Free Seducing Mr. Heywood by Jo Manning

sons’ hearts against her abdomen and remembered holding them when they were babes. Their little chests had heaved so when she’d embraced them. She had hated handing them over to their nursemaids. Many times, she’d fallen asleep with one of them in her arms. She could not bear letting them out of her sight in those early days of motherhood. More and more memories of those three years at Rowley Hall were coming back to her. Smells, tactile sensations, emotions…
    Why had she ever left them? What madness, what stupidity, had sent her away? This was joy. Why had she abandoned joy for the shallow pretext of her life in London? Sophia had chosen not to dwell on past mistakes, but now she was drenched in regret. It overwhelmed her even as the last remaining fingers of ice that had encased her heart tightly in its frosty grip melted away. She held her sons closer and reveled in their tight, warm, loving embrace, warmth that had set her free.
    I will never leave you again, so help me, God
, she promised them silently as she bent to kiss their fair heads. Later, she would make them acquainted with Harriett, the always smiling, pleasant young girl she’d engaged to look after them when they were not with Mr. Heywood.
    Charles had barely worked out the sum on the blackboard before William called out the answer. The boy’s mathematical gift had grown by massive increments over the last few months. The vicar constantly endeavored to be inventive in the problems he presented to William, but no sums he could set seemed a challenge.
    “All right, you genius, answer this one, if you dare: from Land’s End Cornwall to Farret’s Head in Scotland is measured to be 838 miles. Now, and take your time to work this out, at the rate of eight feet a day, how long would it take a snail—a mere snail, mind you—to creep that long distance?”
    “Sir, that is not a probable distance for a snail to cover in a day,” the literal-minded John objected.
    “This is solely for the purposes of the problem,” Charles assured him. “We both know that it is im—”
    “Five hundred fifty-three thousand and eighty days, sir!” William interrupted them.
    Charles and John looked at each other. John started scribbling the numbers on the board and working out the multiplication. Five hundred fifty-three thousand and eighty days. Yes, that was correct.
    “How does he do it, sir?” John threw up his hands in exasperation.
    “We shall stump him yet, John,” the vicar remarked with conviction.
    William smirked, crossing his bony arms over his narrow chest.
    “All right, sirrah, now pay attention. If a coach wheel is five feet ten inches in circumference, how many times would it revolve in running eight hundred million miles?”
    William frowned. In less than a minute, he had scrawled the answer to the problem—which involved changing miles to feet before dividing the numbers—on the blackboard.
    “Sir, that is seven hundred twenty-four billion, one hundred fourteen million, two hundred twenty-five thousand, seven hundred and four times, with twenty inches left over.”
    John, who had barely begun to work out the first part of the problem, threw the piece of chalk he was using to figure the sum up in the air. “Arrrgggh! How does the little beast do it?”
    “Wait, John, let me see if he has it worked out properly.” Tongue between his teeth, concentrating hard, Charles began the task of working out the long division.
    Several minutes later, he had confirmed the ten-year-old’s conclusion: “He is correct, it is seven hundred twenty-four billion, one hundred fourteen million, two hundred twenty-five thousand, seven hundred and four, with twenty inches remaining.” He, too, threw both the chalk and his hands up, despairing of ever stumping the wondrous boy, this mathematical marvel.
    Young William had a remarkable gift; Charles had never seen its like. What the second son of a baron could do with such a gift, however, was food for speculation.