by Olivia Drake
“How dare you speak to me in so insolent a manner?”
“I dare because I know how brutal you can be. You’ll call Kit the spawn of the devil. You’ll make a defenseless boy suffer your hatred just as you made Damien suffer.”
Her gaze wavered, then sharpened on Sarah. From close up, every wrinkle on her face showed through a thin layer of powder. “Damien was born wicked. Even as a baby, he pulled my hair and wailed to high heaven—”
“He was a fine man and a brilliant photographer.” Swallowing tears, Sarah recalled the priceless pictures of India, the chronicle of a country as it would never be again. Someday, she vowed, she would return and finish the book for him. “But you were too selfish and cruel to see his goodness.”
Leaving the dowager with her mouth agape, Sarah marched toward the duke and duchess. She strove for a gentler tone. “I’m afraid we must be going now."
“So soon?” said Anne, her smile dying.
Christopher sprang up. “But I haven’t shown him my toys yet. Please, couldn’t he stay?”
“Perhaps another time.” Sarah gathered Kit tight against her shoulder. “We’re staying at Mrs. Goodson’s boardinghouse in Chelsea. I should be happy to bring him by to visit.”
“Please do,” Anne said, rising to join Sarah and Reginald at the door. She gave Kit a wistful glance and touched his hair. “I’d love to have a baby in the house.”
The dowager moved toward them like a dragon seeking prey. Her eyes were slitted at Sarah, her parchment hands gripped at her sides. “My solicitor will be contacting you.”
The ominous words settled like stones in Sarah’s stomach. She picked up the marriage and birth certificates and secured them in her reticule. She had a reprieve, only because Blanche wouldn’t make a scene in front of her son. But there was no doubt in Sarah’s mind that the dowager meant to take Kit. And if ever Christopher tired of the baby, she would wreak destruction on Damien’s son.
In helpless frustration, Sarah despaired of protecting Kit. She had no legal right to keep him.
When they were settled in the hired carriage, Kit peeping out the window at the passing sights, Reginald murmured, “The dowager looked furious. Whatever were you two murmuring about in the corner?”
“I’m afraid I lost my temper and gave her a piece of my mind. She wants to keep Kit as a toy for Christopher.”
The clopping of hooves filled the silence. A thoughtful frown furrowed Reginald’s brow. “Speaking of the duke, I was intrigued by his condition. You said his mental deficiency was caused by a fire?”
“Yes.” During the long voyage to England, Sarah had told Reginald the bare bones of the story. “He was six years old when he was locked inside a cupboard during a fire.”
“Odd,” Reginald mused, drumming his fingers on the knob of his cane. “I’ve never heard of a trauma having so permanent and dramatic an effect on the mind. However...”
“Yes?”
“Back in medical school, I saw a woman whose mental state was similar to Christopher’s. She’d been deprived of air for a brief time during birth. She seemed only a bit slow as a baby, but the extent of her impairment became clear as she grew older.”
Stunned, Sarah sat back in the rocking carriage. She hugged Kit so hard he squalled. She loosened her grip and absently patted his back. “Do you really think something other than the fire could have caused Christopher’s affliction?”
“It’s possible.” Reginald shrugged. “Only the doctor who attended the birth could tell us if Christopher suffered oxygen deprivation.”
Fury consumed Sarah. Blanche might have made Damien shoulder yet another unjust burden of guilt. “We’ll find him, then. Will you help me, please?”
Reginald leaned forward and patted her head. “I would if I could, Sarah. But that was nearly thirty years ago. How could we even know where to look?”
The seed of a plan took root inside her. She would both protect Kit’s rights and shield him from the dowager’s sharp tongue. She smiled. “I have an idea.”
The Christmas wreath at Number Fifteen, Milford Lane, drooped in the icy drizzle. The chill seeped past Sarah’s thick merino cloak and into her bones. The dismal weather made her glad she’d had the sense to leave Kit napping at the boardinghouse in the care of the warmhearted Mrs. Goodson.
Reginald eyed the rundown building before them. “Are you sure this is the right place?”
“Yes,” Sarah said. “Bromley was certain this is the address of the doctor who delivered Christopher.”
Reginald knocked. After a moment, a petite woman garbed in sober black opened the door. Her upswept ebony hair and pale cheeks gave her an ethereal quality, as if she’d floated forth from the mists of a fable. “May I help you?”
“We’re here to see Dr. Finch,” said Reginald.
Her thickly lashed gray eyes misted. Sadness curved her lips downward. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. He passed away six months ago.”
Sarah aimed a frown of frustration at Reginald. But his eyes were focused on the woman. “I’m so very sorry,” he murmured. “Was he...someone dear to you?”
“He was my father.”
“I see. Perhaps you might help us, then.”
She considered him doubtfully. “I’d be happy to refer you to another physician. Perhaps Dr. Cunningham on Holles Street—’’
“Thank you, but I’m a physician myself, Dr. Reginald Pemberton-Sykes. This is my friend, Miss Sarah Faulkner. We were hoping you might have retained your father’s records.”
“Why, yes.” The woman laced her fingers together. “I haven’t yet had the heart to clear out his office.”
“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind another medical man glancing through the files, Miss Finch.” He paused, a bemused smile on his face. “It is Miss, isn’t it?”
A hint of roses tinted her cheeks. “I’m Miss Lily Finch.” She hesitated only a moment before adding, “Please, come inside. You must think me ill-mannered to leave you standing out in the rain.”
They entered a shadowed hall. The air smelled of lemon wax, freshly baked bread, and Miss Finch’s faint lilac scent.
“Does this matter concern a patient?” she asked.
“Yes,” Sarah said. “A patient your father treated many years ago. I do hope he kept files so far back.”
“Of course. Papa was an excellent recordkeeper. This way, please.” Miss Finch led them down the passageway, past a meagerly furnished sitting room. She opened a door and ushered them into a dim, musty office. Going to the window, she drew back the checkered curtain, then turned her attention to the coal scuttle by the hearth. “Empty,” she murmured. “I’ll see if there’s any left in the kitchen.” She glided to the door.
“Lily.” Above his starched collar, a dull flush suffused Reginald’s neck. “Forgive me for being so bold, but what a pretty name.”
She laughed, a tinkling brightness in the dingy room. “Papa always said if I had to suffer the surname of a silly bird, I deserved to be called after his favorite flower.”
As if enraptured, they smiled at one another. Sarah watched in dawning amazement. She had never before witnessed two people so taken with each other on the first meeting. Her heart caught in bittersweet agony. She and Damien had struck sparks at their first encounter, on that long-ago day in the caravan.
“Might I inquire the name of the patient you’re looking for?”
“The dowager Duchess of Lamborough and her firstborn son.”
The serenity fled the perfect oval of her face. Like an infuriated fairy queen, she drew herself up and glared at him. “You might have said so from the start. You aren’t welcome here. I must ask you to leave.”
Sarah’s interest sharpened. “You’ve some complaint against the dowager?”
“She ruined Papa’s practice, that’s what. I was only a baby at the time, but he said she denounced him as a charlatan. Because of her wicked attack, he lost all of his aristocratic patients. We were forced to subsist on what he could e
ke out from treating the poor.”
Sarah exchanged a glance with Reginald. “Then perhaps you can help us,” she told Lily. “And in the process, we shall absolve your father’s good name.”
Snowflakes swirled through the frosty air. Bundled like a tiny Buddha, Kit slept in Sarah’s arms. She pressed her cheek to the carriage window and peered into the traffic clogging the cobblestoned streets of Mayfair. The wreaths and holly adorning the elegant town houses awakened the throb of a familiar pain. It was Christmas Eve, the day when Blanche had burned Damien’s precious drawing some twenty years ago. Sarah wished she’d had the chance to help him replace that awful remembrance with the bright joy of a shared Christmas.
Today she had a gift to give his memory. Three days ago, in the yellowed files of Dr. Finch, she and Reginald had found the proof she needed. Now, with the other testimony they had accumulated, she could vindicate Damien.
She searched her soul for triumph and found only the hollow heartache that had plagued her across the Indian Ocean and to the wintry shores of England. The sense of homecoming she’d expected had eluded her. Home was a log hut in the Himalayan foothills, warmed by the blaze of a love so bright and strong it would shine in her heart forever.
Drawing a breath of cold air, she cuddled Kit against her cloak. Her grief subsided into a sea of tenderness. Her gloved fingers twisted the end of his scarf. She had gathered her evidence only just in time. This very morning, the notice to surrender Kit had arrived from Drury and Lumm, the solicitors retained by the dowager.
Across the swaying carriage, Reginald cleared his throat. “Perhaps we shouldn’t shatter Her Grace’s illusions on a holiday.”
“I have no other choice,” Sarah said quietly, gazing down at Kit’s adorably chubby face. “I can’t let another day go by with this little boy’s future weighing on my mind.”
“She does have the right of a blood relation to take him from you.”
Sarah suffered a moment’s doubt; then she hardened her resolve. “I know, but at least I’ll clear Damien’s name, for Kit’s sake and for the sake of my own baby.”
Reginald studied the ivory-topped cane propped against his elegantly attired leg. He lifted his gaze to her. “Sarah, your child needs a father. I want you to know that my offer of marriage still stands.”
Affection brought tears to her eyes. She studied his classic features beneath the silk top hat, his erect posture and broad shoulders framed by a charcoal greatcoat. She had come to depend on his devoted companionship. “You’ve been a marvelous friend, and more understanding than any woman could ever hope for. But I could never ask you to raise another man’s child.”
“You haven’t asked. I’ve offered.”
“Out of kindness and honor.” She felt a moment’s regret that she couldn’t love him as she’d loved Damien. “I’m grieving for Damien. I will grieve until I die. You deserve a wife who can give you all of her heart, not just a portion. A woman like Lily Finch.”
He colored, and a smile touched his mouth. “She is rather lovely, isn’t she?”
“Lovely and intelligent, the perfect wife for a doctor. Perhaps you ought to pay her a Christmas call.”
“Perhaps I shall.”
Sarah bit her lip. “And you needn’t worry about me. I’ve the five hundred pounds from Damien and a small inheritance from my uncle, enough to support me and the baby. We’ll stay here in London so I can visit Kit.”
Pensiveness lit Reginald’s face. “I’ve been thinking about opening a practice in Chelsea. So I’ll be here, too, whenever you need me.”
“I’d like that,” she murmured.
The carriage jolted to a halt. Lamborough House loomed through a mist of snowflakes. Like a battery of butterflies, nervous anticipation took wing in Sarah’s stomach. She calmed herself with the reminder that she held all the aces. History would not repeat itself; Blanche Coleridge would not practice her high-handed manipulation on Damien’s son.
Ten minutes later, armored by the evidence in her reticule and a strong sense of purpose, Sarah watched the dowager walk into the drawing room. She wore a severely cut gown of green velvet stamped with red holly berries, the effect frigid rather than festive. Her gait was studied and careful, her chin tipped at a proud angle.
“I’ll have no interruptions,” she told Bromley, who nodded and shut the doors. She looked at Sarah. “I see you received the summons,” she said without preamble. “You were instructed to surrender the child at my solicitor’s office after Boxing Day, not invade my home during the holidays.”
Saran’s heart wrenched. “And I see you haven’t the good grace to wear mourning for Damien.” Anger boiled inside her, but she kept her voice modulated. “You didn’t even want Kit for Christmas. That proves how little esteem you afford him. And that’s precisely why you and I must talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Then you may simply listen, for I will be happy to do enough speaking for both of us.”
The dowager narrowed her eyes. A huff of displeasure escaped her.
Holding Kit, Reginald stepped forward. “One moment,” he said, fishing inside the pocket of his checkered waistcoat. “I believe this belongs to you, Your Grace.”
Extending his palm, he revealed a single lustrous pearl.
Revulsion pinched the dowager’s lips. “Leave it there,” she said, jerking her hand at a gold dish on a table. “I should turn the disgusting lot of you into the gutter where you belong.”
“But you won’t dare,” said Reginald.
“Yes,” added Sarah, “not when you hear what we have discovered.”
Blanche clenched her lorgnette like a weapon. “It’s high time you told me what you were about, miss. No doubt you mean to threaten to inform society that I have a half-caste grandson. How much money will you try to extort from me?”
“Not a penny.” Sarah quieted her hammering heart. “This is about Kit and his rights as heir to the dukedom. He deserves all the privileges of his birth. But I’ll leave him here in your care only if you agree to several conditions.”
“Why, you presumptuous—”
“First of all, I shall choose his nanny.” She ticked off the items on her fingers. “Second, I will live here with him until he is properly settled in. Third, I will have your permission in writing to visit him whenever I like. And last, I must be assured he’ll not suffer from your poisonous tongue.”
Scarlet color washed the dowager’s cheeks. “You presume to impugn my character—”
“Should I ever learn you’ve so much as given him a cross look, I shall disclose your secrets to every newspaper in England.”
“My secrets?” Blanche scoffed. “I have nothing to hide from the likes of you.”
“What about the fact that Christopher has been slow since birth?”
Blanche wilted into a chair of gold brocade. “That’s a vile lie. When my precious little boy was only six, Damien locked him in a cupboard—” She clamped her lips shut and glared.
“I know about the fire,” Sarah said. “Damien told me everything. You convinced him he’d destroyed his brother’s mind. But he didn’t. And I can prove it.”
“No,” the duchess said firmly. “You can’t. You may take your fraudulent claims and leave my house.” Yet her shoulders lost their starch, and her bosom rose and fell in agitation.
Sarah reached into her reticule and brought out a sheaf of papers. “I wrote out a copy of Dr. Finch’s record. He reports that Christopher stopped breathing at birth and had to be revived.”
“No...” Her voice was a thin, dry note. “That isn’t true.”
“We also found Christopher’s former nanny in Dorset. I have her signed testimony that he was two before he learned to walk. He was three before he even spoke a word—”
“Stop it!” The dowager dug her nails into the fine silk of the chair arms. “Nanny Smaltrot lied. My son was perfect in every way until Damien destroyed him!”
“Miss Smaltrot has no c
ause to lie. She said you commanded her to keep silent on the matter. Out of loyalty, she obeyed.” Going to the table beside the duchess, Sarah laid down all but one paper.
Blanche’s eyes flitted away from the documents. Her lips were gray, bloodless. “You must have bribed her—”
“No,” Reginald broke in from his stance by the door, “it was seeing this little lad here that convinced Miss Smaltrot to speak out. She couldn’t bear to let his father’s name be blackened any longer.”
“You,” the duchess railed. “You’re a charlatan. Just as all doctors are.” Despite her fierce words, she sat crouched in a boneless huddle.
Sarah fought a surge of pity. The last document described the circumstances surrounding the old duke’s death and proved that Christopher had unwittingly murdered his father. Despite Blanche’s beastly behavior toward her second son, she loved Christopher. The prospect of crushing her delusions was daunting.
The dowager had tried to destroy Damien. And she might also try to destroy his son.
Yet Sarah hesitated. Did that give her the right to respond with the same cruelty?
The drawing room doors opened with an inelegant clatter. Bromley came in, his cheeks ghostly pale, his expression stupefied. “Your Grace—”
“I gave orders we were not to be disturbed.” Her imperious voice held only a slight quaver. She half rose from the chair. “Or is it Christopher? Has something happened to him?”
“N-no, Your Grace. I-I don’t quite know how to say this—”
A movement behind him drew Sarah’s gaze. A man stood there, tall and broad-shouldered, clad in the dark-vested suit of a gentleman.
He strode past the butler and into the room. Her disbelieving gaze swept his powerful, godlike form. She must be dreaming, fantasizing. But she blinked and he was still there, his dark eyes smiling, his bold grin beckoning to her.
A small moan of euphoria burst from her throat. On wobbly legs. she ran to meet him.
“Damien!”
Chapter 23
Holding Sarah again wrapped Damien in a splendor so pure it surpassed the peak of
