by Jane Goodger
“What a coincidence,” Sadie said, apparently delighted.
“Yes. And his lordship, is he in residence?”
“He’s the one what found you on the moor, dearie. Thought you was struck by his team or ill, but I’m thinking you were just starving, poor thing.”
Lilian tried to remember what she knew of Lord Granton (other than his fine form), but her information was woefully inadequate. She thought she recalled that his wife had recently died, but that’s all she knew. She took a large bite of ham and closed her eyes at the loveliness of it.
“Take your time, dearie. Your stomach may not be ready for a lot of food.”
After slowly devouring nearly everything on the tray, Lilian was overcome with sleepiness. She was soon fast asleep and didn’t even hear Sadie removing her tray. Her last thought before she drifted asleep was that she needed a good bath and must ask Sadie’s assistance in the morning.
* * *
“How is your patient?” Marcus asked that morning when Sadie delivered his breakfast.
“Much better after a good meal last night, that’s for sure. She was asking for a bath and food. I think the poor lass was just faint from hunger and thirst.”
“That’s good. I wouldn’t want her spreading some disease,” Marcus said blandly, ignoring Sadie’s tongue-clicking. Sadie was never shy about expressing her opinion, often acting more like an aunt than a servant.
“As soon as the lady can walk without fainting, please let her know she may leave,” Marcus said, looking over his correspondence. His brother, Adam, continued to forward his mail, including social invitations, even though he had little interest in rejoining society. He wished people would simply leave him alone and allow him to live his life. Even his sister, Rose, who lived in America and had married their former groom, had the audacity to criticize him. To be honest, she hadn’t truly been as critical as she had been concerned, no doubt fired up by his youngest brother, Stephen. The very same brother who’d come unannounced four months prior and tried to see him.
That had been a rather dark time for Marcus, and though now he regretted—slightly—pretending he was not at home, he’d been in no shape to see anyone. He still truthfully didn’t want to see any of his family. Not yet.
“I don’t think she’ll be ready to travel for days, sir. She’s weak as a kitten, she is.”
Marcus set aside a letter from his solicitor and stared at Sadie until the older woman worried her hands. “Kittens can walk.”
Sadie clicked her tongue and was about to say something when they were both startled to hear a knock on the front door, a booming sound that echoed through the empty halls. Other than Stephen, no one had bothered Marcus at Merdunoir, and he wondered what brave soul was daring to do so now.
“I’ll see who that is, my lord,” Sadie said quickly, likely grateful to escape Marcus’s company.
She returned moments later, an odd expression on her face. “There’s a woman to see you, sir. Says it’s important.”
Marcus immediately noticed two things: Sadie had said woman, not lady, and if he wasn’t mistaken, his housekeeper looked positively livid. “I’ll see no one, Sadie, you know that.”
“There is a child with her,” Sadie said, unable to meet his gaze. “A small child.”
For another man, having a strange woman appear unannounced at his doorstep with a child would have been terrifying. But Marcus, in all the years of his marriage, had never strayed, even when he knew Eleanor had. “I can’t imagine what a woman towing a child would want with me,” Marcus said, his tone unbending. “Send her away.”
“Yes, sir.”
Marcus sat and waited, having a feeling that Sadie would be returning, looking even more harried. He was correct.
“She won’t leave. Says if she does, she’ll leave the poor little mite she brought with her on the doorstep.”
Marcus threw down his napkin and stood. By God, would no one leave him in peace? He stalked to the door, ready to blast the woman standing there, but something about the little face of the girl peering up at him made him stop. The pair stood there, just outside the door, the soft morning light doing nothing to soften the woman’s appearance. The girl child stood beside the woman, holding on to the woman’s coat lightly, just a thumb and forefinger, as if she didn’t want the woman to know she was holding on. The girl wasn’t his, he knew that for a fact, but she was just a little thing, perhaps four or five, and she looked rather pathetic standing there next to the large matron. As he approached, the little girl tugged on the woman’s coat and the woman batted the child’s hand away roughly.
“Madam,” Marcus said, and something in his eyes made the woman back up a step. Perhaps it was that he’d wanted to strike the woman for slapping the little girl’s hand, but what kind of example would that have set? “May I ask why you are on my doorstep with that child?”
“My name is Susan Broom.” When he gave her a blank look, she huffed out a breath. “She’s yours.”
Chapter 4
Mrs. Broom shoved the girl toward him. She was a large, brutish woman, with a fine mustache above her thin lips and thick, bushy brows over cruel brown eyes.
“I assure you, she is not mine.”
“Well, she ain’t mine. Unless you want to pay me for her upkeep. You’re past due.”
Marcus furrowed his brow. “I believe you are mistaken, madam. I have no child.”
The woman laughed, revealing a mouthful of brownish, crooked teeth. “You’re Lord Granton, ain’t ya?”
“I am.”
“And your wife is Lady Granton.”
“My wife passed away more than a year ago.”
Her eyes widened. “That explains why I haven’t been getting paid. This is her brat. I been taking care of it for more’n four years now. Feeding and clothing it, and I ain’t gonna keep doing that if I ain’t getting paid. You owe me fifty pounds, plus travel. I’ve come all the way from Northumberland. I had to leave my own precious children behind and spend my own money to find where you were.”
Marcus looked down at the little girl, who looked up at him, her face solemn. My God, she very well could be Eleanor’s child; she had her hazel eyes, her light brown hair. They had spent months apart on several occasions, so he supposed it was possible. And this vile woman had called her “it.”
“What is the child’s birth date? Do you know?”
“May 2, 1875 was the day Lady Granton brought a baby to me and it was just born then.”
“Surely you don’t expect me to take the child without proof,” Marcus said, keeping his tone level, if only for the sake of the child. Inside, he was reeling, for a quick calculation made him realize the little girl could have been conceived when he was in America with his sister, Rose. Soon after he’d returned, Eleanor had announced she was heading to Italy because she dreaded the coming winter. At that point in their farce of a marriage, he wouldn’t have cared if she’d said she was going to the other side of the world. Now her trip made much more sense, as well as the fact this woman hailed from Northumberland. Eleanor’s family had a home in Northumberland, rarely used, where she could have lived in secret until the child was born. No doubt she’d been terrified at the prospect of telling him she was carrying another man’s child. Eleanor had been an intelligent woman. Even now, the rage that coursed through his veins nearly made him ill, made his hand shake when he took the documents Mrs. Broom smugly held up for him.
Marcus laughed lightly as he examined the certificate of birth, a sound that held little humor, and Mrs. Broom backed up another step, looking at him warily, as if he were a madman. Just when he thought he couldn’t be more humiliated, Eleanor had reached out from the grave to do this. He held a letter clearly written by his wife, for she had purely awful penmanship, the sort no one would be able to duplicate easily. In it, she detailed the arrangement with Mrs. Broom, the promise to pay the woman fifty pounds a year for the care of a female child.
“Fifty pounds. Plus travel. It’s f
air, my lord.”
He looked at the little girl, who wore a ragged, faded dress and clutched what looked like a misshapen stocking in her hand. She wasn’t starved looking and her hair was clean, if a bit tangled. And he knew if he gave the woman money, she would leave.
Bidding her to stay at the door, Marcus disappeared, returning moments later with a pouch containing seventy-five sovereigns. Handing them to the woman, he said, “You will never darken my doorstep again and you will never tell a soul about this child. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lord,” the woman said, but her gaze skittered away from his and he had a feeling she’d already told more than one person about the origins of this little girl. There was nothing Marcus could do about that now, he thought fatalistically.
“Where are her things?”
The woman looked at him blankly. “Things?”
“Clothing. Shoes. Toys. Is she trained to use a chamber pot?”
“Yes. She’s very nearly five,” she said. “She has nothing else, sir.” She placed the pouch into a large carpet bag and, giving the child a cursory glance, bade him good day.
Marcus, who wasn’t a particularly sentimental man, found it difficult to believe any woman could leave a child she’d been raising for over four years without some form of good-bye. But the woman continued down the drive without a backward glance, and the little girl stood still, watching her walk away. Marcus stood there in rapt disbelief, resisting the urge to call her back, until he felt a little hand in his.
He looked down and forced his lips into some semblance of a smile.
“My name is Mabel,” she said, her expression still solemn. “Are you my papa?”
“No.”
His response garnered no immediate reaction. Then, “But Mrs. Broom said you were my papa.” She called the woman who’d raised her Mrs. Broom? Good God.
“I am not. I am sorry, but I do not know who your papa is.” How could even Eleanor have done such a thing? Surely someone knew of the child’s existence. Her maid, Miss Cates, might know who the father was. It didn’t matter, though. Any child Eleanor had borne during their marriage was legally his responsibility, legally his child, whether he liked it or not.
“Did your mama ever visit you?”
Mabel shook her head. “Mrs. Broom said I was too naughty and my mama didn’t want me.”
Marcus’s blood began to boil, and he wished, not for the first time, that he was not a gentleman, for he very much would have liked to have throttled Mrs. Broom for speaking such nonsense. “Poppycock,” he said, making Mabel smile.
Mabel looked back a bit fearfully at the cavernous foyer behind them. Marcus supposed Merdunoir would be a bit frightening to a little girl. The house was large and rambling, perched on a cliff overlooking a sea that on this day looked dark and forbidding. He was beginning to love the old place, and just this past spring, he’d started thinking about renovating it. But that would mean workers about, bothering him, and he just hadn’t had the stomach for it.
Still holding her hand, he turned and walked into the dreary-looking house, and Mabel followed without hesitation. Something shifted in Marcus’s chest. What a brave little thing she was. She hadn’t shed a single tear. One would think a child would have grown attached to a woman, even one as foul as Mrs. Broom.
What was he going to do with a little girl? Where would she sleep? He supposed he could have a cot set up in his room for now. . . .
“Dammit!” The woman was already in his room. He’d completely forgotten about her.
Mabel flinched slightly at his outburst, and Marcus stifled another curse. He stopped and hunkered down to her level. “I do apologize for startling you.” The girl looked terrified, so he forced another smile, hoping it looked genuine. She clutched the small bundle in her hands tightly against her chest. “What is that?” Marcus asked, indicating the thing in her hands.
“My dolly.” She held it out for his inspection. It was a stocking with something stuffed into the end and twine tied around it to form a sort of neck. It had no hair, no eyes, nothing to indicate it was supposed to resemble a human form.
“It’s a stocking.”
“It’s a dolly,” she said adamantly, and hugged the thing against her again.
“If you will.” He eyed the thing skeptically, trying not to smile at her fierce expression.
He was completely out of his element. He supposed he could hire a nanny. Children had nannies, did they not? He knew nothing of children, particularly little girls, except what he remembered of his sister Rose. He’d been so much older than she, he’d spent little time with her, especially when she was a small child. Food. Children liked to eat. Sadie would know what to do with her.
“Are you hungry?”
“No, sir.”
He gave her a grim smile. “Let’s take you to the kitchen at any rate. That’s where Sadie is, no doubt. She’s my housekeeper and cook, and she makes the most delicious little tea cakes. I think you’ll like them.”
“I don’t like tea,” Mabel said.
“You’ll like tea cakes, however. I’m sure of it.”
The kitchen was perhaps the only part of the house that his father had bothered to introduce to the nineteenth century, and so was a warm and inviting place. One wall was lined with windows, too high to see out of but letting in a comforting light, even on a cloudy day. The brick floors, unlike most of Merdunoir, were immaculately clean, scrubbed and swept daily. When they entered, Sadie was standing by the large, wooden table, beating a pile of dough that she was likely imagining was Marcus’s head.
“You sit here, child,” Marcus said, lifting her up to sit on a stool, grimacing at how thin she felt beneath his hands. Perhaps she had been starved, after all. “A word, if you will, Sadie.”
Marcus drew Sadie to the furthest corner of the kitchen to explain the situation.
“The poor, wee mite,” Sadie said, looking over at Mabel, who sat at the stool, swinging her legs and talking to the stocking.
“Is there anyone in the village who would make a suitable nanny? I certainly cannot ask you to fill that role with everything else you do.”
Sadie shook her head. “The villagers, well, sir, you should know they think Merdunoir is haunted. They won’t step foot in this house in the daytime, never mind spending a night. I’m afraid you’re going to have to advertise in London.”
Marcus was taken aback, for he’d never heard of such a thing. “You can explain to them that this home is not haunted. They’ll believe you, won’t they?”
Sadie simply stared at him, her face turning slightly ruddy.
“Do you mean to tell me that you believe the house is haunted?”
She nodded, once, quickly. “But I figure something dead can’t hurt me and I need the position, I do. You won’t find another soul in Whitby who will work here. Even the name frightens them. Sea of black. Gives you the shivers, it does.”
“And your brother? Does he also think Merdunoir is haunted?”
“No, he does not, my lord. Stubborn fool that he is. He thinks we’re all crazy, but I’ve heard the ghost, sir. Haven’t you? The moaning, the footsteps?”
Marcus let out a sharp laugh, recovering quickly when he realized Sadie wasn’t joking. “No, I have not. At any rate, I’m glad you can overlook the house’s uninvited guests. Speaking of which, have you told the lady she may leave?”
“Not with all the excitement, sir.”
Marcus let out a sigh. “I’ll see to it. In the meantime, could you please give the child something to eat?”
“Certainly, sir.”
Marcus felt an odd hitch in his chest looking at Mabel, and he wondered what the hell he was going to do with her.
* * *
Lilian had never felt quite so out of sorts in her life. Her head still reeled when she stood, and she’d nearly fainted dead away after she’d used the chamber pot. What a fine thing that would have been, to have someone come in and find her so discomposed. With the morning
light, she could see she was in a large, masculine-looking bedroom containing thick wooden furniture from some previous century. The bed was huge, its intricately carved headboard soaring nearly to the ceiling, its footboard a shrine to opulence. She’d laughed aloud when she saw it, knowing that never in her life would she sleep in such a creation again. What sort of person purchased such a monstrosity?
With bare feet, she carefully padded over to the window and drew back the thick, velvet curtains, revealing an overcast day and a stunning view of the North Sea. Lilian had never seen anything quite so lovely as when a sharp needle of sunlight pierced through a rare opening in the clouds and lit a patch of the turbulent water below.
“Good, you’re up and about. You may leave now.”
Lilian let out a small scream at the unexpected arrival of a man, no doubt Lord Granton from his clipped and precise speech. She’d screamed not only because he’d startled her, but because she was standing wearing nothing but her shift and bloomers. Did the man not believe in knocking? Keeping her back to him and turning her head slightly, she said, “Sir, can you not see that I am unclothed?”
“I’m covering my eyes with my hands,” he said blandly.
Lilian peeked behind her and gasped. “You are not,” she said. He was not smiling, as one would expect from a man who was such a prankster. He simply stared at her, his expression unreadable, almost as if he were completely unaware of how improper his behavior was. “Will you please turn around so that I may get back into bed, Lord Granton?”
He gave her a small bow, then turned. Lilian sidled to the bed, just in case his lordship decided to spin around, but he remained still, almost at attention, as she moved as quickly as she could to the bed and pulled the covers to her chin, her head spinning slightly from the movement.
“You may turn around now.”
“May I?” he said, mockingly. “Thank you. I am glad to see you up and about. As I said, you may now leave.”
He’d not moved further into the room, but remained just inside the door, looking at her with a frown as she efficiently bundled her thick curls into a loose bun. He was a tall man and younger than she’d thought, with thick dark hair and piercing eyes that were an unusual golden brown. As nervous as she was, Lilian couldn’t help but note he was uncommonly handsome, though he was in need of a shave. Three years ago, she hadn’t gotten a good look at his face, which in hindsight was a good thing, indeed. Had she, she might have made even more a cake of herself over him, for his features perfectly matched the fine physique she knew was hidden beneath his clothes.
