Ambersley (Lords of London) (2 page)

~

The child awoke screaming.

Her soprano shrieks brought Martha running to her makeshift bed. Violent nightmares had assailed the little girl these past four nights, and once again she sat erect amidst rumpled blankets. She made no further sound, merely trembled while tears trickled down her face. The terror within her huge eyes ripped at Martha’s heart.

She reached down to offer comfort, but the girl raised her arms to Tom who gathered her close. He crooned a wordless melody in her ear until her trembling subsided. Martha retreated to the hearth and tried to ignore the pang that came each time the little girl turned to him for solace.

She stirred last night’s embers in the fireplace. “Come, Tom. I’ll make a pot of tea and some porridge. It’s no use trying to sleep more.” Fetching her woolen shawl and a pail, she went to the well.

When she returned, she found Tom and the child seated on the chilly floor, where the little girl played silently with two cornhusk dolls he’d fashioned. Setting the kettle to boil, Martha’s eyes stung as she recalled her first husband and little son, both lost to the pox years ago. Her son had been just this age when… She busied herself. Tom had offered her marriage, provided her solace for her loss, and asked for naught in return but that she prove a good wife. How she wished she could have given him a child—he was so obviously smitten with the little girl.

“
She smiled at me,” Tom said in a church whisper.

Martha raised her brows at him.

“
She speaks not a word, and her eyes carry that haunted look still. Do you think she’ll ever forget the fire?”

Martha knelt on the floor with them, although getting back on her feet would be no easy task. She stroked the little girl’s shorn curls—cropping them close had been the only way to remove the briars.

The child responded with an upturned face and solemn eyes. Martha barely dared breathe. Then, with an exhalation of breath, the girl returned her attention to the dolls.

Martha closed her eyes in a watery blink.

Tom stood and bent to help Martha to her feet. He followed her to the hearth and watched as she prepared the porridge for their breakfast. “I’m sorry she—” he began.

“
No need apologizing for her. She is what she is and no harm done.”

“
I think she only turns to me because I found her.” Tom swallowed. “I could take her up to the Hall, if you think that’s best.”

“
I’m glad you found her, Tom, and I’m glad you brought her here. She’s frightened and she’s hurting, poor dear.” She handed him a bowl of porridge. “’Twill do her no good to go traipsing up to the Hall. I saw the place yesterday, and it’s a sorry sight. And who would look after her? Her nursemaid’s dead. The poor child would be nothing but a burden to the butler or the housekeeper.”

“
I hear the duke’s solicitor has left to find the heir.”

Martha nodded. “Very well. She stays with us until the new duke arrives. She trusts you. You cannot betray that.”

She went to the child and led her to the table. The girl sat docile as a lamb while Martha fed her small spoonfuls of porridge.

“
Her appetite’s improving,” Tom said.

“
Aye, ’tis. And yes, I think someday she’ll forget. But the pain is deep and may take time to heal. We need to be patient.”

As the weeks passed, the child’s nightmares became less violent. She still clung to Tom for comfort, but whenever he left the cottage, she followed Martha about dog-like, silent and watchful. Martha laid her own ghosts to rest by clothing the little girl in her son’s old shirt and breeches. The clothes fit well and even Tom approved, for it made her look less like an invalid. They spoke to no one of keeping the child—after all, they had no right to make themselves her guardians. Yet they believed they did what they did for the best.

One night at the table, Martha pushed her spoon through her stew. “Do they say anything about Miss Amber?”

It was the first time either of them had spoken the child’s name in her presence, but she showed no sign that she recognized it as she ate her bread and honey.

Tom leaned forward on his elbows. “Only to say they cannot find a trace of her. But Mr. Pritchard told me the duke’s solicitor planned to visit Bow Street while he was in London. There’s tales someone may have set the fire deliberately.”

“
Why?”

Tom shrugged.

Ill at ease, Martha climbed to her feet. “Come, Johnny, help me with the dishes.” The girl obediently rose and followed Martha with her plate.

Tom reached for his pipe. “I’m not sure it’s right to call the child that.”

“
We must call her something.” Martha added gruffly, for it had been her son’s name, “It brings me peace, and she doesn’t mind, do you, Johnny?”

The child looked up at once.

“
See? I can’t get her to look at me when I call her Amber.”

The child cleared the table with no regard to her own name.

“
Tom, is it possible she doesn’t remember?

He rubbed his nose in thought. “I suppose even though she doesn’t have any burns, Miss Amber may hurt inside. Stokes said he’s heard of cases where people who have bad experiences sometimes forget all about them—they even forget everything about themselves.”

Martha snorted. “What does Stokes know? He’s a footman.”

“
Ah, but he once worked for a physician in London.”

This silenced Martha. She scrubbed plates while the child rinsed them with a pitcher of clean water. With a sigh, Tom rose from his chair to dry the plates and place them on the shelf. Preoccupied with their thoughts, silence hung like a thick fog while they worked.

Wiping down the table with a sodden rag, Martha said, “Tom, are you telling me she might not know who she is?”

He watched the little girl on the floor with her dolls. “’Tis possible. No way to know until she starts to speak. And Martha, if she has forgotten, Stokes said that this, ’amnesia’ I think he called it, isn’t always permanent. Sometimes people wake up one day, and they remember everything again.”

As summer waned and one autumn moon proceeded to the next, Martha tried not to dwell too much on this conversation. Yet, while she watched orange colored leaves float free from the trees, she couldn’t help but wish that Miss Amber would likewise magically fall free from her family. More than anything, though, she wished little Johnny would speak to her.

On a chilly November morning, Tom announced his intention to go hunting. He grinned widely as he checked his musket, which only made Martha laugh.

“
Bloodthirsty man that you are. Bring us back a fat goose or a brace of doves.”

“
Aye, ’twill be my luck to shoot a big goose right into the lake, and me without a dog to fetch it. Remember that when I come home sopping wet and shivering.” With a tip of his hat, he marched off.

Hoping for a rabbit or fowl to grace their table that night, Martha led Johnny to the arbor to gather chestnuts for dressing the meat. “I’m either getting too old or too fat for this,” she said as she stooped to pick up a chestnut. No doubt her back would ache something fierce at the end of the day.

With pride she watched her little Johnny, in breeches, shirt and tricorne, dart about as quick as a squirrel. The child barely resembled the cherub they’d rescued—she’d grown taller and lost her chubbiness, while sunshine had browned her once porcelain skin and streaked her short dark curls with reddish gold. Johnny gathered handfuls of chestnuts and dumped them loudly into the pail they’d brought. Soon the tinny sound of nutshells against metal turned to the softer thud of nutshell against nutshell.

“
This won’t take us long at all, will it?” Martha kneeled on the ground and spread her shawl to fill it. It would be much easier to get up once than bend over a dozen times.

It was a full minute before she sensed that silence had replaced the thud of nutshells, and she looked around to discover what might have caught Johnny’s attention. Martha found herself alone in the arbor. With a grunt, she hefted herself up, stepping on her hem and spilling chestnuts in her wake.

“
Johnny!” she called.
Remain calm. She cannot be far.
“Johnny!” The sound of crackling underbrush from behind made Martha turn with a start.

A tall, round man dressed in riding clothes and long cape stepped from the trees, the little girl in his arms. The sight of a stranger come to Ambersley made a shiver course up her spine.

“
Johnny,” she huffed. “Give me my Johnny.”

The man looked down his snub nose at her. “Is this your little boy, Madam? Perhaps before I hand him over, you can help me. You see, I’m searching for a little girl about this same age.”

Martha felt lightheaded as she realized the man wore a red coat beneath his cape.
A Bow Street Runner.
It had to be. And he’d already guessed the truth.

“
Ah, you’ve gone pale. Don’t tell me you believe this nonsense of the little girl’s ghost? We have every hope that Miss Amber Vaughan is alive. Now tell me, do you know of any family in the area that may be harboring a little girl?”

Martha couldn’t have answered his question had her life depended on it. But suddenly, Johnny, her eyes huge and round, reached out her arms. Her lips moved silently, and her throat bobbed until finally she managed to utter, “Ma!”

Instinctively, Martha charged forward while Johnny continued to bleat, “MaMaMa!”

The man surrendered the child to her. “Your boy seems to fear strangers.”

“
He’s not accustomed to them, is all,” she answered guardedly. The girl clung to her, and Martha, who had waited months to hold Johnny in her arms, wouldn’t let the Devil himself pry this child away without a fight.

But the man seemed to believe the child was truly a boy. “I didn’t mean to frighten your son. Tell me your name, boy. My name’s Jackson,” he coaxed with a friendly wink.

Slowly, the child smiled back. “Johnny.”

Martha feared she might faint. While the child responded to the name, she’d never guessed the child
thought
of herself as Johnny.

After answering questions about the tragic fire and discussing the Ambersley staff and tenants, Martha felt brave enough to invite Mr. Jackson to look in at the cottage whenever he was by. She even wished him well with his search. “Although, I doubt you’ll find Miss Amber living with anyone else around here.”

“
You may be right. Whoever set the fire, may have kidnapped her. If that be the case, I’ll wager they took her away from the area. Even so, we’ll find them, and if there’s foul play, we’ll send them to jail. Good day.” With that, Mr. Jackson melted back into the trees.

Martha hugged the child closely to her bosom before setting her on the ground. “Johnny, let’s go home. Quick, fetch the chestnuts.”

The child ran to the pail, but it took both her arms and all her strength to heft it up and carry it to Martha.

“
Good boy,” she said, consciously training herself. Their very lives depended on everyone believing that she and Tom had taken in a little boy. Mr. Jackson might share this information with anyone—and everyone—he met. Her pulse steadying, Martha accepted that she and Tom would have to lay careful plans.

She led the way home. While they walked, Johnny tugged on her hand.

“
I love you, Martha.”

“
I love you, too, Johnny.” Thankfully, the path to the cottage was well-marked, because her eyes were clouded with tears the remainder of the way.

While the child slept that night, Martha poured forth her story of the Bow Street Runner to Tom. Though knowing they should hand the child over to the law, they worried for her safety. If someone had meant the Vaughan family harm, announcing the child’s miraculous survival could endanger her. And so, Martha contrived a distant cousin who’d passed away, leaving a young son. She embellished the story by making her cousin unwed, so when she died, none of her immediate family wanted the child.

“
Everyone knows you’ve wanted a lad to apprentice with you and learn the gardens, so they won’t be surprised that we took in a little boy. We’ll tell them he’s been living with us since spring, but he was so sad about losing his mum, we didn’t want to draw attention to him.”