“Gabe, lend this fellow your horse,” Harry said. Gabe whistled and his horse came trotting up.
“What’s your name?” Harry asked.
“Evans, sir.” He saluted.
Harry’s brow rose. “What regiment were you in?”
Evans grinned. “Yours, sir. I was batman to Major Edwardes, until he was killed.”
Harry clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man. Deal with all this, can you?” Harry said to Gabe, gesturing to the chaos. “Evans, here, who was poor Johnny Edwardes’s batman, says an old man brought a baby here to Sir Irwin in October.”
Gabe’s face lit with understanding.
Harry shook his head, warning. “Whatever you do, don’t tell Nell what I’m doing. It will kill her if it turns out to be another false hope.”
“Go on,” Gabe said. “We’ll manage here. If a magistrate and a diplomat can’t sort out this mess, I don’t know who can.”
“And what’ll you do?” Harry asked as he mounted.
“Supervise the troops, what else? Now go, and good luck.”
“A Mr. Ethan Delaney,” the Alverleigh butler, Tymms, announced. Nell looked up with interest. This was Harry’s friend and business partner.
A man of medium height, broad-shouldered, tough-looking, and with an attractively battered face entered the room. He was dressed with elegance, with a boldly embroidered waistcoat and gleaming high boots.
He bowed to Callie, saying in a soft Irish voice, “Princess Caroline.” His gaze dropped to her waistline and the formality dropped as his dark face split in a broad grin. “Now, isn’t that a fine sight to behold? Congratulations, ma’am, I’m sure Captain Gabe is as proud as punch.”
Callie, smiling, came forward and gave Ethan her hand. “Mr. Delaney, and indeed I’m very pleased to see you, too.”
He glanced around the room, saw Lady Gosforth and bowed. “Lady Gosforth,” he said with a smile. “I would ask how you were keeping, but I can see for meself you’re looking splendid.”
Lady Gosforth blushed slightly. She said in a caustic tone that fooled no one, “Mr. Delaney, I see you haven’t given up your shocking propensity to flirt with old women.”
“Now how would you know that when there’s not an old woman in sight?” he responded promptly.
She sniffed, but her lips twitched.
Callie introduced Nell. The Irishman bowed. His eyes narrowed and then suddenly he smiled. “The lass from the cart.” He recalled his surroundings and said with a smile, “If I’d realized Lady Helen and the lass from the cart were one and the same, I’d have understood everything a lot earlier.”
To Nell’s surprise, instead of merely shaking her hand, he kissed it with a simplicity than moved her. “I’ve been working at Firmin Court nigh on six weeks, m’lady, and have heard nothing but praise for Lady Nell from everyone on the estate. They’re all waitin’ for you to come home, where you belong.”
Nell’s eyes prickled. “Thank you, Mr. Delaney. I can’t wait to go home and see them all, too.”
His face crinkled in a smile. “As a matter of fact, at Harry’s request, I’ve brought someone with me that you might be glad to see.”
Nell gave him a puzzled look.
“She’s tied to the banister outside,” Ethan said.
Curious, Nell looked out of the door. A sudden commotion sounded in the hall: a dog yipping excitedly and scrabbling to be free.
“Freckles!” Nell cried and ran to greet her beloved dog.
Ethan glanced around the room a third time, as if expecting to see someone else.
“Will you take a seat, Mr. Delaney?” the princess asked.
Ethan hesitated. “I was hoping . . .”
“All the gentlemen have gone to London,” Lady Gosforth told him.
“Indeed? A pity to have missed them,” he said, still looking.
“She’s in the maze, Mr. Delaney,” Callie told him softly.
Ethan smiled. “You’re a princess indeed, ma’am,” he murmured and swiftly left the room.
E
than stood facing the high wall of greenery, his heart beating as if he’d run a race. “Miss Tibby, are you in there?” he called.
There was no answer but he thought he heard a sound. “Tibby?”
“E-Ethan? Is that you, Ethan?”
“It is indeed.”
“D-don’t come in. I can’t see you.” She sounded slightly panicky.
He entered the maze, noting the direction of her voice. “But I’ve come all this way to see you. Don’t you want to talk to me, Tibby?”
“No—y-yes, but not just now. I-I’m not ready,” she wailed. “You’re early.”
Ethan smiled. “Only by a day.” He hadn’t been able to wait until Wednesday. He twisted and turned and doubled back. The fates were on his side. He found very few dead ends.
“You’re not going to make me wait another day, are you, Tibby?”
“Oh. Oh no. I look a sight! Oh dear.”
He turned a corner and there she was, sitting on a bench in the center of the maze, clutching a handful of letters to her breast. Her eyes were wet, and her hair was a mess. She hastily wiped her cheeks and straightened herself. She tried to hide the letters under her skirts.
Ethan recognized them. They were letters he’d written her. She’d been reading his letters and weeping over them.
“Why are you crying, Tibby?” he asked softly. “Is it me bad spelling? I’ve been working hard and my reading is as good as anyone’s now, but spelling, well, spelling is a tricky thing indeed.”
“No, of course not, Ethan,” she said on a hiccup. “They’re beautiful letters. All your letters are beautiful.”
“So what’s upsetting you?” he asked and sat down beside her and took her dainty little hand in his big, rough paw.
“Nothing, nothing at all,” she said, scrubbing at her cheeks and trying to gather her composure. “In fact I-I am delighted at your news.”
“Me news?”
She stared at him with large, drowned brown eyes. “You’re getting married, aren’t you? That’s what you’ve come here for, isn’t it? To invite me to the wedding.”
“It is indeed,” he said solemnly. “So, will you come?”
Her face quivered but she mastered herself and said firmly, “I would be honored. Wh-who is the bride?”
“Well, as to that, I haven’t actually asked her, yet.”
Tibby frowned. “Ethan, why are you hesitating? Because if it’s some absurd notion of inferiority—”
Ethan sat beside her on the bench. “The thing is, Miss Tibby, I know I’m bog Irish by birth and I’ve led a rough life, and she’s such a fine lady—”
“If you dare run yourself down again in my presence, Ethan Delaney, I—I’ll—” As she looked up to give him what for, she broke off, realizing how very close he was.
Ethan didn’t give her time to get anxious and send him away. He kissed her. Her mouth was soft and she tasted sweet, and flustered and female.
He drew her against him and kept kissing her. Her hands fluttered helplessly, then settled against his chest, and after a moment she started kissing him back, clumsily and with a total lack of expertise that just about melted his heart.
“That’s it, me darlin’,” he murmured. “Come to Ethan.”
She pulled back. “Oh, Ethan, we mustn’t. You’re getting married.”
“Yes, but only if you’ll have me,” he told her.
It took a moment for his words to sink in.
“You mean me?” she gasped. “You want to marry
me
?”
“Aye. ’Tis the dearest wish of me heart and has been for some time now.”
“Me?”
He smiled. “If you’ll have me.”
“You know I’m thirty-six.”
“And I’m nearly forty and this lovely thirty-six-year-old is the sum of all me dreams.” He smoothed back her hair.
Her face crumpled. “Oh, I’ve never been called lovely in my life.”
“You’ve been talking to the wrong people, then,” he said simply. “Or maybe they’ve never looked into those beautiful brown eyes of yours. Or listened to you readin’ a story by candlelight, and seen you when you look up and smile without thinkin’.” He smoothed back her hair and kissed her again.
Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Oh, Ethan, you have such a gift with words.” She straightened, trying to be sensible. “But what if I’m too old to have children.”
He kissed her again. “Whether we have little ones or not is in the hands of God. Now, will you put me out of my misery and tell me yes or no.”
She stared at him. “Of course it’s yes!” she said. “A thousand times yes. Oh, Ethan, I never dreamed—” And she hurled herself into his arms and kissed him as if her life depended on it. Ethan’s battered old heart nearly burst with love and pride.
By the time the kiss was finished, they were both breathing heavily and Tibby was seated on his lap.
“I can’t wait to show you the cottage,” he told her. “I’ve fixed it all up nice, like the one you had that burned down, but it’s waiting for you to make it a home.”
She nodded. “I’m a good housekeeper.”
He gave her a quizzical look. “I’m not talkin’ about housekeeping, darlin’. I’m talkin about a place a man can come home to and sit by the fire, with you readin’ to me, or sewin’, and then the two of us goin’ up to bed and makin’ the sort of love that’ll melt your bones.”
She sighed and hugged him harder.
“Some of the happiest evenings of me whole life were those ones we spent together last year, when young Nicky and Jim had gone to bed, and you’d be teachin’ me and readin’ to me from your books, and I’d sit there and watch your sweet face and dream you were mine.”
“Oh, Ethan.”
“The only part I didn’t like was when I went to me own bed and you went to yours. I love you, Tibby, with all me heart.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Ethan, I never knew. Why didn’t you say?”
“I had nothing to offer you then,” he told her. “But now I have a cottage and I’m full partner with Harry—those Zindarian horses I’ll be gettin’ every year have made a big difference. So, now I’m in a position to ask you.”
“I would have married you with nothing.” And she kissed him again.
Ethan kissed her until they were both almost mindless with it and caressed her breasts through her dress. He ran his big, rough-skinned hands gently over her body and she shivered with pleasure. Still kissing her, he slid one hand slowly up between her silky soft thighs. She squeaked and gasped and wriggled a bit, but made no effort to stop him. She trembled and clung to him, kissing him feverishly.
And on a hard bench in the middle of a maze in December, Ethan brought Miss Tibby to her first-ever climax.
Afterward he held her on his lap, her small, delicate body curled into his.
“That was extraordinary,” she said at last. “I never knew . . . I had no idea.”
“The next time had better be in our marriage bed,” he told her. “Otherwise I’m liable to lose me head and take you. And when I take you, Tibby, I want it to be in our own bed, in our own home.”
“Oh yes, please, Ethan,” she said. “I love you so much. I just never dreamed . . .”
Ethan kissed her again.
Seventeen
E
vans led Harry into a part of London he’d never been to, down near the docks. The streets were narrow, full of ragged children, beggars, prostitutes, and filth. The buildings were old and crooked, as if grown like fungus instead of built by man; they were dingy and squalid and mean.
Harry had always hated cities and this seamy quarter was the best reason he’d seen yet for staying out of them. Dear Lord, how could people live like this?
And how could anyone bring a baby into this?
“Nasty place to live, it is, sir,” Evans said, as if reading his mind. “My mam lives in Wales or I would have taken the little one to them. Fond of babes, is Mam. She had eight of us, you know.”
He led them further into a network of intersecting streets and finally pointed down a narrow alleyway. “Down there,” Evans said.
It was too narrow to accommodate a horse. “Wait here and mind the horses,” Harry told him. “Which house?”
“The last one at the end, you can’t go no further. Go in and climb the stairs all the way to the top, and it’s the green door.” He gave Harry an ironic look. “Ask for ‘Mother.’ ”
The house stank. Trying not to breathe too deeply, he climbed the rickety stairs and knocked on the green door.
It opened a crack and an eye peered out at him. A voice said, “S’a gen’lman, mum.”
“Lemme see.”
A second eye replaced the first, then the door cracked open a foot. A gross, dirty woman in a low-cut dress looked him up and down. She tugged her bodice lower and eyed him knowingly. “And what can I do for you, me handsome?” She reeked of gin.
Harry’s stomach churned. He said coldly, “I’m here to speak to ‘Mother’ about a baby.”
The woman cackled. “Well, you’ve come to the right place, dearie. I’m Muvver. No shortage of babbies here.” She stood back and waved him in.
The floor was covered in containers of all sorts: fish boxes, egg boxes, a lidless trunk, even a broken old drawer or two—anything that could be turned to use as a bed for a baby. The boxes were lined with straw. In every box lay an infant, sometimes two, laid head to tail.
Harry harnessed his rage. He was here for just one baby—Torie—but later, he would do something about this place.
“Which do you want, dearie? These ones is taken—their mas are out workin’.” She made a ragged sweep with her arm.
No mother would choose to leave a child in these conditions unless they were desperate, Harry thought.
“Mother” pointed. “The orphans are through there. Take your pick.”
Dear God, they were for sale?
He said stiffly, “I am looking for a baby girl brought here at the end of October. She was in a basket lined with white satin.”
“Oh yes, I remember that basket. We don’t have it no more.”
A coldness ran down his spine. “You mean she died?”
The gross woman cackled as if he’d made a fine joke. “Lor’ love you, sir. No, we sold the basket and ’er pretty clothes. The babby’s through there.” She pointed to the orphan section. “Tilda, show the gen’lman your little pet.”