Lord of Scoundrels - Loretta Chase [110]
About a month and a half ago, a few well-meaning folks had attempted to settle him in school. Dominick refused to settle, wreaking havoc and mayhem during the three times he'd attended. He picked fights with the other children and played nasty tricks on master and pupils alike. He couldn't be schooled into good behavior because he answered with laughter, taunts, and obscenities. He couldn't be whipped into obedience either, because one had to catch him first, and he was diabolically quick.
In the last few weeks, his behavior had grown increasingly flagrant, the incidents more numerous. During one week, Dominick had, on Monday, torn Mrs. Knapp's laundry from the line and trampled it in the mud; on Wednesday he'd dropped a dead mouse into Missy Lobb's market basket; on Friday he'd thrown horse droppings at Mr. Pomeroy's freshly painted stable doors.
Most recently, Dominick had blackened the eyes of two youths, bloodied the nose of another, urinated on the front steps of the bakehouse, and exposed his bottom to the minister's housemaid.
Thus far, the villagers had kept their complaints to themselves. Even if they had been able to catch Dominick, they were baffled what to do with the lord of the manor's fiendish son. No one yet had mustered the courage to confront Dain with his offspring's crimes. No one yet could overcome codes of decency and delicacy to complain of Dain's bastard to his wife. No one, moreover, could find Charity Graves and make her do something about her Demon Seed.
It was this last that troubled Jessica most. Charity had not been seen in the last fortnight, during which time Dominick's bids for attention— as she viewed his atrocities— had grown increasingly desperate.
Jessica was sure it was his father's attention he sought. Since Dain was inaccessible, the only way to get it was to throw the village into an uproar. Jessica also suspected the mother had instigated or encouraged the disturbances in some way. Still, the method seemed stupidly risky. Dain was far more likely to carry out his threat of having Charity transported than to pay her to go away, if that was what she wanted.
The alternative explanation, even more disturbing, made less sense. Charity may have simply abandoned the child, and for all one knew, he'd been sleeping in stables or out on the moors, in the shelter of the rocks. Yet Jessica couldn't believe the woman had simply left, empty-handed. She could not have snared a rich lover, else all Dartmoor would know about it. Discretion was not at all in Charity's style, according to Phelps.
In either case, Jessica had decided last night, the boy could not be permitted to run amok any longer.
The patience of Athton's inhabitants was being stretched to its limits. One day, very soon, a mob of outraged villagers would be pounding at Athcourt's doors. Jessica had no more intention of waiting for that event than she did for a possibly abandoned child to die of exposure or starvation or be sucked down into one of Dartmoor's treacherous mires. She could not wait any longer for Dain to come to his senses.
Accordingly, she had come down to breakfast wearing the same tautly haggard expression Aunt Claire wore when suffering one of her deadly headaches. All of the servants had noticed, and Bridget had asked twice en route to church whether Her Ladyship was feeling poorly. "A headache, that's all," Jessica had answered. "It won't last, I'm sure."
After disembarking, Jessica dawdled until Joseph departed, as he usually did, for the bake-house, where his younger brother was employed, and the other servants were either in church or on their way to their own Sunday morning diversions. That left only one unwanted guardian, Bridget.
"I believe I had better excuse myself from services," Jessica said, rubbing her right temple. "Exercise always clears a headache, I find. What I need is a good, long walk. An hour or so ought to do it."
Bridget was a London-trained servant. Her idea of a good, long walk was the distance from the front door to the carriage. It