Anne Gracie - [The Devil Riders 02] (24 page)

She examined each and every token and label, hoping desperately there would be one written in her father’s hand.

Finally there remained just the little scroll of paper. With shaking fingers she untied the worn piece of ribbon. She stared at the paper but the harder she stared, the more the writing blurred. All she could see was that it wasn’t Papa’s writing. And that it was some kind of verse.

“Is it in his hand?” Harry asked.

She shook her head. “But I want to read it anyway.”

“Give it here, then.” Harry took the paper from her and read in a deep voice:

 
Harry carefully tied it up again with the bit of ribbon and Nell wept to see the big hands so gentle with the tiny scrap.

“We use these so mothers can identify their children if need be,” the matron said. “Do none of these mean anything to you, madam?”

“No, there’s nothing,” Nell said in a choked voice. “Nothing.” She mopped her eyes with the handkerchief Harry gave her. Had she known Torie was to be taken from her, she would have left something to identify her.

“Not every mother leaves a token,” the matron said.

Nell looked up, hopeful. “Can I just see the babies?” she asked. She would recognize Torie, she was sure, even if it was six weeks and one day since she’d seen her.

“Oh, there’s no babies here, madam,” the woman said. “We send them to wet nurses in the country for the first four or five years, then they come back here to be trained and educated.”

“So, where are these wet nurses?” she asked eagerly.

“The director has the details, madam, but without proper identification, he will give you no information, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, but—”

“I’ll speak to the director,” Harry said to Nell. “You stay here.”

He emerged from the director’s office a short time later with a wintry expression. He tucked her hand into his arm and strode from the building. Nell had to run to keep up with him.

“Well?” she asked breathlessly.

“I have a list of all the wet nurses who were sent a baby girl.” He swung her into the curricle. “There are six, but the director does not believe that any of them is Torie.”

“But can we check anyway?”

He said in a grim voice, “We can check.”

 
Darkness was falling as they made their way back to London. Nell was glad Harry wasn’t much of a talker. She was too tired to make conversation. She was exhausted and dispirited.

They’d visited every wet nurse on the list from the foundling hospital. All of them were in the country, in villages three or four miles out of London. The country was reputed to be healthier for tiny babes than the fog-ridden city with the evil miasma that rose at night from the river, bringing disease with it.

As they’d pulled up at each cottage, Nell had been tense and keyed up. Would this baby be her daughter? Would she drive away from this house with Torie in her arms?

Each time Harry had swung her down from the curricle, he hadn’t released her hand. She’d come to depend on that firm silent support. She’d needed it so much.

Because each time her hopes had been crushed.

“It’s just the first day,” he said abruptly. “There are dozens of workhouses and institutions in London.”

“I know.”

The light carriage hit a particularly bad pothole and she bounced. In an instant Harry transferred the reins to one hand and pulled her close to him on the seat. He made no move to take his arm away and truth to tell, Nell was glad of it, not just for the added security, but for the warm comfort it gave. He was so big and solid and somehow reassuring.

Nell had never met a man like him before. In the whole of her life, she’d only known talkers. Liars. Dreamers. Takers.

Harry Morant wasn’t a talker; he was a doer. A giver.

They’d covered as much territory today as she had in a week on foot. If she’d had the money to hire a curricle or a gig before, she might have found Torie weeks ago. But she had nothing.

Part of her, the angry, desperate, guilty part, kept telling her that if she’d only kept on in those first weeks she would have found Torie.

The other part, the quieter part, reminded her of how helpless she’d felt collapsing in the street, surrounded by strangers. And how terrifying it had been to come to consciousness with strangers pawing through her clothes, touching her body.

That last day she’d collapsed and woken up wet and freezing, her fingers blue with cold. She must have lain unconscious for some time. Her gloves and hat, even her handkerchief was gone. She was lucky the thieves hadn’t taken her dress and petticoat. She might have frozen to death, had Freckles not snuggled up along her body, keeping her warm. Nell hadn’t been able to stand at first, she was so very weak. She’d realized that night that she could very easily die right there, in the London streets . . . unmissed, unregarded.

She was right to get herself home, to Firmin Court, to get money and help to search properly. She hadn’t known everything was gone, and that she’d be just as helpless as before.

She
hated
being helpless.

If she’d come to London with Mrs. Beasley, she would have had no hope of searching these outer villages. She wouldn’t even have known to do it.

Before, nobody had told her that all foundling and orphan babies brought to London workhouses were sent to the country. They’d simply told her they had no babies. And foolish Nell had taken their word for it.

Why
hadn’t they told her the babies were sent away? She wanted to scream with helpless rage. The time that omission had caused her to waste, tramping from workhouse to workhouse, time she couldn’t afford, time Torie couldn’t afford.

If only she’d known Harry Morant back then. Harry wasn’t the sort of man people ignored. Harry pressed for more information, and when necessary, bribed or intimidated the information out of them.

They swayed, turning a bend, and Nell leaned in against him grateful for whatever miracle had brought her to this man. He didn’t talk about what he might do, or would have done, or could do: he simply did what needed to be done. Without fuss.

They reached the London road and stopped to light the carriage lamps. But a mile or so down the road he turned off in a different direction.

“There’s a workhouse at Islington,” he explained. “It’s not far off the London road, so your father might conceivably have gone there. We’ll find out where they send their babies and start searching again first thing in the morning.”

She nodded.

He looked down at her and gave her a small squeeze. “Tired?”

“A little.”

He was silent a moment. “I’d like your permission to take my friends Rafe and Luke into our confidence. We were in the army together and they’re good fellows. They could visit the various workhouses and find out where the babies have been sent, and you and I will go there. It’s a more efficient way of searching.”

“That’s a wonderful idea,” she said. Two ex-officers wouldn’t let themselves be fobbed off. If there was news, they’d get it. As for them knowing, if it was a matter of her reputation or her daughter’s recovery, there was no contest.

“I don’t mind you telling them at all. I don’t care what they think of me, as long as I find my daughter.”

He gave her a sharp look. “They’ll have nothing but respect for you.”

 
The gas lamps lit the quiet streets of Mayfair. It was late. As they pulled up in Mount Street, Harry descended first, then lifted her down. He paid the groom and they went inside.

They were no sooner in the door when his aunt came bustling out of the drawing room. “My dears, where have you been all this time? Nell, my dear girl, you look exhausted. Harry, your wretched business affairs have—”

Nell braced herself for the interrogation.

“Nell has the headache.” Harry cut across his aunt’s flow. “You will have to excuse her. She’s going to her room to have a bath and lie down.” He placed his hand in the small of Nell’s back and propelled her firmly up the stairs.

Nell went willingly. “But I don’t have a headache,” she told him as they reached the first landing.

He paused, his hand warm and strong in the curve of her back. “Which would you rather do—have a bath, take supper in your room, and make an early night of it, or go back downstairs and have my aunt ask you all about your day? Or take you out to the theater or something? You have only to say.”

She stared. He’d guessed how she felt about facing his aunt after the day she’d had. “No! No, a bath and a quiet night sounds heavenly. Your aunt is wonderful, but I’m feeling a bit . . . tired.” Miserable was a better word, but she wasn’t going to give in to it. Tomorrow was a new day.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I’m going to contact Rafe and Luke.” He delivered her into the hands of her maidservant and left.

Cooper poured scented oil into the bath and swished it around. “Miss Bragge gave me this bath oil and some special soap for you, m’lady. It’s French and smells beautiful, like vanilla and apple blossom and something else.”

Nell roused herself to respond. The last thing she wanted to do was to have to chatter on, but Cooper was so determined to prove herself as a lady’s maid, Nell didn’t have the heart to tell her to be quiet. “I will have to thank Miss Bragge,” Nell said. “It’s very kind of her.”

“She’s helping to train me, m’lady. She gave me this and a jar of extract of green turtle oil for your complexion and says you’re to rub it in day and night.”

“Extract of green turtle oil?” Nell eyed the jar doubtfully.

“It’s very expensive,” Cooper told her with pride as she helped Nell out of her dress.

“I’ve never used lotions much,” Nell said. The truth was, she never had money for such things.

Cooper tut-tutted. “All complexions need lotions, m’lady. Yours is beautiful now, but you want it to stay that way when you get older, don’t you? And keep Mr. Harry looking at you like he wants to eat you up?”

“Eat me up?” Nell looked up in surprise.

Cooper grinned. “Like a half-starved dog lookin’ at a juicy bone, m’lady.”

“Good heavens,” Nell said faintly. She dropped her chemise and stepped into the bath. She was a little self-conscious; she wasn’t used to having a personal maid, and she hadn’t been naked in front of anyone else since she was a child. She wondered if Cooper would be able to tell from her body that she’d had a baby.

She slid down in the bath. The water was fragrant and beautifully hot and slowly some of the tiredness and tension soaked out of her.

She soaped her washcloth thoughtfully.
A half-starved dog with a juicy bone?

Of course Cooper had a strong romantic streak, that was obvious. She thought Nell had made a romantic love match, whereas Harry had explained it to Nell in purely practical terms. Her title would be useful and so would she, with his horses. And she knew the estate and the people on it. It did make sense.

But Cooper’s observations caused a little prickle of anxiety.

Nell scrubbed herself all over then allowed her maid to scrub her back and wash her hair. She massaged Nell’s scalp and neck thoroughly. It was heavenly.

Harry Morant had made it as plain as any man could, right from the start, that he desired Nell. If she closed her eyes, she could feel the exact shape and hardness of him throbbing against her hand.

She closed her eyes and rinsed off the suds with warm water, then wrapped her hair in a towel and stood and dried herself in front of the fire.

Cooper brought her old nightgown to her and slipped it over her head. Nell was a bit embarrassed by the worn and patched garment. She’d never intended another soul to see it. Miss Bragge had probably had some scathing things to say about her wardrobe.

While Cooper supervised the removal of the bath and the water, Nell knelt on the rug in front of the fire, drying her hair. She had memories of doing this with her mother. Mama would towel dry Nell’s hair and then comb it through, and she would often tell Nell a story . . .

Nell tried to swallow the lump in her throat. Would she ever get to do that with Torie?

When her hair was almost dry, she moved to the dressing table and sat down. She picked up the jar of green turtle oil, unscrewed the lid, and sniffed. It smelled quite pleasant. She dipped a finger in and applied a dab of lotion carefully to her skin. It felt cool and soothing.

She stared at herself in the looking glass. Her own very ordinary face looked back at her. If only she had taken after Mama instead of Papa in looks. Mama had been a beauty.

She didn’t understand what Harry Morant found so desirable about her, but she had to accept it. A delicious shiver ran through her, pooling at the base of her stomach. She had no doubt of his desire.

But it worried her. Because of this desire for her, he’d put everything else aside to bring her to London to search for Torie, a child not his own, who would bring scandal into his life.

His willingness to accept her daughter made her want to weep with gratitude. He’d even planned out the search, like a soldier planning a campaign, she thought with a lump in her throat.

Cooper took up a brush and began to brush Nell’s hair.

Nell sat, deep in thought. Because of his desire, Harry Morant would marry Nell, restoring almost everything in her life that she’d lost: a secure future, a respected position, and the home of her heart. She would even have a chance to breed horses as she’d always wanted to.

If—
when
they found Torie, it would be as if all the terrible things of Nell’s last year had been wiped away, and only the good would remain. Apart from Papa dying.

And all because of one thing.