Regency Romp - Happy Christmas Mr Jones (Regency Romps) Read Free

son.
                  The carriage stopped in the main street of the village and Lydia got down, walking swiftly towards the haberdashery shop.  She would still buy that red wool for Mr Jones’s scarf and hope that the news was not as bad as she feared.
     
     

Chapter Two
     
    ‘Mr Ernest Jones?’  Tomas Milliband asked, extending his hand.  ‘You do not know me, but until recently I had the honour to be your son’s commanding officer.  May I come in please?  I should like to talk to you.’
                  He saw the colour ebb from the elderly man’s face.  Harry had told him that his father had married late, taking a young and lovely wife when he was well into his forties.  Millicent had been a young woman of twenty, but in need of a home and someone to care for her.  By all accounts it had been a happy arrangement against the odds, until her untimely death of the smallpox at the age of forty-one.  Harry was his father’s only child – his only living relative.
                  ‘My son…is he dead?’  Mr Jones asked, his hands shaking.  ‘You would not have come all this way unless the news was bad…’
                  ‘It is bad, sir, but not the worst,’ Tomas said, looking grave.  ‘Harry was wounded saving another man’s life.  He is recovering but…I am sorry, there is no way I can put this easily to you.  He has lost a leg and will be given an honourable discharge from the army.’
                  ‘My poor boy!’  Mr Jones seemed to stagger a little.  ‘The army was his life.  Now he is crippled and will find it hard to do any kind of work…’
                  ‘He will learn to walk in time, sir.  I am paying for him to be nursed, and he will be fitted with a wooden leg when he can bear it.  For the moment the pain would be too much to bear, but in a few months…and I shall find him work on my estate.  Harry is intelligent.  He can work in my agent’s office.’
                  ‘He would not want charity, sir.’
                  Tomas smiled.  ‘I would not offer charity.  When he is well enough to work he will be expected to pull his weight, which I have no doubt he will – but do not think of what I give as charity.  Were it not for your son I should not now be standing here.  I too was wounded, blown off my feet and knocked unconscious in the face of the advancing enemy.  Harry carried me over his shoulder for more than a mile before he found a wagon to transport me back to camp.  Had he left me behind I think I should probably had died, trampled beneath the horses and wheels of a retreating army.’
                  ‘Thank you for coming to tell me, sir,’ Mr Jones said.  ‘Where is my son lying now?  In which infirmary have they placed him?’
                  ‘He is not in an infirmary.  I was sent home at the same time as Harry and arranged for him to come to my home, where we have both been nursed and looked after very well by my sister.’
                  ‘Your sister has been nursing my son?’  Mr Jones was astonished.  ‘Surely that is not fitting?’
                  ‘Angela is a widow and nothing would do for her but to nurse the man who had saved her brother’s life,’ Tomas said, smiling.  ‘Now, sir – will you allow me to take you to Harry?  He is recovering but I feel that he would do better for seeing you – and I am sure you would wish to see him for yourself.’
                  Tears rushed to the elderly man’s eyes.  ‘You are too kind, sir.  If you would wait but a moment I will gather what I need…’
                  ‘You shall be brought home again, sir.  I promise,’ Tomas said. Privately, he thought it might be a good idea for Mr Jones to live with his son in the cottage he intended to provide, but he knew the old man’s pride would not