Bar Sinister

by Sheila Simonson

  Bar Sinister

  Regency Romance

  By

  Sheila Simonson

  Uncial Press Aloha, Oregon

  2007

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events described herein are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-60174-040-3

  ISBN 10: 1-60174-040-9

  Copyright © 2007 by Sheila Simonson

  Cover design by Judith B. Glad

  Previously published by the Walker Publishing Company, Inc, New York

  1986

  All rights reserved. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the author or publisher.

  Published by Uncial Press,

  an imprint of GCT, Inc.

  Visit us at http://www.uncialpress.com

  Part I

  Emily

  1812-1813

  1

  Emily Foster, relict of the late Edward Foster, Esq., of Wellfield House, seethed in her cramped corner of the publick coach as it jolted up the long flat Hampshire hill to the market town of Mellings Magna. From the other seat three male passengers eyed her black bonnet with varying degrees of indifference. Beside her a farmer's wife with a basketful of household sundries overflowed into Emily's lap.

  Emily clenched her hands into fists on the strings of her reticule. Her jaw ached--for the past three hours she had been clenching her teeth. Under the best of circumstances she hated to be late. And today of all days! She should never have consented to go to Winchester. How very like a lawyer, she fumed to herself, to keep a mere widow waiting whilst he secures some landowner's interest.

  She had missed the noon coach. Now her employer, who had been bringing his children to live with her, would take them elsewhere. "Fiddle," she said softly. "Fudge." And, greatly daring, "Damnation."

  Fortunately Emily's lapse from gentility was lost in the clamour as the coach pulled into Mellings Magna. Mellings Parva, her destination, was one stop further on and there would be a wait.

  Everyone, including the farmer's wife, got out. "Stretch your limbs, ma'am," she advised Emily kindly. "Mortal stuffy, they coaches," and she stepped down with a series of grunts and wobbles that shook the vehicle.

  Why not? Emily thought gloomily. My sitting here won't make the coachman swill his ale faster. She climbed down into the noisy yard and straightened her bonnet. It was pouring rain and already quite dark. Four o'clock of a November evening.

  She scuttled for the inn's publick room. There was no time to retire to a private chamber like a proper lady, and if there had been Emily was not sure she had money to pay the charge. The publick room was dark, noisy, and crowded, and smoky from an imperfectly drawing chimney. Ignoring the stares of the curious and the impertinent, Emily made for the fire. Stuffy the coach might be. It was also quite cold.

  When she had thawed her hands and her eyes had begun to sting from the smoke, she retreated to a quiet corner to view the scene. A muttered curse persuaded her the corner was occupied.

  "I beg your pardon," Emily said politely.

  The woman whose foot she had stepped on gave her a tired, gap-toothed smile. "Jaysus, think nothin of it, missus. Ye didn't wake the babby." She was suckling a dark-haired child who snorted, gave a pull at the discouraged-looking teat, and relapsed into somnolence. The woman covered herself casually.

  Emily returned a constrained smile and retreated. Presently she found a vacant space on the other side of the hearth and sat down on a three-legged stool. It wobbled, but held.

  Beyond the oak dining table the farmer's wife stood drinking a mug of ale and exchanging good-natured badinage with an old gaffer who waved a clay pipe whenever he wished to emphasise a point. He said something in a cackling, reedy tenor, and the woman laughed heartily. Passengers from the London mail, mostly men, crammed the benches at the laden table. A plainly dressed young woman Emily took to be a servant ignored the occasional leers of her travelling companions and ate stolidly. Beside her a thin girl in a grey bonnet picked at a plate of boiled chicken.

  Squeezed between grey-bonnet and a sour-looking clerk sat--or rather, knelt--a tiny girl, whose tangled brown curls and round rosy face cleared the table by a scant inch. The child was drinking a dish of soup with careful concentration. Each time she guided the spoon to her mouth without dripping its contents she gave a small triumphant nod. Twice as Emily watched, the little girl spilled a bit, once on the cloth and once on the square of linen tucked into the neckband of her serge travelling dress. Both times she scowled, set her small jaw firmly, and bent to her task with renewed deliberation.

  She did not seem to be very hungry. A mug of milk by her plate remained untouched. It was rather as if she were practising a difficult art she meant to master. She ignored the other diners, even when one of the red-faced farmers addressed her as his honey and asked if she wanted a sweetie.

  Perhaps she is deaf, Emily thought, dismayed. She cannot be alone. Grey-bonnet ignored the child, however, being caught up in worries of her own, and when the little girl spilled her soup on the tablecloth the sour clerk twitched his elbow away with the air of one who will not be inconvenienced by someone else's brat. She is alone, Emily thought, indignant. The child finished the soup and wiped her mouth efficiently on the square of linen.

  "Emilia. La leche." A male voice, low but imperative.

  The child turned her head. "No."

  "Sí. Ahora mismo."

  An expression of extreme martyrdom and self-sacrifice overspread the rosy features. The child said something dignified in the same language, grasped the mug firmly in both hands, and took three swallows, grimacing. She set the mug down without spilling. "Bastante?"

  Apparently she received confirmation that she had drunk enough, for she grasped the startled clerk's sleeve without selfconsciousness, steadied herself, and clambered down. The clerk grumbled a protest but the little girl paid no heed. She pranced from the table into the shadows on the far side of the room, where several men stood talking in low voices. The man who had addressed her took her hand and drew her off to the stairs. He lifted her to the third step and began to button her into a pelisse.

  My employer, Emily deduced. As there were not a great many Spanish-speaking children to be found in Hampshire coaching inns, her conclusion did not require the exercise of superior logic. And the misplaced Irishwoman suckling the black-haired baby would be the wet nurse. Emily felt some relief. They were late, too.

  Ought I to put myself forward? she wondered, and decided on the whole she would prefer to wait and watch. There would be few passengers for Mellings Parva. Time enough for introductions. Emily slid the stool gently back and blended into the shadows.

  Captain Richard Falk, Fifty-second Light Infantry, lately a widower, father of Thomas and Emilia Falk and Emily's employer. He was not above the middle height, she noted with some disappointment. She preferred tall men. Falk was thin but well proportioned and did not move clumsily. She watched as he guided his daughter to a vacant place against the wall. He hoisted the child up so that she sat on his left arm, wriggling slightly but apparently content.

  Father and daughter had the same colouring--dark brown hair with a touch of auburn and thick-lashed, well-spaced dark eyes. Captain Falk's features, like his daughter's, were regular, even handsome, or would have been but for two circumstances. His complexion was deeply weathered, as if he had been broiling under a sun considerably warmer than that of Hampshire. L
ines radiated from the corners of his eyes. That might have indicated profound good humour, but Emily doubted it. He looked cross. Probably he had been squinting at the Spanish sun. The other circumstance was his expression, a slight but fixed scowl. But perhaps he did not frown all the time.

  Emily wondered how long he and the children had been in England and what Captain Falk had been doing. Not visiting his tailor, clearly. British army officers rarely wore uniform except on duty and Captain Falk was no exception. He wore boots, breeches, and a brown coat which looked to have seen better days. His cravat was rumpled, his hair wanted trimming, and he ought to have shaved. In short, he seemed neither amiable nor prosperous, and Emily's gloom deepened. At least his daughter was not visibly afraid of him, but her well-behaviour argued strict discipline. Strict discipline was not one of Emily's strong points.

  When the coach was called up at last Emily took her gloom out into the drizzle. Presently the farmer's jolly wife emerged, followed by Captain Falk, the little girl, and the Irish wet nurse, protesting in fluent argot with her charge on her arm. There were no other passengers, not even the cackling gaffer.

  "Jaysus, sor," the wet nurse moaned, "if I jounce five more miles in yon bluidy contraption I'll cast up me accounts for sure and then where'll ye be?"

  Captain Falk growled something.

  "Whisht, now, what's a bit of a mist?"

  "Very well. Climb up with the guard if you must."

  "Thankee, sor. 'Tis a kind heart ye have. Here." She thrust the blanket-wrapped baby, apparently still sleeping, at its father. To Emily's surprise he did not drop it, but balanced his bundle on one arm and fumbled with the ties at his throat. "Take my cloak, then, Pegeen. You'll be drenched."

  "Right, your honour, and mind ye don't wake the bhoy." She scrambled with fair grace up to the guard's perch and sat beaming down, gap-toothed, through the rain.

  "After you, ma'am."

  Emily started. Falk's voice, sharp and exasperated.

  The farmer's wife had resumed her place in the coach and Emily was blocking the man's way. She tumbled in, higgledy-piggledy, and settled herself by her earlier seat-mate.

  The little girl climbed in, followed by her damp father with his squidgy bundle. He removed his hat, and his daughter shook the wet from it, some of the drops spattering Emily. The child's air of deliberation deserted her when her father had taken his seat, and she began to chatter in excited Spanish, bouncing and peering out the window, though it was now too dark to see anything.

  The vehicle gave a lurch, and they swayed and clopped out of the innyard. The Mellings coach was not famous for speed, which was probably fortunate, considering the condition of the road.

  "Pretty child." The farmer's wife smiled at Captain Falk and nodded. "Foreign, eh?"

  The captain scowled at her and did not reply.

  "Well!" She settled her plump thighs more firmly on the seat and began to favour Emily with a thorough condemnation of foreigners, the government's war policy, and the price of sugar.

  Emily squirmed and her spirits sunk even lower. Captain Falk did not seem amiable, and her neighbour's parochial grumblings were scarcely designed to sweeten his temper.

  What of it? Emily thought crossly. He may take his children elsewhere with my goodwill. But she knew very well she had fallen in love with the little girl at sight. Emilia--she even shares my name. Her grosser self retorted, Very confusing that will prove, madam, the baby is not even a year old, and the wet nurse the veriest camp follower. Resolutely Emily repressed the voice of reason. The little girl was rosy and curly and amazingly well conducted.

  I should make myself known, Emily reflected. The farmer's wife talked on. Emily waited for a pause in the bucolic monologue. The price of wool was down, it seemed. Corn up.

  Across from her the little girl gave up the window view and squirmed over to her father's side, palpably asking for something. He did not smile, but his low reply apparently satisfied her, for she insinuated herself under his arm and listened to his quiet Spanish with an occasional chirp and wriggle.

  Through her seatmate's garrulity Emily could hear him speaking. It sounded as if he were telling a story. The child's neatly shod feet jabbed the air from time to time. Gradually she slid lower in the seat. After a while her eyelids drooped and she fell asleep abruptly, as very young children do. Her father asked her a low-voiced question. When she did not reply, he stopped talking, rearranged her more securely, closed his eyes, and seemed to sleep, too. The coach swayed. The dim light from the unshrouded window brushed the child's sleeping face and her father's right hand, which was capable-looking with long blunt-tipped fingers.

  With a slight start Emily realised that the farmer's wife had ceased grumbling some time before and was staring at the sleeping trio with unabashed curiosity. Well, it had been an impressive performance. Emily shuddered to think how her son Matt would behave in such circumstances.

  Matt was four. This little señorita could not be more than three. "Two under three," the solicitor's letter had read. "The son and daughter of an officer serving in the Peninsula. Their mother is deceased and he must find an English home for them."

  Emily's tender heart had been wrung even as her rational self pointed out how odd it was that the officer in question did not send his children to his family or his wife's family. However, the fee offered was ample, the solicitor sounded respectable, and Emily wanted young children, younger than Matt. She meant to give Matt rivals in the nursery. The other applicants had not met her simple requirements. Really, the twelve-year-old idiot son of a marquess would not do. When she placed her advertisement Emily had expected a wider choice of children. Captain Falk's had been the only acceptable offer.

  Even so her father had objected vehemently. He disapproved the war, the army, Emily's profiteering, and other people's brats. Her mother-in-law had also made it plain she thought Emily deranged, but opposition only stiffened Emily's backbone, and when she found in her father's unwed sister Frances an unexpected ally, she burnt her bridges and writ the solicitor that she would welcome Captain Falk's children.

  Bad luck to their scowling sire, I shall welcome his children. Emily closed her eyes, smiling a little as she recalled Aunt Fan's unforeseen intrusion into the domestic brangle.

  "Do be still, Henry. Good for Emma. Needs something to take her mind off her troubles, and the money won't hurt."

  Dear Aunt Fan. Frances Mayne had come to Mayne Hall at Lady Mayne's death when Emily was twelve, and grumbling the while, had taken over the housekeeping. Emily had always supposed her aunt would escape Mayne Hall at the first opportunity, but when Sir Henry Mayne invited his newly widowed daughter to make her home with him and act his hostess, Aunt Fan had been surprisingly firm with him.

  "Nonsense. Emma has her own house and she will be wanting to oversee young Matt's estate. Be practical, Henry. Can't keep your children under your eye forever."

  And Emily's father, rumbling his displeasure, had given the idea up. He had ridden over to Wellfield House every day in the month after Edward's death, all the same.

  At first, in the shock of her double loss--for the fever that had killed her husband had also taken the life of their two-year-old daughter--Emily had been grateful, but Sir Henry was no passive observer. When he began to take the reins from her grasp Emily had had to deal with him. She must learn to manage the estate herself. Edward had made her Matt's guardian. It was her duty, and besides, she needed to be busy. She would accept Papa's advice but he must not be running things. So went her arguments.

  It had taken more than a year to convey the full impact of her message to her father and there had been some injured feelings. That he had opposed her scheme of baby-farming without being able to prevent it showed she was finally emerging from the permanent nursery of the mind to which he had mentally consigned all of his children.

  Emily swayed with the coach and regarded her dozing employer through half closed eyes. You do not know it, my dear sir, she thought, but your c
hildren are my passport to an independent life.

  2

  The carriage lurched again, and this time the baby gave a muffled yowl. Captain Falk opened his eyes--Emily wondered if he had really been asleep--and gave the bundle a competent jiggle and pat. The baby sobbed a few times and lapsed again into silence.

  "I'll take him, if you like," Emily offered.

  Her employer stared. His eyes looked wary, dark as midnight.

  "I am Mrs. Foster."

  "Indeed."

  "I should have made myself known to you sooner, sir."

  He grunted. Very gracious.

  "The baby," Emily prompted.

  "He's asleep. And rather wet."

  "Oh, dear."

  He did not dignify that with a response. After a moment he said acidly, "If you are indeed Mrs. Foster then perhaps there's some hope we'll be met."

  "My father's coachman has been waiting for you at the Rose and Crown in Mellings since one o'clock," Emily retorted. "He's probably drunk as a wheelbarrow."

  "We arrived in Mellings at half past twelve."

  Dismay smote Emily. "Mellings Magna! Oh dear, weren't my directions clear?" Manifestly they were not. A further thought struck her. "Noon? You cannot have come from London."

  "Portsmouth," Captain Falk said tersely.

  "But you writ from London."

  "I'll edify you with an account of my travels later, ma'am. We certainly set out in the small hours from Portsmouth."

  "The small hours! No wonder the children are tired!"

  "You think it would have been preferable to start at noon and arrive at three in the morning?" His daughter had flung up a starfish hand. He tucked it neatly back and straightened the skirt of her pelisse.

  "Could you not have journeyed by easy stages?"

  "No."

  Emily blinked. She was unused to such bluntness--rudeness, really. He ought to have hired a chaise. "Well, we're nearly at Mellings. Parva," she added hastily at his unvoiced snarl. He had white, slightly crooked teeth. "I shall see them both snugly in bed as soon as we reach home."