Barbara Metzger (4 page)

The muscles in the viscount's jaw bulged from his effort not to bite her head off. “I know what it is called, Mrs. Kane. And no, I am not in Dun Territory."

She let her eyes encompass the room again before coming back to him. “Then why do you live this way, my lord?"

"Because, madam, I simply do not care."

"How sad."

The drab felt sorry for him? The gall, the effrontery! She was the one earning her keep in a menial post, or on her back, and she felt pity for him? “You are impertinent, ma'am."

Instead of putting her in her place, the viscount's words seemed to amuse the woman. She smiled, taking five years off her age, at least, and asked, “Shall I leave, then?"

It was extortion, plain and simple, and it was deuced effective. Byrd was nearly apoplectic. “It's just his way, ma'am, he don't mean nothing by coming the heavy. Do you, Cap'n?"

The viscount bowed toward the black-clad widow and bowed toward the inevitable. “My apologies, Mrs. Kane. No offense intended.” No apologies, no excuses, hah! Next Miss Prunes and Prisms would have him groveling at her feet, lest she abandon them.

Carissa had cleared an area on the kitchen table for the baby's hamper, and found a not-too-rickety chair for Philippa. She gestured for Byrd to start the fire, and was looking around for a pan big enough for a baby bath. “Very well, my lord,” she called over her shoulder, “but this simply will not do. You cannot keep a child here, no matter how temporarily."

"The room upstairs will be adequate. How much space does an infant require?"

"It is not a matter of space. Pigs thrive in sties, my lord, infants do not."

"I did say I was meaning to hire servants, Mrs. Kane. I'll do so immediately."

She nodded. “I'll write a note to the employment agency Sir Gilliam patronizes. I am sure they can send the beginnings of a staff over this afternoon. Whether they stay or not is another question."

Carissa was doubtful, but there were few enough positions open that some poor souls might have to accept this one. She turned to the viscount's man. “You do know how to heat water, Mr. Byrd, don't you? The child needs a bath as soon as can be.” She could not help glancing toward the viscount. “Some extra hot water would not come amiss either."

Byrd grinned and set kettles on to heat, lots of kettles. Trying to appear not altogether useless, the viscount was manning the kitchen pump to fill them. With every movement, his stomach gave another lurch. He could not help the groan that escaped his lips.

"Oh, do sit down, my lord, before you fall down. Perhaps this will help.” The widow placed the loaf of fresh bread in front of him on the scarred and sticky table when he did collapse onto the only other chair in the room. Her daughter was still staring at him, sucking her thumb. He sat up straighter, trying to decide which female's disdain annoyed him more.

Mrs. Kane was bending over the infant in its basket, cooing softly. She sniffed, then sniffed again, then gasped. “Why, this child smells of spirits! What have you done?"

Lesley swallowed the bit of bread, which was now lodged in his throat. “Nothing. That is, my, ah, glass spilled while I was trying to—"

Ever helpful, Byrd put in: “An’ he sleeps better for it, too."

Carissa didn't want to know whether the baby slept better or the viscount. “That's why he is still napping, despite the jostling and all. The poor lamb will have a headache when he wakes, I'm sure."

Someone could have a tad of sympathy for
his
headache, the viscount was thinking, wishing they would all lower their voices, but he wisely held his tongue. No need to aggravate his savior more than his presence already did.

"My lord, you have no business having a baby."

So much for restraint, he thought. For a servant, Mrs. Kane certainly spoke her mind. And Byrd was helping her. “That's just what I told him, missus. No business a'tall."

"For the last time, my son—that is, my ward—stays here, until I can make other arrangements."

Mrs. Kane was scornful. “Do you know what kind of ‘arrangements’ you'll have to make for even the shortest time? You'll need a wet nurse, a nanny, a crib, clothes and blankets, an army to clean this barracks so the dust bunnies don't swallow your s—ward."

All he could do was try his infallible charm. Lesley smiled and said, “There, I knew you'd know just what was to be done. In fact, why don't you stay and oversee the overhaul of the place? I'll double whatever it is Sir Gilliam pays you."

Carissa bit her lip to keep from laughing at his hopeful appeal. “No, I could never leave Sir Gilliam. He has been much too kind to me and Philippa. But I will send that note to the employment agency. Now I think the water should be warm enough for this young man's bath. What is his name?"

Byrd and Hartleigh looked to each other, then at the baby.

"You don't know?"

"The note that arrived with him didn't say.” The viscount pulled the now-tattered letter from his pocket.

"Thing is, we don't rightly know if he is a he in the first place."

Carissa could only shake her head at yet another instance of the handsome lord's lunacy, and started unbuttoning the baby's gown and infant shirt. “Whatever makes you think it's a boy, then?"

Lesley shrugged. Of course he'd have a boy. “He hasn't much hair. And ... and he belched."

She laughed, one of the few sounds that did not seem to grate on the viscount's aching eardrums, and kept removing layers of fine cloth. “All babies expel air, my lord, and few have much hair for months. You, my lord, have a daughter."

A daughter? Lesley looked at Mrs. Kane's doll-like daughter sucking her thumb, whose big brown eyes accused him of crimes he'd never thought of committing. A daughter? No soldier or seaman or stud-farm steward, but a porcelain princess? “Bloody hell, what the devil am I going to do with a daughter?” Stunned, he didn't even try to claim he was simply guardian for a friend's child.

"The same as you would with a son. You'll find some caring family to adopt her, and give them a bit of money for her dowry. She'll never know her birth was irregular, never have the stigma of illegitimacy, and you will know she is safe and loved. Will you hand me that towel, my lord?"

The viscount was still muttering, though. “A daughter?"

While Mrs. Kane bathed the baby, the viscount tried to clean himself with the jug of hot water Byrd had brought up to his room. Fresh clothes and a hurried shave made him feel more human, and the coffee and another slice of bread made him almost confident that he'd live through the rest of the morning. Now all he needed was a nap while Byrd went to the hiring agency, Lesley decided. Unfortunately, the baby was screaming again. Now, wasn't that just like a female to be complaining when a chap was in queer stirrups? A daughter, bah! No wonder King Lear was so mad. No wonder Prinny was such a jobbernowl.

Mrs. Kane looked up when he entered the kitchen. A few honey-brown tresses had come out of her mobcap and were lying along her cheek, curling from the heat of the infant's bath. She was singing to the crying baby, rocking it in her arms. Damned if the woman wasn't looking more human too, Lord Hartleigh considered. Then she glared at him. No, he must be foxed still, to think he'd glimpsed a Madonna-like loveliness in the dried-up housekeeper.

Carissa was angry with the viscount for being turned out bang up to the mark—except for a smudge on his cheek—while his daughter was in such distress. The infant did not even have a change of clothes, and his lordship was dressed to the nines. And she did not like the way he looked at her, as if he was measuring her and finding her wanting. Well, in truth, she
was
wanting—to plant him a facer! “Your daughter is hungry, my lord,” she snapped.

"Then feed her!” The noise was bringing his headache back.

"I am as ill equipped as you are, my lord, and shouting at me will not help. What you need is a wet nurse."

"By Jupiter, ma'am, you'd give a drowning man directions to the nearest lighthouse! I know I need a wet nurse; Byrd is out looking. Can't you do something until he finds one?"

Carissa hated to think where Mr. Byrd might be looking. The docks, she supposed, where some gin-soaked doxy would let her own child go hungry for a few coins. Cow's milk would have to be better than that. “I'll need a glove."

Hartleigh found one on the floor in his study. She wouldn't touch it. “No, my lord,” Carissa said in a voice she might have used on her four-year-old. “It has to be clean.” Cleaner than anything she'd seen in this house so far. “Do you have any new ones?"

Hartleigh was gone long enough that she feared he'd gone out to purchase a pair, leaving her with an infant who was beyond comforting. He returned eventually with a butter-soft pair of York tan leather. “I recalled these were delivered last week, but could not locate where Byrd had put them."

The gloves were more expensive than every pair Carissa had owned for the last five years, combined. They would have been custom-cut, of course, from patterns made from the viscount's hands. No store-bought, ready-made, ill-fitting gloves for his lordship. Of course not. With no compunction whatsoever, Carissa took her sewing kit out of her reticule, found her embroidery scissors, and cut off the soft thumb from the right hand.

Lesley winced, but acknowledged the justice in the sacrilege. If he'd had a glove in Vienna...

With her needle, Mrs. Kane poked a tiny hole in the thumb, then she wrapped thread around the whole, fixing it to a bottle filled with milk that she'd been warming in a pan of water. With great slurping sounds, the baby started suckling.

"Ah, it has to be warm! That's the secret."

Carissa just shook her head. The man's ignorance was astounding. So was his arrogance, as he tilted his beaver hat just so and turned to leave the kitchen. “Where are you going?"

"Why, I thought I would see what's keeping Byrd and the new servants. Take a ride there, clear the cobwebs from my brain, don't you know."

"You'd do better to clear the cobwebs from this place. Besides, you need to stay here to learn to feed the baby."

"Me? I?” This unprepossessing female possessed more hair than wit if she thought he was going to play nanny to the brat.

"What if Mr. Byrd cannot find a nursing mother with milk to spare until tomorrow? They are not waiting at every street corner, you know. At least I hope they are not."

He grasped at straws. “But you are so good with her. See, she's quieted right down."

Carissa smiled, at the baby, not the peer. “Yes, she is a darling, and I would love to stay with her. I wish there was a way I could keep her, even, as my own. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy holding an infant. But the little lamb is yours, my lord, and you know that I cannot remain. Sir Gilliam has been more than understanding, but I need to see he takes his medicine. Mason would let him go without, or let him have more wine than the doctor recommends. Come, sir, hold your daughter."

The viscount sat, and Carissa carefully placed the child in his arms, tilted the bottle just so, and stood back. The babe looked up at him with the same wise scrutiny Mrs. Kane's daughter had, only this chit had his own black-rimmed blue eyes. Her skin was almost as white as the milk, and her nose was just the right size. She was a beauty, his daughter, if he had to say so himself. And she was drinking happily from the bottle he held. “Look at that, she likes it."

"Not as much as mother's milk, but it will do for now, I hope.” Carissa took her own daughter on her lap and combed Pippa's light brown curls with her fingers. They both watched him watch his daughter. “Don't you think she should have a name, my lord? Even if her new family changes it, she deserves more than ‘Baby.’ Are you sure her mother did not give her one?"

"The note merely said that she was a souvenir from Vienna. Sue. That's it, I'll call her Sue. What do you think?"

Pippa spoke up: “I think you should call her Lovey. Mama says she's your love child ‘cause no lady will marry you."

While Hartleigh choked, Mrs. Kane's cheeks flooded with color. Then she smiled at the girl, and the viscount, recovered, was struck again by how her pinched features were rounded, softened by the affectionate expression. “But Lovey is only a pet name, darling, like darling. Sue is a perfect name. Sweet Sue."

"Sweet Sue,” Lesley repeated. “Yes.” Feeling more confident, he touched the downy fuzz on the baby's head, then her cheek to see if it was as impossibly smooth as it looked. One hand reached out and grasped his finger. Oh Lud, he wasn't drowning. He was sunk.

[Back to Table of Contents]

The woman was right, again. Lesley admitted that there was, indeed, something magical about holding a sleeping infant in one's arms. What trust, what faith—and what he wouldn't give to ensure his daughter's happiness! He wanted to take her to Hyde Park to introduce her to the ton, and not simply to convince the Polite World that he was not worthy of their pampered darlings. Lord Hartleigh wanted to show off this marvel, this miracle, this—sour milk on his clean waistcoat.

"Hell and damnation, the brat spit up on me!"

Mrs. Kane was already dabbing at Sue's face. She almost wiped the viscount's chest also, but caught herself in time. Blushing, she handed him the dampened towel. Luckily his lordship was too concerned with the affront to his tailoring and his dignity to notice. “You needn't take it as a personal insult, my lord. Babies do that, you know. What with the unfamiliar milk, to say nothing of what you gave her earlier, it will be a wonder if Sue does not develop colic."

Horses died of colic. Lesley's arms tightened around his daughter until she screwed up her face in protest. “Should we send for a physician?"

"Only if you need a restorative draft for your nerves, my lord. Babies get unhappy with the colic; most survive, and their parents do, too."

He relaxed, soothed by her confidence, and Sue went back to sleep. His arm was turning to pins and needles where it rested on the chair rung, but he was afraid to move. “Did your husband help with your daughter, then, Mrs. Kane?” he wanted to know. He didn't want to be the only nodcock enchanted with a mere handful of humanity.