He gave a cynical laugh. “If you’re not female, I’ll eat this basket.”
Ethan lowered his gaze to the rough willow container, his eyes lingering at the finely stitched pink ruffles lining the interior. By its thickness he knew padding lay beneath; a soft bed for his guest. A miniature pillow, edged in lace with a single word embroidered upon it, lay at one end. Dearest, read the curling script. His brows knit together.
With a gasping series of soft cries, the baby recalled his attention to herself. Reluctantly, chewing his lip, he cradled the child closely to his chest. As soon as he did, she turned her head to him, searching.
“Hold, brat,” he said, pulling away. “I may or may not be your father, but as sure as there’s a hell, I am not your mother.”
The babe’s entire face crinkled in disappointment. Bracing himself for another session of yells, he lay her head against his shoulder and began to pace. She didn’t scream, but in a way, her soft moans were worse. Surely they would wrench the heart of a murderer.
A tap sounded and, before he could blink, the door opened. Recognizing the maid, be felt his stomach settle back into place. “At last! Where have you been?”
Betsy took one glance and turned to stone. Her lips moved soundlessly for a moment.
“Is that a baby?”
“No, Betsy, it’s a squirrel.” He bounced the infant slightly; she sighed and shuddered against his shoulder. Looking sharply at the silent maid, he saw she appeared ready to believe him. “Of course it’s a baby!” he said in exasperation. “Do you know anything about it? Someone brought her into my room last night in that basket while I was asleep.”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know nothing.” Having regained control of herself, she flounced to the basket and fingered the note. “It’s yours, milord?” Her eyes rounded, and her lips climbed upward. “Oooh ...”
“Hold! You are not to say anything to anyone about this, do you understand? It’s worth your position, Betsy; I mean it.”
“My position,” she mimicked, wrinkling her nose and rocking her head from side to side. “Who gives a cow’s tongue for that? I could find better positions at the poorhouse, and kinder employers, too.”
“You could not; no one else would endure your insolent tongue. Now stop rattling and listen to me. If the Murrows get wind of this, my plans are destroyed, do you understand? Finis. No marriage to Miss Murrow, no saving Westhall, and no increase in household help and wages.”
“No increase? Why should I fret o’er an increase when I already haven’t been paid since last Christmas?”
“Stop griping. You have a roof over your head, which is more than I can say any of us will have if this marriage doesn’t take place. Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes,” she said sullenly. “My lips is sealed like a tomb.”
“That should bring me more comfort than it does.” By the quietness of the being on his shoulder, he thought she might have fallen asleep. He was afraid to disturb her by looking. “She’s hungry. What do you have for her to eat?”
“What do I have for her to eat? I hadn’t even got enough for meself. Cook parceled out the bacon this morning like it was gold. ‘We have to save the most for the guests,’ says she. And never mind the one and only maid, who has to do all the work in this house with nothing to strengthen her.”
He grimaced. “Have the Murrows breakfasted already? It’s so early!”
“You don’t have to tell me it’s early. I’m the one what had to go and fetch water for baths and brush out their clothes. And after they went outside to walk, I had to make beds and unpack valises, then go down to the kitchen and help Cook slice apples for tarts, of which I doubt there will be enough for me to have any—”
“They’re walking? I can’t imagine that Mrs. Murrow has the strength. She was nothing more than an invalid at Lord Tate’s.”
“Mr. Murrow and Miss Murrow is walking. The poor wife’s sitting on the bench out front ‘taking the air,’ as she calls it. She’s all wrapped up tight and snug, but I still don’t think brisk air is good for someone so sick-acting. Mr. Brandt’s cooling his heels beside her. I reckon he’s trying to be a good host, unlike some I could mention.”
He ignored this dig. “That explains why no one heard the infant.” He had been pacing, and now he swerved to a stop. “Betsy. We have to hide this child before they come back.”
She stared at him. “Don’t look at me; I don’t know about any secret hidey places. If I took her upstairs to my room, they’d be bound to hear her sooner or later. You know how this place echoes. And besides, a babe needs somebody every minute. Are you expecting me to look after her and do my duties as well? Because, I’m letting you know that I draw the line at—”
“Be still, woman. It’s obvious the child will have to go to someone in the village; preferably a recent mother who can nurse this one as well as her own.”
“Oh, that’s a good plan, that is, with you trying to keep it quiet and all. That sure ought to do it. Won’t nobody think a thing of you bringing an infant for somebody to nurse.”
“I wasn’t planning on taking the child.”
The maid stepped back a pace. “You’re not expecting me to do it, surely?”
“I am.”
“Well, if that ain’t the most—I quit!”
Her indignant expression seemed far out of proportion to the task at hand. “Betsy, you’ve been here so long, you wouldn’t leave if I gave you the sack. What’s wrong with finding someone to care for this child?”
“Because if I do it, people is going to think it’s mine! You want me to ruin meself?”
He couldn’t help chuckling at this, adding coal to the flames.
“Oh, you may laugh, but you don’t know how people are.” Her hazel eyes sparked as she set her fists on her hips. “And maybe you don’t think that just because I ain’t married, I’m not going to be. Well, here is some news for you: I’m young, I got prospects. Or do you think I’m so plain I should give o’er my future happiness to take care of your problem?”
He had seldom thought about Betsy’s looks one way or the other. She had a frowsy head of blond hair; her features were average, he supposed, and she was plump, well-rounded in the ways a man liked. He could understand that she would have admirers.
“Betsy, no one could believe this child is yours. Think for once, will you? You go into the village two or three times a week. How was it you hid your ... ah ... delicate condition? When did you give birth and recover? If you’d been away for a while, that would be different.”
“Don’t dream it’s never happened. Me mum told me of a girl she knew back when she was young who dropped a child that way. Kept it secret the whole time, she did. Never got a belly so big she couldn’t hide it behind her clothes. Never missed a day of work. Nobody would of ever known if they didn’t find her babe when the trash pail tipped over.”
“Blast you, Betsy; what an image!”
“Well, the babe lived, didn’t it? Anyways, I can’t take that little ‘un nowhere, not if I want to hold up my head.”
He suddenly realized how quiet the room had grown. By angling his neck and cutting his eyes downward, he could see the infant had indeed fallen asleep. The pink cheek turned toward him was round as a peach. He sighed. “Do you have any other ideas, then?”
“Who, me? One thing you can count on is that I’ve always got an idea. What if you was to take it back to its mother?”
“I don’t know who the mother is. I don’t even know if I’m the father!”
She huffed, “Well, that’s what comes of living like you do, ain’t it? You can’t expect nothing different. Your seeds is coming home to roost, and about time, too.”
He sent her a quelling glare, then returned to his pacing. There had to be a solution; there must be one. As he turned to the window, he heard a muffled sound. After a lifetime of Westhall’s creaks and groans, all of them magnified by its cavernous hall, he recognized the significance of the noise. Someone had
entered the house. The Murrows had returned.
Betsy’s eyes met his. Ethan didn’t waver. “I think I have it,” he said.
Chapter 3
What an odd place, Madeleine thought as she followed her parents into the house, the butler holding the door for them. The grounds were as plain as any she had seen. The walk had been refreshing, but to imagine a lifetime of exercising amid such surroundings daunted her spirits. Hardly a tree to break the landscape, and merely a scraggly hedge as ornamentation. The only flowers visible were the ones nature saw fit to raise.
And the house! Mr. Brandt had told them it was slightly more than a century old, but it looked more like six centuries to her. A curious hybrid of castle and cathedral, its dimensions were more deep than wide—rather like an abbey she had visited once. With all that stone and with so many cracked, mullioned windows, she halfway expected it to crumble around her ears at any moment.
But her dowry could rectify many of the lacks at Westhall, she supposed, if she decided to go through with it. She had tossed and turned last night thinking of the viscount and his sour words, his drunkenness, and his beautiful, troubled face. She would give a great deal to make her mother happy, but she was not a martyr, nor was she foolish. After a night of little sleep, she could not deny she found Lord Ambrose intensely attractive. She also recognized what she’d refused to acknowledge after their first meeting at Lord Tate’s—that she had felt that same tugging appeal then. However, a strong marriage could not be built on physical admiration alone, and she would not wed anyone she did not respect.
He was probably not even awake yet, she thought, and wrinkled her nose with disdain. Her parents were early risers and had raised her to be. Only the idle and slothful lay abed in the daylight hours, she had been taught to believe.
Her mother and father were turning to enter the library when Lord Ambrose dispelled her suspicions by appearing at the top of the stairs. With him was the maid, Betsy. Beside Madeleine, Mr. Brandt draw in a quick breath. She could understand his surprise. Was Lord Ambrose holding a baby?
“Good morning,” the viscount said in an unusually cheerful voice and began to descend the stairs—still in his stockinged feet, she noted. “Forgive my appearance,” he added with a laugh, his gaze bouncing from one to the other of them. “We had unexpected visitors last evening after everyone went to bed, and I’ve not had the chance to dress yet—I shall in a moment—but I’m certain you know the cause—you did tell them, didn’t you, Burns? About my cousin?”
“Your cousin, milord?” Burns intoned.
The viscount’s eyebrows lowered. “You remember. Connie. And her husband, James. They were tearing off for London to see his mother, who is near death.” He moved his gaze from the butler to scan their eyes again. “Poor soul, it will be a blessing when she goes. As it happened, James realized too late that an infant might disturb his mother; the town house is quite small, he said. Therefore, they stopped here to beg refuge for their little one, and I could hardly refuse.”
“Of course you couldn’t refuse,” Antonia cried, edging closer to the stairs with gleaming eyes. Her mother always had a weakness for babies, Madeleine thought with affection.
“Certainly not,” Mr. Brandt echoed in faint tones. “How could anyone?”
He was holding the infant, Madeleine kept thinking. Lord Ambrose, not the maid. She found this difficult to reconcile with what she knew of him. If this meant he was of a gentler nature than suspected, the knowledge was welcome.
“This cousin of yours—James, did you say?” began her father.
Lord Ambrose paused for the merest fraction of an instant. “My cousin’s husband is James; she is”—he stifled a yawn—"Clarice.”
“Connie,” Mr. Brandt said sharply. “He meant Connie,” he added to the others.
The viscount leveled him a look. “Connie Clarice, yes. You’re such a stickler for entire names, Scott.” He had reached the foot of the stairs, and now he handed the child to Antonia, there being little else he could do with her arms outstretched so appealingly. The babe did not awaken during this exchange, and Madeleine thought she had never seen anyone look so relieved as Lord Ambrose. “Did you want to ask me something, Mr. Murrow?”
“Whatever your cousin’s name is,” Thomas continued, “I’m wondering why they didn’t leave a wet nurse. Or is she sleeping?”
The viscount gave an awkward laugh. “Actually, that is a bit of a problem. Connie hadn’t secured a maid yet, being so set on tending the child herself; she never would have left the child had their situation not been desperate. Fortunately, I was able to assure her we’d find someone.”
“Women is forever giving birth in Brillham,” added Betsy, who had accompanied Lord Ambrose down the stairs and now stood among them like a guest. The viscount slid her a dampening look. “Well, it’s God’s own truth,” she said defensively. “I meself can think of two new mothers within a stone’s throw of here. I’m reckoning either one will have more than enough milk for two, because they’re real hefty girls, both of them; built like cows, they are.”
Burns coughed into his fist. “Be about your work, girl.”
The maid’s eyes flared. “Who are you to tell me to work, you overfed, stuffy old—”
“Betsy.” The viscount stepped between the servants. “Why didn’t you tell me about the mothers earlier?”
“That was because you wanted me to go”—she stopped, tossed a fretful glance at her spectators—"you know. Before you told me to say—”
“Yes, yes, that’s of no consequence now. Do be off to see about it straightaway. The babe is hungry.”
“You want me to take it?” she asked.
The viscount’s gaze darted to the child. “No. Bring someone here. Oh, and clothing as well. Undergarments and that sort of thing.”
Was that a protective look she saw in his eyes? Madeleine wondered. He kept watching the child in Antonia’s arms as if guarding it.
As Betsy hurried off, Thomas said, “Do you mean to say your cousin left the infant without so much as a change of clothing?”
Lord Ambrose stared at him. For once he did not seem to have an easy answer. And then, just as he drew breath to speak, Mr. Brandt surged into the breach.
“Naturally she would know old clothing is stored in the attic. Everyone keeps baby clothes for sentiment’s sake. My own grandmother, for an example, has my entire layette preserved as if for a museum. She would show it to you if you hinted at the slightest interest.”
“May fortune preserve us from such a fate.” Lord Ambrose crossed his arms and leaned against the newel post.
“Only trying to explain your cousin’s behavior,” Mr. Brandt said resentfully.
Thomas paid no attention to their quarreling. “Still seems odd to me.”
Madeleine was beginning to think so, too; not from the viscount’s words so much as his strained attitude. The tense undercurrents running among him and his friend and servants could not be missed, either.
“Oh, how can you gentlemen grumble so about details when there is this beautiful child to admire? Look how tiny she is! She cannot be more than a few days old, if that. I wonder that your cousin felt well enough to travel.”
Antonia had cradled the infant so that its face was evident to them all. Madeleine moved closer, as did the others excepting the butler, who appeared to disapprove of the entire business. The child truly possessed great beauty with its perfectly shaped mouth, upturned nose, and curling blond lashes, but it was her own mother’s expression that brought joy to Madeleine’s heart. She had seldom looked so alive in the past few years.
“She is exquisite.” Madeleine turned to the viscount and found his gaze resting on the infant. “What is her name?”
For the length of several heartbeats, she thought Lord Ambrose had not heard her. Finally, he brought his eyes to hers, and she could almost hear them ripping from the child, so reluctantly did he turn. His gaze moved on, wandering restlessly as the company waited. One would
almost think he couldn’t remember her name, Madeleine reflected with growing disillusionment. Perhaps after last evening’s debauchery, he could not.
“Door,” he said suddenly.
“Door?” exploded Thomas. “Someone named this poor mite Door?”
“Rie,” the viscount declared. “Dorrie ... Hall ... Burns—” the butler, who had gone to guard the front door, turned suddenly in shock “—side. Burnside.”
“Dorrie Hall Burnside,” Antonia repeated. “Lovely name.” She looked so doubtful that Madeleine bit her tongue to prevent herself giggling. “Unusual, too.”
“That’s my cousin in a word,” Lord Ambrose said, and gestured toward the library, indicating they were to proceed within. “Highly unusual.”
“A family trait,” Mr. Brandt said beneath his breath. Walking obediently toward the library, Madeleine found herself agreeing, but thought him extremely disloyal to say so.
* * *
The next few hours passed at a hectic pace, but that was fortunate to Ethan’s way of thinking. It gave him less time to dwell on the mystery of the child’s parentage, a subject that threatened to consume him when he should be centering his effort on making amends to Miss Murrow.
After leaving the babe in Mrs. Murrow’s eager care, he ordered Burns to bring his bathwater, then bathed and dressed in a white shirt and cravat, tan pantaloons, his favorite waistcoat with the vertical blue stripes, and an azure jacket that wanted replacing but was in as good a condition as any he had. When he had almost finished with his toilette, Scott came to learn the true story of the baby’s arrival. Ethan told him as succinctly as possible.
“You mean to say the child is yours?” Brandt’s face was a portrait of disbelief and shock.
“Why not speak a trifle louder, Scott? There’s a chance the Murrows didn’t hear you.”
“How—" He lowered his voice. “How will you keep up this charade? The Murrows will wonder why your fictitious cousin never comes back to claim her child.”
The Bridegroom and the Baby Page 3