Drops of Gold(15)

“I have kept you overlong, Mrs. Sanders,” Layton said.

She nodded and left, her dignity intact, though Layton’s opinion of her had lowered. He sincerely hoped she’d simply remembered wrong during their earlier conversation and that Miss Wood had misunderstood Mrs. Sanders’s explanation. But then, there was the matter of the bonus offered. He hadn’t yet determined how to reconcile that.

“Thank you, sir,” Miss Wood said, her voice uncharacteristically subdued. “I wasn’t sure to whom I should apply to acquire my wages. Mrs. Sanders is the one withholding them, and the butler is—”

“Her husband.” Layton understood the dilemma immediately. Blast, his head was starting to hurt. He’d not been back home more than a couple of hours and already found himself faced with a household crisis. Philip had never indicated such difficulties at Lampton Park, not that they discussed much anymore.

“Now I am particularly embarrassed over my behavior earlier,” Miss Wood said.

He looked up to find her smiling amusedly.

“I must be a complete nodcock to have been so disrespectful to the one person in this house who stood between me and a fortune.” She sounded on the verge of laughter.

“Seven pounds, ten.” Layton nodded. That was a significant amount for a servant.

“At the moment, that is a fortune,” Miss Wood said. “Thank you again, sir.”

He nodded his reply.

She watched him closely for a moment, an evaluation he found deucedly uncomfortable. She seemed to grow more amused. “I think Miss Caroline was correct.”

“Correct?” he asked a little warily.

“She told me you were only scary because you’re a giant,” Miss Wood said.

“A giant?” he repeated after Miss Wood had left. Is that how Caroline saw him? Not only a giant but something frightening?

He dropped his head into his hands and sighed.





Chapter Seven



“I found one, Mary! I found one!”

Layton stopped at the sound of Caroline’s voice.

“Let me get it, dear.” Miss Wood’s voice joined his daughter’s.

Layton stepped toward them. He found Caroline kneeling on a wool blanket on the banks of the Trent along the east end of the Meadows. Layton made a habit of walking along the river—had come there nearly every day since Bridget had left him. He’d never once come across Caroline during his walks, nor anyone else, for that matter.

Caroline sat watching Miss Wood, who was kneeling on the riverbank, scooping at the river with a long twig and laughing as she did so. She always seemed to be laughing.

“Ooh! Ooh!” Caroline bounced up and down, clapping her mittened hands. “You nearly have it, Mary. Just a little farther!”

“A little farther, and I shall fall feet over face into the water, and that, I assure you, would not please anyone. Least of all myself!” Despite her declaration, Miss Wood’s tone remained lighthearted. “Perhaps if we wish hard enough, my arms will grow another few inches in the next ten seconds or so before the current pulls it entirely out of my reach.”

“You cannot let it get away, Mary!” An uncomfortable amount of emotion entered Caroline’s voice. Layton’s heart wrenched to hear it. “It’s the first leaf we’ve seen all morning!”

Layton watched Miss Wood turn her face back from the river to look at Caroline. A look of such affectionate concern lit the governess’s eyes. Layton caught his breath. He realized with a great deal of regret that none of Caroline’s nurses had shown even a fraction of such genuine attachment to her.

“Please don’t let it get away!” Caroline cried, now jumping to her feet.

Miss Wood turned back to her task, leaning dangerously far over the water. Another inch and she’d tumble off the bank. The Trent, as Layton well knew, was unpleasantly frigid by the end of December. “I simply cannot reach,” Miss Wood said.

“But I am wishing ever so hard. Are your arms longer yet?”

“Perhaps we should wish for something else.”

“My arms are far longer than Miss Wood’s.” Layton’s words surprised even himself.

“Papa!” Caroline cried out as Miss Wood let out a yelp of surprise and flailed her arms for a moment to keep her balance.

Layton stood close enough to their blanket to drop down beside them both. He quickly wrapped his arm around Miss Wood’s waist and pulled her back from the water’s edge. A tingle ran up his arm and through his entire body, and he found himself strangely reluctant to let her go.

Layton realized, to his chagrin, that she was laughing again. He snatched his arm away, though she didn’t seem to notice or care. “Save the leaf, sir!” she implored as she gasped out another full-lunged laugh. She put her twig in his hand. “Right there, tangled in the roots of that tree.”