Fool for Love Page 2

  Without waiting for Rees to answer, he strode to the other side of the room. “I never believed that story about Miles being in her room, never.”

  “You said your uncle wanted an heir,” Rees pointed out. “Why shouldn’t he have tried to get one on his wife, if she were willing? You don’t need to live with a woman to get an heir.”

  “Miles wouldn’t have taken the risk. Dr. Rathborne himself told him to avoid bedroom activity or his heart would give out.”

  “Well—”

  “No,” Darby said. He swung around and faced his friend squarely. “Esme Rawlings is running a racket on my uncle’s estate. I’ll bet you two hundred pounds there’s naught more than a pile of feathers around her stomach.”

  Rees eyed him. Then he said: “Hire a Runner. He’ll find out soon enough.”

  “I’ll go to Wiltshire myself.” Darby’s eyes were glowing with all the pent-up rage he’d felt from the moment Gerard Bunge had minced into the study with his red-painted heels and unappetizing news. “I’ll shake the truth out of her. Hell, if the woman is increasing, I want to know who its father is. Even if I can’t prove it, I want to know the truth.”

  “How will you explain your sudden appearance?” Rees asked.

  “I had a note from her a few weeks ago about London air and its insalubrious effects on children. Josie and Anabel seemed well enough to me, so I ignored it. We shall all join her in the country.”

  “Children aren’t the kind of thing you move around easily,” Rees objected. “For one thing, they come with a plaguey amount of servants, not to mention clothing and toys and the like.”

  Darby shrugged. “I’ll buy another carriage and put the girls and their nurse in it. How difficult can that be?”

  Rees stood up, tucking his now dry papers back into his breast pocket.

  “Perhaps I can find myself a spouse in the wilds of Wiltshire,” Darby said moodily. “I can’t raise my sisters by myself.”

  “I don’t know what is so difficult about raising children. Hire a nursemaid each. No need to saddle yourself with a wife.”

  “The girls need a mother. The servants find Josie particularly difficult.”

  Rees raised an eyebrow. “Can’t say my mother did much for me. I wouldn’t think that your mother had much to do with your raising either.”

  “All right, they need a good mother,” Darby replied impatiently.

  “Still not a sufficient reason to take a wife,” Rees said, leaving. “Well, best of luck with your aunt. What was that they call her? Infamous Esme, isn’t it?”

  “She’ll be infamous after I’m finished with her,” Darby said grimly.

  2

  Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

  The High Street

  Limpley Stoke, Wiltshire

  He was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. His eyes crinkled in welcome, and he smiled at her…her heart flopped in her chest, and then she was caught in a wave of longing so overwhelming it was like to throw her to the ground.

  “Lo!” he said. “Lo! Lo!”

  “You are a beautiful boy,” Henrietta cooed. She leaned down. “Do you have a tooth, sweet one? Is it right there?” She put her finger on the baby’s chin.

  He broke into a storm of giggles and took a step toward her, repeating: “Lo!”

  “Lo?” Henrietta asked, laughing back.

  “Lo-Lo!” shouted the baby.

  A little girl grabbed the baby’s hand and pulled him backward. “She means hello,” she said in an aggravated tone. “Anabel is a girl, not a boy. And she’s not beautiful. She’s quite bald, in case you didn’t notice.”

  A girl of four or five scowled at Henrietta. Her pelisse was unbuttoned, and she had no mittens, not that it mattered much. It was unseasonably warm for January, and Henrietta had left her own pelisse in her carriage. The child was wearing a grubby dress that likely started out as pale pink that morning, but had obviously made contact with the street. In fact, she had a smelly streak of manure down her front, as if she’d fallen directly onto a dung heap.

  The girl started to pull the baby away, down the street. That pink dress was fine broadcloth, if it did reek of the stable.

  Henrietta stepped squarely in front of her and then smiled as if she just happened to block her passage. “You caught me properly, didn’t you? And you’re absolutely right. I know almost nothing about children. Of course, I know that you’re a boy.”

  The girl’s scowl got deeper. “I am not!”

  “Never say so! You must be mistaken. I am quite certain that young lads of about—oh, four years old—are wearing pink with ribbons this year. I’m quite certain of it.”

  “I am not a boy and I’m five years old. If you would please move, you are blocking our way.”

  Her look of deep wariness made Henrietta blink, so she bent down, and said, “What’s your name, sweetheart? And where’s your nurse?”

  For a moment, it didn’t look as if the girl would answer at all, as if she would keep running down High Street, towing her little sister behind.

  “I’m Josie,” she said finally. Then, “Miss Josephine Darby. This is my baby sister Anabel.”

  “Lo!” Anabel shouted. “Lo!” She seemed enormously pleased that Henrietta had come back down to her level.

  “Ah,” Henrietta said, twinkling at the babe. “Now I am Lady Henrietta Maclellan. And I’m hugely pleased to make your acquaintance. Josie, do you think you misplaced your nurse somewhere?”

  “I’ve left her for another position,” Josie said grandly, and rather quickly.

  “You’ve what?”

  “I’ve left her for another position,” she repeated. “That’s what the cook said just before she moved across the street.”

  “Ah,” Henrietta said. “And where do you suppose you left Nurse, do you think?”

  “Back there,” Josie said, her lip setting mulishly. “But I’m not going back there. I won’t get in the carriage again, I won’t!” She looked down the row of mullioned windows that lined High Street. “We’ve run away and we’re not going back. We’re looking for a shop that sells ices, and then we’re going to walk even further.”

  “Do you think that Nurse may be worrying about you?” Henrietta suggested.

  “No. This is time for her morning tea.”

  “Still, she must be worried about you. Is she at the Golden Hind?”

  “She won’t notice,” Josie said. “She had hysterics again this morning. She doesn’t like traveling.”

  “If your nurse hasn’t noticed, your parents will, and they will be terribly worried if they can’t find you and your sister.”

  “My mother is dead,” Josie announced. She gave Henrietta a look that implied the fact should have been obvious.

  “Oh dear,” Henrietta said, rather lamely. Then she rallied: “How would it be if I carried your sister, and we strolled back in that direction?”

  Josie still didn’t reply, but she did drop her hold onAnabel’s hand. Henrietta reached out, and the baby toddled straight into her arms. She was plump and rosy and sweetly bald.

  Her whole face broke into a gleaming smile. She patted Henrietta’s cheek and said, “Mama?”

  Henrietta’s heart twisted in its customary, lamentable surge of envy. “Goodness,” she said. “You are a darling, aren’t you?”

  “Nurse says she’s a terrible flirt,” Josie said in a dampening sort of way.

  “Well,” Henrietta said, managing to stand up with the baby in arms, “I think I would have to agree with your nurse. Anabel seems to be quite friendly for someone making her first acquaintance with me. Not at all the sort of thing that an older young lady would do, is it?” She smiled down at Josie and began walking slowly back toward the Golden Hind, praying that her weak hip would manage the weight. Anabel was a good deal heavier than she looked.

  “Anabel does lots of things I wouldn’t do,” Josie remarked.

  “Yes, I can imagine,” Henrietta said. She was conscientiously pick
ing her way along the pavement. It would be dreadful if she tripped and dropped the babe.

  “I don’t ever spit up, for example.”

  “Of course not.” There was an uneven patch of ice coming up. Henrietta tightened her grip on Anabel.

  “I did lose my supper once. It was Easter last year, and Nurse Peeves said that I had eaten too many candied plums. Which is a complete tarradiddle, because I only had seven. I don’t think seven is too many, do you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Anabel, on the other hand, she—”

  But Anabel’s propensity to spit up became all too clear just a second later. Henrietta had managed to negotiate the broken pavement, and was pausing to let a carriage and four go so they could cross the street to the Golden Hind, when Anabel gave a dry little cough.

  “Careful,” Josie cried, clutching Henrietta’s skirts.

  Henrietta looked down at her confusedly. “It’s quite all right—” she began.

  At which point Anabel threw up down Henrietta’s back. Warm—nay, hot—liquid rolled down her back and absorbed directly into her gown.

  A second later it turned clammily cold.

  Instinctively she pulled Anabel away from her and held her away from her body. That was a huge mistake, because Anabel’s stomach wasn’t empty, and a wave of slightly curdled milk hit Henrietta in the chest and swept down her front with sodden violence. She shuddered all over but managed to keep hold of the baby.

  She was dimly aware that Josie was shouting. Anabel screwed up her face and started howling.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Henrietta said, instinctively pulling the baby back against her wet gown and cuddling her against her shoulder. “That’s all right. Don’t cry. Is your tummy upset? Don’t cry, please don’t cry.”

  She rubbed her back until the baby stopped wailing and put her head against Henrietta’s shoulder.

  Henrietta’s heart twisted with pure longing as she looked down at the bald little head, with one pink ear showing. I must do something about this, she thought to herself prosaically. If I have become so drunk with longing for a child that I admire a creature who just spewed on my best walking costume, I am truly going insane.

  Josie was dancing up and down before her. “She’s sorry!” she shouted, her voice shrilling into a near shriek. “She’s sorry, she’s sorry!”

  “So am I,” Henrietta said, grinning at her. “It’s a good thing that I’m not made of sugar and I won’t melt.”

  Some of the anxiety that pinched Josie’s little face disappeared. “She ruined your pretty dress,” she said, stepping closer and touching Henrietta’s pale amber walking gown. “Nurse says that Anabel should have stopped doing that by now. Anabel is almost a year old, after all, and she drinks from a cup. But she can’t seem to stop. I don’t think she knows how.”

  “I expect you’re right,” Henrietta said, snuggling the damp little bundle against her shoulder. “Perhaps we had better find your nurse, though, because Anabel needs a change of clothing.”

  But Josie shook her head. “Oh, no, she can’t change her clothing yet. Nurse Peeves says she must always wear the wet ones until they dry, because otherwise she’ll never learn to stop throwing up.”

  Henrietta narrowed her eyes. “What?”

  Josie told her again. And she added, “Could we please sit down and wait for the dress to dry? Because that way Nurse would never know, and Anabel hates being smacked.”

  “That’s what I thought I heard,” Henrietta said. “I shall not allow your nurse to smack Anabel, but I do intend to have her clothes changed immediately. I am going to have a conversation with your nurse. And your father.” She reached out her free hand, and Josie didn’t even hesitate, but trotted at her side across the street and into the inn.

  A plump man hurried out of the Golden Hind as they picked their way toward the entrance. “Lady Henrietta! What a great pleasure to see you!”

  “Good day, sir. How are you and Mrs. Gyfford?”

  “The better for your asking, Lady Henrietta, and so I’ll tell my wife. But what on earth?” He nodded toward the child. “That child is surely too heavy for you. And whose is it?”

  “I can carry her without problem, Mr. Gyfford.” That was a lie; Henrietta could feel that her leg was starting to drag. If she didn’t put Anabel down soon, she’d begin to list to one side like a ship in a storm. She tightened her grip.

  “I was hoping you could tell me to whom these children belong. I found them wandering down the High Street. Josie, do you—”

  But at that moment Gyfford spied Josie and his face brightened. “That’s one of Mr. Darby’s little ones. He has a private parlor. Now, how did you get out of the inn, young lady?”

  “I should like to speak to Mr. Darby,” Henrietta said firmly. “Would that be your blue parlor, Mr. Gyfford? I mean to have a word with the girls’ nurse as well.”

  The innkeeper bustled ahead of them through the carved archway leading into the inn proper. “Well, my lady, as to that, their nurse has just left.”

  “Left?” Henrietta stopped in the narrow hallway. “I suppose that explains why these children were wandering down High Street by themselves.”

  Mr. Gyfford nodded as he opened the door leading to the blue parlor. “Left a short time ago, with bag and baggage and not a word of warning. Said she didn’t bargain for leaving London and she didn’t like traveling. Quite tearful about it, she was, saying the children were too much for her, and she’d been abused and the like.”

  To Henrietta’s mind, the nurse herself was vicious, given Josie’s artless tale about vomiting and wet dresses. The fact that little Anabel was drowsily nodding on her shoulder and obviously quite uncaring about her damp condition was beside the point. The child could have caught inflammation of the lungs. Moreover, given that Bartholomew Batt’s Rules and Directions for the Well Ordering and Governing of Children maintained that a nursemaid could influence a child’s life forever, Anabel’s father had been wantonly careless in hiring such a contemptible person to care for his children.

  “Go right in, Lady Henrietta. I’ll just bring you a cup of tea. Can’t have been easy, carrying that child down the street.”

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Gyfford,” she said, walking into the room. “Just a glass of water would be lovely.”

  The room was empty. Blue carpet stretched quietly to the windows overlooking Limpley Stoke’s central square. Henrietta turned around to inquire about the whereabouts of the children’s father, but Mr. Gyfford was bowing to the man who just walked in the door.

  3

  The Throes of Grief

  Her first thought was that he was like a Greek god—the intelligent kind, not the pouty, dissipated type. But if he was a Greek god, he must be the patron of tailors, because he was by far the most elegant man she had ever seen. Rather than wearing dark brown, as most men did while traveling, he wore a double-breasted coat with fawn-colored labels and pale yellow trousers. His boots had a brilliant shine and curved tops unlike those on any boots she’d ever seen. Moreover, his neck cloth was edged in lace and billowed around his neck in a complicated fashion.

  His eyes flickered over her rumpled dress, and she thought she saw his nose twitch. Undoubtedly she smelled like sour milk and vomit. The odor was making her stomach turn.

  But he said nothing, merely shifted his attention to Josie, whose scowling little face was uncannily like to her papa’s, with the same golden brown hair and the same arched brows. He showed no particular dismay at the fact that the little girl had clearly measured her length on the ground.

  Instead he asked, with an air of mild inquiry, “Did you get so filthy playing in the courtyard, Josie?”

  Henrietta’s smoldering resentment broke into speech. “I find it difficult to believe, sir, that you regularly exhibit as little concern for your own children as you have displayed today. These two children were not playing in the courtyard. Instead, they had made it a fair distance down High Street, having crossed two tho
roughfares. And as it is market day in Limpley Stoke, there are moments when I fear for my own life crossing High Street!”

  To his credit, he looked somewhat dismayed. “In that case, I am in your debt,” he said, bowing. But his next question made him akin to a devil, in her opinion.

  “I gather that is Anabel you’re holding, then?” he asked.

  Henrietta raised her eyebrows with a look of disdain. “Is it too much to hope that you would recognize your own child?”

  “There is no special exertion required,” he pointed out. “The sad odor that adorns her person identifies her as Anabel. Gyfford, I had no idea that you would be able to locate a suitable nursemaid so quickly, even if she does seem”—he gave Henrietta a lazy smile—“somewhat agitated. I am quite certain that you will be able to keep these creatures in good order, miss. If I might just ask about your former employment?”

  Gyfford and Henrietta spoke at the same moment.

  “I’m not—”

  “She is not a nursemaid,” Gyfford said in horrified tones. “May I present Lady Henrietta Maclellan, Mr. Darby. Her father was the Earl of Holkham.”

  Henrietta narrowed her eyes as Mr. Darby bowed with elegant abandon. She had little interest in further conversation with a dandified fop who didn’t recognize his own children. This polished version of a man was just as inept as the rest of his sex.

  The man himself obviously had no idea of his iniquity. “I gather that Anabel expelled her lunch with her usual grace,” he said, his beautifully shaped nose twitching a bit. “I heartily apologize, Lady Henrietta. And”—he almost looked sincere when he said it—“I am grateful that you rescued these two little wanderers. Their nurse was not herself this morning, and I suppose that they escaped while she was in hysterics.” He turned to Gyfford with a charming smile and bowed. “Could you spare a barmaid to accompany us to my aunt’s house?”

  Gyfford failed to shut the door in his hurry to do Mr. Darby’s bidding, so Darby did so himself. He seemed to move with a kind of leashed elegance, like a great cat she’d seen in a traveling circus. A prickle of annoyance moved up Henrietta’s spine. It must be so easy to be born like that, with a perfect body, from his lean legs to his long eyelashes.