A quiet storm rose as the twilight faded, large soft flakes of snow falling silently over the Abbey. I thought of Brisbane, out in the cold, searching for a frightened young woman who had made a terrible choice, and I prayed to a deity I did not entirely believe in for both of them.
Poor Lucy. And poor little John, I thought as I lifted him from his basket. He was indeed a fine specimen. He would thrive, in spite of his harrowing introduction to life. But under whose care? His mother was in flight, terrified of the monstrous man she had married, and in fear of her life. What sort of life was that for a child? And even if safe haven could be found for her, with us in London perhaps, was Lucy stable enough to have the care of a child? She had been highly strung and nearly hysterical the day I had visited her in the cottage. Black Jack’s game of chase had played havoc with her nerves, fretting them to nothing, and she was as fragile as the child she had left behind.
He regarded me solemnly, his plump cheeks pink against the pale, perfect alabaster of his skin. Like Black Jack, like Brisbane for that matter, his hair was black, only a little dusting of it as yet, but it would grow thick in time, I imagined. And I wondered if I should be there to see it. How would it look, that black Brisbane hair with the bright green of the March eyes?
When Brisbane returned hours later, mud-spattered and tired from his inquiries, he found us tucked into bed, the child fed and sleeping sweetly as I wept into his blanket.
“Hey, now, what’s this?” Brisbane asked, settling himself on the bed next to me.
“I want him,” I said, snuffling through my tears. “I did not think I wanted a child, but when we lost ours—” I broke off. “I still don’t know that I want children. But I want this one. He’s half Brisbane and half March. He is ours. And do not tell me Lucy wants him back. I do not think I could bear it.”
He slipped his arm around me, pressing his lips to my shoulder. “I could not find her. She left behind a note that would indicate she has taken her own life, and one of the village lads found her shoes and gown by the river.”
I looked at him in horror, but he raised a hand. “She is not dead. I would stake my reputation on it. She merely hopes to throw my father off the scent should he come this far. It may take time, but I can trace her.”
“Your father has tried these last months and always she has eluded him,” I reminded him.
“I am better at this than he,” he told me.
I said nothing. He was entitled to his confidence. He had well earned it.
He looked down at the slumbering face of his half-brother. “Do you mean it? About keeping him?”
“We have no choice,” I told him, wiping my eyes. “Where will he go? A foundling home? Could you do that to a child of your own blood?”
“Of course not,” he told me softly.
“Neither could I. There is no decision to make. Lucy has made it for us. She knows we could not bear to turn him away. We must keep him.”
“But will such a thing make you happy?” he persisted.
The child’s tight little rosebud of a mouth puckered in his sleep. “Before today I would have said it was impossible. And I expect I shall be hopeless as a mother. But I mean to try.”
Brisbane said nothing for a long moment. Then he spoke, his voice resolved. “I will tell Morgan the Apiary cannot be. I will keep to private enquiry work. It isn’t much safer but it will keep me closer to home, I suspect. And we will need a bigger house than Mrs. Lawson’s in Half Moon. I will tell her we rescind the offer, and we’ll start looking for lodgings tomorrow.”
“No,” I said firmly.
“No?” One handsome black brow quirked upward.
“No. We must begin as we mean to go on. We are neither of us happy without purposeful work, and we shall have it. There will be those to care for him when we are not there, and he will learn the value of a job well done from both of us. We will move into Half Moon Street as we planned, and you will work with Morgan to form the Vespiary,” I said, stressing the correction.
He smiled. “And what will you do? You will never be happy with teething biscuits and silver spoons.”
“No more than you,” I agreed. “But I will do as I have done. I will organise our household because, let us be frank, my love, I am better at it than you. I will work with you on cases that interest me. I will advise on the Vespiary when you think I can be useful. I will have my photography. And we will have...” I hesitated then said it for the first time and with ringing conviction, “our son.”
He looked down at the sleeping boy. “Our son,” he said, and in his voice was a note of wonder.
Chapter Ten
I had rather adopt a child than beget it.
—Othello, I, iii, 189
Contrary to his prediction, Brisbane unearthed no trace of Lucy outside of Blessingstoke. It made me uneasy that we could not find her, but I held out the hope that if Brisbane could not run her to ground, neither could Black Jack. Other matters were resolved to greater satisfaction. The Twelfth Night rehearsals continued smoothly, apart from my sister Olivia twisting her ankle and claiming she could no longer play the Turkish Knight. Bellmont stepped in with alacrity, and waved the great sword with tremendous enthusiasm, nearly taking off Valerius’s nose in the process.
“I think he is quite suited to playing the Turkish Knight,” Portia told me. “His pomposity is perfectly appropriate.” She smiled at me, and we exchanged conspiratorial looks, as if we were schoolgirls escaped from our lessons. Jane the Younger was tucked up in the nursery as was John Nicholas, both of them far too young for the chill of the Twelfth Night Revels. For the weather had turned again, briskly beautifully cold, with a frosty nip that caused the air to sparkle in the torchlight. Portia handed me a cup of Plum’s special punch, brimming with spices and potently intoxicating.
As we drank, my eyes lingered on Perdita, costumed as a woodland mushroom. I had neglected to take her back to the cottage with me, and she had accepted my apology with her usual eccentric grace.
“That’s quite all right, Aunt Julia. If I had been there, Cousin Lucy might not have confided in you.”
“Is that so important?” I asked, intrigued.
She nodded solemnly. “Without that meeting, she might not have decided to give you little Jack.”
I opened my mouth to correct her, but she was already gone, flown away to some other place like the bit of thistledown she was. I turned to Brisbane. “Did you hear that? The family have decided to call him Jack. I don’t know that I like it. It has overtones of your father.”
“Well, he definitely isn’t a John,” he told me. “John is a very simple proper name, and what he did on the wall of our room last night was neither simple nor proper. It took Morag the better part of the morning to clean it off, and the paintwork will never be the same.”
“Serves her right,” I said mildly. “She insisted on being his nanny instead of my lady’s maid. I have almost never called upon her to clean up my bodily functions.” But I was still thinking of Perdita.
It was Perdita, much to the chagrin of Tarquin and Quentin, who discovered that the oysters had been deliberately left out in the warm kitchens to poison the family. The undercook, jealous of Cook’s position, had hoped to shift the blame on her ailing superior. But Perdita unmasked her villainy, and after Aunt Hermia boxed the undercook’s ears and sacked her without a reference, justice was served. Brisbane, impressed with Perdita’s abilities, promised her a job one day, and I was not entirely certain he was jesting. But before I could enquire too closely, the Revels were upon us.
For the first time in ten years, the March family gathered to perform the Twelfth Night Revels for the
village of Blessingstoke, just as they had done in Master Shakespeare’s day. The dragon breathed fire while the Turkish Knight brandished his sword at St. George, and when it was finished, the resurrected saint and his sad dragon stood in tableau while the white-robed chorus, of which Portia and I made two, sang of the blood-berried holly and the sweetly clinging ivy. Rather like Brisbane and myself, I thought fancifully. Both evergreen and hardy, one sturdy, one tenacious, and forever undivided. But now there was a new little branch grafted to our union.
I glanced to the nursery window, glowing warm and yellow against the black walls of the Abbey as Jane the Younger’s nanny and Morag looked down upon the frolics. I turned to see Brisbane’s eyes fixed on me, a slow smile spreading over his face. I knew what he was thinking. We had a new life ahead. New home, new work, new child, new cases. One case in particular would prove particularly intriguing, and it was that case that persuaded me that little Jack was forever and completely mine. But that is a tale for another time.
* * * * *
1. SILENT NIGHT
2. THE DARK ENQUIRY
3. DARK ROAD TO DARJEELING
4. THE DARK ENQUIRY
About the Author
A sixth-generation native Texan, New York Times bestselling author Deanna Raybourn graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio with a double major in English and history and an emphasis on Shakespearean studies. She taught high school English for three years in San Antonio before leaving education to pursue a career as a novelist. Deanna makes her home in Virginia, where she lives with her husband and daughter and is hard at work on her next novel.
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ISBN-13: 9781459256187
TWELFTH NIGHT
Copyright © 2014 by Deanna Raybourn
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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