The Wicked Waif

by Lancaster, Mary

  Dove watched him go. “Thank you!” he called after him when the door was almost shut. “I am obliged to you, as always.”

  Morton’s hat flapped through the crack in the door before it closed. Dove’s smile was twisted as he rose. One more duty and then he would go to bed.

  The men who’d helped in the rescue were mostly from Captain Blackshaw’s company. Blackshaw was notably absent from the barracks, although meant to be on duty. But Dove tracked his men down without difficulty, satisfied himself as to their health and was mightily cheered for his order of extra rations.

  Then, looking forward to his bed and a good, long sleep, he left their hut and strode back in the direction of the officers’ quarters in the main house. However, he hadn’t taken more than a step before he saw Blackshaw, clearly returned with friends from a long evening carousing.

  “Evening, Dove!” someone called to him from the group, and he raised his hand in brief acknowledgement.

  He did not stop to talk, for he meant to deal with the discipline in the morning when he was not dog-tired and Blackshaw was more likely to be sober. But presumably, Blackshaw had noticed where Dove had come from, for he detached himself from his cronies and weaved toward him.

  “Major,” Blackshaw drawled with a hint of insolence Dove had been ignoring for several weeks. “Checking up on my men?”

  Dove regarded him. The man was indeed drunk. Not for the first time, either. With a certain sympathy for anyone recently returned from battle, Dove had already closed his eyes to several minor breaches of duty, but now his patience had ended. It was time to call a halt, and it would not wait for morning.

  “Yes, as it happens,” Dove said coldly. “Since I could not rely on you to do so.” He smiled glacially. “You’ll be glad to know the colonel will receive an excellent report of their conduct tonight.”

  Blackshaw’s frown of confusion was enough to reveal he had no idea what Dove was talking about.

  “While you were in the tavern, your men distinguished themselves rescuing the sailors off a ship wrecked in the storm.” Dove took a step closer. “You will be somewhat conspicuously absent from that report. Be grateful. And careful. Or I’ll devote a whole report just to you. Do you understand me? Or do you want it in writing?”

  Even in the flaring lamplight around the grounds, Blackshaw’s flush was obvious. He made an aggressive attempt to stare Dove down, but was too unsteady on his feet. It looked more like an owlish stare. And perhaps he saw the hint of contempt in Dove’s eyes, for his own fell in submission and he weaved his way back to his friends.

  Dove walked on. But on the gusting wind, he could hear Blackshaw demanding of the others, “Who does he think he is?”

  “He thinks he’s your superior officer,” Kit Grantham said wryly. “And he’s correct.”

  Chapter Two

  Dove’s headquarter duties were hardly arduous, especially since Colonel Gordon had returned. Being off-duty the morning after the storm, he rode down to Blackhaven to satisfy his curiosity about the wreck. And to find out if the girl from the box had survived the night, for her beautiful, haunted face disturbed him at least as much as the reasons for her being shut inside a box while the ship sank.

  To his surprise, the vicarage seemed quiet. The servant took him at once to Mrs. Grant’s drawing room, though he couldn’t help glancing across the hall to the other reception room. The door was open and the mattresses had all been removed. There was no sign of the sailors.

  When he walked into the drawing room, Mrs. Grant was laying her tiny daughter in a cradle under the window. There was no sign of the girl he had left there last night.

  His heart sank. “Is she…?”

  “No, she’s alive,” Mrs. Grant said at once. “But she was very agitated, seemed to have terrible dreams, and when she woke, she seemed not to know where she was or even who she was. Dr. Lampton took her to his new hospital where she can be better cared for.”

  “Among the fallen women and the diseased?” he said with an unreasonable surge of annoyance.

  “Among her fellow unfortunates,” Mrs. Grant corrected, waving him to a chair. “I mean to visit her later today. Come with me, if you wish.”

  “Thank you,” Dove said. “I’ll probably go there myself when I leave you.” He hesitated. “She gave you no clue what had happened to her?”

  “She gave us no clues about anything. Dr. Lampton believes there is some sickness in her mind, whether caused by her head injury or the trauma she suffered.” Mrs. Grant shook her head. “Poor little waif. Who would possibly have shut her in a box while the ship sank?”

  “I have a few questions for the captain,” Dove promised. “I take it he and his sailors have gone, too?”

  “Two are in the hospital. The rest are on the beach with the captain, collecting what they can from whatever of the wreckage got washed ashore.”

  Dove gave a twisted smile. “Grabbing it before the locals can?”

  “Well, around here, the locals probably have enough brandy!”

  Dove regarded her. “Did he seem like a smuggler to you?”

  “Not particularly. Do you think he was?”

  “I don’t know. With brandy in his hold, he could be. Where did he sail from, do you know?”

  “Liverpool, he said. Bound for Sweden.” She smiled. “You are pursuing the mystery, Major? Under orders?”

  “If we pursued every smuggler, half the town would be on trial,” Dove said wryly. “But the girl in the box is another matter.”

  “I asked the sailors who were here. None of them seemed to know anything about a woman on board.”

  Dove rose to his feet. “Well, perhaps I’ll just step round to the hospital and see if our waif can tell us anything.”

  *

  The hospital was a new charity, begun with donations from the Earl of Braithwaite, Lord Wickenden, and Captain Alban, among other wealthy residents of Blackhaven and its environs. Dove was sure Mrs. Grant, who was wealthy in her own right, had also contributed, as had the foreign princess who was apparently engaged to marry Dr. Lampton. Lampton was the chief physician, although Dove understood a couple of other doctors also gave their time to the project.

  Dr. Lampton strode across the foyer as Dove was admitted. “Ah, Major. Have to dash, I’m afraid. Broken leg at Black Farm. If you’ve come to see the girl you rescued, Mrs. Fenton will show you the way.”

  The woman who had admitted him led him upstairs, where he could already hear the sounds of voices speaking loudly as though to a naughty child.

  “It’s rude to turn your head away when someone is speaking to you. You must answer Mrs. Brown!”

  “Just leave her, she’ll come around,” someone else advised. “Come on, love, eat a little of this and we’ll go away.”

  “Leave it for her,” a third voice advised.

  The first voice didn’t agree. “Take it away and she’ll talk as soon as she’s hungry!”

  “Mrs. Cross!” exclaimed the second voice.

  Mrs. Fenton knocked on the door and stuck her head in. “Major Doverton is here, wanting a word with the new patient.”

  The third voice laughed. “We’d all like a word from her! Come in, Major. I’m Mrs. Brown.”

  She was a severe looking woman, though spotlessly clean. As she stood aside, he saw her underlings all clustered around the narrow bed nearest the door. In the other bed, equally narrow, a skinny young woman wrapped in shawls with a baby in her arms looked anxiously toward him.

  His gaze dropped to the first bed. Although it was dry now, he recognized her hair and the position of the dressing at the side of her head. She lay very still, on her side, with her back to him.

  “She won’t say a word, sir,” he was informed, “no matter how kind we are to her. Closes her eyes so she don’t have to look at us neither.”

  Dove walked past them and around the other side of the bed. She did indeed have her eyes tightly shut, though he was sure she was awake.

  “Good morn
ing,” he said, looking down at her. “I am glad to see you alive, at least.”

  Her eyes flew open and met his gaze. For an instant, his heart seemed to stop, for her eyes were more beautiful than he remembered, large and sparkling blue-grey. As she searched his face, her breath caught, and she sat up so suddenly he reached out to stop her.

  “Slow down, you’ll make yourself dizzy after such a bump on the head.”

  But that did not appear to concern her. “You’re real!” she exclaimed in delight. “I thought I had imagined you.”

  “I wish you better dreams.” He glanced at the women who stood gawping with their mouths open. “I’ll sit with her for a little. I’m sure you have other duties.”

  A snigger came from the girl with the baby in the other bed, but Dove pretended not to hear.

  The girl from the box was frowning. “Then if you’re real, are the others? I remember another man with a grumpy face and kind eyes.”

  Dove, who had no difficulty in recognizing Dr. Lampton from this description, said only, “Yes, he stitched your head and saved your life.”

  She frowned. “No, you did that, didn’t you? You pulled me out of the darkness.”

  It was an odd way of describing it, but he let it pass. She seemed to be concentrating on separating her dreams from reality.

  “A beautiful lady with a friendly smile?” she asked doubtfully.

  “Mrs. Grant. You spent last night in her house.”

  “Then the women in white caps like maids were real, too?”

  “Probably,” Dove said with caution.

  “And the crying baby?”

  “The Grants do have a young baby.”

  She let out a breath. “Oh good. Because although it sounded like a baby, I was so afraid it was actually me.” She rubbed her brow. “And a handsome man who tried to talk to me? I wouldn’t speak. Was I rude?”

  “I suppose you were if it was Mr. Grant the vicar. Your host.”

  “Oh dear.” She bit her lip. “I’ve been very confused, had such nightmares. I don’t know who anyone is or what they’ll do.”

  “No one in Blackhaven will harm you. What were you doing on the ship?”

  Her eyes came back into focus. “What ship?”

  “The Phoenix. It sank last night in the storm after being blown against the rocks at the headland. Did someone take you aboard? Did you stowaway?”

  The frightened look came back into her eyes. She swallowed. “I don’t know. I don’t remember being there at all.”

  He perched on the edge of her bed and took her hand, which clung to his as it had last night. “Don’t worry,” he soothed. “Just tell me what you do remember.”

  “Darkness,” she whispered. “Again. I couldn’t breathe. There was no air, no light.” Her fingers dug into his skin. “And then there was water, freezing cold water, and the whole world was spinning. I kept falling. The water was in my mouth, my lungs…I was drowning. And then my head was above the water again, and I kicked and shouted. Then I was upside down and fell some more. And then you pulled me from the darkness…”

  Dove covered her hand on his. “We found you in a wooden box. How did you get there?”

  She shivered, a strange fear clouding her eyes before she dropped them to their joined hands. “I don’t know,”

  He patted her hand. “Never mind. Tell me something else. What is your name?”

  Her eyes squeezed shut, forming tight lines in her skin. “I don’t remember,” she whispered.

  Dove had come across this before, in one of his men who suffered a brutal head injury in battle. “Never mind,” he soothed. “Instead, think of someone calling a little girl to come inside for dinner. They call her a lot because she’s a mischievous little thing. What name are they calling? What name comes first into your head?”

  She frowned. “Tillie?” she said doubtfully.

  “It’s as good a name as any other. Do you remember your parents’ names? What they look like?”

  Her eyes widened. She shook her head.

  “Then you don’t remember where you came from?”

  Miserably, she shook her head again.

  “The Phoenix sailed from Liverpool, I’m told. Does that help?”

  She stared at him. “It’s all darkness before you pulled me out.” Her fingers gripped convulsively once more, then released him in quick embarrassment. “I’m sorry. It’s a little…frightening. To know nothing, to remember nothing.”

  “I can imagine. It should come back to you in time. For now, it’s important to remember you’re safe. The people in the hospital want only to help make you well. As do all the people you remember from last night.”

  “You are all very kind.” She blinked away sudden tears. “And I have only been frightened and rude.”

  “I think that’s understandable.”

  A smile flickered across her face as she regarded him once more. “You’re an army officer,” she observed, taking in his uniform. “The women called you Major.”

  “Major Dominic Doverton of the 44th,” he introduced himself. “Our barracks are here in Blackhaven.”

  “I am very pleased to meet you,” she said cordially, and yet there was a hint of fun in her eyes, an appreciation of the humor in observing the conventions in this most unconventional situation.

  Doverton would have liked to look at her a little longer, but he caught sight of the redoubtable Mrs. Brown in the doorway. Rising unhurriedly, he said, “Miss Tillie, I hope I may call on you again.”

  “Oh, yes! That is, if you would be so kind. And Major?” she added as he began to walk around the bed.

  He glanced back at her.

  “Thank you for saving my life.”

  “Glad to be of service,” he said lightly.

  Mrs. Brown followed him from the room. “She told you her name?” she said eagerly. “Who is she? Where is she from?”

  “She gave me a name,” Dove corrected. “Plucked from the air. Whether or not it’s hers, neither of us know. She remembers nothing before being in the water last night, and understandably that frightens her. So be patient with her.”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Brown said, bridling.

  Dove smiled and thanked her, which clearly mollified her, and went thoughtfully downstairs.

  As he rode back through the town, meaning to go down to the shore to speak to the sailors, he turned right off the high street instead and went back to the vicarage. There, he encountered Grant, walking across from the church.

  “Greetings, Major,” the vicar said cheerfully. “Come and have luncheon with us. Or with me, at least. The baby changes Kate’s plans whenever she can!”

  “Oh, no, I won’t intrude,” Dove said at once. “I was just hoping for a word with you and Mrs. Grant.”

  “About the girl from the box?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come in,” Grant said, leading him straight to the drawing room, where Kate bounced up to meet him before she had even seen Doverton.

  “Tris! You’re home early, for once,” she exclaimed. “Oh, and you’ve brought the major. Have you seen our patient, sir?”

  “Yes, I have,” Dove said, taking the seat she offered. “She has no memory of anything before being in the sea, so far as I can gather. She doesn’t even know her name, though she’s picked ‘Tillie’ for now. I’m not sure it suits her.”

  “In what way does it not suit her?” Grant asked, amused.

  Dove shrugged. “I suppose because my mother had a maid called Tillie. And I don’t think she’s anyone’s maid.”

  “Why not?” Grant asked.

  “She speaks too well to be anything other than from a well-educated family.”

  “You think she is a duchess in disguise?” Grant asked, grinning openly.

  “No, but—”

  “She might be,” Mrs. Grant interrupted.

  They both blinked at her.

  “I never heard her speak,” she admitted. “But her clothes… I didn’t notice last night beca
use everything looks like a rag when it’s soaked in sea water. But now that they’re cleaned and drying, I can see quite clearly that the dress she wore, her underclothes, her pelisse, her boots—all are of the highest quality.”

  “It makes her wealthy,” Grant said. “It doesn’t make her a duchess.”

  “What do you have against duchesses?” Dove demanded. “But you’re right. It doesn’t mean she’s noble. She could be the daughter of some cit or mill owner, or even a governess left a fortune by her dotty employer. Either way, it puts a different cast on what happened to her. She’s no stowaway, no unfortunate fish wife who got on the wrong side of smugglers. She’s a lady of means. And most people would think twice before putting such a lady in a box.”

  *

  The girl who had called herself Tillie—for no reason other than the name had popped into her head—watched the major leave with a mixture of disappointment and hope. For the first time since she’d wakened in the cold, wet darkness, she felt some sense of certainty, rooted in the person of Major Doverton, the man who had pulled her from the darkness. His very existence soothed her, his presence cheered her, and she hadn’t wanted him to go. On the other hand, she felt so much better for talking to him. And she had hope of seeing him again.

  For now, since she could not remember before, her life had started last night in the storm. And she hadn’t made good work of it so far. She let a rueful smile curve her lips and became aware her gaze was locked with that of the girl with the baby in the other bed.

  “Have I been rude to you, too?” she asked.

  “Lord, no, miss. You don’t need to talk to anyone you don’t want to.”

  “To be honest, I didn’t know if any of you were real,” Tillie confided. “I thought I might still be dreaming.” She shivered. “I was in a nightmare where I knew nothing…” And feared plunging back into the darkness. “Your baby doesn’t cry.”

  “No, he’s good as gold, isn’t he?” the girl said proudly. “He opens his little eyes, I feed him and change him, and he goes back to sleep.”

  Tillie leaned out of bed to see him better, and the girl, obligingly, drew the shawl away from his face. Tillie smiled. “He’s beautiful,” she said warmly. She raised her gaze to the proud mother. “But this is a hospital. Is he ill?”