*
When they reached the building on the fringes of Mayfair where he rented rooms, Hannah looked up at the soot-darkened town house and said, “It is very small.”
“Yes, but it is all I can afford. Bellington House in Berkeley Square is let to mushrooms this year, to help pay expenses.” And the bedroom and sitting room on the third floor here were all he needed, actually. They had never looked quite so small, or messy, though. His landlady came once a week to tidy up—when he could pay her extra. Gregory could not quite recall when the last time had been.
No matter, he told himself. This was a temporary arrangement only. Tomorrow he would think of another solution to the problem of Hannah. If he thought his aunt was in Bath, he could ship the tot off to her there—but Aunt Elvira might already be on her way to the Ravencroft Christmas party. Surely he knew some other woman who would take in a pretty little girl who was brave and bright and helpful. Why, Hannah was already pouring hot water into his washbasin.
“There, now Valentina is not so dirty,” she announced when he turned back from hanging their wraps on the pegs by the door.
The floor was wet. His bed was wet. The landlady was madder than a wet hen.
“You never said nothin’ ’bout no young ’un,” Mrs. Cauffin said, breathing hard and wiping at beads of perspiration on her florid face after the climb up the stairs. “That’ll be extra on the rent. And more iffen you expect me to feed her. Or make up a cot. Or do her linens. Or—”
“Yes, yes, Mrs. Cauffin. We’ll figure it all out in the morning,” Gregory said, shooing the fat old woman out the door before she could think of more ways to charge for her slovenly services. “With any luck, I will have made other arrangements by then.”
Why Lord Bryson thought he might get lucky now, he could not begin to imagine. Luck had not been on his side for years. Still, one of his friends must know a nice childless couple, or a family kind enough to take in one more little mouth to feed. How much could such a wisp of a thing like Hannah eat, anyway?
Enough for a regiment, it seemed. Mrs. Cauffin’s tally was growing faster than she could count on her sausage-shaped fingers. The viscount could not begrudge the child the extra helpings, though, not when she told him of the usual fare at Miss Chiswell’s. Hannah had never even seen a trifle before.
“I will be going out later, Mrs. Cauffin,” Gregory had to say. “Will you watch Hannah for me? This being a new place, and all, I do not like to leave her alone.”
“It’ll cost extra.”
Everything did.
Gregory waited for Hannah to fall asleep before he left. She was snuggled on the worn sofa, since he was not giving up his own bed, and there was no room in the narrow apartment for a cot. She was wearing one of his best shirts, with the sleeves rolled up, and her silver-blond hair was in the messiest braid he’d ever seen. He’d have to get better at that task, Gregory told himself, for his own mane would need plaiting soon.
He had not known any bedtime stories, so the viscount had read an article on agriculture from the latest farming journal—as if he could ever implement the latest advances at Belle Towers. His choice of reading material did not matter. Hannah fell asleep with a smile on her face and the broken-nosed doll in her arms.
Lud, she looked like an angel. How could anyone not want this little darling? This expensive, scandal-ridden responsibility, Gregory reminded himself with a wrench to his heartstrings, on the way to his club.
Everyone had heard of Hannah already, of course. Being accosted by one’s bastard in the park was many a gentleman’s worst nightmare, and the best joke, since Bryson was the one singled out as sire, not any of them. He tried to pass Hannah off as his dead brother’s, without much success, without mentioning the Marvelous Ann Marvell. Finding Hannah a home would be difficult enough, without adding the onus of a notorious high flyer for a mother.
No one knew of possible foster parents.
“What, for your bastard, cousin? Why should anyone take in your dirty linen?”
Floyd Bellington was the last person Lord Bryson wished to see. Hell, the overdressed Captain Sharp was the last person Gregory would want to have as a relation. The dirty dish was a first cousin, unfortunately, and next in line to the viscountcy at that. If not for Floyd, Gregory could have broken the entailment on the property he’d inherited. He could have sold the London town house to pay the mortgage on Belle Towers, or sold off some of the outlying acres to finance necessary improvements to bring in higher profits. Floyd, however, would not agree. He wished to inherit the trappings of a peer, the London mansion, the country estate, not just an empty title.
No matter that Gregory was not yet thirty, with his whole life ahead, and no plans to cock up his toes in the foreseeable future. As Floyd was wont to remind him, Gregory’s brother Gordon had not been intending to break his neck in that horse race, either.
Now Floyd smoothed down his fair hair, which was not as pale as Gregory’s, but was fashioned into a stylish Brutus cut. “You might try to claim the brat was Gordon’s, but no one will believe you, not after that contretemps in the park. The chit must know her own father, wouldn’t you say? And there’s no hiding she’s your spit and image, I hear. What decent family will take in a soiled piece of goods like that?”
“I am sure there must be one somewhere, Floyd,” Gregory replied. “After all, your mother kept you.” After that, the viscount’s appetite for cards, brandy, and male company was gone. The stakes were too high, the cigar smoke was too thick, the ribald jokes too much at his expense. Besides, he could not stop thinking about Hannah left in his rooms with no one but the landlady. What if Hannah awoke, frightened? Worse, what if she did not awake, and a candle tipped over? Or she could fall off the sofa. He should have drawn the chair next to her makeshift bed, but what did he know of children? Why, she could have strangled on the cord he used to tie her braid, or been sick from all the unaccustomed food he let her eat. Thunderation, the mercenary Mrs. Cauffin might have sold Hannah to white slavers.
He went home.
Hannah was sleeping peacefully, and so was Mrs. Cauffin, his last bottle of cognac half empty at her side. Well, at least he could make the old besom deduct that from his bill. He shook the landlady awake and sent her off, and then he stood over the sofa, shielding the candle with his hand so it didn’t shine in Hannah’s eyes. Before taking it to his own bedroom, to finish reading the farm journal, he gently brushed Hannah’s hair off her face and retucked the blankets around her. This time he placed the doll on the top of the covers. He’d wanted to toss the ruined thing out, but Hannah had protested that Valentina was the only gift she had ever received from her mother, along with a note that said “Always in my heart.”
Always in Ann Marvell’s heart? Hah. The woman had no heart, to abandon her infant to Miss Chiswell, and then to leave the country without making provisions for the child. Lud, the little sprite deserved so much more out of life than she’d received, and more than Gregory could give her.
Chapter Four
Morning brought no answers, just a squawking bird chirping too loudly for Lord Bryson’s sore head. No, that was no bird, it was Hannah singing. His brother had never been able to carry a tune, either. The off-key lilt was too cheery, too loud, and too early. Dawn was barely breaking over the rooftops, and Gregory had stayed up half the night thinking, finishing that bottle of cognac. Now he had a headache on top of his other woes, and a barefoot urchin was sitting on top of his bed.
Lud, he’d have to start wearing a nightshirt. He pulled the covers higher.
“Good morning, Papa,” Hannah trilled. She grinned, and now he could see that her bottom front tooth was missing. If that Chiswell crone had knocked it out beforetimes he’d…
“I am not your papa,” he said with a growl. “You may call me uncle, I suppose. Uncle Gregory, or Uncle Bryson. Not Papa. Do you understand?”
Her smile fading, Hannah nodded. She understood tempers, all right, after living with Miss Chiswell fo
r six years. She slipped off the bed and edged toward the door. “Mrs. Cauffin told me all gentlemen were like bloody bears in the morning. Shall I fetch your chocolate?”
Now Gregory had to feel guilty at her wary look, besides feeling like he’d wrestled with that same bear, and lost. He managed a “Please, thank you” before noticing that Hannah’s sleeves—the sleeves of his best dress shirt—were no longer rolled up. They were cut off, and raggedly at that, at her wrists.
When Hannah noticed where he was staring, speechless, she held up her doll, and a scissors. “See? I made a bandage for Valentina’s broken arm, and a sling. Now she does not look so sad, except for her nose. Do you not think so?”
He thought he could cheerfully have tossed her and her blasted doll out the window. How could he have thought this imp of Satan an angel?
“Go away, brat, and let me get dressed.” When she was almost at his bedroom door, he added, “And do not go outside, do not play with scissors or water or my wardrobe. Do not enter this room without knocking, and do not repeat anything Mrs. Cauffin says. If I hear you say ‘bloody’ once more, I will wash your mouth out with soap. Unless, of course, you cut yourself with that scissors I wish you would put down. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Papa.”
Gregory groaned. What the deuce was he going to do with Hannah? Neither sleep nor spirits had brought him an answer. Now his rooms seemed smaller and dingier, his landlady coarser and less accommodating. This was no place for a child, not for so much as another day.
The viscount was nearly resigned by now to losing Belle Towers. Neither his father nor his brother had shown much interest in keeping the old place going, except for promising to redeem the debts with the next financial coup, the next winning racer. Neither had done more than sink them further in debt, and Gregory was faring no better. His total worldly assets, all he’d managed to scrimp and save from the meager farm rents, the paltry bank interest, a few clever wagers, would still fall far short of the next payment on Belle Towers that was due to his creditors right after Christmas. If he took out a sum for Hannah’s care…
He had no choices left, after all. What he could do now was go to Berkshire, to see if there was anything remaining in the Towers to sell. Surely there was something that was not listed in the entailment, some bit of his mother’s jewelry, some silver candlestick that could go toward purchasing his passage to America and a tiny plot of land there, after he saw Hannah established in a proper school, with a proper trust fund set up for her future. Perhaps he could send for her in time, if the former colonies proved welcoming, and if he proved a capable farmer. Birth did not matter as much in the New World, he understood, so Hannah would not face as much censure. Hell, away from England and Debrett’s, he might even be able to call himself a widower with a little girl, a legitimate little girl.
He could not drag the infant off to Berkshire with him, though, not in this cold weather, not when he meant to ride cross-country and sleep in barns to save money. So what was he to do with Hannah in the meantime? Certainly he could not leave her here with his bloody landlady, Mrs. Cauffin.
The only solution that had come to his admittedly wine-soaked mind, however, was a soft voice, a gentle touch, and intelligent green eyes. Miss Claire Haney would know what to do. He could not afford her services, of course, even if he had a place to lodge her and Hannah, but she might know of another governess with as sympathetic a manner, one who was between positions and might be willing to take Hannah into her own home. It would be a temporary solution, until he could find a decent school. Miss Haney might be of assistance there, too, he thought. She seemed knowledgeable, capable, and caring. Ladylike, she would be a good influence on Hannah, not enriching the chit’s vocabulary with gutter language. She was pretty, too.
It was too bad, Gregory thought as he dressed, that he could not winkle Miss Haney away from that harridan, Lady Handbury, for soon enough the governess would lose her sweet, fresh look to become another overworked, underappreciated, downtrodden upper servant.
Then again, at least Miss Haney had a paying position, which was more than Gregory had.
The butler at Handbury House advised the viscount—with a superior sniff toward his tiny companion—that Lord Handbury was not at home. Gregory had decided that he could not simply call on the man’s sons’ governess, not without seeking Handbury’s permission first. Handbury’s wife was certain to make Miss Haney’s life miserable if she thought the governess was entertaining gentlemen on the sly. With Handbury from home, though, Gregory had no alternative. He was not about to beard Lady Handbury in her den, or in her parlor, as the case might be. So he asked for a few moments of Miss Haney’s time. “The governess, you know, about, ah, about a place for my ward.”
The butler curled his lip. “Miss Haney is his lordship’s sister, my lord, not an employee. Should you wish to confer with the young gentlemen’s tutor?”
Gregory felt the tips of his ears turning red. From the cold, he told himself, although the room where he and Hannah were shown was quite warm. “No, I believe Miss Haney would be better informed about girls’ schools and such.”
“Quite,” the butler said, bowing himself out of the room with the viscount’s hat and gloves.
Hannah was staring around at the extravagantly decorated parlor. “It is a very fancy house, isn’t it?”
Gregory also noticed the profusion of china shepherdesses, jade figurines, and other expensive, breakable items on every surface, so he told her to sit still in a gilt chair. Then he saw a dish of comfits and popped one in her mouth, to keep her happy and quiet.
In a short time—too short for the viscount to reorder his thinking to fit the new circumstances—Miss Haney entered the room. She was prettier than he remembered, with a warm, welcoming smile. She still wore gray, but now he could see that the gown was finely made of softest merino wool, with fancy lace trim, and graced a pleasingly curved figure. Her hair was pinned looser today, too, with soft curls framing smooth cheeks. Her green eyes were sparkling with tiny gold flecks. All in all, Handbury’s sister looked as delectable as one of the bonbons Hannah was eating.
“Thank you for seeing us,” he began, after making his bow and nudging Hannah into a curtsy. “We met yesterday in the park, although I fear there was no formal introduction that would have made this visit proper.”
“He thought you were the governess,” Hannah piped up.
Gregory clamped his hand over her mouth, leaving his palm with the sticky residue of the sugared sweet she’d eaten.
Claire looked down at her gray dress. “I am in mourning, my lord. But it is a natural mistake.”
“I am sorry for your loss, ma’am,” Gregory said, wondering how he was to wipe his hand before taking his leave, and taking hers in his. She solved that problem by ringing for tea, and the cook’s special gingerbread biscuits for Hannah. Napkins appeared along with the welcome refreshments.
After she had poured, letting Hannah help add milk and sugar—far more sugar than Gregory liked—she smiled at him and asked how she could be of service to him and his…?
“Ward, Miss Haney. I found that the school where Hannah was residing was unsuitable, and I have no knowledge of any others. I was hoping you might know a woman interested in keeping Hannah for a bit, while I make other arrangements.”
Claire was admiring Hannah’s doll, thinking what a handsome pair these two callers were, with their matching blue eyes and long, straight, silvery-blond hair. She was pleased, somehow, that the viscount was finally meeting his responsibilities toward the child, for handsome was as handsome did, and his lordship was handsome indeed.
She wished she could help him, and the adorable little miniature version sitting beside her. She could not take in the child, of course, although if she were still in the country, running her father’s house, she would not have hesitated an instant. Miss Haney of Handbury Hall could be as generous as she pleased. Her father was gone, though, and Claire was mistress of nothing. She had nev
er felt her helplessness so strongly, nor the loss of her parents. “I am sorry, but I have not been in London long enough to know many people, and those friends I have made are gone away for the Christmas holidays. My old nurse would be perfect, for she adores children, although Diana, Lady Handbury, that is, feels Nanny is too ancient to have charge of her sons. But Nanny is in Wales visiting her own family while I am away from home.”
Claire was in London against her will, but she saw no reason to mention that to this town-bronzed gentleman. Diana had insisted on Claire’s presence so a husband could be found for her, now that Claire’s mourning period was almost over. Lady Handbury knew she could never be true mistress of Handbury Hall, not while the beloved daughter of the house remained there.
Gregory stood to leave, having stayed longer than the proper time for a morning call, but with no further excuse to remain except the warmth of Miss Haney’s smile. He had no business being here in the first place, with no chaperon but Hannah. If he could not afford to hire Miss Haney as governess, he could definitely not afford to call on Miss Haney, Lord Handbury’s sister.
Lady Handbury agreed with him. Having berated the butler for not informing her of the callers at once, Diana bustled into the room, all fluttering flounces and flapping strings of beads. She did not pause for polite greetings, but rapped Miss Haney’s wrist with her closed fan. “What is the meaning of this, Claire? Entertaining a gentleman on your own? You ought to know better by now, at your advanced age. How many times have I told you, country manners will not do in town? You will have the entire ton gossiping about us, especially after that scandal in the park yesterday. I told your brother we will never be able to find a gentleman willing to wed the gauche female you have become.”
She paused for breath and turned to Gregory, fixing him in her beady-eyed stare. “As for you, Bryson, how dare you bring your rubbish here to further besmirch my sister-in-law’s good name? Heaven knows you ought to know better than to parade your bastard around the city. Feckless, you are, just like your brother and your father before him.”
An Enchanted Christmas Page 9
