“No, not that.” She shook her head. “I think he might be starting to remember some of the things I reminded him of. The tears are for—” She bit her lip.
“What?” Ash dabbed at the corner of her eye with his handkerchief.
Lark took it and blew her nose. “I cannot tell you.”
“Do not play coy with me,” Ash said. “You will tell me. After baby-making, and giving you a sling for your monthlies, I hardly think there is anything we cannot discuss.”
Lark grimaced and plopped his used handkerchief into her husband’s hand. “If you must know, I wish I had not slid down the banister on the morning after so much baby making. It hurt. There.”
Her husband could not contain his mirth, which Lark found no-end annoying. “Thank you very much,” she snapped. “Try sliding down the banister on your hornpipe and see how you feel!”
Ash was still chuckling over the last when Grimsley returned Micah to Lark’s care.
“Micah needs new clothes,” Ash said, touching a hand to the boy’s shoulder. “What do you say to having Olive make him some?” Ash asked, as if hoping the boy would respond, but he remained silent and wide-eyed, looking from one adult to the other.
“‘Twould be the first time he’s had clothes of his own,” Lark said. “Can you thank …” She regarded her husband. “Uncle Ash?”
Ash nodded but Micah simply stepped nearer to Lark.
“I shall stop and ask Olive on my rounds today,” Ash said. “Micah,” he added, “I need to take a ride about my estate this morning and thought you might like to sit up before me on my horse, and see your new home.”
“I am afraid of horses,” Lark said, as Micah’s head came up and he looked straight and attentive toward Ash.
“I did not ask you to accompany me,” Ash said with a wink for her, “I asked Micah.”
“I am afraid for him to go with you.”
“Are you afraid, Micah?” Ash asked.
The boy shook his head, stepped from behind Lark’s skirts, and slipped his hand into Ash’s.
“Lark,” her husband said, “I suggest a nice long soak in my slipper bath for, ah, whatever ails you, and then I am afraid that, later in the morning, your dancing master is due to arrive. Forgive the poor timing.” He winked and Lark chafed in annoyance. Nevertheless, she turned to leave the salon and head for the slipper bath, an excellent notion, actually.
Half way there, she stopped to regard her amused husband. “I suppose if Micah likes to ride that I should like to have riding lessons as well.”
“See Brinks, then, after your dancing lesson.” He chuckled at his poor jest. “I will tell Brinks to expect you in, say, three days time, shall I?” Grinning, Ash squeezed Micah’s hand and led him out and toward the stable.
Lark was not sorry that Micah had taken to Ash; she was only sorry that he had not as yet remembered her.
Her fop of a dancing master lasted two dreadful, horrible weeks of mincing lessons by day, but two glorious, unforgettable weeks of baby making by night. Lark remembered it well, both the good and the bad.
“What do you mean, he broke his foot?” Ash shouted on the dancing master’s fourteenth, and last, day, as the dance instructor was carried to a hired coach.
“It was an accident,” Lark said in her own defense.
Ash scoffed. “How so?”
“I did not intend to hurt him.”
“He said you stomped on his foot with your heel in a fit of rage.”
“Well, I did stomp on his foot—in self defense—but I did not expect the bone to break. How was I to know that dandies had bones as soft as their hands?”
“Doctor Buckston said you broke several of the bones in his foot. He quit you know. Gave his notice and demanded his wages and passage to London as well.”
“The doctor quit? Because I threatened to shoot him in the ballocks?”
“No, dearest, the dancing master quit, and I wonder you did not threaten his ballocks.”
“Hah, I’d be surprised if the popinjay had any. Besides, you took my pistol, remember? I had no other weapon at my disposal. I hope you did not give in to his demands. He taught me nothing of value, except that damp hands leave stains on silk.”
“And that foot bones are brittle, I’d wager. Now how do you expect to learn to dance?”
“You may teach me.”
“I do not suppose I have a choice,” Ash said. “If you are half as incomparable a dancer as Brinks says you are a rider, I expect you will do me proud enough.”
“High praise.” Lark sniffed, annoyed at the paltry compliment. “It upsets me that riding is so much a man’s sport,” she said. “Why do I excel at only manly sports? Why can I not dance a step or sew a stitch?”
“I could get Gentleman Jackson to teach you to box,” Ash said, tongue in cheek. “Then again, who would you thrash, if you learned, but me? Overlook the suggestion, if you please. ‘Twas a terrible notion.”
“As my husband, you were supposed to say that you do not understand why I excel in manly sports since I am so soft and womanly.”
Ash leaned close. “You are prodigiously soft and womanly when you are wearing the dress God gave you and riding your prized stallion—and I do not mean the one in the stable.”
Lark felt heat on her face and turned away. “How many other women have you attempted to make a babe with?”
Ash barked a laugh. “Not a single one.”
“You admitted that I was your first virgin, but you have done that before, have you not?”
“What? Play the blanket hornpipe? Good God, of course I have.”
“But you said ‘twas to make a babe and you never tried to make one before.”
“You can do the matrimonial, without making a babe, Larkin.”
Determined to tease her way back into her husband’s good graces after her assault upon the dancing master, Lark shrugged. “Yes, I know, but why would anyone set out to do so?”
Ash gaped. “Have I read you wrong? Have you received no pleasure in making love? If you have not, I shall lay me down and die of shame.”
Lark smacked him in the arm, though she did note that he referred to the act as making love, and held the knowledge close. “Doing the matrimonial is an agreeable pastime,” she admitted, surprised he had not caught her jest.
“Just agreeable?”
“Delightful then?”
“It is splendid, you have said more than once, which is why people do it for sport.”
“Sport, of course. That would account for Trixie at the Pickled Barrel.”
“I beg you will please remove that pub from your memory.”
“I lived in that pub for twenty-two years, Ash. It will never be gone from my memory, only distanced, and now that I think on it, I remember Da referring to a bit of ‘ballocking’ going on above stairs. Is ballocking also considered a man’s sport?”
“Not my favorite term,” Ash said, “and not entirely a man’s sport, but for the most part, I’d wager it likely is.”
“Drat! Another man’s sport I like.” Lark raised her hands in resignation as she walked away, leaving Ash to hope that since she liked it so much, she might rescind her rule that he quit her bed once he got her with child.
“What the devil?” Ash got shoved from behind and was forced to regain his balance, only to find that his bride had returned to accost him.
“I just realized what you had been doing with all your women these many years. That’s why they call you a rogue!”
Ash grinned, unable to hide his pride in the designation, despite his wife’s ire.
“I do not approve,” she said.
“I only do it with you now. There are no more women.”
“I am a woman!”
“Thank the stars.” Ash took his “woman” into his arms and kissed her. “I meant that I no longer play the blanket hornpipe with women other than you. I will keep me only unto you for as long as we both shall live.”
“You will? Do you promise
?”
“I did promise. So did you, by the way. If another man touches you, I shall break his arms.”
“I might like that you would be jealously brutal on my behalf, except … how many women have you tumbled? I can break arms as well, you know.”
Oh he knew. Ash raised his eyes to the heavens. “Forget numbers and think of my past as the practice that allows me to come so accomplished to your bed.”
Lark was having none of it. “How many women, Ash?”
“I failed to count.”
“Too many to count, you mean.”
“If I gave you a number, Lark, it would matter naught, for you refuse to learn your numbers, except for the ones on a deck of cards.”
She huffed. “I will begin my lessons tomorrow.”
“You will begin when the tutor arrives. I will not teach you myself, for I will not have my foot broken, no, nor anything else, come to that. I will write and inform the schoolmaster that we are ready to retain his services. He will arrive as soon as may be, and you will not attempt to bolt, mind, nor will you break one bone in the poor man’s body, nor knee, or shoot him either.”
Lark rolled her eyes. “He shall remain intact.”
“And you will give your lessons due attention? No more bolting?”
“Why would I bolt when there is such baby making to be had?”
“Wise girl.” Ash tapped her nose. “Besides, I would miss you if you ran.”
Lark stood on her toes and whispered her suggestion for a clandestine trip to the lavender field for an extra go at baby making.
Ash rubbed her nose with his. “In the middle of the day? I am shocked,” though he was tempted to say yes, until he saw Micah running their way.
Ash opened an arm to the boy, aware that during his weeks with them, Lark’s brother had taken more to his company than to Lark’s, and how sad Lark appeared when Micah demonstrated the preference. While she must be glad Micah finally had a father figure in his life, she must hurt for the loss of kinship she had expected would grow between the two of them.
A hand upon Micah’s shoulder and an arm about his wife’s waist, Ash squeezed them both. “Shall we take the wagon and escape to the spinney for a lazy day picnic? I am certain the tenants can dig the drainage ditches well enough without my interference for one afternoon.”
As Lark looked set to agree, a bottle green coach appeared, clattering up the drive, and stopped beneath the portico of the Chase. Ash released his grip upon his family to make his way toward the coach as the driver jumped from his perch and opened the door.
No sooner had he done so, than out flew a cursing wild-child, who ran past them as if running for his life.
“What is the meaning of this?” Ash demanded of the coachman who handed him a small, grimy fragment of parchment.
Ash read the note to himself, in the event it contained something upsetting. Take her, Ash. Take our daughter and raise her— There the parchment had been torn. Above the astonishing request was also writ the better portion of his name, title, and address. Ash, fortunately, or unfortunately, recognized the handwriting.
The coachman then handed him a more formal note, of a high quality Bristol-type vellum, properly folded, of the excellence his father had been wont to use. The termagant was found on the London streets carrying this piece of parchment. Since I am your family solicitor, the authorities brought her to me. I send her in the event you plan to honor the note-sender’s anonymous request. If not, put her back in the coach and my driver is instructed to take her to the nearest workhouse. Yours, MJC, Esq.
“She is Ellenora’s daughter,” Ash said. “My first jilt.” He offered Lark both the parchment and the solicitor’s note. “Unlike the solicitor who sent her to us, I recognized Ellenora’s handwriting.”
“Should we not send her back to Ellenora, then?” Lark said, accepting the notes.
“Ellenora died in France. I have known for … nearly a year now.”
“Why would someone send her to us then?”
Ash sighed. “Read the parchment,” he said as he urged the coachman toward the rose garden to confer with him in private.
Ten minutes later, Ash dismissed the driver, rubbed his neck, and looked out toward the spinney. He saw Lark and Micah approach.
“The coachman carried no more than the notes and the girl,” Ash said. “The child owns naught but the rags on her back.”
“We must find her. She is frightened.”
“Yes,” Ash said, touching Lark’s arm. “Yes.”
“Is she yours, Ash?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Had Ellenora borne him a child? There was a question, one his wife wanted answered as much as he did, and who could blame her? “I must make inquiries,” Ash said. “There are people in London, friends of Ellenora’s, who might know, or a certificate of birth, perhaps, or parish registry to be unearthed.”
Ash rubbed his neck. “I expect she married Ames to give the child a name, which would explain the speed of her jilt, at least. As to whether the child is mine….” Ash shook his head with regret. “I would not have thought it possible, and yet….” He shrugged. “I am sorry, Lark, but it is possible, though I would rather not foist upon you an unwanted—”
Lark crossed his lips with a gentle finger. “What did you say about the way I spoke of your family? That frightened little one could well be the newest member.”
He should have known she would open her heart to a guttersnipe, to any child, he suspected.
“Do you know what became of Ellenora’s husband?” she asked.
“Killed in a dual shortly after her death, in questionable circumstances, I heard. Seems she had taken a lover—nothing new for Ellenora—and her husband found out.” Ash took Lark’s arm. “Come, we must fetch the wagon.” He reached for Micah’s hand.
His gentle wife took her nephew’s other hand to walk beside them to the stable. “Micah,” she said. “You may no longer be the lone resident of the nursery. Will you like company?”
Micah shook his head vehemently, a sign that he heard and understood, Ash thought, though it appeared that Lark was so pleased he did, she failed to take into account the significance of his negative response, which did not bode well for tranquility in the nursery.
Ash urged the aging pair of draft horses faster toward the spinney. “Any more unexpected arrivals of the infant variety and I will feel as if I am in competition with Reed and Chastity Gilbride St. Yves and their brood.”
“Are the St. Yves friends of yours? How many children do they have?”
“I fought with Reed under Wellington and was his groomsman when he married Chastity, but I’m sorry to say that I’ve lost count of their numbers, though I do know they’re expecting their first any day.”
“But you just said—”
“They take in abandoned children and make them their own, or Chastity did, and Reed had no choice but to join the ranks.”
“Why did he have no choice?”
“Because he fell top over tail in love with the lot of them.”
Ash and Lark regarded each other over Micah’s head, saying everything and saying nothing. Lark kissed Micah’s crown, and Ash followed suit, wondering if there wasn’t a bit of that kind of falling going on around Blackburne Chase. But he wasn’t certain, not even of himself, though he clung to hope as much as he shunned it, and he surmised it likely, from Lark’s speaking glance, that she hoped and feared for their future in the same bewildered way.
“Quite the interesting life I gambled us into, is it not?” Ash said.
“Interesting,” Lark responded, tilting her head in thought, “but certainly not the worst situation I’ve ever found myself in. Not yet.”
Ash looked up from driving the wagon, to her, and back, twice, not certain of her precise meaning, not certain he cared to know it at any rate. “Right.”
The wild child was a disgrace, a she-wolf angry with the world, hair chopped short, as if self-cut with a dull blade, and she smelled wo
rse than Lark on their wedding night. She fought them in the spinney for half an hour, Micah standing to the side, in total disgust.
Ash and Lark cornered and caught her half way up a cherry tree. When they got her down, Lark tried to hold and calm her, but she bit Lark a good one, and to Ash’s shock, Micah roared his disapproval, charged forward in Lark’s defense, and shoved the she-wolf to her bottom in the dirt.
“Micah!” Ash and Lark shouted as one, but as they regarded each other, Ash could see the grin Lark suppressed, for her nephew had taken a first step toward speaking, not to mention the fact that he’d taken her side for the first time ever.
They got the girl back to The Chase under necessary constraint in the wagon bed. Lark tried but could not keep the struggling brat in her arms, so she simply sat beside her, stroking her matted thatch of raven hair.
Micah sat up on the wagon seat beside Ash, as he had done on the way to fetch the termagant, and it seemed to Ash as if Micah retained his role as Lark’s protector, for he kept looking over his shoulder as if he might jump to her rescue if needs be.
Back at the Chase, Ash once again called for a bath, and Lark once again fought him on it. “No, get her up to the nursery. We will not frighten her witless on her first night,” she said. “No telling how long she’s been left on her own. If I lived like an animal with a father and a roof over my head, this one’s like to be ready, after living on the London streets, to do injury in self-defense, or even for food. Mim, have Cook prepare her a meal, would you,” Lark asked, as Ash deposited the girl in her arms in the rocker.
Lark struggled to keep the child there while Ash stood before them, arms behind his back. “What shall we do with her?”
“Do with her? We will keep her, of course.”
They turned as one to the crash and roar from Micah, no longer watching from the side but staring at his bleeding hand. Judging by the broken window and glass beside him, and the startled look on his face, he had surprised even himself by shoving his fist through the glass.
Ash ascertained that the cut was minor and turned the boy over to Mim for bandaging when she returned with the termagant’s food, then he temporarily sealed the small broken pane of glass with a nursery book wedged into the spot.
Untamable Rogue (Formerly: A Christmas Baby) Page 14
