Three Weeks With Lady X

  “What is her name?” Thorn asked.

  “It notes without reference to a proper name that his wife’s sister lives in Virginia, in America. At least—” He caught himself.

  Thorn gave him a grim smile. “The child is orphaned but not illegitimate, for which we must all offer hosannas. I was at the wedding, Iffley. It took place at St. Andrew’s, with a lashing of ceremonial rigmarole. But I was asking for her name, not her aunt’s.”

  The girl’s thin back hunched, like a bird putting its head under a wing. She was listening, though she chose not to enter the conversation.

  The butler squinted at the letter again. “I don’t see a name. From what I see here, you are the guardian and may choose to send the child to America if you wish. There’s a bit in here about a silver teapot. Or the top to a silver teapot, which doesn’t make any sense, followed by the name of his solicitor. I regret to say that the missive is abusive in nature. Summers addresses Juby as a ‘fusty nut.’ I believe he also says that he himself is ‘ignorant as dirt,’ but it could be that Juby is the object of that invective as well. And that’s the entirety of the note.”

  Thorn nodded. “Send a message to my solicitor asking him to find out what happened to Will Summers, member of the militia located in Meryton. And ask Mrs. Stella to attend me.” He tightened his arms around Will’s daughter and said gently, into her ear, “Will you please tell me your name?”

  The child burst into tears. Thorn sighed and stood up, scooping her into his arms. He hitched her a bit higher and followed Iffley into the entry. Frederick stood against the wall. “I gather you accepted this special delivery, Fred?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Was a trunk delivered at the same time?”

  “No, sir. And the driver took off so quickly that I scarcely had a look at him.”

  Mrs. Stella burst through the servants’ door, ribbons streaming from her cap. His housekeeper had gravity about her, a quality of being bound to the earth by more than the weight of her sturdy form. “Well, who’s this?” she asked. “Could it be I see a wee one in need of a bath?”

  There was one more sob, and the girl’s head shook in violent refusal.

  “How about a bowl of porridge?”

  Another shake.

  “I’ve always found that cake is very cheering,” Thorn remarked.

  Mrs. Stella sighed in an exaggerated way. “Well, if you say so, sir. Cake it shall be.” And she held out her arms.

  No movement.

  “Cake,” Thorn repeated. “Mrs. Stella is a very nice woman, and the cake can only be found in her part of the house.”

  It took a moment, but the girl raised her head. “I can walk.”

  “You may have cake only if you tell me your name.”

  “My papa named me Rose,” she said, her voice wavering for a moment.

  Thorn put her down and she went to Mrs. Stella, stopping to look up at her. “I don’t, in the general course of things, like to be carried,” she said, her voice piping but quite clear.

  Mrs. Stella smiled and said, “You will have no argument from me. I shouldn’t like to be carried myself.” They set off through the servants’ door, Thorn frowning after them. Will’s daughter had a most peculiar manner. As if she were ninety years old and a dowager duchess to boot.

  He’d be damned if he’d ship Rose off to America. His father had misplaced all his illegitimate children after consigning them to the care of an unscrupulous solicitor. No, if the aunt wanted Rose, she would have to come to England and fetch her.

  But what the devil was he to do with the girl until her aunt arrived, even supposing they could find the woman? Rose couldn’t live in his house, no matter how birdlike and—

  No.

  Thorn went back to his desk and sat down before the design for his rubber band. Even as he worked, though, he couldn’t stop thinking about Rose. At length he realized that the easiest solution was to give her to his stepmother, Eleanor. It would hardly matter if the ton believed that the Duke of Villiers had spawned yet another bastard.

  In fact, he could ask her directly; he had just time enough to stop by his father’s town house before meeting Vander for supper. He’d gone straight to his study from a vigorous ride and he smelled like the stables, so he went upstairs to his bedchamber and rang for his valet.

  An hour later, he was bathed and had shrugged on a coat as elegant as any the Duke of Villiers had worn. The choice had nothing to do with the way Lady Xenobia’s lip had curled when she’d looked him over.

  The mere thought of her brought on another irrational flare of desire. Damn it, the woman was the daughter of a marquess. When he’d reached manhood, his father had told him not to look at women in the highest ranks. A cat couldn’t look at a king, after all, nor a bastard at a marquess’s daughter.

  Not that he’d been looking at Xenobia.

  Though she had looked at him.

  Chapter Six

  Thorn returned downstairs after bathing, thinking that he’d better see how Mrs. Stella was faring and tell Iffley to send for a Bow Street Runner. He needed someone to investigate what had happened to Will, not to mention what had happened to his daughter’s clothing.

  It turned out that his new ward had been bathed and fed, and put down to nap in the nursery, a room he had heretofore ignored.

  “I was able to find her a little black gown that fit with just a tuck or two,” Mrs. Stella reported. “I have her measurements, and I’ve ordered a proper wardrobe, which should be delivered in a week. You’ll have to hire a governess as soon as you can, Mr. Dautry. And a nursemaid, of course.”

  “Would you see to the nursemaid, Mrs. Stella? And tell the agency that I’d like to interview governesses. Not tomorrow, as I’ll take Rose with me to Starberry Court, but the following morning. Where’s Iffley?”

  Mrs. Stella’s mouth tightened. “Mr. Iffley was quite perturbed by the child’s arrival. I could not speak to his whereabouts.”

  Bloody hell. Thorn had the feeling that the agency would have to look for butlers as well. “Ask Fred to send him to me in the library.”

  Sure enough, Iffley had been packing his bags. “I have compromised my standards enough,” he stated, his tone so sour it could have curdled milk. “After giving it some thought, Mr. Dautry, I realized that it matters little whether that child upstairs is yours or another’s. The scandal will envelop you both, and the disgrace will extend far beyond the walls of this house.”

  Thorn resisted the impulse to take the supercilious jackass out with a blow to the jaw.

  Iffley required no response. “I am one, sir, who prefers to have the distinctions of rank preserved. I compromised my own standards by taking this post; it is with no small amount of shame that I have confessed the same to myself. My eyes are opened to my own ignominy.” He clasped his hands, looking to the heavens with an expression of utmost anguish.

  Thorn stopped being irritated and started grinning. It wasn’t often that one had a private farce performed at no cost in such intimate surroundings.

  He sent Iffley away and ran back upstairs to see Rose. When he looked in the door of the nursery, she opened her eyes, which were large and framed by curling eyelashes. Not that they made her pretty, not with the grayish cast to her skin and the way her eyebrows cut across her eyes as straight as the flight of an arrow. She sat up as he walked into the room.

  “I must go out this evening,” he said.

  Rose’s lower lip trembled, but she said nothing and laid her head on her knees.

  “For goodness’ sake,” he said, feeling a twinge of guilt. “One cannot take a child to a gentleman’s club.”

  A tear caught the light as it slid over the curve of her cheek.

  “Bloody hell,” he said, abandoning his intention not to swear in her presence. He sat down on her bed. “Why haven’t you got a doll? When I was growing up, my sisters dragged dolls with them wherever they went.”

  Rose didn’t lift her head, and her voice was muffled by
her knees. “Mr. Pancras says that there is no useful purpose to a doll. They grow dusty very quickly. He believes that acquiring accomplishments such as Greek is a better use of one’s time.”

  “Mr. Pancras, whoever he is, sounds like an ass,” Thorn said. He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Come on. We’ve just time to find you a doll before the shops close.”

  Rose sat up directly. “But the ribbon broke on my right slipper and Mrs. Stella said I can’t go outside until I have new shoes.”

  Sure enough, there was a very tired-looking pair of slippers next to the bed, one of which had only half a ribbon. Thorn helped her from the bed, slipped them on her feet, and tied a knot instead of a bow around Rose’s thin ankle, which she viewed with evident disfavor.

  He stood, and she looked up at him. She did not hold out her arms, but it seemed he was expected to pick her up.

  “Didn’t you announce that you don’t like to be carried?”

  “I make exceptions when I am ill shod.”

  The child stared back at Thorn as if there was nothing odd about her speech. He gathered her up into his arms and remarked, “At least you smell better now.”

  He glanced down in time to see cool gray eyes narrow.

  “So do you,” she said.

  Thorn stared down at her. Had she? Yes, she had. “That was not a polite comment,” he told her.

  She looked off, into the corner of the bedchamber, but her implication was obvious: he had been impolite to point out her former odor.

  “I apologize for mentioning your condition. How old are you?” he asked, with real curiosity.

  Another silence ensued, as if she was debating whether to answer. At last she said, “I shall be six very soon.”

  “Almost six! I thought you were three. Or four at most.”

  She regarded him again. Silently.

  “My father will like you,” he said, grinning.

  Her nose tilted slightly in the air, and she did not deign to answer.

  “You are a mystery,” Thorn said, now striding toward the stairs. “You sound as if you’ve had a governess. But you’re deplorably thin, and you have no clothing. Generally speaking, those things are difficult to reconcile with the having of a governess. Of course, there are always exceptions.”

  “I never had a governess,” Rose announced with a crushing air of condescension. “Mr. Pancras was my tutor.”

  They had reached the entryway. Thorn took his coat and Rose’s shabby pelisse from Fred (Iffley having taken himself off for good), carried Rose outside, and deposited her in his carriage.

  “Have you ever met your aunt?” he asked, once they were underway.

  “No. As Papa informed you in his letter, she lives in America.”

  “By all accounts, that’s a marvelous place, full of bison.”

  “What is that?”

  “An animal larger than an ox, and much shaggier.”

  “I am uninterested in bisons,” Rose observed. “And I shouldn’t like to live in America. Papa said that the ocean was perilous, and that my mother’s sister was a whittie-whattie twaddle-head.”

  At that moment Thorn was struck by the conviction that he was never going to let Rose anywhere near the land of bison. Nor was he going to hand her to Eleanor, as if she were a piece of unwanted china. He was thinking about what that meant for his life when she asked, “Have you traveled to America?”

  “I have not. You are very fluent for a nearly six-year-old.”

  “Papa said I have an old soul.”

  “Nonsense. You have a very young soul, to go with that lisp of yours.”

  At this, her eyes narrowed and a little bit of pink stole into her cheeks. “I do not lisp.”

  “Yes, you do.” It was very slight—but rather enchanting.

  She turned her sharp little nose into the air. “If I lisped, Mr. Pancras would have taught me otherwise.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you have a governess?” Will had always been peculiar, but it sounded as if marriage, or being widowed, had made him even more so.

  “Papa believed that women added unnecessary complications to a household.”

  “No nursemaid?”

  She shook her head. “The kitchen maid helped me dress.”

  “Where is Pancras? Or, to ask the same question another way, why did you arrive by special delivery, and why were you dirty and thin?”

  “My father said that in the event of tribulation or strife, I was to be sent to you.” She stopped again.

  “ ‘Tribulation’?” Thorn leaned back against the carriage seat. He was used to clever children. Hell, all six of his siblings could talk circles around most Oxford graduates. But it could be that Rose took the cake. “Do you know how to read?”

  “Of course. I’ve been reading ever since I was born.”

  He raised an eyebrow, and she stiffened.

  “Where is Pancras?” he repeated. “Why did he not bring you himself, and why have you no belongings?”

  “He couldn’t bring me. He had to take the first appointment that was offered to him, in Yorkshire. There was a delivery going from the brewery to London, and it cost much less for my fare than it would have on the mail coach. Plus my trunk went at no cost. I’m afraid that Papa had very little money when he died; Mr. Pancras said that he was a spendthrift.”

  “Your father didn’t make enough money in the militia to permit extravagance,” Thorn told her, making a mental note to send another Bow Street Runner after Pancras and, when he’d been turned up, to send him on a boat to China, special delivery. “So you were sent along with the beer.”

  Rose nodded. “The journey look longer than Mr. Pancras had thought it would.”

  “What happened to your clothing?”

  “When we reached your house, the driver left quickly, and he forgot about my trunk. It was strapped under the barrels. He was quite unkind and wouldn’t bring it down at night. I had to sleep in my dress.”

  A second Runner to find Rose’s trunk. “How long was the journey?”

  “Three days.”

  Thorn felt fury smoldering in his gut. “Three days? Where did you sleep?”

  “The driver allowed me to sleep in the wagon,” she explained. “It wasn’t entirely proper, but I thought that Papa would tell me not to fuss. Did you know that when he was little, Papa occasionally slept outside, under the stars?”

  Occasionally? He and Will had spent a couple of years sleeping in a church graveyard because their bloody-minded master wouldn’t let them inside except in the dead of winter. “I did.”

  “He did not fuss, and neither did I,” said Rose, and up went that little nose again. “I don’t like to be unclean, and I didn’t care for the insects living in the straw. But I did not complain.”

  Thorn nodded.

  “Or cry. At least,” she added, “until I reached your house, when I succumbed to exhaustion.”

  “You succumbed?” Thorn took a deep breath. “When you first arrived this morning, you didn’t say a word. Do you know that I considered the idea that you might be unable to speak altogether?”

  That won the very first smile he’d seen on her face.

  “I talk too much,” she informed him. “That’s what Papa always says—said.” Her face crumpled, and smoothed over so quickly that he almost missed it.

  “You might feel better if you cry.”

  “I shall not, because it would make him feel sad, even in heaven.”

  Thorn frowned, not at all sure how to untangle that.

  “Besides, I needn’t cry. I am not alone and I don’t have to sleep under the stars. I have you in case of tribulation. I’m lucky,” she said stoutly. But a tear ran down her cheek.

  “You’d better come over here,” he said, holding out an arm.

  “Why?”

  “Because this is a time of tribulation.”

  They drove the rest of the way to a store called Noah’s Ark, Rose nestled under his arm. After a while, Thorn handed over his handker
chief.

  The shop turned out to be a wonderful place, crammed with not only dolls but also toy boats, toy carriages with real wheels, and whole regiments of tin soldiers.

  The owner, Mr. Hamley, surveyed the two of them and apparently recognized instantly that while Rose looked like a tattered little crow, Thorn planned to buy her whatever she wished. Consequently, he began treating Rose like one of the royal princesses.

  As Hamley introduced Rose to the very best dolls to be found in all England (according to him), Thorn wandered away and discovered the wooden balls meant for playing croquet. He picked one up, tested its weight, tossed it from hand to hand. It would be interesting to try to make a rubber ball. It might even be possible to make it bounce. . . .

  He was thinking about that when Rose came to fetch him. She had found the perfect doll, with real hair, bright blue eyes, and movable joints. “I shall call her Antigone,” Rose told him.

  It seemed like an odd name to Thorn, but what did he know? He distinctly remembered that his sister Phoebe had a girl doll she named Fergus.

  Twilight was falling by the time Rose selected an appropriate wardrobe for her new doll. Antigone had a morning dress for making calls, a velvet evening dress, and a riding habit with cunning tiny buttons running up the front in a double row. She had a soft woolen pelisse that was nearly the same green as Rose’s, a nightdress, and a little pile of undergarments that included knitted stockings as gossamer as cobwebs. Plus an umbrella.

  “Perhaps a presentation gown?” Mr. Hamley asked. He opened a special box lined in white silk. Inside was a white gown that came with several ruffled petticoats and a set of hoops that would make Antigone absurdly wide. It was swagged in white lace and embroidered with tiny dangling pearls.

  Rose gasped and reached out a finger to touch the satin. But she firmly shook her head. “It would be wasteful to own a gown that was worn only to meet the queen.”

  Thorn crouched down and said, “Sweetheart, your father gave you to me because I have more money than I know what to do with. Do you think that Antigone would like to be presented to the queen?”