However needless Micah’s jealous drama, it actually served to tame the wild child, Ash thought, for it had taken her attention from her fear, and she had settled against Lark to watch.
“How old do you think she is?” Ash asked as he completed his task at the window and moved the plate of food to the nursery table.
“Micah is seven and they are about the same size, though he is small for his age, so she might be five or six, perhaps. I should think you could better tell me.”
His wife had raised a speaking brow, which managed to tighten Ash’s cravat, and he warmed, despite himself. “If the note’s claim is true, then she is likely about six years old.”
As avariciously as the girl eyed the plate of steak and kidney pudding, she would not move from Lark’s arms to come for it when Ash invited her. “I told Mim to bring meat,” he said to Lark. “Is this all right?”
“I would likely have chosen something easier on her empty stomach like porridge or custard, but I’d wager she would prefer meat, if she were of a mind to say so.”
“Do you think we should give her a name?” Ash asked. “It seems wrong to speak so rudely about her when she is sitting right here.”
Lark smoothed the girl’s tattered hair from her brow. “And she likely understands every word we say. You would not care to tell us your name, would you, Dear?”
When no answer was forthcoming, Lark looked to him to provide a name, and again Ash felt himself flush. He was finding this new-found fatherhood business rather awkward in his bride’s eyes.
Ash cleared his throat and raised his chin, determined to reclaim his dignity. “She is from France, so it is possible that she does not understand, though she must have learned some English on the London streets, depending upon the length of time she was there, I suppose. Let us call her Chère for the nonce. It means dear in French and it might be of some comfort to her. What do you say?”
“I thought you might name her for her mother,” Lark said, not quite meeting his gaze, somewhat paler for the discovery of his possible daughter, if he did not miss his guess, and he was sorry for it. Hurting her had never been his intention.
That the very notion, and the possible reason, set his heart on end, disturbed Ash, for it likely meant he cared more than he should, and if Lark felt unwarranted resentment toward his first jilt, because they might have produced a child, did that mean Lark cared too much as well?
Ash supposed some jealousy made sense, for Larkin herself had not as yet given him a child, and he should set her at ease over the matter, providing he discovered a means to accomplish it.
“Chère,” she said, speaking softly to the girl. “Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?”
Micah took up the plate, as if to help, and the girl screeched like a banshee, startling the boy so he nearly dropped it.
Ash caught it, setting Micah free to shoot a look of pure disgust the girl’s way. When Ash offered her the plate, she shoveled the food into her mouth like one long-starved, and so fast that not a morsel was lost or left behind.
The revelation of her hunger brought Micah closer. It seemed even to soften his resentful stance.
“Should I fetch more?” Ash asked Lark, feeling the same foreign paternal ache he had felt when he first sat Micah upon the horse before him.
“I fear that if she eats too much too fast, she will make herself ill,” Lark said. “I believe I will just rock her for a few hours, before we feed her again, until she becomes comfortable in my presence.”
“Hours?”
His stubborn bride raised her chin. “Or days. However long it takes for her to know she is safe and wanted.”
Micah took several steps closer, until he stood expectantly before Lark.
Sensing her nephew’s need, Lark took him on her other knee, but the girl stretched out before Micah could settle himself, as if there were no more room.
Micah pushed Chère aside.
Chère shoved Micah in return.
“Stop it, both of you,” Lark said, “before I set you on the floor and abandon the battling pair of you.” She appealed silently to her husband as the two in her lap continued their minor skirmish.
Ash raised his hands, as if they held no answers, the amusement in his eyes, at once annoying and charming. He turned and left the nursery, abandoning her with the scrabbling duo, while failing to stifle his chuckle on his way out, the rogue.
It took four days before the wild child let Mim take a turn holding her, and that only lasted long enough for Lark to see to her personal needs. Still dirty, the girl child slept and ate in turn, always in Lark’s lap. She knew how to use the chamber pot but Lark had to remain with her or she would screech like an owl at midnight.
She disliked above all things, closed doors, eating utensils, and sharing Lark’s lap with Micah. It took two days before Lark realized the frightened child had slipped a butter knife into the sleeve of her tattered shirt.
Neither she nor Micah had as yet uttered a word, though the growls they tossed at each other seemed filled with significance.
By the fourth day, Lark feared she smelled as bad as the girl, and she didn’t like the sensation one bit. As a matter of fact, she hated it and could not for the life of her remember how she had survived life in the pub for so many years without going mad.
That was the day Lark made up her mind that life in the nursery would change and fast. “Chère,” she said. “One or both of us will be bathed before this day is done.”
Lark made certain that Ash took Micah with him for the day, and then she ordered the slipper bath brought to the nursery.
“You may have your bath first, if you wish?” Lark told Chère, but she mulishly refused to respond or budge from Lark’s lap.
“Well then I am having mine,” Lark said rising from the rocker. She placed the girl in the chair, and began to disrobe before the steaming tub. Though the child watched Lark undress and climb into the bath, with no small amount of wistful interest, she refused to place even a finger into the water.
Lark closed her eyes and luxuriated vocally in her bath, expressing her enjoyment in a specific effort to persuade Chère of its benefits.
Finally, she heard a sound that made her think the girl had stood, and come closer.
“Where’s the boy?”
Lark screamed at the shock of sound, opened her eyes, and sat up so fast, suds streamed from her hair and into her eyes. When she cleared them, the girl stood staring down at her, as if she had not just broken a four-day silence.
Chère remained so still that Lark could not credit what she had just heard. “What did you say?”
“Where’s the boy?”
Progress, Lark thought, but she must proceed warily so as not to break the thin thread of trust her words revealed. “His name is Micah and he is with my husband, off on estate matters for the day. They left us to bathe in peace.”
“I used to bathe.”
“Then you remember how good it feels to be clean.”
“My mother used to rock and sing to me, like you do.”
And what could she say to that? Lark wondered.
At her silence, the girl looked away, but not before Lark caught the sheen of tears in her eyes.
“Your mother sent you to us,” Lark said, “Is that not correct?”
The girl regarded her then, allowing her tears to flow freely. “She was ill for a very long time.”
“I am sorry to hear it. I miss my mother as well, though she died at my birth and I never knew her.”
The girl sniffed, wiped her nose on a filthy sleeve, and gave a half smile, despite her tears. “I knew mine.”
“Yes, and you are where she wanted you to be.”
“Which is not so bad as I supposed.”
Lark chuckled. “I will accept that as a compliment. Are you feeling as itchy and uncomfortable as I was, and are you ready for a bath and clean hair again?”
The girl shrugged and played with the edge of the rug with the
toe of a torn boot.
“Let me finish rinsing my hair,” Lark said. “Then Mim can fetch some fresh hot water. Can you tell me your name?”
Chère raised her chin in a show of pride, and Lark was certain she would reject both the bath and the question, but she shrugged as if it made no matter. “Are you really going to keep me?”
“We don’t know, yet, if we have the legal right, but we would like to.”
“Could I have any name I wanted?”
Lark thought about that for a minute and knew the child’s comfort in their home must be uppermost in their minds. “Yes, I suppose you could, though it would help us to know your true name, so we could attempt to arrange for you to remain with us.”
“Though my real name is not the name I have been using, I was christened Ashley Briana.”
Oh God, she had been named for Ash. Lark felt herself go cold, though she covered her shock for the child’s sake. “A beautiful name,” Lark said, seeking purchase in a careening world. “What name have you been using and what would you choose to be called now?”
“Brian.”
“But that is a boy’s—”
Snapping eyes, a raised chin. “I know.”
Ah, Lark thought, and hadn’t she herself remained disguised as a boy half her life for the sake of self-protection? Lark took the child’s grimy hand in hers as they regarded each other, nothing hidden between them, and that’s when Lark lost her heart. “You are safe here, Brian. We will keep you safe.”
Brian retrieved her hand and looked away again, as if the promise were of no matter, but Lark knew how much she wanted to believe it, though she would not dare. Oh Lark knew. She cleared her throat. “And your last name?”
“Fairhaven, like the man my mother married, though I have been known on the streets only as Brian, which suited me.”
Lark understood that her boy’s name and boys’ clothing could well serve the same purpose Lark’s had, especially in such horrid holes as homeless children tended to congregate in London. But why did she not even refer to the man her mother married as her father? It was all so confusing, yet the girl was too young to quiz on such a delicate matter.
Lark found herself nervous of a sudden over the responsibility of raising a girl. A girl in boys’ clothes could be well-met and understood. But when the time came that Brian turned back into Ashley Briana—if the day ever arrived—how would Lark manage to mother a female child when she knew nothing of the ilk? Rat’s whiskers, Ash new more about feminine fripperies than she ever would.
“We will need to have new clothes made for you, Brian, so you must tell me if you wish to have boys’ clothes or girls’.”
Brian sighed. “Boys’ clothes, please.”
Lark nodded, unsurprised, and made quick work of finishing so Brian could bathe.
The girl needed no help to undress, but tears filled her doe’s eyes as Lark scrubbed the grime off her bony little arms. “Am I hurting you?” Lark asked.
“No. It feels nice to be clean after so long.”
“How long were you forced to survive on your own?”
“Forever,” she said, as if wistfully looking back in time. “I do not know how long.”
“Through this full spring just passed?” Lark asked. “Or only for part of it?”
“There was snow on the ground when the carriage Maman’s servant sent me to London in went off the road and ended in a ditch, and a painted lady and rich gentleman found me walking and took me to London in their carriage.”
Oh God. “Were you with them all this time?”
Brian shook her head and dutifully ducked to rinse her hair. “For a while, I had a corner by their kitchen fire to sleep, which was better than some, until the gentleman frightened me and I ran. Then I found children my own age and shared their cellar. If one of them had not knocked me into the path of the man chasing him, I would never have ended here.”
“I hope you feel as if he did you a favor?”
The girl shrugged, reserving judgment, and Lark understood.
“This is where Mama wanted me to be,” Brian said, accepting her fate.
The girl made no fuss when Mim brought out a clean pair of Micah’s clothes for her to wear after her bath, and when she finished dressing, she herself tossed her filthy old rags on the fire.
“Tell me about your man,” Brian said getting back into Lark’s lap, sleepy after her bath. “My mother said there was a man who loved her and would love me. Is your man the one who loved my Mama? My real name is like his, is it not?”
Lark stilled while her blood felt as if it left her body. “I … do not know if my husband is the man who loved your Mama,” she said, rocking again, “but your Mama’s note was addressed to him.”
“Is he a good man?”
“Yes, Lark said. He is. Micah is my nephew, you see, but my husband takes very good care of him.”
“The boy hates me.”
“And you love the boy?”
Brian made a rude noise that made Lark laugh and bring her close.
“Are you going to keep the boy too?” Brian asked on a sleepy yawn. “What does he call you?”
Micah doesn’t call me anything, anymore, Lark thought, because he hasn’t yet spoken a word. “You may both call me Auntie,” she suggested, or Mama, she dared not.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Once Brian had begun talking, there was no stopping her. She not only spoke for herself, but for Micah as well, except that Micah did not always like what Brian said on his behalf, which made him angry and turned him into a handful of a normal little boy. Lark was as grateful, and entertained, as she was frustrated by her bickering children.
Ash taught them a great deal about the estate and often took one or both of them with him on his rounds.
Brinks taught them to ride.
Grimsley could most often be found teaching them manners.
Lark took them to visit Ash’s mother for fifteen minutes every morning, holding her hand and speaking to her mother-in-law as if the frail old woman understood. Lark called her Mother and encouraged the children to call her Grandmother.
She took the children on playful adventures throughout the estate. In the spinney, they pretended to be explorers, lost in the trees and brush. They played hide and seek among the farm sheds, the buttery, the root cellar and dovecote. They ran through the ghostwalk as if chased by ghosts, played tag in the lavender field, and climbed trees in the orchard. On rainy days, they made lavender sachets, as cook had taught them, or played war with Ash’s tin soldiers, or held banister races in the foyer.
Lark had Olive teach her how to sew Brian a rag doll and after she completed it, Brian took to playing house like a normal little girl, though Micah hated that game as much as any normal little boy.
Sometimes the resentment between them vanished, and Brian and Micah played like reasonably well behaved children, but other times Brian would turn wild again. She cut a fence and stole a chicken from a tenant for no good reason, and only got caught when she let the squawking bird loose in the kitchen and politely asked cook to roast it.
In early June, Stan Redman caught both children swimming naked in the lake. They had tied Mim to a nearby tree to get free. Brian admitted talking Micah into joining her in a cooling swim, while Micah admitted to ambushing Mim.
But nights were for her and Ash and baby making.
“You would think that Micah would be a good influence on Brian, rather than her being a bad influence on him,” Ash said one night as he turned Lark to undo the buttons down her dress.
“I do not even care,” Lark said. “I am happy to see Micah play like a child, even a naughty one, for the first time in his life.”
“Well, I’d be pleased if Brian didn’t cause any more damage to my tenants’ property.”
“At least she doesn’t scream the house down when I leave her to come to bed at night anymore.” Brian had finally accepted that Mim was there for her at night and that Micah slept just across the nurs
ery, and Lark was grateful that she and Ash had been able to resume their baby-making.
“Are you certain you still want to have a baby?” she asked as she climbed into bed with him, for she’d had a particularly difficult day with the children.
“Have you changed your mind then about how much you enjoy playing the blanket hornpipe?” he asked, as he touched her in such a way as to make her yearn.
She gave his body the same studied attention. “Not in the least, but I have discovered of late that children are a great deal of trouble, or haven’t you noticed?”
“Oh, what kind of trouble?”
He was paying more attention to her body now than to her words. “They’re both stubborn little tricksters, always into one scrape or another. If it isn’t fighting like wildcats with each other, it’s skinning knees or breaking something of value in the house, not to mention tearing their clothes and cussing like sailors.”
Ash laughed and rose above her. “They are, both of them, exactly like you.” He kissed her nose.
Lark gasped in outrage, and then she gave him a prideful grin. “Really?”
“Really,” Ash said. “Let us make another.”
Lark could do nothing, of course, but agree.
When the tutor finally arrived, Brian, Micah, and Lark, together, became his pupils. He was to teach them reading, writing, and numbers.
A prig of a miserable old schoolmaster, he looked down his nose at Brian’s name as well as her clothes, at Micah’s silence, and at Lark’s own advanced age. He chided her often and told her she was stupid compared to the children, which Lark could forgive, because it was true. She was his dunce, said he daily, and he made her wear a cone of a cap on several occasions just to prove it.
Micah was his brightest, pupil. The man said Micah might have been his star pupil if he could only talk. Lark often wanted to use her knee on the prig where it counted most.
Brian was his constant interrupter, and when he called her on it, he sneered at what he called her “masculine” clothes. So what if the girl wasn’t yet ready to wear dresses, which Lark could understand. Why not ignore the clothes on her back and get on with their lessons?
Untamable Rogue (Formerly: A Christmas Baby) Page 15
