Barbara Metzger (21 page)

“And you wish to hide him here, at Faircroft?”

“Between Mags and Mindle and my man Winsted, and you, of course, I know he would get excellent care, without drawing the attention he would at the inn. No one will think anything of my coming to Kent to make arrangements for the child or visiting her here.”

“Very well. The other servants will have to know, though—Cook if she is to prepare invalid foods, the maids who will change the linens, but they are good girls. They will not speak of your brother if I ask them not to.”

“You do understand that he might be considered a criminal?”

“The man he shot was a villain, wasn’t he?”

“The man he shot sold his own niece into a house of prostitution.”

“Your brother will be welcome.”

Now Ty did bring her hand to his mouth for a kiss. “No matter what you say, I am in your debt. The coach is on its way, but there is worse. There always is, it seems. I had to bring Nonny’s sweetheart along. He would not leave London without her, much less the country.”

“The woman you thought was such a misalliance?”

He nodded. “Miss Thea Dunsley, late of Sukey Johnson’s bordello. She seems a pleasant enough widgeon whose reputation was destroyed through no fault of her own. The
ton
won’t care. They will accuse you of harboring a fallen woman.”

“You forget that I took in Belinda. And a wounded soldier. How much smokier can my reputation get with a murderer and his mistress?”

“I knew you were trumps,” he said with one of his rare smiles. “But there’s more, the worst part. My sister is also on her way.”

“The duchess?” Delia squeaked, ready to rush into the house to change her dress, dust the furniture, help Cook bake a fresh cake.

“Her Grace, herself. She is an interfering, managing female who will be in your hair constantly. She wants the baby, you see.”

“My baby? Ah, your baby, Melly?”

“Melinda, yes. My sister has no children of her own, which situation does not seem likely to change. She would be a good mother, I think.”

“Despite being interfering and managing?”

“Because of that. She would not relegate the infant to a forgotten nursery with the servants. Melinda would have the best of everything.”

“And a duke for a father.”

“Not precisely, but that’s all to the good, with this duke.”

Delia reclaimed her hand. “I see.” And she did. There was no place for her. “Well, I suppose Her Grace will be welcome also, to grow accustomed to Melly.”

“Thank you. That’s what I thought, but I have made no decisions yet. Nonny and Miss Dunsley mentioned that they would be happy to begin married life with a daughter. Thea says she adores infants. Her neighbors, it appears, had a large family, and she helped care for the youngest ones. If she and my brother emigrate to the Americas, or even relocate to Yorkshire, there would never be any gossip about Melinda’s birth. She would not even have to change her name, and I would make sure she wanted for nothing.”

“So far away,” Delia spoke her thoughts aloud.

“And far away from being labeled a bastard. Still, there is no hurry to decide, not until this latest hobble of Nonny’s is resolved.”

“Do you mean to permit St. Ives and Miss Dunsley to marry, then? I thought you were so opposed to the unequal match.”

“The choice is not mine to make, as both my brother and sister reminded me. I confess, I am hoping that if Nonny and his lady see more of each other here while he recuperates, they might reconsider. My brother was never a good patient.”

“But a good boxer, I think.”

Ty touched the tender skin around his eye. “I taught him well.”

They were almost at the front door, and Delia had a million things to do, to get ready for her guests, but she was curious. “If your brother and Miss Dunsley do not reconsider, what will you do?”

“I suppose I shall have to purchase another special license for them when he recovers, or see them to Gretna. Both of them are underage, and my father will never give his permission. Miss Dunsley’s guardian will not be in condition to give his.”

“So you will let them have their inconvenient love match, despite all the drawbacks and your own disbelief in its existence?”

“I am not my father.”

“I do not understand,” Delia said.

“Neither do I, but I am trying to learn.”

Chapter 24

Learning was good. Delia was learning that air castles did not always collapse all at once. Sometimes they shrank and shriveled until only a pretty husk of a rainbow fantasy was left. Lord Tyverne spoke again of his debt to her, pressed her hand, then rode to meet his oncoming party. That was the last she had spoken privately with him for days. He never sought her company, never took her aside, never invited her to go with him when he drove to Canterbury or Dover. Now that his sister was here, Delia supposed, Ty could recall how a real lady behaved. With one brother embroiled in an unsuitable affair, he would not wish to entangle himself, the heir, with another mere nobody. Another mere air brick fell to the ground.

She was too busy to suffer the megrims over some muddleheaded military gentleman, Delia told herself. The first thing she did, after sending Dover to find old Mags and getting the new invalid settled under Mindle’s care, was introduce her lady guests to Melinda.

The baby was growing by the minute. One could almost see her cheeks filling out, and her belly expand with each feeding. She was starting to accept some of the goat’s milk, without developing the colic, which Mags said was a good sign and meant they could soon dispense with Hester Wigmore. The baby did not seem to care who held her, almost as if she knew that, without a mother of her own, she had to gather affection from everyone. Melinda turned her face in to nurse from Delia, Thea, and the duchess, all of whom were equally as entranced by her, and argued over whose turn it was to offer the warmed milk bottle. She had so much attention, in fact, that no one bothered to shoo the dog out of the cradle anymore.

Either of her guests, Delia decided, would make little Melly a fine mother, although the duchess could offer more worldly advantages, of course. Her Grace was a charming young woman, near in age to Delia, stunning in her looks and gowns and diamonds, but not nearly as full of her own consequence as Delia had feared. She offered to sort Aunt Eliza’s yarns, and endeared herself to Nanny by admiring the infant. By that first afternoon, she and Delia were the best of friends.

“So please stop all that Your Grace nonsense,” Ann said. “If you cannot bring yourself to use my given name, then call me Duchy, the way Nonny does. Ty hates it, of course.”

“Of course he does. It’s degrading,” she said with a laugh as the two novices tried to change Melinda’s nappy, which was most definitely beneath a duchess’s dignity. “You can call me Dilly. Everyone does, and Lord—Ty hates that, too.”

“Which makes it better.” Ann giggled in a very unduchess-like manner. “Oh, I knew I was going to like you.”

Delia and Miss Dunsley were quickly on a first-name basis also. Thea was so innocent and gentle, Delia could not understand how any man could think her Haymarket ware. Thea was so sweet, Delia could see how any man would wish to protect the younger girl, shelter her from the evils of the world, love her.

Mr. St. Ives did love her, that was obvious. Once he was out of danger from the fever, and free from the pain and the laudanum, he was never content unless Thea was in sight. So they let him hold the baby, too.

Nonny, as the honorable Agamemnon insisted, was almost as handsome as his brother. He was neither as large nor as well-muscled, but he had a ready smile and an ease of manner foreign to Ty’s nature. He laughed when Melinda grasped his finger in her tiny ones, and cradled her in his arms when she slept, while the women sat at his bedside with their sewing. Melinda was going to have enough baby caps and gowns and blankets for five children.

Thea and Nonny might have those four others; Ann never would. Who then should have the baby? Delia wondered, wisely ignoring the wrench at her heart that she could not be in the contest. With Nonny and Thea, the baby would have a fresh start, and a loving father.

“Just look at that,” Nonny was saying as the infant puckered up her face in complaint that her next meal was not ready. “A true St. Ives. You look just like the earl with that sour expression, my little dove. No one would take you for anything else.”

When Nonny was more fit, they gathered in the parlor in the evenings, where Thea played the pianoforte for them, better than Delia ever could, and the others listened or sang along or played whist, to Aunt Eliza’s delight. Lord Tyverne joined them, but stayed with the company, never asking Delia to step apart. Delia was not quite as delighted.

* * * *

The first thing Ty did after getting Nonny settled with Winsted and Mags arguing over his medicines, was to go and see about his horse. Not the hayburner he had so recently ridden, but his own horse, Diablo. The devil was the only one who had time for him, it seemed. Delia had disappeared in a flurry of petticoats, and his sister hardly left the nursery. She was content to watch the child for hours, although Ty could not see where Melinda had many accomplishments in her repertoire. Miss Dunsley had even less to say.

The chit was afraid of him, likely knowing he could send her back to London or put her on a boat to India if he wished. His very size likely terrorized her, Ty reckoned, and his brusque manner, too, damn him for a rough old warrior. Ty had no way of reassuring her except staying out of her presence.

He had to stay away from Delia, too. Not that she had ever shown the least fear of him or his bellowing, but that gleam in his sister’s eye boded ill for any plans he might have. It would be just like Ann to stick her long nose where it was least wanted. If he took Delia away with him, Ann was liable to say he’d compromised Miss Croft, and demand he marry her. He did not want his hand forced, and Zeus, he did not want Delia forced into a marriage of convenience that she would abhor.

Perhaps he had read more in that tender kiss than she had intended, anyway. Delia was a generous, caring woman; just see the way she had taken in his family. What if she treated him as she would any other needy, wounded creature? She might not be interested in him at all. Gads, what if he pressed his unwanted attentions on her? What a horrid way to repay her kindness.

There was nothing for it but for Ty to stay away from her until the matter with his brother was resolved, his sister was back in London, and his own impulses were under control. When he was near Delia, his good manners and his good intentions all took wing. He knew he was just as liable to sweep her into his arms as pass her the salt at supper. Toss her over his shoulder rather than toss her a discard at whist. Unbraid her fiery hair and comb it through his fingers instead of singing a chorus.

Taking tea with her was torture. A walk would have been worse. Sitting next to Delia in the carriage, her thigh pressed against his? That would have been hardest of all. Speaking of which, he was sick of those cursed cold baths.

So he rode his horse, always enough of a challenge to keep a man from daydreaming. Either you were on your toes around Diablo, or you were on your rump. The gelding was not as fresh as he’d expected, so the Faircroft groom was still doing a decent job, whoever the chap was. Ty supposed he’d get the bill eventually for hats and boots, if not for a surgeon’s stitches.

His first stop was at Gwen, Lady Croft’s father’s home, where Sir Clarence and she resided with their three hellion-by-hearsay children. The house was cold, the butler was colder. He gave Grim Gilbert competition in the peevish stakes, but he did show Major Tyverne into the library, where Delia’s cousin was napping with a newspaper over his head, or else he was hiding from his wife, children, and crotchety father-in-law.

Ty invited him to take the entire family to London, if he wished, to stay at St. Ives House. He explained how his sister had come with a young lady friend and their maid to visit the baby, and so Ty needed to beg the use of the Crofts’ new inheritance a bit longer. He and his man were staying at the inn, of course, so there was no hint of impropriety, he reassured the priggish popinjay in his puce waistcoat and pomaded hair. There was also no hint of his brother in the viscount’s explanation.

Ty wanted the baronet and his brood out of town. He did not want them underfoot, with a duchess at their own doorstep, and he did not want them discovering, then broadcasting to the corners of Kent, that they had two sons of an earl visiting. Nor did he want them nattering at Delia about Dallsworth. So he made the offer of his family’s town house irresistible to the greedy pair, throwing in the use of the St. Ives theater box, the St. Ives carriages, and the St. Ives accounts at London’s finest furniture manufacturers and upholsterers.

Gwen could do her own shopping, Nonny’s presence could remain quiet, and Gilbert the butler could go hang. He deserved nothing less for showing such blatant disapproval of his employers. Granted Stivern paid his salary, but the bilious butler’d had an easy time of it all these years, with the earl so seldom in Town. If Gilbert quit now, rather than serve this clump of toadstools, good riddance. Ty had a mind to offer the position to Mindle when—not if—Delia came to Town. Who else would play backgammon and piquet with Aunt Eliza? The ex-valet and the excitable spinster were old friends, if nothing more.

Another pair of old friends were reunited that week. When Ty rode into Canterbury to see about obtaining another special license, Stephen Anselm insisted on riding back with him to visit the duchess. He remembered the former Lady Ann fondly from school holidays spent with Ty, the vicar said, and wished to pay his respects.

If the reunion appeared a bit fonder, and a tad less respectful than Ty expected, he shrugged it off. Anselm was a born flirt, that was all. He had Delia laughing, the dastard, and Thea blushing. Deuce take it if even the infant did not stare up at him, fascinated by the gold rims of his spectacles. Rather than watch his old friend pour the butter boat over Ann next, Ty went for another ride.