by Danice Allen
Suddenly the room darkened, and rain blasted against the casement window. The flames in the fireplace shuddered and danced from a burst of air coming down the flue. A flash of lightning and an immediate crash of thunder fairly shook the decorative copper plates off the mantel. Amanda pulled her shawl close about her and moved to the window.
The wind was playing havoc with everything and everyone in its path. People were huddled in their coats and rushing for shelter. There was a tempest brewing, and Amanda stood and watched it with a curiously delighted smile on her lips. She enjoyed a good storm. She always had. But tonight she felt more than usually stirred by the kickup Mother Nature was waging.
In a burst of enlightenment, she understood the connection between herself and this particular storm. Tonight, and indeed ever since she’d met John, her own heart and soul were a tempest … a tempest of feelings and yearnings she could hardly contain. With each clap of thunder and each preternatural glow of electricity that momentarily brightened the room, her restlessness increased. She started pacing.
Her usual enjoyment of a storm was intensified tenfold. This time she was stirred to a point of feverish excitement that was growing moment by moment quite strangely … uncomfortable. It seemed there needed to be a climax … a blinding blaze of lightning, a deafening roar of thunder, then a soothing quiet with only the mesmeric drip, drip, drip of rain off the roof.
Amanda ached for an easing of this tension, a soothing aftermath to the storm. But she knew it wouldn’t come, it couldn’t come till she’d weathered the tempest … her own personal tempest, her own storm of emotions.
Amanda suddenly stopped pacing. She heard the cry of a child. She wasn’t sure where the sound was coming from. There was only one room next to hers, and that was John’s, so she guessed the crying child was in a room across the hall. She listened, expecting to hear the voice of an adult soothing the child, quieting its quite natural fears of the loud thunderstorm.
But the child continued to cry, sounding more and more desperate and frightened as the rain beat against the windows, loose shutters slammed against the walls, and tree limbs creaked ominously in the wind.
The idea of the child braving the terrors of the storm alone filled Amanda with sympathy … and indignation. “This will not do,” she said to herself, moving to the door and flinging it open. “Whoever is supposed to be taking care of that child should be horsewhipped!”
It did not take her long to ascertain that the child was indeed in the room directly across the hall from hers. She knocked on the door, but no one answered. She turned the knob and discovered the door unlocked, then eased it open and peered into the dark.
“Is someone here?” she inquired on the slim chance that an adult was sleeping in the room or was otherwise occupied to the point that they could not attend to their own child. But no one replied, and the child continued to weep.
“I’m here to help you,” Amanda called softly, squinting to see and wishing she’d had the foresight to bring a brace of candles with her. Another flash of lightning, another cry of fear in accompaniment to the boom of thunder, enabled Amanda to locate the child. There, huddled in the comer farthest from the window, was a little girl about three or four years old, in her nightdress, her face wet and swollen from crying and her pale hair tangled and hanging in her face.
“Don’t move, sweetheart,” Amanda told her. “I’ll be right back.” Then she hurried across the hall, grabbed the brace of candles on her bedside table, and returned to the little girl’s room. She set the candles down on a nearby chest and held out her arms to the child.
“Come here, my dear,” she said in a gentle, cajoling voice. “I know you’re afraid of the storm, and I’ll stay with you till it’s over.”
“I want my mama,” the little girl sobbed weakly. “Where’s my mama?”
Amanda’s heart ached at the plaintive question. “Darling, I don’t know. I’ll fetch her for you in a moment, but wouldn’t you like me to hold you and dry away those tears first?”
Another burst of thunder and lightning made the little girl tremble violently. Amanda could stand it no longer, and she moved across the room, scooped up the little girl, and clasped her against her chest. The child’s arms immediately wrapped around Amanda’s neck, and she clung to her, happy for now to take a kind stranger as substitute for her absent mother.
Amanda walked to the bed and sat down on the side edge, holding the little girl in her lap. Her small legs and feet were bare and cold as they stuck out at the bottom of her nightdress, and Amanda took a quilt from the foot of the bed and tucked it around the child. She was trembling from both fear and cold, the poor thing, and Amanda’s feelings went back and forth between anger toward the child’s delinquent parents and an overwhelming surge of protectiveness toward the child.
How could someone leave such a small child alone during such a terrible storm? How could they leave her alone at all, especially at a public inn that could harbor all sorts of human riffraff … and with the door unlocked?
Amanda focused on comforting the child instead of her anger. She’d have it out with the parents later. She crooned reassuring words to the little girl, rocked her back and forth, smoothed her disheveled hair out of her eyes, and dabbed at her wet cheeks with a clean handkerchief. After a few short minutes, the child’s crying subsided to an occasional hiccup and a shuddering sigh. Soon she was fast asleep.
Amanda held the child close, her small head tucked under Amanda’s chin, her thin arms still wrapped around Amanda’s neck even in sleep. The storm still raged, but the worst was over. The thunder and lightning were further apart and more distant as the tempest moved inland to disturb the pastoral peace of the farmers in their snug cottages on the weald.
Amanda drew a measure of peace from the warmth of the little body she held against her breast. She was glad she’d been able to still the child’s fears to the point that she’d actually dozed off in her arms.
Amanda decided that she liked giving comfort, cuddling and showing affection to another human being. And she realized how seldom she was able to do something so elemental, so basic to human happiness in her own circle of influence. She’d only her aunts to hug and fuss over, and they were almost as reserved about demonstrations of affection as she was.
She wanted more. She craved the love of a child … and a man. A husband, ideally. She wished she were comfortable enough with the opposite sex to get past courtship and on to commitment, but she’d never been able to thus far. She’d botched her chances of making a match during her season in London by being too shy, by making the men think she was frigid. And at Edenbridge there was no one eligible in the neighborhood … except Rector Mitford. But with his cold lips he’d never be able to give her the love and affection she craved.
Maybe the child on Thorney Island was the answer to Amanda’s prayers. And maybe she was the answer to the child’s prayers, too. Amanda could make sure her sibling, whether a boy or a girl, was given the affection she’d missed as a child. It disturbed her greatly to imagine that her brother or sister had already been denied the love he or she deserved. Amanda wanted desperately to make amends for her parents’ callousness.
In the fervor of her feelings, Amanda blinked back the tears that threatened to spill over onto her cheeks. She squeezed the child tighter against her chest, wishing, longing, yearning for something of her own to hang on to.
Jack walked up the stairs from the parlor. He had spent the last few minutes making sure that everything was arranged just as he’d ordered. It was exactly two minutes before eight, and he was looking forward to his dinner with Miss Darlington with mixed feelings.
After a single drink with Theo that afternoon, during which he’d learned that Miss Darlington was on her way to Thorney Island to collect her illegitimate child—a child her parents apparently refused to allow her to keep after it was born—Jack had returned to his room and spent the remainder of the day pondering the surprising twists and turns of life. He’
d never have believed in a million years that the prim Miss Darlington was anything other than a virgin.
He found himself inordinately curious about the details of her affair with the child’s father. Who was he? How old was she when the affair occurred? Why didn’t he marry her? Did he hurt her? Did he love her? More importantly … did she love him?
Jack was surprised by his intense interest in the answers to these questions. He barely knew Miss Darlington, but he couldn’t bear the thought of some man callously using her, then deserting her. But maybe she’d been a willing party in the affair and had not expected anything more than a passionate interlude in what Jack had begun to imagine was quite a prosaic and stifling life.
One thing he knew for sure: he didn’t respect her any less for what she’d done. It only proved she was human. And nothing could make him think very ill of a woman who had nursed him through a life-threatening fever and. put up with his nonsense for the past two days. The very fact that she was now determined to fetch her child and take it back to Edenbridge, disregarding the social consequences—the snubbing, the gossip—proved she was a brave and remarkable woman.
No, Jack didn’t think any less of Miss Amanda Darlington. In fact, he was more determined than ever to help her get to Thorney Island to reunite with her child. He understood now why she was traveling alone, the little nodcock. She was trying to be discreet! But traveling alone only made her stand out like a sore thumb, which proved she was quite naive about such things despite her rather scandalous history.
She needed someone to watch over her, Jack decided again. And by being that someone he was only returning the kindness she’d shown him by saving his life. He refused to believe there was another motive for wanting to help her.
At the landing at the top of the first floor, Jack turned toward his and Amanda’s adjoining chambers. But as he approached, he noticed that Amanda’s door was standing open and so was the door opposite to her room. Amanda, however, was nowhere to be seen. This did not bode well and Jack walked quickly to investigate, his heart hammering in his chest, fear rising in his throat like a geyser.
A clap of thunder from the receding storm sounded just as he reached the opened doors. He glanced quickly inside Amanda’s room, saw nothing, then crossed the hall and saw Amanda sitting on the edge of a bed holding a child.
Amanda’s face was turned away, her cheek resting against the child’s head. She was unaware of Jack’s presence. He stood and watched as she rocked the child and crooned soothing words while curious emotions roiled in his chest. He thought of the child she’d been forced to give up, and his heart ached for her.
Obviously the prim Miss Amanda Darlington was capable of the deepest and most tender feelings, the kind of feelings only mothers understood. And for a brief, alarmed instant he imagined Amanda mothering his own child … their child.
Thrusting aside the unwelcome, dangerous, and uncharacteristically sentimental thought, Jack stepped into the room and cleared his throat. “Miss Darlington?”
When Amanda turned quickly to look at him, he was startled to see the tracks of tears on her cheeks. He took an instinctive step forward as if to comfort her, checked himself, then stood with his hands clenched in impotent fists. He couldn’t bear to see her hurting.
The questions came out in a rush. “What’s the matter, Miss Darlington? Has someone hurt you?”
Looking embarrassed, Amanda quickly removed one arm from around the child and wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. Smiling gamely, she said, “No, nothing’s the matter with me. I’m just a little angry, that’s all.”
“Angry at whom, and for what?” Jack’s voice rose in volume and his fists clenched a little tighter.
Amanda pressed a finger against her lips, her brows dipping in a frown. “Hush,” she said, her own voice barely above a whisper. “You’ll wake her up, and I just barely got her to sleep.”
Jack glanced about the room. “Where are her parents?”
Amanda’s jaw tightened. “That’s what I’d like to know. I was dressing for dinner when I heard this child’s cries above the racket of the storm. I knocked on the door, and when no one answered I entered and found this tiny girl crouched in the comer, terrified! The room was entirely in the dark. I can’t imagine what her parents were thinking of by leaving her alone like this! Where do you suppose they are?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out,” said Jack, moving to the door. “I’ll start by inquiring below.”
“Thank you, John,” said Amanda, smiling gratefully.
Jack acknowledged her gratitude with a rather grim smile in return. He was anxious for the child’s welfare and angry at the parents as well. But he was most anxious about getting things settled so that his dinner with Amanda could go ahead as planned. She needed a little relaxation and amusement, and he was determined to see that she get them both.
Chapter Eleven
The child’s parents were found taking refreshment in the taproom, lingering over a mug of brew and chatting amiably with some fellow travelers. They were a respectable, middle-class couple on holiday, headed for a seaside sojourn at a little resort near Brighton called Goring-by-Sea.
They were quite mortified and distressed to discover that their little Charity had awakened during the storm and disturbed Amanda, but they had left her fast asleep and had only been gone from the room some forty-five minutes … or so they said. As Charity had been quite exhausted when they arrived at the inn, they’d had no notion she’d awaken before morning.
They apologized profusely and looked chagrined, but Amanda suspected that they were more embarrassed by the incident than concerned about Charity’s ordeal during the storm.
Sitting in a wing chair by the fire in the cozy parlor with John, Amanda clutched a barely touched tumbler of apple cider and was totally absorbed by worrisome thoughts of Charity and scathing thoughts of the little girl’s parents. She knew her natural empathy for Charity was made even stronger because of her anxiety about the child on Thorney Island and her own memories of a barren childhood, but she could not reason away the tension and melancholy that was the result of these intermingled concerns.
“Miss Darlington?”
Amanda was roused from her brooding reflections by John’s voice. She looked up and saw that he was leaning against the mantel, his long legs crossed at the ankles in a relaxed pose.
“Yes?” she said, feeling slightly dazed.
He peered at her intently, then raised a brow. “Where are you, Miss Darlington?”
Her brows knitted. “What do you mean? I’m in a parlor at the Angel Inn … with you.”
“No, you are not in the parlor with me. In fact, you are miles away … in thought, if not in person.”
“I beg your pardon,” she replied a little stiffly. “I cannot forget that child’s predicament so easily as you do.”
He pushed off from the mantel and stood in front of her. With his arms crossed over his chest, he scowled down at her, much in the manner of a sultan eyeing with displeasure a naughty concubine.
Despite her worries, a quiver of feminine awareness rippled through Amanda like a pleasant shock. It was impossible to stay immersed in one’s thoughts with such a distraction as John in the room … and standing so close. He was so close, in fact, she could smell the clean scent of him: the subtle spice of a gentleman’s soap, the freshly laundered and starched cravat that glowed snowy white at his strong throat.
She knew he’d had a bath because she’d heard the servants carting up the tub and the buckets of hot water that afternoon, but just looking at him now there was no doubt that John had spent considerable time grooming for tonight.
A new razor, and a steadier hand than he’d had two days ago, had allowed for a close shave without a single nick. His jaw was bare and smooth and begged to be caressed.
His hair was squeaky clean, the lustrous black curls a careless, disarming tumble that begged to be sifted through by eager feminine fingers.
&n
bsp; His piratelike bandage was gone, too, replaced by a small square of gauze secured at the edges by some sort of clever adhesive.
Everything he wore from jacket to waistcoat to trousers to tall boots was freshly brushed, pressed, or polished. Amanda’s breath quickened at the idea that he’d been as anxious to look to advantage tonight as she had. Why? she wondered, a shiver coursing down her spine. Did he have seduction in mind? And if he did, would she have the strength to refuse him?
“Why do you consider the child in a ‘predicament,’ Miss Darlington?”
Amanda blinked, her mind working overtime to dispel thoughts of seduction and return to the original topic. “Oh, you mean Charity?”
“We were talking of the child,” he reminded her with a touch of amusement in his tone. “You accused me of caring less than you for her ‘predicament.’ I do not consider the child to be in a predicament. As a whole, she is well cared for. Her parents simply misjudged in this case.”
“They should have known she’d awaken and be frightened during the storm.”
“Not everyone is so perceptive and conscientious as you are, Miss Darlington,” John suggested, uncrossing his arms and stepping back to his former position by the mantel. He stared at her with a strange expression. The firelight flickered over his face and picked out the warm golden flecks in his eyes. “You’ll make a wonderful mother,” he said softly.
Amanda shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Why do you say that? You must know that I am destined to be a spinster.” She raised her chin with a show of dignified unconcern. “And I do not mind it, you know. I … I will have my nieces and nephews to keep me well enough alarmed and entertained through their growing-up escapades. It is much more comfortable to have nephews and nieces, you know, than children of your own.”
“I believe you said it was your sister’s child you’re picking up at Thorney Island?”
