by Carol Arens
It was true, he was. While she had not said outright that she would not stay beside him every second, there had been a telling look on her face. A quick sideward glance that indicated she had her own opinion on the matter.
“Sorry.” He bent down and gave her a quick kiss but only loosened his grip a little.
“I’m sorry, too.” She stood still, halting his progress toward the gate. “For getting you beaten up by the constables—I had no idea it was you.”
“I should have told you. It was my fault.”
He urged her farther along the wall. The guards would not sleep forever and he had no idea how many children would need to be taken to the coach.
“I would have kept your secret, you know.”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “It wasn’t that—I knew you would. I didn’t want you implicated.”
“Just being married to you, I’m already implicated in everything you do.”
“You know, that’s the only reason it took me so long to—” He stood suddenly still. “What was that noise?”
It was barely discernible even though the night was unusually quiet. No breeze, no crickets this time of year and, oddly, no drunken revelry to block the faint sound of—
“Singing,” Clementine said. “A lullaby.”
He tried the latch on the gate.
“You’ll have to hoist me over so I can open it.”
“No.” The last thing he was going to do was allow her to be on the other side without him.
“One of us needs to open the gate and I can’t lift you.”
Heath made a sound.
“You are good at that.”
“What?”
“Uttering curses under your breath.”
With no help for it, he cupped his hands for her to step into.
“Don’t get hung up on your skirt and don’t take a step away from the gate until I come over.”
“All right.” She stepped onto his hand. He pushed her up and over she went.
“Open up,” he whispered as soon as her boots hit grass.
“I can’t. There’s a padlock and I don’t see a key.”
“Are there any rocks it could be hidden under?”
“Only ones too small—but that’s Lettie singing. I can see her under a tree toward the front of the yard. I’m going to see if she’ll help.”
“Do not—” It was too late. Even if she had been willing to obey his order, she was already too far away to hear the rest of it.
* * *
Because she was singing to the fretful baby, Lettie would not hear Clementine’s footsteps. The last thing she wanted was to startle the girl and cause her to scream.
Clementine did not have a lovely singing voice, so she began to hum the tune Lettie sang in the hope that joining in would seem friendly.
She came forward slowly.
Lettie continued to sing when she looked up. When her gaze settled on Clementine, her eyes popped open wide in surprise.
“What are you doing here in the middle of the night, my lady?”
“Looking for you, actually...if you are the one who has been sending notes to Creed.”
“If I was, why would you be looking for me?”
“Because you know what is happening here. I believe you want to help.”
“Please go home. You ought not to be here.”
“We are taking the children away tonight. Will you help us?”
“All of them?” Lettie stood up, cradling the fretful bundle to her chest. “How? And who is with you?”
“Lord Fencroft and Creed are outside the gate, ready with the carriage.”
“Yes, then. I’ll help.” She nodded toward the back of the house and began to walk toward it. “This will be risky. Are you certain?”
“Quite.”
“Is it Lord Fencroft who is the Abductor, then?”
“I thought perhaps you knew, since you sent the notes.”
“I knew Mr. Creed, recognized him right off. I’d seen him before—he’s a hard man to forget, if you take my meaning. But your husband was always wearing that fearful mask and cape.”
“Oh, he’s not a bit fearful without it.” Not even when he was acting beastly. “Is the baby ill?”
Lettie nodded. “It’s why we were outside. The baron is here tonight. I didn’t want him to know the child is sick.”
“Shouldn’t he summon the doctor?”
“He will, sometimes, if the child is older and likely to survive. But he believes infants are frail, and spending money on them is futile. I do what I can but sometimes it isn’t enough.”
Oh, but she wanted to stomp up the stairs and give the baron a piece of her mind, or her fist. What kind of black-hearted soul would refuse aid to a sick infant?
Slademore was no better than a killer.
Lettie withdrew a set of keys from her pocket, taking care that they did not jingle. “The baron is restless tonight.”
“It’s no wonder with the guilt he must carry.”
“I don’t believe he does.” She took off her shoes, indicated for Clementine to do the same and then unlocked the door.
“It’s only a bit of luck I have the keys. Mrs. Hoper keeps them locked up tight,” she whispered. “But I know where and I took them because of the baby.”
The hallway Lettie led her down smelled dank. No wonder the baby was sick if this was the air it was breathing.
They went down a short flight of stairs. The only light coming in was what moonlight shone through the door Lettie left standing open.
She unlocked another door and handed her the infant. The sound of a match striking seemed louder than it ought to, the lantern blazing to life brighter.
Lettie knelt beside a bed with four children packed into it.
“Lawrence, Mary...wake up. We are going on an adventure, but we must be very silent and brave.”
It took only a minute to get the children gathered by the door.
“Will the key work for the gate?”
She shook her head. “The baron keeps that one at night. We don’t dare go out the front, though, so we’ll have to hand them over the wall.”
Lettie began to hurry the children out the door.
“Wait! There’s two babies left behind.”
“We’ll have to come back for them. Our arms are full as it is.”
It was true. Lettie carried three toddlers in her arms. Clementine could barely manage the sick baby and a one-year-old in hers.
With Lettie at the head of the line and her at the back they led the children out.
Heath must have brought the carriage close to the fence. He and Creed were crouched on something tall, looking ready to leap into the yard.
* * *
She’d done it! Somehow Clementine and the other woman had managed to bring the children without being discovered.
Heath watched them rush silently across the yard, their bare feet padding across the damp grass and the hems of their sleeping gowns getting wet.
The woman—Lettie, he thought Clementine had called her—got to the fence first. Leaning over the edge, Creed plucked up the three children she carried, one by one. He took them down into the carriage and then within seconds was back helping Heath pull more of them up.
Clementine placed the children she carried into Lettie’s arms. She spun about and then, rather than handing up another child, she ran back toward the dark house.
Except that it wasn’t dark. Someone was up. Heath saw a shadowed figure carrying a lantern from window to window.
Tall and lean, hunched slightly at the shoulders, the figure resembled the Grim Reaper. Judging by the advancing glow, Slademore was taking a hallway close to the entrance that Clementine had just disappeared into.
Lettie, seeing the same thing he d
id, gasped. “She’s gone for the last two babies. She’ll never get them out in time.”
* * *
Clementine saw lantern light coming from the hallway one floor up. Her only hope was that whoever it was would trip on something and be slowed down.
But she was not turning back and leaving the infants behind.
The children’s cell—and that was what it was more than a bedroom—was now in complete darkness. She had to feel her way to the back where the cribs were.
There! Her fingers brushed a warm cheek. She gathered the child into the crook of her arm.
Feeling her way along the wall, she knocked something over. It clattered on the floor.
The light was now in the hallway outside the door, illuminating the other crib. When she picked up the second baby, it began to cry.
If there had been any hope of hiding, or escaping the room undetected, it was gone.
Please! Please! Please let it be Mrs. Hoper carrying the lantern.
Clementine got as far as the doorway before the baron’s shadow, looking long and distorted, spread over the stone floor in the hallway.
“Lady Fencroft?” He set the lantern down. The lamp’s glow shadowed his face in streaks of orange and red, casting him as the devil he was and not the angel of mercy most people believed him to be. “What are you doing here?”
He glanced past her into the cell. She tried to step around him but he blocked her way. It looked like his face was on fire as his expression flashed from surprise to accusation and then to menace, all in the space of a second.
“Where are the rest of my children?” He reached for her, as if he intended to take the crying baby. She swung away.
“Stand aside.” She lifted her chin and looked down her nose at him.
He chuckled under his breath. “I will say, I never expected the Abductor to be Fencroft and his wife. But wait! The kidnappings began before you came to London. Can I assume you are his spy?”
“You can assume to spend the rest of your life in prison for what you have done to the children you were supposed to be caring for.”
“But I was caring for them. If I made a bit of money from the arrangement? It’s my due.” His grin might be the single most wicked thing she had seen in her life. “Now, you will give me the babies.”
He took a step forward. She took two steps back.
“I’ll use force if need be. I promise you, my fist will not discriminate between their flesh and yours.”
He balled up his hand and began a downward swing. She fell on her knees, hunching over the infants, shielding them from the promised blows with her head and shoulders.
She heard a furious roar. Felt air rush past the back of her head but not an explosive strike.
Looking up, she saw Heath crushing Slademore’s fist in his hand and watched his foot swing forward.
Scrambling to her feet, she ran outside with the babies, shouting for Creed.
Before his name left her mouth, he raced past her toward the house.
Lettie was already on top of the coach, lying flat and reaching down for a baby. Clementine lifted the squalling baby up for her to take and did the same with the other child.
Stooping, she snatched a stone off the ground. It was slick with dew. She ran back toward the house, gripping it tight.
Halfway back, she met Heath and Creed emerging from the building, Slademore half-limp between them.
She stepped close to the baron and was within an arm’s length, before Heath warned her back.
“She wants to smash you in the head with it,” Heath told his captive. “I’d let her, too, except that jail cells remind me of the room you kept the children in. You’ll have one just like it and you can spend your years thinking of that.”
“I’ll charge you with assault.”
“And I’ll say you did murder,” Lettie declared.
“Murder? I gave them a place to live. They’d have died on the streets quicker.”
“I’ll tell how you wouldn’t call the doctor when they were sick and how it was you who made them sick by forcing even the smallest ones to scrub your floors into the wee hours, how you made them get up before daylight and clean the kitchen until you could see your face reflected in the pots. I’ll tell how you starved them and put them in closets if you thought they would tell something to a visitor.”
“Who will believe you? You are nothing. I’m a near saint, ask anyone.”
“There’s the room where you kept them, aye?” Creed shrugged. “That ought to say something. I suppose your benefactors will be interested to see where their money went.”
“Tie him to the top of the carriage, Creed,” Heath said.
So he did, securing Slademore’s arms and legs every which way.
When the coach pulled up in front of the police station, the sun was nearly ready to rise. Folks beginning their day stopped to watch Baron Slademore screeching in his nightshirt.
Chapter Seventeen
The sun was coming up, bringing dark garden shadows back into the light.
Clementine moved away from the window and knelt beside the fireplace, poking the coals to keep the flames burning bright.
This early it was still cold outside.
She glanced at Heath sitting in his chair beside the window. Lines creased the corners of his eyes while he looked back at her.
He smiled, beckoning her to come to him with a crook of his finger.
Rising, she crossed the room. Sat down on his lap and snuggled into his arms. She breathed in the masculine scent of him deeply, slowly savoring it.
“They look so peaceful,” he said of the children asleep on the floor in front of the fire.
Seeing them lined up in a row, lying on quilts and covered with down blankets, she sent up a silent prayer of thanks.
“I wonder what it feels like for them,” he said.
She cupped her hand over his where he hugged her close to his chest.
“They are feeling warm and safe for the first time, maybe in their lives, I imagine.”
“Because of you,” he murmured.
“You and Creed had more to do with it—and Lettie.”
“It’s you who went in after the last two. I died a thousand unspeakable deaths thinking I would not get to you in time. And then to see you, covering the babies with your own body. All I did was stop a fist. You were willing to sacrifice yourself for them.”
“All that matters is that they are here, safe and warm.”
So was she. And that was because of Heath. She would never forget what he had done.
“I suppose when they wake up they will be hungry,” he said. “From what Lettie told the police, all they got to eat was scraps unless a benefactor was visiting.”
“I’ll instruct Cook to make plenty.”
“I doubt if you’ll need to. It created a stir in the household when we carried them in.” He laughed low in his chest. “It’s fitting, don’t you think? You and I causing a stir?”
“It’s rather enjoyable—a diversion from the humdrum of everyday life.”
“I’m pretty sure I haven’t had a humdrum moment since you rescued me from the fountain.”
“I love you, husband.”
“I love you, too, wife.”
“I believe I’d do anything for you.”
He sat up straighter, looking at her with a tiny frown right between his brows. She smoothed it away with her fingertips.
“I believe I’d do anything for you, too.”
“I want them.” She nodded at the children.
“All of them? How many are there?”
“There’s the seven here, then the other seven Olivia is watching in your quarters.”
“You want to adopt fourteen children?”
“Yes—especially that one with the blond curls j
ust peeping out of the cover. Her name is Lucille. Do you know she wanted a magic beanstalk so she could climb to Heaven to be with her mother?”
“And you want to be her mother.”
“More than anything.”
He smiled, caught her cheeks between his hands and kissed her for a very long time.
“You’re sure? It will be a huge undertaking. Adoption? It’s much more than the shelter we spoke of.”
“It is what I want.”
“Good. It’s what I want, too.” He nuzzled her neck and sent a tickle up her scalp. “And they say Americans are barren.”
“Fourteen Fencrofts ought to prove the myth a lie.”
“Grandfather will be beside himself.”
“He’s worked hard toward this end.”
Then he kissed her and didn’t stop until the first of the children woke up wanting to eat.
Epilogue
Derbyshire, one month later
Heath should not be surprised to find himself standing on a hilltop at the estate, seeing it blanketed with snow on Christmas Eve.
If the fact that he was watching his wife and six—he squinted at the hill opposite—no, make that seven, of his children sledding down the slope, a foot of snow on the ground was quite believable.
The bundle he cradled in his arms squirmed. He glanced down, watched his baby son smile up at him.
“If I can believe you,” he crooned, “I can believe anything, isn’t that right?”
“Makes one believe in miracles, does it not?” Grandfather stood beside him, holding another of Heath’s babies. “Let’s see who has the biggest smile, Leroy or Willie?”
“Goes to show what you know.” Lettie laughed, walking past and pulling a small wagon outfitted with skis. “It’s Abigail.”
Lettie, now their governess, could be correct in that. At ten months old, his daughter never ceased smiling or chattering.
It hit him again, what Abigail’s life might have been like if not for Clementine. Then add the fates of his other thirteen to that.
He shook himself because the thought was too horrid to contemplate.