A Loyal Companion (7 page)

W
hite slavers! Press gangs! Procurers for houses of ill repute and perversion! (Miss
Sonia and Blanche Carstairs had been reading their lurid novels aloud to each other.) Anatomy professors! Oriental chefs! (I had nightmares of my own.)

Instead, a man in uniform, an officer by the markings, was cleaning my coat with a dampened cloth, and telling me what a brave fellow I was. I did not feel brave; I felt like a fool. Only a nodcock would ask directions from a dancing monkey wearing a skirt.

I smelled. My head hurt and I was sleepy, and my right hind leg was broken. I was never so glad I wasn't a horse. The soldier had strong, gentle hands and a nice voice; he brought me some warm broth with bits of meat in it. If he wanted me to be brave, I would be brave.

The next time I woke up, my new friend—Major Conover, I heard him called—carried me to a walled-in garden behind the house. He helped me stand, then turned his back. An officer, and a gentleman. I noticed on the way back that he limped, too, and wondered if the same barrel had rolled over him. Later I learned he was shot in an act of heroism.

He was certainly a coward when it came to the little girls. They say, never show your fear to a wild animal. Well, children are worse. The major was afraid of hurting them, afraid of frightening them, afraid of talking to them. And oh, how they knew it! So the fool never got to know them, never got to cuddle them, never got to love them. So how could they love him back? They were turning mean, moody, or timid, as will any creature lacking affection and security. I started straightening them out while my leg healed, before I could go home.

If there was anything I knew, it was little girls. Soon I had them laughing and playing without arguing. Of course, I was wearing bonnets and taking tea with a bunch of glass-eyed dolls and giving Baby rides on my back. Worse, I had to pretend I couldn't find three giggly little girls smelling of milk and porridge when I was It, but no one from the old neighborhood would ever know, and it was all for a good cause. At night after Baby was asleep, I had two little bodies pressed against me while the major read nursery tales. So what if they were stories I'd heard suchamany times? Gen and Benice wouldn't sit in his lap yet, but they didn't mind that we crept closer to his chair every evening. Two more Little Penny Partridges and we'd be at his knees.

Major Conover was a harder bone to chew. He was too restless to stay in the house, but came home in a blacker mood if some old acquaintance snubbed him. When the children were abed he'd help me down the stairs and we'd go to the library, where there were so many books, Miss Sonia and I could have spent every rainy day from now till kingdog come. He never read out loud. The major mostly stared at the fire and poured wine from the decanter.

Sometimes when we went out to the back garden he'd throw rocks and sticks as far toward the rear wall as he could. Now, there's a cruel man, I thought at first, until I realized he didn't intend a three-legged dog to go fetch. He was just angry. I felt bad that I couldn't stay to set him to rights, but I had a job of my own to do. Miss Sonia must be worried.

I whimpered, yes I did, wanting to go home. The major asked if my leg hurt
and poured me a saucer of brandy. I could stay a day or two more, I decided,
recovering my strength before I had to face that London maelstrom. Meanwhile I'd
see what I could do to get Major Conover's ducks in a row. Those slovenly maids, the cook who stole, the nursemaid who spent more time with the footmen than with the children, the castaway butler, they would all feel my wrath. That was the least I could do.

Miss Sonia could do more. I made the obvious connection, then rejected the thought. One and one did not always equal two; sometimes they just stayed that way, one and one. The major did not fill the bill. He was a soldier and a sir, not a my lord, so Grandmama would be unhappy. He wasn't well to pass, judging from the run-down house and his ill-fitting uniform, so Squire might object. He gambled in low kens, Blue Ruin on his breath, saying, "Blister it, what else is there to do?" He used bad language, was cow-handed with children, and smelled bad from the cigarillos he smoked. He was so used to giving orders that he'd never make a manageable, complacent sort of husband, and he'd never be a good dancer, with that limp. Miss Sonia loved to dance. He wasn't even handsome enough, with lines on his face and a scar on his cheek, and he never talked about going to the country at all, only Portugal. Besides, I didn't even know if he was honest. He hadn't given me back yet, had he? And he never smiled.

"Blackie must be ready for more exercise, girls, the way he's bothering the servants. What do you say we take him across the street to the square for a run?" Major Conover was almost trampled in answer, as his nieces ran to find mittens and have their bonnets tied. He wished some of the eagerness were for his company, not the dog's, but he was a little heartened when Benice paused, halfway out the door, and called back, "Hurry, Uncle Darius."

He followed down the steep front steps of Ware House as quickly as he could on a leg that refused to heal, his cane in one hand, the lead Robb had fashioned for the dog obviously de trop in his other. "Do not cross the—" he started to command from the marble landing, scowling that the nursemaid was nowhere in sight. Then he noted how Blackie put his body in front of the girls at the edge of the walkway, keeping them back until there was a break in the traffic. The dog was a better nanny than any he could have hired. He stopped trying to catch up.

He followed happy squeals and excited barking to the park entry, where Blackie was whining at a pieman outside the gates. Lud, the major thought, the mutt eats everything in sight. Why does he have to act like we've been starving him? The vendor was handing out meat pasties to the girls and Blackie when Conover got there, just in time to pay, he thought, reaching for his purse.

"Oh no, sir, it's that happy I am to see Fitz again." The man did accept a coin for the pie Major Conover munched on as he followed his noisy pack. Fitz?

Hampered by his still-splinted leg, Blackie was galumphing through the gates of the square. The children skipped behind him, playing this new kind of tag. Then Blackie started dancing clumsy circles around a flower girl on one of the paths. "Aw, Fitz, y' near
t' broke our 'earts, y' did, disappearin' like that," she said, tying a bunch of violets to the dog's collar. " 'Urry on 'ome now, Fitz. Poor missy's been lookin' 'igh 'n' low."

Uncertain now, the two older girls ran after the limping dog, leaving the baby in their wake.

Darius looked around for the blasted nursemaid, who was paying them no mind at all, chatting up the pieman outside the gates. He awkwardly lifted Bettina, hoping the child wouldn't start screaming. "Come on, Tina, let's go find Blackie. Or Fitz."

"Me. Me. Mimi!"

"I don't think so, sweetheart."

Blackie-Fitz made one last stop at the opposite end of the small park. He halted in front of a silver-haired figure on a bench, barked once, and wagged his tail. He waited for the old man to put down a sack of nuts, accepted a scratch behind the ears, then took off again. When Darius and Bettina reached the bench, the elderly gentleman got slowly to his feet.

"Found our Fitz, did you, Major? Good job, soldier." And he snapped a still smart salute.

The major transferred his cane and the leash to the hand holding the baby, to return the courtesy.

This time, when the big dog reached the edge of the park, he turned on Benice and Genessa, barking in their faces, showing his teeth. They were not to cross the road behind him. He dashed between a hackney and a brougham.

Benice silently put her hand into her uncle's as they waited for a break in the traffic. Gen held the trailing end of the leash. No one said anything, listening to the dog's near frantic yelps as he made his clumsy way up a wide colonnade of steps outside a mansion even bigger than Ware House.

Sonia was trailing down the stairs to join her grandmother's company for tea. She didn't want to. She had no interest in the old ladies' gossip or the younger gentlemen's flattery. She only wanted to put on her old cape and sturdy half boots and continue searching for her dog. Maybe there was a paper she hadn't sent an advertisement, or a street urchin she hadn't told about the reward. Someone had to find Fitz. They just had to.

But she'd promised her grandmother to make an effort, with the ball just a
few days away now. Maisie had taken a few hasty tucks in her gown, and Bigelow had come in to use the hare's foot to bring some color to Miss Randolph's wan cheeks. She was presentable, even if she didn't shine. Sonia didn't care.

She heard the barking, but she heard Fitz barking in her dreams these days. Or someone was bringing her another emaciated, scrofulous stray for the reward. She gave them each a coin for their trouble, hoping they would feed the animal, at least, before sending it back on the unfriendly streets. She hoped someone was feeding Fitz.

The barking was getting nearer. Sonia wouldn't get her hopes up; she'd been disappointed so many times. No, she'd just open the door an inch and peek out. Marston would look down his nose at her, but the butler must be in the parlor serving tea, for only Ian stood in the hallway. Just an inch, Sonia told herself, just to be sure.

By the time the major's small, grim-faced party climbed the covered stairs to the open door, Fitz was engulfed in sprigged muslin, a cap of golden ringlets mixed with his black fur. The dog was yowling, trying to bury himself in her lap, licking her hands, her face, wriggling with joy.

"I, ah, guess there's no question he's your dog then," the major said quietly from the doorway.

The girl raised her head from the dog's back. Darius saw her reddened nose, tears streaming down her cheeks, and the most radiant smile he'd ever expected to see this side of heaven. "We'll leave you to your reunion then," he choked out, when he could breathe again. He could feel Benice's hand trembling in his—or was it his trembling in hers?

"Oh, please don't go so fast!" The girl, no, young lady was struggling to rise, encumbered as she was by ecstatic dog. The major was too burdened himself to help her, and the chuckleheaded footman was blubbering into a square of linen in the corner. At last she was on her feet, and Darius could see that her form was as lovely as her face.

"I'm sorry for enacting you such a scene, ah, Major," she said, recognizing the insignia. "We've never been apart, you see." One hand still on the dog, she fumbled for the tiniest scrap of lace to blot her eyes, eyes he could see were the color of a summer sky. Darius wondered if he was looking at this vision any less worshipfully than the dog. He tried to pay attention to her words.

"How can I ever thank you, Major? You must have taken such good care of my Fitz, for look how shiny he is. And his leg is wrapped better than a surgeon could do. Please, please do come in, sir, you and the children, and let me offer you…" Sonia was going to offer the reward, noting how the officer's uniform hung on his frame as though made for someone else. His face was too thin, with haggard lines, and he was leaning heavily on his cane. But the silent little girls were in crisp white pinafores, all expensive lace and fancywork smocking.

"…Some chocolate, at least, and Cook's macaroons, so you can tell me how you found my Fitz."

Reality intruded when the major heard voices from a room down the hall. This sweet angel didn't know who he was. She'd never invite him in, else. "No, thank you, my lady, we mustn't impose."

"Then please, may I have your direction, that I can call on your wife to show my appreciation?"

The major looked blank for an instant, then: "Oh no, these aren't my children. They are my brother's. That is, they were. Now they are my wards." Blast it, he was as tongue-tied as a raw recruit.

"Then their mother," she persisted, fully intending to bring a gift and some toys for the children.

"She's gone, too, regretfully, and I don't have a wife, ma'am, bachelor quarters, you see, so it wouldn't be at all the thing for you to call. And not necessary, I assure you."

Truly the man was exasperating! "But there must be some way I can thank you."

"Just seeing your joy was reward enough." He smiled, and Sonia realized he was not as old as she'd first supposed, not even thirty, in fact, young to have attained such a high rank. And he was quite attractive, in a rugged way, with the same dark hair and eyes as the little girls.

"Now come, children, make your curtsies," he continued.

Benice made a wobbly bow, her lower lip quivering. When she realized they
were leaving, without the dog, Bettina in the major's arms started clutching his
uniform collar so tightly that Conover's face turned red. She started screaming, "Blackie! Mimi!" at the top of her lungs. And Genessa jerked at his cane so the major's bad leg nearly went out from under him.

"I won't!" she shouted. "He's our dog, Uncle Darius, you said! She lost him and we found him. Make her give him back, Uncle Darius, now."

Some of the guests in the drawing room decided to make their departures, timely enough to satisfy their curiosity as to the commotion in the hall.

"Look, Lord Berke," Sonia addressed the baron, "Fitz has come home! These kind young ladies and their wonderful uncle just brought him." She laughed. "And I was so excited to see Fitz, I never even got their names, to make introductions."

"Just as well, Miss Randolph." Lord Berke had drawn himself up to his full height, not quite that of the officer. He raised his quizzing glass and surveyed the untidy, fractious group. One side of his lip lifted in a sneer. "He's no one anyone with taste wants to acknowledge."

Sonia gasped. She had never seen such rudeness from the baron.

"It's true, my dear, everyone knows his reputation. I am just surprised swine like that has the nerve to cross your doorway."

The major grabbed the back of Gen's dress before she could go kick Ansel Berke. What could Darius say in front of a young lady, especially one whose eyes, so recently shining with innocent tears, were now filled with shock and horror? What could he say with Baby's hands closing his windpipe? He made his bow, such as it was, to Lady Atterbury where she stood in the hall, her lips gathered in a tight O of disapproval. Then he bowed again to the young woman. "Your servant, Miss Randolph." He hauled Gen and Baby awkwardly down the stairs, Benice carrying his cane and sobbing behind them.