by Lynn Kerstan
“Do they? I have no acquaintance among the infantry, Miss Ryder, and can be of no help to you in these matters. As for nourishment, well, you have—” He made a sweeping gesture in the direction of her bosom. “That is, you are the one with the necessary . . . equipment.”
“Breasts,” she said, watching him turn several shades of crimson.
“Exactly. You were formed to give nourishment to a child.”
“In general, yes. But apparently you are under some misapprehension about female plumbing. I am no expert in such matters, but I do know females produce milk only when they give birth. ’Round about that time, in any case.”
His brows shot up. “Are you certain? I mean, cows give milk every day. Or so I believe.”
“I am not a cow,” she said in measured tones. “Humans are different.”
“Do you know that from experience?” he demanded. “Have you ever tried?”
“Good heavens, sir! If you must know, to date I’ve not put my ability to suckle a babe to the test. But what is that to the point? You may be sure I would gladly feed this child from my own body, if I could. But I cannot. You must trust me on that point.”
He pointed to the child. “It thinks you can.”
She glanced down to see tiny pink lips moving over her cloak, probing for her nipples. The artless gesture, the incredible intimacy of it, sent fire and longing directly to her heart.
“’Tis a purely instinctive reaction, my lord. I wish it were otherwise. But we both need you now, the babe and I, so please do not think of leaving us.” She gave him a pleading smile. “May we at least go inside where it is warm to discuss this further?”
She could all but hear his teeth grinding. His own instincts drove him to the chase, she knew, as surely as the babe knew where to look for its supper.
He surprised her with a bow of acquiescence. “Very well, madam, we shall do as you say. Go ahead of me, if you please, while I make sure the blackguards didn’t make off with my horse.”
“Fine,” she said, suppressing her relief. “When you are done, please gather the basket and candles and bring them with you.” Without a backward look, she made her way to the house.
Arriving in the parlor, Jane went to the hearth and sat cross-legged with the babe on her lap while she removed her gloves and held her hands to the fire. Two wide blue eyes gazed up at her with what she imagined to be absolute trust. For a moment they looked almost amber, like Fallon’s eyes, but it could only be a reflection from the firelight.
When her hands were warm, she rubbed the babe’s cold pink cheeks with her thumbs. In response, the infant gurgled blissfully.
What a happy little creature, Jane thought, and not in the least put out by these extraordinary events. When her thumb wandered close to the open mouth, it was immediately seized and vigorously sucked.
“I have no milk,” she apologized. “Not there nor anywhere else, I’m afraid. Perhaps Lord Fallon will fetch you some from the inn.” If he can find it, she added silently. No use worrying the child, who was listening attentively to her every word.
It seemed a very long time since Fallon promised to join her. She refused to imagine he’d saddled his horse and gone after the . . . well, what was the opposite of “abductors”?
“Leavers”? What sort of people would bring an infant to this remote place, set out candles and lanterns, ring a bell, and scarper?
For that matter, how did they know someone was in earshot of the bell? It was sheerest accident that she and Fallon had taken refuge in the dower house. And no one lived close by. By his account, the entire Wolvercote estate had been deserted this past year or more.
Except, of course, for the individual who had recently slept in this very room and left jars of peas and applesauce in the larder. Perhaps she would find evidence the babe had been here, too, now that she knew to look for it.
Questions and questions and questions. Like Fallon, she found herself longing for answers, although milk and—fairly soon, she suspected—a change of nappies topped her list of priorities.
She heard the sound of a door opening and slamming shut, a loud thud, a blistering oath, and several more decidedly queer noises from the passageway. Moments later Fallon burst into the room, one arm wrapped around the basket and the other stretched out behind him, as if something were pulling on it.
Suddenly the something galloped past him and halted abruptly when he jerked on a short chain tether. It baaed a protest, digging at the carpet with its front hooves.
A goat! Glory be, a goat with a heavy udder, ripe for milking!
“It was tied up directly in front of Scorpio’s stall,” Fallon explained somewhat breathlessly.
“Oh, this is beyond perfect, sir. Did you find anything else?”
“That’s all.” He waved at the goat. “What more do you need?”
“Some way to actually feed the child, of course. We can’t exactly hook the babe’s mouth to a teat. Look through the basket, will you? Perhaps there’s a bottle or a wineskin we can use.”
He pulled a small handwoven blanket from the basket and shook it in the air. “Nothing more, not even a note to explain who the child is and why it—the child, I mean—was delivered into the care of strangers.”
“Well, at least they also left the goat, which solves our most urgent problem. We shall improvise from here.”
“No!”
Jane thought Fallon was addressing her, until she saw the goat had seized a mouthful of his lordship’s cape.
“Let go, you infernal beast!”
Goat and marquess launched into a fierce tug-of-war, with goat the most likely winner until Jane crossed the room to thwap it on the hindquarters. Thoroughly astonished, the goat released the cape to shake its head and glare at her.
“We’ll deal with your megrims later,” she said firmly. “And find you something better to eat than a musty old cape.” She turned to Fallon. “Do you know how to handle goats?”
“Obviously not.” He removed his cloak and tossed it over the back of a chair. “Tell me what to do.”
She smiled as the babe made another effort to locate her nipples. “This one is exceedingly hungry. Secure the goat in the kitchen, if you will. To something metal, because it will eat through most anything else. Then I’ll do the milking, while you find a container of some sort for the feeding.”
He frowned, nodded, and towed the recalcitrant goat back into the passageway. Jane heard a good deal of baaing, punctuated with a great many oaths, as the pair made their way toward the kitchen.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “What a peculiar Christmas this has turned out to be.”
The babe cooed in agreement.
Jane resettled the infant in the basket and found a spot where the fire was warm but not too hot. “Can you wait alone for a few minutes, while I arrange for milk and nappies?”
Two mittened hands waved back at her.
No wail of protest followed her departure, thank heavens, for she could not bear the thought of leaving the babe to cry alone. Dashing into the kitchen, she saw that Fallon had secured the goat’s tether to the thick leg of a cast-iron plate warmer. He had also built up the fire, put snow in a kettle to melt, and set out a porcelain bowl to catch the milk.
When it came right down to it, she thought, Lord Fallon got things done. He had also disappeared, and she hoped he’d gone in search of a container for the milk.
The remains of their interrupted meal were strewn over the table, and the candles on the centerpiece had burned down to stubs. Was it only half an hour ago she was sharing Christmas Eve supper with the Marquess of Fallon? Pledging her friendship as he had pledged his? At the time, she had imagined that life could not get any stranger.
Kneeling beside the doe, she wiped the udder and teats with a wet napkin and placed the bowl in positio
n. Goat was having none of it. She writhed against the tether, jumping about as if her hooves had gone on fire. The bowl went flying across the kitchen and shattered against the wall.
“Bad goat!” Jane located a metal pan to receive the milk and tried again, with similar results, although the pan remained intact when it was kicked away. She realized the doe was lunging toward the trestle table. “Smell food, do you? I wonder if you will care for Lord Fallon’s discarded peas.”
Apparently so. When a plate was set in front of her, the goat set to it with a hearty appetite. Jane had served up everything but the currants before the doe permitted her to fill the pan with warm, steaming milk.
“Clever thing.” She stroked the goat’s head for a few seconds before coming to her feet. “You fuss until you get what you want.”
“I hope you aren’t speaking to me,” Fallon said from the doorway.
Startled, Jane almost dropped the precious milk. “Certainly not. But I hope you’ve been as clever as this goat.” She set the pan on the table and turned to face him.
With blatant pride, he held out the brandy bottle he had all but emptied the night before. From the grin on his face, she wondered if he had drunk the rest within the last few minutes. He beckoned her closer and dropped a small object in her hand. It was the cork, carved in the shape of a nipple, and he had poked a hole from top to bottom.
“Oh! This is capital.”
“Not quite yet.” He took it back. “Stinks of brandy, but hot water will take care of that.” He rinsed the bottle with water from the kettle and dropped the cork into a cup of hot water to soak. “See if you can find a funnel.”
She discovered one in the pantry and held it in place while he poured the milk. Then he retrieved the cork, inserted it tightly, and returned the bottle to Jane. “You’d better make sure this will draw.”
She lifted the makeshift nipple to her mouth and sucked hard, dislodging a small chunk of broken cork that had blocked the way. Soon the creamy milk flowed easily into her mouth.
He laughed when she licked the overflow from her lips. “Do I get a pat on the head for being clever, Miss Ryder?”
If not for the hungry babe waiting in the next room, she’d have gladly stroked his head until dawn. Suddenly she wanted to touch everything that was alive and warm. The goat, yes, for it had been, at the last, a very good goat indeed. The infant, to be sure. And this resourceful man who kept finding, without meaning to, new ways to make her fall in love with him.
It was a night for dreams, she thought, but there was no time for dreaming.
“We have much more to do,” she said, pointing to the goat. “She should be returned to the stable and tethered near a bed of straw. Provide her with hay and oats, too, for she cannot give milk if she doesn’t eat. I shall feed the child, of course, unless you would prefer to do it.”
He looked appalled at the notion.
“But first of all,” she continued, thinking rapidly, “I expect you’d better pack fresh snow around the pan of milk and place it in the larder. I have no idea how frequently a goat can be milked. And there is still the matter of clean cloth for nappies. Cut rectangles about a foot long and a bit less wide. No, cut only one rectangle to begin with, until I determine the proper size.”
Fallon saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh my.” She felt heat rise to her cheeks. “Truly, I don’t mean to be a managing female.”
His smile was singularly sweet. “In this situation, Miss Ryder, a managing female is precisely what we require. You see to the child and continue advising me how I can help. Short of changing the babe’s undergarments, that is. I’ve no idea how it is done, nor do I care to find out.”
JANE WAS HOLDING the infant facedown across her lap, patting the tiny back, when Fallon returned from his chores. She glanced up when he came into the room, his arms wrapped around a bundle of white material.
“What in blazes are you doing to that poor child?” he demanded, eyebrows snapping together in a frown.
“Encouraging a burp, I hope. My experience with infants is virtually nonexistent, but I believe they swallow a good deal of air when they suckle and need help to expel it.” She laughed. “Whatever did you think I was about?”
He dropped the pile of linens on the couch and pulled his knife from the ankle sheath. “Never mind. Any difficulty with the cork?”
“None whatever, sir. It was an inspired idea. The babe went at it as if feeding from a brandy bottle were an everyday occurrence.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
In fact, Jane thought, he looked inordinately pleased with himself as he sliced up a sheet and lifted a sample for her approval. It was greatly oversize, but he had yet to come close enough to the babe to realize how very small a bottom he was dealing with. “You might trim off a few inches,” she suggested mildly.
“Urp!” said the babe.
“Oh, well done!” Jane approved, raising the infant and nuzzling the warm little face. “A most excellent burp, my love.”
When she glanced at Fallon, he was standing with his knife dangling from one hand and a length of cloth from the other, gazing back with an arrested expression on his face. Then, as if embarrassed to be caught gawking, he went at the hapless diaper with his knife until he’d produced a reasonable facsimile of a rectangle.
And none too soon, Jane realized when the infant’s face screwed into a look of intense concentration. Moments later a distinctive odor floated to her nostrils. The babe gave a happy gurgle of relief and gazed at her expectantly.
“Yes, I do see what you mean,” she said. “Lord Fallon, will you fetch a basin of lukewarm water from the kitchen?”
He must have smelled the odor, too, because he shot away as if the devil were close on his heels.
Jane carried the babe to the Grecian couch and made a pallet of sheets to protect the upholstery before untying the soiled diaper. She was trying to figure out what to do with it when Fallon returned, maintaining a careful distance as he set the basin on the carpet and nudged it closer to her with his foot.
Dear heavens, she thought, tempted to chuck the smelly nappy into his hands just to see his reaction. She had not realized that men were so overnice about natural bodily functions. He withdrew immediately to the fireplace and rested his arm on the mantelpiece, whistling softly as he stared at the ceiling.
She deposited the befouled nappy on a folded sheet, cleaned the infant’s bottom, and made fairly decent work of tying her first diaper. At the least, it did not fall off when she lifted the babe for inspection.
“Ga!” Blue eyes gazed at her with approval. “Ga ga ga ga!”
“Does it fit?” Fallon inquired, still examining the ceiling.
“I think so. She’s a little girl, by the way.”
His elbow dropped off the mantel. “I was afraid of that. Damn!”
Thunderstruck, Jane cradled the baby protectively in her arms. “Why so? What difference can her gender possibly make to you, sir?”
“None whatever,” he said in a hushed tone. “But there are places—not England, I trust—where female infants are too often left by a roadside or in a trash heap to die. The parents are desperately poor, and their reasons have been explained to me by people who are more in sympathy with their society and culture than I, but I could never accept any justification whatever for such atrocities.”
Her blood ran cold imagining it. And he felt just as deeply, she knew. His face had gone nearly gray under his tan as he spoke, and when he was done, his lips were drawn into a taut line.
“This infant girl was well loved,” she assured him. “The people who left her here took great care to be certain she was found and taken in.”
“Good.” He visibly relaxed. “For a moment I thought . . . but clearly I was wrong. She appears healthy enough, at any rate.”
“Ga!” the babe exclaimed, pleased with her new toy. As Jane watched, a wee mittened hand reached up and grappled Lord Fallon’s nose.
Clearly dumbfounded, he gazed at the gleeful infant’s face from crossed eyes.
Deciding that the child was in full control for now, Jane left Fallon to cope as best he could while she lined the basket with a sheet. Perversely she also carried the water basin and soiled nappy off to the kitchen, although the task could well have waited for later. She even considered washing up the dishes from supper before returning, but reckoned that would be too cruel.
Fallon had not moved an inch when she entered the parlor again, and the child retained her firm grip on his nose. He shot Jane a look of sheer panic. “Do thomthing! Thee won’ leggo.”
With great resolve, Jane maintained her composure and gently pried the little fingers away.
“Ga!” the babe protested as she was carried to her basket. “Ga ga. Goo!”
“I expect she has developed a fondness for you,” Jane told Fallon when the infant was nestled under her soft blanket. Her eyes closed before Jane could murmur good night.
“She has a damnably odd way of showing it,” Fallon said, rubbing his nose between his fingers. “What’s more, she has a grip like a vise.”
“You will recover, I expect.” Jane smoothed her skirt with both hands. “And now, sir, we must put our heads together and determine how to proceed.”
“It seems perfectly obvious to me. Unless you have something more for me to do here, I shall go after the perpetrators and haul them back to account for their actions.”