loves you. If you could give him another chance—”

  “Is that the real reason you came here?” Julia interrupted. “To argue my husband’s case? You’re hardly the right person to be his advocate.”

  “No, that isn’t why I’m here. I’ll say no more about him. Will you please consider my request about Jack and talk to Lord Carrington about it?”

  “I’ll consider it. Though you do have quite the nerve to come here and ask for favors.”

  Tom sighed. “I had exhausted all other avenues, and I thought there would be nothing to lose by asking.”

  She smiled suddenly, giving him the look that used to sustain him for days, sometimes even weeks, between their encounters. “I’ve always admired your nerve, and you know it. Is there anything you’re afraid of?”

  He could have listed several things, but he chose to remain silent.

  Julia must have seen something in his face that pleased her, for she visibly relaxed. Sitting back and stretching her arm across the back of the sofa, she said, “I met your little friend Miss Thorne the other day.”

  “She told me you’ve commissioned her to paint your portrait. Why did you choose her?”

  “Why not?” Julia replied airily. “She has talent, and I like to support unknown artists, especially women artists. You men have all the support you need.”

  Though Julia and Miranda both attended the cathedral services, they moved in such different circles that Tom hadn’t expected them to meet. He saw no good coming from Julia’s decision to commission Miranda, but he didn’t want either woman to know it.

  “I like Miss Thorne very much,” Julia continued, watching Tom’s face closely. “I’m thinking of taking her in hand and making her my new project.”

  Julia was always taking some younger woman “in hand,” as she put it, and turning her into a stylized, watered-down version of herself. The thought of Miranda as a pale imitation of Julia filled Tom with horror. The two women couldn’t be more different.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “Whyever not?” Julia persisted. “With some new frocks and a different way of arranging her hair, she’d be quite attractive. Those horrid black dresses and that severe hairstyle remind me of my grandmother in mourning. It ought to be a crime for a young woman to dress that way.”

  “She’d never stand for your meddling. She may seem meek, but she’s actually very strong-willed.”

  “Is she? I’m glad to hear it. Then she’ll have a chance against you, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Perhaps she’ll see past your charm and you won’t be able to wrap her around your little finger the way you do with most women.”

  “This conversation is ridiculous. If you wish to befriend Miss Thorne, do so, but you’ll oblige me if you don’t discuss our relationship with her.”

  “I understand,” Julia said with a look he didn’t like.

  Tom regretted saying anything to Julia about Miranda. His fear of losing Miranda—or rather, Miranda’s friendship—put him too much in Julia’s power. His only hope was that her desire to protect her own reputation would also protect his.

  Before the conversation could take another bad turn, he rose abruptly. In a more
formal tone, he thanked her for agreeing to discuss a situation for Jack with her husband and took his leave.

  A few days later, Tom knocked at the door of a modest row house in Kensal Green. After visiting nearly every penitentiary in London in search of Ann Goode, he’d been ready to give up when he received a letter from the Mother Superior of a penitentiary in Upminster. She’d heard about his search and wrote that a young woman named Ann Goode had been an inmate there but had been discharged three months earlier, having found work as a maid in London. The Mother Superior had enclosed the address of Ann’s employers, the Smithsons.

  During his work on the penitentiary project, Tom hadn’t had reason to see the inmates after they had been discharged. He had dealt mainly with the administrators, though the inmates he had seen at the well-run institutions hadn’t looked the way he had expected—not like hardened women of the streets, but quiet, sober young women. Most of them were very young, often under twenty, but the spark of life and hope that should have been in the eyes of people so young had been absent. Would this be the case with Ann Goode?

  The door was opened by a buxom, rosy-cheeked young woman with dark hair. Although she looked older than Tom had expected—Jack had said she was eighteen, but she could have passed for three-and-twenty—her eyes were the same unusual gold-flecked brown as Jack’s. But he needed more information before he could be certain of her identity.

  “Yes, sir?” she said, waiting. Her eyes narrowed a little at the sight of his clerical collar, but she lowered them quickly. She returned her gaze to his face and gave him an odd little smile that threw him off-balance.

  In a tone that was more severe than he intended, he gave her his name and asked to see Mrs. Smithson, deciding it would be best to speak to her employer before revealing his errand to the girl herself, especially if she wasn’t Jack’s sister.

  Mrs. Smithson received Tom in a small parlor, every surface of which was cluttered with knickknacks. He had to remove knitting needles and yarn from the chair upon which she invited him to sit.

  Despite the cluttered state of her house, Mrs. Smithson’s person was tidy, and she had a pleasant, unlined face framed by a cloud of silver hair. She would have presented a distinguished and respectable appearance if it were not for the state of her house.

  “It isn’t every day I receive a visit from a cathedral clergyman,” Mrs. Smithson said. “I’m honored.”

  “Thank you. I’m here because I’m looking for someone. I believe she may be the servant girl who let me in. Is her name Ann Goode?”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Smithson looked worried. “She isn’t in trouble, is she?”

  “No, not at all.” Tom asked a few more questions about Ann. When he was satisfied that the girl was indeed Jack’s sister, he asked to speak with her.

  Mrs. Smithson didn’t reply immediately, seeming lost in thought. Then she said, “I don’t know if it will be good for her to see her brother. She’s cut all ties to her family, and wisely so, from the little she’s told me about them. The boy will remind her of her old life, and she may fall into sin again.”

  Tom wasn’t surprised by Mrs. Smithson’s hesitation, since he had similar feelings on the subject—though on behalf of Jack, not Ann. “I understand,” he said, “but the boy is under my care and will have no further dealings with his father, if I can help it. Ann seems to be doing well here, and I don’t think a meeting with her brother will hurt either of them.”

  “Yes. Well.” Mrs. Smithson hesitated again. “The girl has been with me only a few months, and I’ve had . . . difficulties with her.”

  “What sort of difficulties?”

  “She’s a good worker, for the most part, but she’s had followers, just the sort of thing one worries about with a girl like that. To be frank with you, Canon Cross, I don’t think I would hire a servant girl from a penitentiary again. She is too bold with men.”

  “I see.” From his initial impression of Ann, Tom wasn’t surprised. “Nevertheless, I’d like to speak with her about her brother.”

  “Very well.”

  Mrs. Smithson rang a bell, and Ann appeared at the door. “Yes, mum?”

  “Come here, Ann. Canon Cross would like to speak to you.”

  Slowly, the girl took a few steps into the room, pausing several feet away with a guarded look.

  “Do you have a brother named Jack?” Tom asked.

  The guarded look changed to one of alarm. “Yes, sir. What’s he done?”

  “He’s done nothing wrong. He has left home, though, and he is under my care. He asked me to find you.”

  Ann’s eyes filled with tears, and she began to search in her apron pocket, presumably for a handkerchief. The search took some time, and Mrs. Smithson didn’t make a move to help, so Tom offered Ann his own.

  She took it and blew her nose noisily, then turned to him with a tear-streaked face. “Is ’e here? Can I see ’im?”

  “Not today. But if Mrs. Smithson has no objection, I could bring him to see you tomorrow.”

  Mrs. Smithson interjected, “I’m afraid tomorrow isn’t possible. I’m having guests for dinner, and I’ll need Ann’s help all day. The day after would be better, and I think it would also be better if Ann and her brother could meet elsewhere, in a more . . . congenial location. Could you arrange that, Canon Cross?”

  Tom felt a flash of irritation. Mrs. Smithson seemed to believe that Jack’s presence would lower the Smithsons in the eyes of their neighbors. He wasn’t fooled by her careful choice of words.

  “Yes, of course,” was all he said, attempting to mask his annoyance. He didn’t know where Ann and Jack could meet. The cathedral was too impersonal and too public, and Tom’s own lodgings were out of the question—a young woman, servant or no, could not be seen visiting him on her own.

  “Does my da know you’re ’ere?” Ann asked Tom suddenly, looking suspicious. “’E didn’t send you, did ’e?”

  “No. He doesn’t even know that Jack is staying with me, and you needn’t fear that I’ll tell him where you are.”

  Ann relaxed a little, tightly clasping the handkerchief again.

  Promising to find a place for Ann and Jack to meet in two days, Tom took his leave. Lost in thought and moving quickly, he nearly knocked over a man walking in the opposite direction past the Smithsons’ house.

  “I beg your pardon,” Tom said.

  The man didn’t speak, only touched the brim of his too-large bowler hat and hurried away.

  Tom took Jack to the Thornes’ house that evening for a visit. Jack wanted to show Miranda the progress he had made on his latest drawing, and Tom needed advice from his friends regarding a meeting place for Jack and his sister. On the way there, Tom told Jack that he had found Ann and the boy ran in circles around Tom, asking excited questions, few of which Tom could answer. It was good to see Jack happy, despite Tom’s misgivings about reuniting the siblings.

  At the Thornes’ house, Tom made small talk with Simon while Miranda and Jack huddled in a corner of the drawing room with paper and charcoal sticks. Gwen was in Denfield visiting her family for a few days. Tom didn’t want to raise the subject of Ann until Miranda could be part of the conversation, so he waited until she looked up from her drawing, then beckoned her to join him and Simon.

  Miranda sat on the footstool by Simon’s chair, across from Tom. He wondered if she sat there only when Gwen was away. With her hands clasped around her knees, sitting close to her brother, Miranda looked very young and vulnerable, in need of protection.

  Tom told Miranda and Simon about his meeting with Ann Goode, speaking low enough that Jack couldn’t hear him from the other side of the room.

  “I’m so glad you found her!” Miranda said. She spoke quietly, taking her cue from Tom, but her eyes shone with pleasure.

  “So am I,” said Tom. “The only trouble is, Mrs. Smithson doesn’t want the siblings to meet at her house. She’s worried, I think, that Jack will somehow be a bad influence on Ann, when I think the opposite is more l
ikely.”

  Miranda frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “To some degree it’s natural to worry that siblings from such a family could drag each other down,” Tom said, “but Jack is only a boy, and Ann is grown-up. And even though she’s likely received some good moral and practical training at the penitentiary, that doesn’t mean she won’t fall again.”

  He looked at Simon for masculine affirmation. Miranda couldn’t be expected to understand the dark side of human nature, even the dark side of feminine nature. But Simon’s face remained neutral, and he didn’t respond.

  Miranda said, “Isn’t that true of anyone? We can all fall into error, no matter how sound or extensive the moral teachings we’ve received.” Her ice-blue eyes challenged Tom.

  “Of course,” he said, feeling uncomfortable, “but a girl like this is . . . in particular danger.”

  Still the challenging look. “Do you mean morally weaker?”

  Tom looked again at Simon, whose expression didn’t change. “Yes, I suppose so,” Tom said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to discuss Ann’s past with you.”

  “I know what sort of past most inmates in penitentiaries have,” Miranda replied. “And I know what sort of training they receive—though I wouldn’t use that word for it.”

  Simon put his hand on Miranda’s shoulder.

  Tom was startled both by the emotion in Miranda’s voice and by Simon’s gesture. “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve done charity work in a penitentiary.”

  Tom knew there were women who worked with the inmates on a volunteer basis, but he didn’t think an unmarried woman ought to do so.

  “Does that surprise you?” Miranda asked.

  Tom didn’t answer. Instead, he turned to Simon. “Did you approve of Miranda’s doing such work?”

  “I saw no problem with it,” Simon replied. Despite his casual answer, it seemed to have cost him something to give it, for he didn’t meet Tom’s eyes, and he looked anxious and tense.