Free A Woman Scorned by Liz Carlyle Page B

then I shall do the same with you. Is that understood?”
    One foot thumping rhythmically against his chair leg, Robert snagged his lip and nodded. “Very well,” said Cole, turning to face Stuart. His gaze was hooded, his expression stark but otherwise unreadable. Had the child been a few years older, Cole would have said that something besides his father’s death weighed heavily upon his mind. But honestly, what could it be? Lord Mercer was only nine years old. Cole shrugged off the strange sensation and spent the next half hour trying to ascertain just where both boys stood in terms of academic development.
    It was quite late by the time Cole concluded his interviews with Robert and Stuart. He had taken two pages of notes about their past studies, and completed a list of books and supplies that would be required to go forward.
If
he went forward, and he was not at all sure he should. But the niggling sense that something was very wrong with Lady Mercer’s children continued to plague him.
    When at last Cole quit the schoolroom, the house had fallen quiet. No doubt the servants were already belowstairs beginning their preparations for the evening. There would be dinner to cook, draperies to draw, and even in May, hearths to be swept and laid for the night. The upstairs hall beyond the schoolroom was empty, with no sign of either the nurse or the butler.
    And what was the butler’s name? Donaldson. A very familiar looking fellow. Indeed, he was apparently a former soldier, if Robert had been correct in his childish chattering. Had Donaldson’s path perhaps crossed Cole’s somewhere on the Continent? It was, he supposed, rather unlikely. And yet, Cole decided, making his way down-stairs, there really was something about the fellow that sparked a sense of recognition.
    It struck him as odd, too, that Donaldson was such a handsome fellow, and rather young to be a butler. What was it James had said? That Lady Mercer had dismissed all her servants and brought new ones down from Scotland? That story, perhaps, explained the erstwhile head groom who was now reposing as a slipshod gardener. Or did it? No, it just confused things all the more. The man really had seemed to be
watching
more than he had been
gardening
. He had been trampling a bed of young daffodils, for pity’s sake.
    Cole tried to shrug off the thought. It seemed that Lord Robert Rowland’s fanciful ideas were contagious. Nonetheless, there was no denying the fact that the boy was bright beyond his seven years, and highly intelligent often meant wildly imaginative. The older boy, Stuart, Lord Mercer, was more introspective, harder to read. And yet he was definitely on edge, and the cause seemed to be something more than simple grief.
    Cole had paid little attention to James’s rantings before, but now his words took on a new significance. Why bring servants all the way from Scotland? And why hire two bully-boys right out of St. George’s-in-the-East and rig them out as footmen? As Cole skimmed his hand lightly along the banister on his way down the next flight of stairs, another thought struck him.
    He hit the landing and froze in his tracks. Why was young Lord Mercer so frightened?
Unease
was far too weak a word for what Cole had seen flash across Stuart’s face. It really had been stark fear; a fear that had long ago gone beyond panic and become hopelessly familiar. He had seen it before, on the faces of young but stoic soldiers after a seemingly ceaseless battle. That, more than anything else Cole had seen today, began to chill him to the bone.
    He remembered himself all too well at just that age, unexpectedly orphaned and scared out of his wits. It was a very difficult age at which to lose one’s parents. And while it was true that Stuart had lost only his father, Cole harbored grave misgivings about the parent who was left to him.
    In Cole’s case, his Uncle James had not helped matters at all, shipping Cole straightaway to Eton and demanding Cole’s