by Liz Carlyle
Startled, the child almost stumbled, but an astute servant swooped down and snatched the girl up. “Begging your pardon, sir,” she said, her face flushed. “The child was not watching where she was going.”
Embarrassed, the girl clutched her pull toy and buried her head against her nanny’s neck. It was a touching, simple gesture. “No harm done, ma’am,” he murmured, removing his hat. “What is her name, pray?”
The nanny’s eyes widened. “Why, ’tis Penelope, sir.”
Alasdair looked round the woman’s shoulder. “Hello, Penelope. What have you there? Is it a dog?”
“A horse,” said the child sulkily. “A brown horse.”
“Has he a name?”
“Apollo,” said the child.
The poor nanny looked bewildered. She clearly was not accustomed to striking up conversations in the park with gentlemen who appeared to be unattached and childless. Time for the angelic smile, then. Alasdair flashed it, and the nanny’s eyes began to melt.
Feeling more himself again, Alasdair poured on the charm. “What a beautiful child,” he said. “And she obviously adores you. It is quite touching, ma’am, to see how she clings to you. Have you been with her long?”
“Why, all of her days, sir,” said the nanny. “And her brother before her.”
She was shifting her weight as if she meant to walk away. Just then, Penelope began to squirm. The nanny set her down. “We’ll just be off, sir,” she said. “My apologies again.”
Fully recovered, Penelope had dashed a few feet down the path, her horse spinning merrily behind her. “You are going in my direction,” said Alasdair to the servant. “Might I walk a little way with you?”
She shot him an uncertain glance. “Yes, sir. I’m sure you may.”
“I know very little of children,” he confessed, setting a pace in keeping with young Penelope. “How old is your charge, ma’am?”
“Why, she’ll be six near Christmastime, sir.”
“Ah,” said Alasdair. “She still seems quite small. Is she about the right size for her age?”
The woman seemed to fluff up like an outraged hen. “Why, even a bit tallish, really.”
“Indeed?” he murmured. “Has she a governess yet?”
“Oh, to be sure, sir,” said the nanny. “But ’tis generally my job to take the children for walks and such.”
“I see,” said Alasdair. “So a governess and a nurse?”
“Aye, sir,” said the servant defensively. “’Tis a great deal o’ work raising a child.”
Alasdair pondered that for a moment. “She speaks very well,” he said. “At what age do they begin to speak fluently?”
“Mercy, sir, have you never been around children?”
Alasdair smiled again. “A disgraceful shortcoming, to be sure,” he admitted. “I had a younger brother, but not by much.”
“Well, by three they’re generally chattering like magpies,” said the servant. “Before that, there’s lots of babbling, much of it known only to them.”
They continued their sedate promenade round the park, Penelope and Apollo in the lead, Alasdair and the nanny behind. The woman was gregarious enough, and Alasdair took the opportunity to ask all manner of questions about the mysteries of child rearing. She looked askance at him from time to time, but answered his queries thoroughly enough. Near the foot of St. James’s Street, he tipped his hat, thanked her, and set a swift pace up the street to White’s.
He felt a bit like an idiot talking to a stranger—a servant—in the park. But he wanted to know, damn it. He needed to understand what was to come of this strange, unexpected turn his well-ordered life had just taken. And for reasons he could not quite explain, he did not want to ask Miss Hamilton. She was not the enemy. No, not precisely. But already, if seemed as if she held the key to some important secret. Something held tantalizingly just beyond his reach.
This morning, he’d felt like a stranger in his own home. His smoking room was gone, his billiard table was shortly to follow, and in their place he was to have females, one of them very small and willful, and the other disconcertingly pretty, with eloquent all-seeing eyes, and the scent of the Highlands still clinging in her hair. Yes, better to be thought an idiot here, with a woman he did not know, than in his own home in front of his little spitfire of a governess and his own…child.
Good God! There it was again. Reality, intruding on what otherwise would have been a trouble-free life of ease and debauchery. Alasdair tucked his hat down to hide the mortification in his eyes and hastened his step toward the sheltering portals of White’s. One little sin, and now all this! It really was too much to absorb in one day.
It was early afternoon by the time Esmée decided what her next step ought to be. Swiftly, she dug through their trunk and extracted Sorcha’s walking shoes. She looked at them and sighed. Regrettably, the little leather boots were not as tidy as one would wish.
“Come along, my wee trootie,” she said, hefting the child to her hip. “I’ll no’ have you looking like a dirty little jaudie out amongst these fancy English.”
Together, they went belowstairs, Sorcha jabbering merrily about everything she saw along the way. On the last landing, she saw an oriental vase she took a sudden liking to. But when thwarted, she went rigid and began flailing and squealing, “Gee! Gee me!” at the top of her lungs.
Somehow, Esmée soothed her, but at the butler’s pantry, Sorcha began to squirm to be put down. Her hands full, Esmée bumped the door open with her hip and started through. Unfortunately, she did not see MacLachlan’s valet coming in the opposite direction. The swinging door cracked him hard across the elbow, resulting in a muffled curse.
“Och, what have I done!” said Esmée, hastening on through. A pile of cravats and a puddle of black wool lay scattered across the floor. “Oh, Mr. Ettrick! Do forgive me.”
“Really, Miss Hamilton!” said the testy valet, seizing the trousers. “I just this instant finished brushing that set of clothes!”
Esmée had put Sorcha down, and was on her knees, trying to salvage the freshly starched cravats. “I am so sorry,” she said, swiftly gathering them. “My hands were full. I did not see you.”
Esmée stood, and laid the stack of cravats on the brushing table. Ettrick was shaking out the coat now, a lovely garment which looked to be made of premium superfine. “Well, I daresay there’s little harm done,” he said, picking a piece of lint from the hem. “Just a speck or two. Hawes, look sharp, man!” he called across the room to one of the footmen.
The footman looked up from his work at the opposite end of the long table. “What is it now, Ettrick?” asked Hawes irritably. “I’ve these boots to finish, haven’t I?”
Ettrick shook the coat at him. “Sir Alasdair wants this delivered to Mrs. Crosby’s house,” he said. “Have it there by four or else.”
“Oh, aye, I’ve nothing better to do than run all the way to Bloomsbury!” complained the footman.
“No, you’ve nothing better.” Ettrick smiled sourly and hung the coat on a hook at the footman’s end of the table. “And for pity’s sake, Hawes, put a muslin sleeve over it this time.”
Ettrick returned to the table and began inspecting the cravats. With one eye on Sorcha, Esmée picked up one of the many shoe brushes. Curiosity got the better of her. “Who is Mrs. Crosby, Mr. Ettrick?”
At the distant end of the table, the footman sputtered. Ettrick gave a weary sigh. “Mrs. Crosby is Sir Alasdair’s particular friend.”
“Aye, one of ’em!” interjected the footman. “You might as well tell the chit plainly, Ettrick, if she’s to live here. Mrs. Crosby is an actress, and one of his mistresses. But you daren’t say so past these walls.”
Ettrick shot the footman a quelling look, but said no more. Hastily, Esmée cleaned Sorcha’s shoes and made a retreat to the nursery.
A particular friend. One of them, the footman had said. So how many such “particular friends” would a man like MacLachlan have? He probably couldn’t keep count. Obviously,
he couldn’t remember them all, which proved once again what a fool her mother had been to fall for his charms. And there lay a warning worth heeding where MacLachlan and his charms were concerned. His brown eyes melted, aye. But for anyone wearing skirts, most likely.
Exasperated with her line of thinking, Esmée forced the matter from her mind. She dressed Sorcha in a light pelisse and hat, put on her freshly cleaned boots, then informed Wellings that they were going out for a walk. Esmée was not at all sure what an English governess’s duties were, but apparently taking one’s charge for a stroll was one of them, for Wellings never lifted a brow.
“Go out!” said Sorcha, as Esmée carried her down the last flight of stairs. “Out, Mae! Me go out now!”
Wellings smiled indulgently at the child. “She knows her own mind, does she not?”
Esmée nodded. “Yes, and everyone else must know it, too,” she muttered, putting the squirming child down so that she might fasten her own pelisse. “Can you tell me, Wellings, which way Mayfair would be? I confess, I became quite turned about in finding this place.”
“We are rather off the beaten path, miss,” he said, then gave her directions. Esmée realized at once it was too far for Sorcha to walk. But she dared not hire a hackney, and the perambulator had not come, so she set off, following the route the butler had given her. She would simply have to carry Sorcha when the child tired.
The air was blessedly cool and scented with rain. After crossing what seemed to Esmée like an almost frivolous expanse of parks, she reached the edge of Mayfair and soon felt more acquainted with her surroundings. She had been here twice before, and the elegant Georgian homes were starting to look all too familiar.
With Sorcha balanced on one hip and the old blisters on her feet rubbed nearly raw, she set off up the hill in the direction of Grosvenor Square. She had suffered a long, hard week on the road, followed by a disheartening two days in London, and already Esmée was beginning to hate England and everything in it. The only good to come of it, if one could call it that, had been Sir Alasdair MacLachlan. Still, she was quite sure she had no business living with the man and pretending to be her own sister’s governess. Mamma would have scolded her soundly for such shocking behavior—though the irony of that fact was not lost on Esmée.
There would surely be talk when polite society learned that the wicked Sir Alasdair had suddenly acquired a ward. Esmée had thought to keep a low profile, but this morning’s foray into the dining room had underscored the fact that she was, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, at the beck and call of another. She was a servant. Not even in her stepfather’s home had Esmée been treated so condescendingly. Her palm still itched to slap Sir Alasdair’s brother through the face. Lord Wynwood, at least, had been sympathetic. She had not missed the reproachful look he’d tossed in Merrick MacLachlan’s direction.
Slightly out of breath now, Esmée had reached the glossy green door she sought and paused to shift Sorcha to the other hip. “Geen, Mae,” she said pointing at the door. “Geen. See?”
Yes. Green. Just as it had been for the last two days. And just as it had been for the past two days, the knocker was down. But Esmée had not walked so far for nothing. She stepped up, and hammered her knuckles on the solid wood slab. She could hear the sound echoing hollowly through the house.
“Damn and blast,” she whispered.
“Damin bass,” said Sorcha, mimicking Esmée’s glower.
Oh, lud! Time to watch her language. “Aye, ’tis a very wicked door, is it not, wee Sorcha?” said Esmée, planting a loud, smacking kiss on the child’s cheek. “Why does it never open for us?”
Just then a glossy red-and-black landau came rattling up the street, stopping at the house adjacent. A thin, dark man got out and barked at his driver to take the carriage round to the mews. The coach rolled away, and turned onto Charles Street. Intrigued, Esmée followed. A few yards down the hill, the coachman cut his horses to the right and turned into an alley. Esmée did the same.
Cleaving between the high brick walls, the unmarked lane was shadowy and cool. Esmée kept walking, counting off the houses as she went. The landau had stopped just a few yards in, and the coachman had leapt down to speak with a woman who stood on the pavement with a market basket swinging from her arm. Casting caution to the wind, Esmée rushed toward them. They noticed her at the same time, and turned toward her.
“I beg your pardon,” said Esmée breathlessly. “Do you live here?”
“Aye, to be sure.” The woman looked her up and down, clearly wondering why Esmée was calling in the yard rather than in the square.
Esmée shifted Sorcha to her other hip. “Can you tell me please if Lady Tatton still lives in the house next door?” she asked the woman breathlessly. “The knocker is down, you see, and—”
“Oh, yes!” said the woman. “Gone off to Australia, she has.”
A sense of relief flooded through Esmée. “Thank heavens,” she whispered. “I’d not heard from her in ever so long. Are there no servants in the house?”
Clearly certain he had nothing helpful to add, the coachman climbed back up and clicked to his horses. “There be but the Finches, the couple that look after the house,” said the woman with the basket. “But Bess—that’s Mrs. Finch—her mother fell ill in Deptford, and they went down Tuesday last.”
“Oh,” said Esmée, sagging with disappointment.
The woman took in Esmée’s attire again. “Would you be wanting her ladyship, then?” she asked. “For so far as I know, she’s not expected anytime soon, or not as Bess has mentioned to me, which I daresay she would have done.”
“I—yes, I was looking for her,” Esmée admitted. “But I have not seen her in some years.”
“Aye, she went out with her daughter who was in a delicate way,” said the woman. “Then the babe was sickly. Then came a set o’ twins. And then, as Bess says, one thing led to another as such things will do, aye? But since she hasn’t given up the house, she must surely mean to return.”
On her hip, Sorcha was starting to squirm. “Abble, Mae!” she shrieked. “Gee abble!”
The woman took an apple from the basket, and held it out. “What a pretty little thing she is,” she said, breaking into a smile. “And such rare blue eyes! Is this what you want, child?”
Sorcha squealed with glee, opening and closing her fingers as she had done earlier in the morning when she’d set her sights on Merrick MacLachlan’s watch.
“Thank you, but you needn’t,” said Esmée. “She does not need it, truly.”
“Oh, let her have it, do,” said the servant, surrendering the red fruit into Sorcha’s greedy little hands. “I just came up from Shepherd’s Market, so ’tis fresh.”
Unwilling to risk Sorcha’s temper, Esmée thanked her. The woman smiled at Sorcha. “Such a pretty babe!” she went on. “Now, about Lady Tatton. I could pass on a word to Bess, if you’d wish?”
Esmée widened her eyes. “A letter,” she said hastily. “I’ve a letter for Lady Tatton. Would you be so kind?”
The woman looked sympathetic. “Aye, I’ll give it to Bess, ma’am, but so far as I know…”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” said Esmée. “She is not expected. But will you ask Mrs. Finch to hold it for her? No matter when she might return?”
The woman took the letter Esmée dug from her pocket. “I daresay she could forward it, if you wish?”
Esmée shook her head. “That will take months, and I’ve already sent two, though I wonder if they got there at all.”
The woman nodded sympathetically and returned her attention to Sorcha, who had already sunk her tiny teeth into the apple’s tender flesh. “Ah, such eyes!” she said again. Then she smiled at Esmée knowingly. “From her father’s side, I’m guessing?”
“Oh, aye,” said Esmée a little wearily. “Definitely. From her father’s side.”
Chapter Three
In which Miss Hamilton is Taught a lesson
Alasdair listened to the sound of
Julia’s breathing, soft and regular in the night as it had been for the last several hours. He found it a pleasant, soothing sound. Sleep had not come to him so easily. Restless, he had left the bed and moved to the chaise by the windows so as not to disturb her. He was staring down into Bedford Place and watching a blue-uniformed policeman pace sedately through the gaslight when suddenly, Julia’s breath hitched.
“Alasdair?” she murmured, rolling up onto one elbow. “Alasdair, what is the time?”
“About four, I daresay,” he responded absently. “Did I wake you, my dear?”
Julia rose, sliding into her wrapper as she crossed the room toward him. “What’s wrong, Alasdair?” she asked. “You usually sleep the sleep of the innocent.”
He laughed. “God has finally rectified that error,” he answered. “I’ve been up half the night.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Heavens, you’re smoking. Rather early for that, is it not?”
“Or rather late, depending upon one’s viewpoint.” He caught her hand and drew her down beside him on the chaise. “I’m sorry, Julia. Shall I put it out?”
“You know you needn’t.” She pulled her legs up and tucked her wrapper around her toes. Julia was plump, pretty, and good-tempered, and Alasdair had enjoyed every minute he had spent in her company since meeting her some months earlier.
“Did you enjoy the play, my dear?” He rolled the ash off the end of his cheroot. “I thought your friend Henrietta Wheeler was magnificent.”
“Pish, Alasdair!” said Julia. “You never even noticed her.”
“What, when we went particularly to see her?”
Julia laid a hand on his cheek. “Quick, then, which character did she play?”
In the moonlight, he could not hide his chagrined expression. “I—oh, you are right, Julia,” he admitted. “I fear my mind was elsewhere.”
Julia shrugged amicably. “It does not signify,” she answered. “But listen, dear boy. Before you slip out into the night, I have something I wish to tell you.”
Alasdair gave up and stubbed the cheroot out. He had taken a sudden dislike to it. “I have something to tell you, too, Julia. Please, let me go first and get it over with.”