No Earls Allowed (The Survivors #2)(24)

“I couldn’t ask you to do that, sir.”

He frowned. “You didn’t ask. I offered.” And he’d be damned if he would retract his offer now. The pie man would be back, and to supplement, they had a whole house full of able-bodied children. “Besides, the boys should learn some self-sufficiency.”

Her dark eyes rounded. “You intend to have the children cook their own breakfast?”

“Why not? I did it during the war.” If he could do it, so could these boys. More to the point, if a man like Rafe Beaumont, who could charm a woman into pretty much anything and probably never had to cook or sew or even shave himself before joining Draven’s men, could cook his own porridge, so could these boys. Even little Charlie would do a better job than Rafe’s first laughable attempt.

“It must bring back fond memories,” she said. When he raised a brow, she added. “You’re smiling.”

“Just send the boys to me when they wake,” he told her. “I’ll take care of breakfast.”

The look she gave him was one he could only characterize as confusion. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

He let out a choked laugh. “You think I’m nice?” If only she had even an inkling of what he’d done during the war, she would probably run from him, screaming all the way. Shaking his head, he strode down the stairs, back to his hard chair and his cold post.

*

In the morning, Julia did as Wraxall had suggested and sent the boys down to the kitchen. With Wraxall in charge of the boys—and the scent of something cooking—she had extra time in the morning for the first time since she’d come to the orphanage. She took her time washing all over with the cold water in her basin, dressed carefully in the best of what she thought of as her work dresses. Those were the ones she had pulled from her dressing room and taken with her—she swallowed the lump in her throat—when she’d come here.

Her work wardrobe amounted to four or five dresses, although she had finer garments here as well. She could not return to Mayfair dressed like a maid. Of course, now that she no longer had Mrs. Nesbit to help her dress, she was rather limited to what she could manage to don without assistance. The dress she wore—a pale-blue muslin day dress with pink roses on the hem and bodice—was probably too fine for the orphanage. The material was too light in color and would show every stain. It would probably be soiled by midmorning. She’d have to tie an apron over it. And, Lud, but she hoped her mother did not look down from above and see her dressed in an apron.

Julia often tucked her hair in a mobcap, but though it was practical and modest and kept her hair out of the way, she could not make herself do it this morning. She didn’t want to think too much about why she wanted to look pretty. She didn’t want to think about who she was trying to look pretty for because the boys certainly didn’t care what she looked like.

She braided several sections of her hair and was almost done winding them into a simple but elegant coiffure when she heard something crash. She dropped the hairpin she’d held delicately between two fingers and listened for more crashes.

None came.

She also didn’t hear any yelling.

Whenever one of the boys had been responsible for a mishap in the kitchen previously, the cook had screamed with the full power of her well-developed lungs. Now, she heard nothing more than a pause in the murmur of voices and then their resumption.

Interesting. So Wraxall was not the sort of man who lost his temper easily. Not the sort of man who yelled and bellowed at others—or at least not at children. She lifted the pin from the floor and frowned at herself in the small oval mirror. The man was too good. She’d find him out today.

When she’d finished her hair, she gave herself a slight nod in the mirror. She looked more presentable than she had in weeks. She took the servants’ stairs to the kitchen, wanting to see what exactly Mr. Wraxall had the boys doing, but she was met at the closed door by Charlie, thumb in his mouth.

“Youangoinere,” he said around his thumb, holding his free hand up for emphasis.

Julia smiled. “Charlie, I can’t understand you with your thumb in your mouth. Do take it out.”

He did, keeping the wet, wrinkled digit at the ready. “But, my lady, it’s clean and everything. The major made us wash our hands and faces.” He wrinkled his nose. “With soap.”

“The major? Is that Mr. Wraxall?”

“Mmm-hmm.” The thumb had gone back in his mouth.

“And he made you wash with soap?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

She tugged the thumb out gently. “And why do you call him the major?”

“Robbie asked… I forgot what he asked, but Mr. Wraxall said ‘major.’ So now we all call him the major.” His thumb went back into his mouth like a spoon into a plum pudding. Julia stared at the kitchen door and pressed her lips together. This would not do at all. She did not want the boys giving Mr. Wraxall nicknames and growing close to him. He would not be staying.

But when she stepped forward to try again to enter the kitchen, Charlie held up his hand. He pushed his thumb to the side of his mouth, stretching his face almost comically. “I’m supposed to take you to the dining room, my lady.”

She raised her brows. “Oh?”

He offered her his arm. It took a moment for her to realize she was supposed to take it, but when she did so, he led her back upstairs, then down again via the formal stairway. Mr. Goring skulked outside the dining room, but when he saw her, he straightened and removed his cap. “Will there be anything to break our fast this morning, my lady?”