by Lynn Kerstan
“Very useful, to be sure.”
He began to pace the room. “Well, what then? We can’t let them get away with this.”
“My lord, do remember that the infant was not cast away to die in the snow. She was left, very carefully, for us to find, which is quite a different matter.”
“It’s still a bloody crime! What the devil do they expect us to do with her?”
“Take better care of her than they were able, unless I am very much mistaken. There must have been a compelling reason for them to relinquish their beautiful, beloved daughter, and circumstances that made it impossible for them to do otherwise. We may never know the causes, sir. It is for us to deal with the situation as it stands.”
He planted himself in front of her, hands clasped behind his back. “I’d wager they hadn’t the money to raise the babe and passed her over to someone who does. Well, Miss Ryder, I do not consider that an acceptable solution to their problems. And if you are so convinced they wish to keep the child, all the more reason to find them immediately. Whatever is plaguing them, I’ll put an end to it and send them off happily, infant in tow.”
How like a man to assume there was a straightforward explanation and a simple solution for every difficulty, she thought. But life was rarely so uncomplicated as Lord Fallon imagined it was, or wished it to be.
“Were it only a matter of funds,” she said patiently, “I expect they would have knocked on the door and begged you for a handout. In my heart, sir, I believe they had run out of choices before risking such a desperate undertaking as this.” She gazed solemnly into his troubled eyes. “Perhaps they hoped for a miracle, sir, on this starry Christmas night.”
After a moment he dropped onto a chair and beckoned her to sit across from him. “I don’t believe in miracles,” he said flatly. “I believe in hard work, fixed goals, and perseverance. But that is nothing to the point. If the infant’s parents were looking for a Christmas angel, they appear to have found one. So tell me, Miss Ryder, what does heaven expect of you now? What are your instructions from the vast beyond, and how can I be of assistance?”
Her fingers curled around the arms of the chair. For all his bluster, Lord Fallon was dangerously close to sprouting wings. But he would be horrified to know what a soft-hearted, generous man he truly was, and she had no intention of being the one to tell him.
“I greatly wish,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “that inspiration would strike at least one of us this very moment. But in my experience, heaven rarely draws maps. I fear we have been left to muddle through on our own, you and I. We do know one thing for certain. The child is now under our protection, and her welfare is our primary concern.”
“Yes, yes,” he agreed with a wave of his hand. “But what do we do with her?”
As if she knew! “To begin with, I expect you ought to head out at first light for the inn and recruit help from the Wilkenses. Then we should return to London, I suppose. We cannot determine the best way to secure the infant’s future without considerable thought, my lord. And I am sure you will attempt to trace her family before coming to any firm decision.”
“What happens to her in London?” he demanded, invariably fixed on the most immediate problem to be solved.
“I shall take her with me to Lady Swann’s house, if you have no objection.”
“None whatever,” he said, looking relieved. “Meantime, have you any objection if I go out now and follow the tracks leading from the stable while they are fresh? At the very least, I can get some idea which direction our miracle seekers have taken from here.”
“If you must,” she said with a sigh. “Mind you, the trail will be lost to you once they have turned onto a main road. But I imagine you’ll not get any sleep, what with the babe requiring to be fed every few hours, so you may as well be gone.”
Grumbling, he came to his feet and stomped to the door. “I’ll check on the goat,” he said. “And take a walk. If you need me, I’ll be close enough to hear you call.”
Wings and perhaps a halo, too, she thought as he vanished into the passageway.
Chapter 13
PALE DAWN light crept over the snowfields, illuminating dark tree branches and barren shrubs, sending fingers of pink and gold into the clear azure sky. The landscape was unutterably still, as if all the world were holding its breath on this peaceful Christmas morning.
Fallon left the window and padded on stockinged feet to the couch where Jane lay asleep. One hand had escaped her blanket to curl around the edge of the willow basket on the floor close beside her.
The tiny, protective gesture clutched at his heart.
After pulling on his boots, he buttoned his waistcoat and wrapped his neckcloth loosely around his throat. No telling what the Wilkenses would think when he appeared on their doorstep, unshaven and wearing patched trousers. Assuming, of course, that he could find their doorstep.
His tendency to get lost in the snow offended his vanity, as Jane Ryder would point out with one of her dimpled smiles—if she felt at liberty to tease him. Sometimes she forgot their difference in rank long enough to speak her mind, but not so often as he would have liked.
He stood for several moments gazing down at her face, soft with sleep, tendrils of her lovely hair drifting over her cheek. It was a face a man could look at, with pleasure, for a very long time.
“Miss Ryder,” he whispered, gently touching her shoulder.
Her lashes flew open and a brief frown of confusion wrinkled her brow. “The babe—?”
“All is well, my dear. I simply wished you to know that I am leaving now.”
He realized she was staring past him, with a startled expression, in the direction of the window. Spinning, he got the merest glimpse of a face staring back. Then it disappeared, and he saw a wiry figure bounding across the fields.
With an oath, Fallon blazed outside and took after the surprise caller on a run, following his tracks in the snow until he caught a flash of color through the trees. It was a young boy, he was certain, a fleet-footed and agile boy zigzagging around tree trunks and vaulting over fallen branches in a frenzied effort to escape.
Gradually Fallon’s longer stride ate up the distance between them. “Stop!” he yelled. “I won’t hurt you!”
With a new burst of speed, the boy leapt a gully and fled up a steep hill just beyond. His digging feet sent snow flying in the air, nearly blinding Fallon as he charged up the hill close behind.
When they reached the top, Fallon dived at the boy and seized him around the waist. Then, in a tangle of arms and legs, they rolled all the way down the other side of the hill, finally landing in a snowbank.
For a few moments they both lay still, panting, their breaths raspy in the winter quiet. Then the boy lashed out with fists and feet, spitting like a wildcat. Something, a heel perhaps, clipped Fallon’s injured thigh.
“Hell confound it!” He rolled atop the boy and held him down. “Hit me again, and you’ll be sorry for it!”
Subsiding, the boy glared up at him. “Lemme go! You got no reason ter rag me. I ain’t done nuthin’ to you.”
“That remains to be seen. What were you doing at the window?”
“I were passin’ by an’ saw smoke comin’ from the chimneys. Reckoned I’d have a look-see. What of it?”
Fallon took a deep breath and counted to ten. “We’ll continue this discussion inside, I think.” Keeping hold of the boy’s skinny arms, he stood and hauled him upright. “You can come with me peaceably, bantling, or be towed by the scruff of your neck. Which is it to be?”
“I’ll go quiet,” he said grudgingly. “You got m’ word. And m’name ain’t Bantling. It’s Jed. But that’s all I’m gonna say!”
“We’ll see about that.” He studied the boy’s narrow freckled face, nodded, and released him, setting off toward the dower house without
looking back. After a few moments, Jed caught up, slumping alongside with his hands stuffed in his pockets.
When they reached the parlor, Jane Ryder took one look at the wet, bedraggled boy and hustled him to the fire, cooing over him as if he were another helpless babe rescued from the snow instead of the scrappy spawn of the devil Fallon knew him to be.
But there was no mistaking the swift, urgent look he cast in the direction of the infant’s basket. He knew bloody well who had left the child here and probably helped with the delivery, too. Now he’d come back, or someone had sent him back, to make sure the wicked Lord Fallon wasn’t roasting the babe on a spit for his breakfast.
When Jane had settled the boy on a chair with a blanket wrapped around him, Fallon crossed to the hearth and draped his arm along the mantelpiece. “This is Master Jed,” he said with a grim smile. “He happened to be passing by, so I invited him in for tea and a chat.”
“I ain’t done nothin’,” Jed declared. “I ain’t sayin’ nuthin’ neither, and you can’t make me!”
“Don’t be so sure, puppy. I expect Miss Ryder will not permit me to beat you, which would be the most expedient way to get at the truth. But I can certainly hand you over to the authorities for trespassing, not to mention attacking a lord of the realm.”
“Wuz you attacked me!” Jed squawked. “Landed on me like a heap o’ bricks, you did.”
“Because you ran from the scene of the crime, which implies guilt in my book.”
Jane cast him a dark look. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Fallon, do stop bullying the child. I’m sure he’ll explain everything. Won’t you, Jed?”
“Can’t. Nuthin’ to tell. I never done no crime, except mebbe stole some eggs an’ the like.”
Jane pulled up a tapestry footstool and sat beside the boy, turning the full force of her smile on him. “Do you live close by?” She took the nearest of his hands and rubbed it between hers. “How cold you are. Did you forget to wear your gloves?”
“Got no gloves. Don’t need ’em.”
“As it happens, I love to knit gloves. But I’ve run out of people to give them to. Will you mind if I knit you a pair one day? Any color you like, of course, but young men generally prefer brown.”
“I likes brown,” Jed conceded. “And I gots gloves, too, but they’s yellow, so I don’t wear ’em. Only girls wears yellow.”
“Exactly so. What strong hands you have, Jed. They will do credit to my knitting. But you must know that Lord Fallon has many questions to ask you, and just between us, I am sure you have all the answers he is looking for. He won’t rest until he learns the truth, you know. Will it be easier if you tell me instead?”
Unsurprised, Fallon watched Jed crumble under her spell, no more able to resist that smile than any other red-blooded male on the planet. The boy’s mutinous lips began to quiver, as if trying to hold back his secrets, and then he began to speak in a rush.
“I used ter work at the big ’ouse, ’til it were closed up. Now we lives mebbe two miles from here, me and Agathy. She were the old lord’s ’ousekeeper. We oughtn’t be there, she sez. We is t-tressin’ or somethin’. You know, the word that ’un said.” He jabbed a finger in Fallon’s direction. “Agathy sez ’e’ll toss us out on our ears when ’e knows about it.” His shoulders slumped. “And now ’e does. But we didn’t got nowheres else ter go.”
Jane stroked the boy’s cheek. “Well, you may be sure that Lord Fallon means to do nothing of the sort. Do you?”
After a moment Fallon realized that Jane was speaking to him. “Certainly not. I was notified some time ago that the former housekeeper had taken up residence in a cottage on the estate. I gave orders that she was not to be evicted.”
“So you see,” Jane said reassuringly, “everything will be perfectly all right.”
“Don’t see a bloody thing,” Jed muttered sullenly. “I can’t make no sense of anythin’ ’e sez.”
“Nor can I, a good deal of the time. Marquesses use a great many large words, I’m afraid, when small ones would serve as well. But I promise you, Agathy can live in that cottage for as long as she likes. In fact, I imagine Lord Fallon has also given orders to have it all fixed up so that you and Agathy will be warm and snug.”
Jed brightened. “The roof leaks somethin’ fierce, m’lady. And the winders are broke out. I nailed some wood over, but the wind still comes in.”
“Ah. He’ll want to have a look, then, to see what needs to be done. Will you take us there?”
“Dunno.” He scuffed his tattered shoe against the flagstone hearth. “Gotta ask Agathy first.”
Fallon’s patience had run out. What was all this moonshine about fixing up cottages? He was just about to take the boy by the ears and shake the truth out of him when a loud squeal erupted from the infant.
He looked over to see two tiny hands waving for attention. Then he looked back at Jane, astonished when she failed to rush over to the basket. Her gaze remained fixed on Jed’s twitching face. He was pretending not to notice the cries, but he had begun to squirm under his blanket.
“My lord,” Jane said softly, “will you see what is disturbing the child?”
“Me?” Fallon’s elbow dropped off the mantelpiece. “How the deuce would I know?”
“Oh, she will tell you, one way or another. Most likely she is feeling neglected. Why don’t you bring her over so that Master Jed can make her acquaintance?”
Certainly. As if Master Jed never had the opportunity before now. Muttering under his breath, Fallon went to the basket, lifted the blanket away, and tried to remember what Jane had told him about holding an infant. Support the head. Don’t squeeze too hard.
That was all perfectly simple when she’d put the babe into his arms last night. Now he had no idea where to take hold. He dropped to one knee, considering the logistics. Two pudgy arms and legs were churning like windmills, and she was screeching like a banshee.
He shot Jane a look of desperation, but she remained wholly preoccupied with the boy. Jed seemed to find it easier to give over when it was only the two of them. He was twattling a mile a minute, but too softly for Fallon to hear a word over the infant’s cries.
“Shhh,” he instructed, astonished when the shrieks immediately turned to gurgles. Wide blue eyes regarded him curiously, as if waiting for his next pronouncement. “Very good,” he said. “May I pick you up?”
“Ga,” she replied. “Goo ga ga.”
Taking that for permission, he slipped his hands behind her back and gingerly lifted her to his chest, remembering to settle her head on his right biceps. For a moment she lay quietly in his arms, staring at his face, evaluating the situation.
Then a hand half the size of his thumb shot up and seized his nose.
“Wretched female,” he murmured, unaccountably pleased that she seemed to recognize him. More precisely, she recognized his nose, although why it held such fascination he could not begin to imagine. She clung to it relentlessly, though. And when he’d managed to gently pry her fingers away, she brought in her other hand for reinforcements.
“Thopp that,” he ordered to no avail. She had two nose-seeking hands to the one hand he had free to deal with them, and after a brief skirmish, he conceded her the field.
He glanced over to see Jane Ryder grinning at him. Jed was doubled over, laughing.
What the hell? Laughter rumbled in his chest, which seemed to please the babe enormously. Her grip tightened, and she batted at his whiskered chin with her other hand. He could have sworn she was laughing, too.
“Thee likth my nothe,” he said, returning to the fireplace. It occurred to him that the infant had effectively prevented him from taking over Jed’s interrogation.
“And a splendid nose it is,” Jane said kindly. “You must forgive us for being amused.”
Fallon nodded, or tried to. For su
ch a tiny mite, the babe had a formidable grip. Were females permitted to wrestle, he thought, this one would be champion material.
Jane smiled at him. “While you were otherwise occupied, sir, Jed has explained to my satisfaction why he cannot disclose the information we seek. He has given his promise, you see, and a gentleman must always honor his word. But he has agreed to take us to the cottage and vouch that we are good sorts.”
“Said I’d vouch fer you,” Jed objected. “Not ’im. ’E’s a Fallon.”
“Yes, indeed. I cannot blame you for being suspicious. But this new Lord Fallon is a good sort, too, when you get to know him. On that you must trust me, Jed, until the pair of you are better acquainted.” She brushed her hand over the boy’s wiry red hair. “Then you will decide for yourself, man to man, if he merits your regard or your contempt.”
Fallon silently passed her the crown. Was a time he thought himself a master negotiator, but Jane Ryder beat him out on every count. He consoled himself with the thought that he was not the only male dancing to her tune. Jed’s face held the rapt expression of a visionary gazing upon an angel.
Jane stood and held out her hands to the infant. Immediately the babe let go his nose and reached in her direction, which put him firmly in his place. He was good enough company, until someone better came along.
When the child was nestled happily in her arms, Jane turned her back to Jed and spoke softly, as if she were murmuring to the babe. “Apparently Mistress Agathy knows more about this business than the boy does, my lord. I’m sure you have already guessed that Jed played his part last night, and he was certainly dispatched here to spy on us this morning. But if we hope to learn anything more, we must apply to Agathy. Tactfully,” she added with a pointed look. “I expect she will be even less forthcoming than Jed, unless handled with great care. Perhaps it will be best if you remain here with the child while I go with Jed to the cottage.”
Offended, he shook his head. “Do you imagine I cannot deal with the likes of a housekeeper? What is more, I’ll not have you tramping two miles through the snow. No, Miss Ryder. You may safely leave this business to me.”
