She nodded, understanding what he meant and being in complete agreement. There had to be some arrangement they could make to keep the children in their lives.
CHAPTER17
Together with the children and Diana, Toby stared out of the carriage window at the signpost declaring that the village they were entering was Minstead.
Nearly there.
The thought filled him with depressing dread rather than pleasant anticipation.
TheIrish Rosehad sailed into Southampton on the morning tide and docked at the main wharf. The ship had picked up more passengers during its short stay at Gibraltar, but their party was the only one with children, and consequently, they were the first down the gangplank onto English soil.
Given the relatively early hour, after collecting their luggage, they’d adjourned to an inn for breakfast, then he’d hired a carriage and driver for the hour-or-so-long journey into the New Forest, to Fellows Hall, which was apparently located just outside Minstead.
In Vienna, Fellows had given Toby directions to the estate, and he’d relayed those to the driver. As the carriage rolled through the village itself, Toby owned to a certain interest in viewing the place the children would, in the future, most likely call home.
While living at Fellows Hall with their great-aunt.
He glanced at the three, who had taken possession of the rear-facing seat, leaving him with Diana beside him and Helga beside her on the seat opposite.
As usual, Bruno was stretched out on the floor between their feet, but even the dog had his head up, his ears pricked as if sensing something was about to happen.
Toby studied the children. Initially, they’d been eager and enthusiastic over getting their first look at an English port, and then the city, and eventually, the countryside, but the farther they’d traveled, the quieter and more serious the three had grown. Now, their expressions of uncertainty and burgeoning trepidation mirrored his own feelings.
I’m really not sure about this.
While on board, he and Diana had spent a lot of time with the children, keeping a watchful eye on them, but also interacting with them more or less constantly, which had served to keep them all—Toby and Diana as well as the children—entertained and amused.
One change both he and Diana had noticed was that the children now consistently and spontaneously referred to him and her as Papa and Mama. Immediately on boarding, the trio had also reverted to naming themselves Cynsters. As none of the crew, including Peter Duncan, the master, knew Toby well enough to question that, they’d become the Cynster family throughout the voyage, a development that had left Toby feeling both pleased and also sad.
Pleased that the children wanted to claim his name and sad that it wasn’t true.
As the carriage rocked around a corner, presumably onto the lane that would take them to Fellows Hall, and the village fell behind, Toby owned to a sinking feeling of being about to lose something he’d unexpectedly discovered to be supremely precious and important to him.
After they’d left Gibraltar and the distractions there and the ship was plowing through the waves, making direct for Southampton, he’d been sitting on some coils of rope and watching the children playing a game of knucklebones in the prow when Roland had left the other two playing and had climbed up to sit on the rope beside Toby.
After several moments of staring out at the waves, visible from their perch, Roland had said, “Our papa—our real papa...” He’d paused to draw in a tight breath. “He’ll have gone by now, won’t he?”
With his mind whirling, Toby had cast about for what he should say. And how. Eventually, he’d replied in a steady, even, matter-of-fact tone, “If he has, there will be letters waiting for us—you, me, and Diana—at Fellows Hall.”
By Toby’s calculation, given what Fellows had intimated of his illness and incipient death, their father would have passed away sometime during their sojourn on San Giulio. Fellows had promised Toby and Diana that news of his death would be telegraphed to London, to his solicitor, and from there to Fellows Hall, so that all would be in train legally once they arrived at their destination.
Toby continued to feel an enormous degree of respect for Fellows and the way that, to the very end, he’d done his utmost to protect his children.
But Roland’s questions hadn’t ended with that point. Looking down, he’d picked at the rough rope between them. “Are you and Mama—Diana—going to get married? Really married.”
That had been much easier to answer. “Yes. As soon as we can.” Given the children were definitely not blind, and he and Diana had been sharing her cabin since Marseille, Toby hadn’t been surprised by Roland’s query.
The boy’s lips had tightened, and the fingers picking at the rope had slowed, then stilled. Then hesitatingly, he’d asked, “Could we—the three of us—come and stay with you? You and Mama?” Roland had looked up, his expression one of pleading tinged with desperation. “At least for some of the time?”
Toby’s heart had clenched. Hard, tight, a rocklike knot in his chest. He’d read the plea in Roland’s eyes and had ached to answer it. He’d swallowed, then said, his voice lower, “We’ll need to see what your great-aunt says. She’ll be your legal guardian.”
“But she doesn’t know us. She might not want us!”
Unable to help himself, Toby had laid a comforting hand on Roland’s shoulder and met the boy’s desperate eyes. “If she doesn’t, then of course, Diana and I will keep you with us.” He paused, then added, “We won’t leave you alone.”
As he’d said the words, he’d realized thatthatwas the problem in a nutshell. The three children had lost both parents and feared being left without anyone they trusted.
Reassuringly, he’d gripped Roland’s shoulder. “One way or another, we won’t leave you. Diana and I will always be… ready to stand as your papa and mama. No matter what happens, we will remain in your lives.”
