Lady Sparrow

by Barbara Metzger

  “I ain’t gonna hang for that whoreson,” he shouted. “He were the one what hired me to kill the widow.”

  “What about the arson, and the loaded dice?” the Bow Street Runner at the top of the stairs called down. “The uphills found on his cousin that got Viscount Sparling stabbed? You tell us about that and maybe you won’t go dancing with Jack Ketch.”

  “He—” Harry started to say when a shot rang out. Harry clutched his shoulder. He spun around, off balance, careening first into the wall, then into the rickety stair rail. The Runner tried to grab him, but the old wood gave way beneath the big man’s weight. Harry kept going, down and down.

  Straight to hell, the onlookers supposed, with his neck broken. Now they shifted their focus to Roderick, who had tossed away his empty, smoking gun and pulled a long, thin knife out of his boot. He saw his way out blocked, and he saw a weapon in the hand of every blasted man in the room, except one. Every man was looking at him with loathing and bloodlust, except one, whose eyes he could not read behind the thick lenses. He grabbed that one, the old graybeard, by his musty coat, and held the knife to his throat.

  “You’re going to get me out of here, Grandpa.” He called to the Runners and the soldiers, “One move and he’s a dead man. He might not have many years left anyway, but they’ll be on your conscience, not mine.”

  “You don’t have a conscience, Sparrowdale,” the ancient told him, “and you don’t have a chance.”

  Roderick looked own at the still seated man. He finally realized the shoulder he’d grabbed was too muscular for a dodderer. The man was too weighty under that shapeless cloak, too tall when he finally stood to his full, unbowed height. He was all too familiar, way too late.

  “You!” Roderick spit out.

  Lowell pulled off the beard. “Deuced thing itches.”

  “Minerva’s bloody hired man.”

  “Not your first mistake, Sparrowdale, but definitely your last.”

  Roderick knew he was finished, but he was not taking his final exit by himself. “You’ve been a thorn in my side from the first, you interfering fool. Now you’ll pay!”

  He pressed the knife closer to Lowell’s throat, but with a shout that was almost a battle cry, Lowell brought his arm up, and his booted foot. The knife went flying and Roderick’s wrist hung limply. He dropped to the floor, crawling for the door. Military boots blocked his way. He looked up, into a face almost identical to that of his nemesis, only in a scarlet coat.

  “You’re not going anywhere but to the devil,” Lieutenant Andrew Merrison told Roderick. “I don’t take kindly to anyone threatening my family, you know. But you wouldn’t understand that, would you, you swine?”

  The villain had one ace left up his double-dealing sleeve. A small ivory-handled pistol materialized in his hand. He swung it up—and shots rang out from nearly every corner of the room.

  Curtain.

  Applause.

  No bows.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  There was no heir to the Sparrowdale succession. No brother, no son, no far-flung cousin from any cadet branch, no legitimate male heir anywhere.

  That was not Mina’s problem. Finding her son was.

  Now that Roderick could never tell what he knew, if he had known anything, she had to go to Portsmouth. Somewhere in her father’s papers might be a mention of a child. She had to look.

  With Roderick gone, they might never know the truth about Viscount Sparling’s death, either, but the gossip was racing around London like a pig at the mention of bacon. They had not been able to keep Roderick’s manner of death—or manner of life, for that matter—quiet, not with all the young soldiers at the Spotted Dog as witnesses. So Mina had another reason for getting the boys out of London, to shield them from the worst of the talk. The boys were safe now. Robin would be, too.

  She told Harkness to start making arrangements, hiring coaches, sending riders ahead to reserve all the rooms they would need along the way. Lowell did not try to stop her. That was her other problem.

  If he had mentioned coming along, she would have leaped at the chance to have him nearby. If he had begged her to stay, she might have, for a while, at least, telling herself he was a good influence on the boys, and he was their guardian, too. He had not done either, and she could not be so brazen as to invite him to come with her, now that his work was done. He was a polished creature of the city, a light of the social world. How could she ask him to share the lackluster life of a shipbuilder in dreary Portsmouth? They shared trusteeship of some of the boys, and they had shared magical kisses, but they truly did not share a way of life. Lowell had his fee, and her gratitude. He had his bachelor freedom, too, along with the shattered shards of her heart.

  Confound it, Lowell thought, he was a failure. Minerva was safe from that dirty dish Roderick, but she was as unhappy as when she’d first come to Town. The Sparrowdale sprats were not enough to bring light to her eyes. His own love was not enough to warm the frozen recesses of her soul that ached for her missing son—the son he could not find for her. Now she wanted to leave Town, take the boys and start a new life, without him, dash it. She had not even mentioned him going along. He told Harkness to stop packing. He needed more time.

  “I still think the child is here in London,” he told her. “Why else would Roderick have been so angry that you came to Town?”

  “London is a big place,” she said. “You said yourself there might be thousands of orphans here.”

  “Yes, but with the news of Roderick’s death, someone might come forward with information. I think you should wait a few weeks before leaving, so they know where to find you.”

  “Why would anyone say anything now, when they have not for four years?”

  “Because now your son could be earl.”

  “No. He was not Sparrowdale’s son. You know that.”

  “But the world does not. The law cannot question his parentage.”

  “Society can,” Mina insisted. “They will remember the gossip about my elopement, and they will say that Sparrowdale would never have tossed away his own son, if he believed for an instant that the infant was his.”

  “And we would answer that it was Roderick who kidnapped the babe. No one would believe anything to be beneath that lizard, now. Most likely it was his idea, anyway.”

  Harkness came into the library to see if he was to hire carriages or not. He could not tell, listening at the door, but if Lord Lowell needed more time, Harkness would add his mite to keeping the countess from going to Portsmouth. No proper butler ever butled a shipyard.

  He set down the tea tray no one had requested and said, “Pardon, my lady, but if I may be so bold, you have not considered Sparrows Nest.”

  Lack of boldness had never stopped the butler before, nor from listening at keyholes, Mina knew. “I cannot imagine why I should consider Sparrows Nest,” she answered, irritated that everyone was discussing the situation as if finding an earl was more important than finding a little boy. “And why are you not seeing to the packing?”

  Harkness moved the biscuits closer to Lord Lowell, further from Merlin, who was sitting on the chaise beside the countess. “I mention Sparrows Nest because of its servants and tenants and villagers, the scores of families dependent on the estate. Without an heir, the title and the property revert to the crown. What happens to everyone then, or in the interval between owners? You know no one will care for them or for the land itself, like family.”

  “My son is not family.” Harkness had to have known the whole story by now. He always did.

  He bowed, acknowledging her confiding in him. “The dark-haired, large-nosed gremlins upstairs are, however, and they should learn their heritage. They cannot, without an heir. In every way that matters, Master Robert is the new earl, in absentia.” On his way out, Harkness added, “Sparrows Nest needs him, and you.”

  “There, you see? Even Harkness agrees with me.” Lowell fed a macaroon to the dog, who wagged his tail. “Merlin agrees with me.
If we say Roderick stole the boy, we can place advertisements. Someone will know of the child.”

  “Someone? They will be bringing me every four-year-old boy in the empire! No, I will not claim the earldom. It would be dishonest.”

  “Not the way I see it. Sparrowdale owes you. And it is not as if you would be stealing something from a distant cousin. There are none. My mother and Westcott both checked their Debrett’s. Besides, Lud knows the Sparrs could use some new blood.”

  He tossed a biscuit to the floor so Merlin would get down, then sat beside Minerva on the chaise, taking her hand. “And think of the boy.”

  “I am! That is all I am thinking of! Where he is today, not whether he will be wearing ermine tomorrow!”

  When Lowell brought Mina’s ungloved hand to his lips, she did not pull it away, so he kissed every finger in turn. “When you find your son, what will you tell him of his father?”

  Mina was trying to pay attention to the conversation, not the shivers racing from her fingers to her toes. “I . . . I will tell him he died.”

  “But Robert Sparr’s mother is a countess. You are no obscure widow who can claim a dead soldier as husband. Everyone will know you, in Portsmouth or in Patagonia. How can you keep the fact that his father was an earl from the boy, when he hears the man’s name? Will you label your son a bastard for the world to despise?”

  His kisses were traveling up her bare arm now, and Mina could barely think, much less reason coherently. “I can . . . I can change his name, say he is just another orphan I have taken in. He is too little to—”

  “That’s it!” Lowell yelled, soundly kissing Mina’s cheek and jumping up. “That’s it! They’ve changed his name, of course. They could not let it be known that a legitimate Sparr was sent to a foundling home.”

  Mina regretted the loss of his closeness. Now she regretted his new idea. “Then we will never find him.”

  “No, my love. Now we know precisely where to look! Where Roderick burned the records!”

  My love? That is, “The Stricklands’?” she asked. “But we inquired there.”

  “We asked for R.S. Remember, Mrs. Strickland’s dead husband was the one who kept the records. She did not know what was owed, nor for which boy. How could she know who brought the child, or what name they gave?”

  “George did not know of it, and neither did Perry.” Mina sounded doubtful, but she wanted to believe him.

  “Of course not. Who would trust children with such a secret? Thank goodness no one did, or Roderick might have felt he had to get rid of them, too. He could not have known which boy it was either, or he’d have acted long ago. He must have thought Robert was well enough hidden. But recall when you told me of the ledgers, we thought the exorbitant sum for George’s upkeep was to pay for what he’d stolen. It wasn’t. Half was for Robert, your Robin!”

  Now Mina threw her arms around Lowell and kissed him, before running to the door and telling Harkness to stop the packing, which he had, of course, not begun.

  Mrs. Strickland was still assuaging her grief in a glass. The children were shouting in the halls, and she could barely recall her dead husband’s name, much less any of the four-year-olds’. Half the children came without birth dates or baptismal records, so she was not even certain of their ages. She did not think she had any Roberts or Robins, and Sparr did not sound at all familiar. Still, for the coin Mina handed her, and Lowell’s promise to find a bookkeeper and a schoolmaster, she agreed to send for the boys she thought were the right age.

  The boys were like a pack of imps, darting around, pushing each other, pummeling the smallest one with a chair cushion, shouting. Mrs. Strickland clapped her hands—to her ears. She sank down onto a chair, not the one missing its pillow. “Take any of them you want.”

  A harried-looking young woman rushed into the room with two more tots, curtsied to Lowell and Minerva, then began chivvying the little boys into a semblance of a line. She tucked in a shirt here, brushed back a curl there, took the pillow away before it was reduced to feathers.

  “My niece, Martha,” Mrs. Strickland announced. “She’s come to help, thank goodness.”

  Mina smiled at the girl, who was whispering to the boys to be on their best behavior, for this nice couple had come to find a lad of their own to take home.

  Now the boys got quiet, although some were too excited to stand still. Some of them grinned appealingly, or smiled pleadingly. Two looked fearful, and three seemed resigned to being passed over. One boy started crying, and another had to be rushed off to the necessary.

  Lowell groaned from behind her. “No, you cannot take them all. We will send more help and get Mother to hold a benefit ball.”

  “I shall have Mr. Sizemore establish an endowment, and I believe I will ask Homer if he wishes to assist Miss Martha now and again.”

  “Lud, matchmaking for the boy already? You have been spending too much time with my mother.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Now look carefully.”

  Mina did look. She studied each boy in turn, waiting for that burst of recognition. A mother would know her own son anywhere, wouldn’t she? She had been dreaming of him for four years, wondering what he looked like, how tall he was, if he knew his letters yet. How could she not pick Robin out of this hive of halflings?

  She could not. All of them played on her heartstrings, but none struck just the right chord. She felt tears of despair gather in her eyes. Without a word, but with his own eyes suspiciously damp, Lowell handed her a handkerchief. “We’ll think of something else, then. Maybe your father’s papers have the answer after all.”

  Mrs. Strickland had roused herself enough to count heads. “Fifteen, sixteen. There should be one more, I thought. No, not that plaguey Peter who can never hold his water. I counted him, did I not? Martha, how many are we supposed to have?”

  Martha scanned the group that eddied around her. “Oh, dear, Bobby White is missing. He’s most likely off playing with his wooden boat again.”

  “Bobby?” Mina and Lowell both asked. “For Robert? Robin?”

  Mrs. Strickland frowned. “No, just plain Bob, that’s all he’s ever been. The brat’s never where he’s supposed to be.”

  He sure as the devil was not supposed to be in the Strickland Charity Home.

  Chapter Thirty

  He had brown hair, like Mina’s, but blue-green eyes like Ninian’s. He was slight of build, with a determined jaw. He clutched a finely crafted wooden sailboat, with the name Dorothea painted on the stern. Dorothea was Mina’s mother’s name.

  She sank to the floor beside him, while Lowell stayed by the door of the now empty room where the child played by himself.

  “Why did you not come down with the others?” Mina softly asked, clenching Lowell’s handkerchief between her hands to keep herself from pulling the boy to her breast, frightening him.

  He kept turning the boat, swooping it through the waves of his imagination. “ ’Cause I didn’t want to be ’dopted. I’m waiting for my own mama.”

  “How will you know her when she comes, though?”

  “She’s a real lady.”

  “I am a real lady. A countess.”

  He looked up for the first time, head cocked to one side, studying her. “She lives in a big house.”

  “I live in a big house. With a lot of other boys you’ll like.”

  “No, this one has dogs and ponies and a tiger.”

  “Well, I have a dog, and the ponies are coming soon,” she said, wondering where she could get a tiger. “But who told you about your mother?”

  “My grandfather did, when he brung me my boat.”

  “It is a beautiful boat. I had one like it when I was a girl, you know. Can you tell me your grandfather’s name?”

  “Grandpa, of course.”

  “Of course. How silly of me. But, Bobby, did he say why you were living here instead of with him, or with your mother in her big house?”

  “He said he made a bad bargain with some bad men, but he meant to fix it
soon. How long is soon?”

  “I do not know, dearest. Did your grandfather say how he could fix the mistake?”

  He shrugged. “One of the bad men got sick. Do you think he is in heaven with Mr. Strickland?”

  Mina thought Sparrowdale was burning in hell, but she could not say so to her son. Her father must have stopped here on the way to the earl’s funeral, disappointed with the lack of returns from his investment in Sparrowdale. His daughter was not a star in the social firmament; he had received no new government contracts; there had been no other grandsons to be lords.

  With Sparrowdale and Viscount Sparling both dead, however, Malachy Caldwell saw another opportunity. A grandson who was earl was far more valuable than a whoremongering, titled son-in-law who was one. Malachy would have himself named guardian—who better?—and control the Sparrowdale holdings, including the pocket boroughs and their votes in the Commons. He could even persuade Minerva into a more advantageous match when she was out of mourning, by offering her the boy in return.

  Her father must have had it all planned, Mina thought now, except for the rain, and the congestion of the lungs that carried him off within days of Sparrowdale’s interment. He had never come back for Robin. She had to tell the boy that he never was going to return.

  “I think your grandfather must be in heaven too, talking to Mr. Strickland about what a fine boy you are.” And maybe her father’s soul would not burn for eternity, for keeping Robin safe, at least.

  “Did your grandfather ever tell you that you had another name?” Lowell asked now, coming from the doorway to kneel beside her on the worn rug. Robin let him admire the wooden boat. “Your real name?”

  Robin looked up at the fine gentleman who was with the sweet, pretty lady. If his grandfather was not coming back, how was he going to find his mother? His lip began to tremble. “No. He said he couldn’t, ’less the other bad man took me away where Mama could never find me.” Tears began to fall as he realized she might never find him now. He wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve. “But he did say someday I could fly away with her. Like a bird.”