A young woman, a simpleton, led Harry to the other room. There were three boxes in the room.
“Them two’s boys, and this one’s me little pet,” the girl said, and pointed.
She lay quietly in an egg box, wrapped in rags. All he could see in the gloom was her eyes watching him. He couldn’t see what color they were, but Harry was suddenly sure what color those eyes would be—a clear sherry, just like her mother’s.
Torie, at long last.
“She’s me little pet, she is,” the girl said. “Want a feed, lovie?” She gently scooped the infant from her nest of stinking straw, opened her bodice, and presented a swollen breast to the infant. She was none too clean and Harry’s first thought was to stop her, but then he realized that this simple girl might be the reason Torie had survived these conditions.
Tilda rocked and crooned as Torie fed. “My own babby died, she did, but then this one come in, all clean and pretty. Me little pet, aren’t you, lovie?”
Harry’s gaze wandered to the other two boxes. Where had those two little scraps of unwanted humanity come from?
There but for the grace of God lay himself. Had Barrow not been unable to bear the sight of a small boy, neglected and abused, and taken him in, God only knew what might have become of him.
Harry waited until Torie drunk her fill. “I’ll be taking her, now,” he told the girl as she jiggled the baby against her shoulder. She looked distressed. “She’ll be all right, I’m taking her back to her mother. But thank you for taking such good care of her.”
He glanced at the two little figures in the other two boxes. “I’ll give you five shillings now if you feed those two like you fed your little pet. And someone will come in a few weeks and give you a guinea if they’re still alive. Can you do that for me, Tilda?”
She nodded and snatched the coins, looking furtively over her shoulder to the other room.
“Now wrap her up warmly for me, I’m taking her home.”
Tilda nodded and wrapped Torie in some grimy rags. “She’ll need her little dolly.”
Harry frowned. “What little dolly?”
The girl pulled a small cloth doll from the baby’s box. “It’s hers, my little pet’s.”
“Very well.” He shoved it in his pocket. “Now, give her to me.” He carried her gingerly through to the other room. He’d never carried a baby before.
“You’ve got her, then,” the woman called Mother said. She held out a grimy claw. “That’ll be twenty quid.”
“What?”
She shrugged and said like a horse dealer, “She’s healthy and she’s a good little thing, ’ardly ever cries, ’ardly ever have to give her a dose.”
Harry frowned. “A dose?”
In answer the woman reached down beside her chair and lifted a blue bottle. “Blue ruin,” she said with a grin of rotting stumps. “Better’n muvver’s milk for keepin’ a baby quiet.” She uncorked the bottle. “Good for baby and good for me.” She took a long swig, smacked her lips, and offered it to Harry.
He declined it with a shudder. He’d drunk blue ruin often enough in the back room at Jackson’s boxing saloon.
He looked at the woman and shuddered again. Giving it to babies—ye gods!
He knew it was done. Some of the camp followers fed their babies a little gin or rum in the war to keep them quiet. But what people did in war was one thing. This was quite another.
“I’m not paying you a penny,” he told the woman. “This child was stolen from her rightful mother and you were paid by a villain to take her. We’re leaving.”
Ignoring her indignant screech and the torrent of abuse that followed him down the stairs, he took Torie out into the cold December streets. He handed her to Evans, mounted Sabre and took her back. It was cold, too cold for a baby dressed in nothing but rags. He opened his coat and tucked Torie inside, carrying her in the crook of his arm.
“Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you cleaned up.”
It was too late to get back to Alverleigh tonight. Too late and too cold. “The nearest respectable inn,” he told Evans.
T
hey found an inn and Harry ordered a meal for himself and Evans to be served in an hour, and in the meantime for a small bath and warm water to be brought up to his room.
It was dark, but he sent Evans off to try to purchase clothes for a baby and anything else he thought Torie might need. Thank goodness for Mrs. Evans and her large brood.
He carefully laid Torie on the bed and began the process of unraveling the noisome rags she was wrapped in. The last few were stuck to her little body and when he tried to peel them off her, she cried. And cried. And cried.
It was a heartbreaking sound. Harry was frantic. He had no idea what to do. He picked her up carefully; without the bundled rags she was so tiny and fragile he was afraid of damaging her.
He scooped her up with one hand behind her neck, supporting her head, and held her against his shoulder the way he’d seen women do it. She howled miserably.
“There, there,” he murmured, “it won’t be so bad once you’re all cleaned up and nice.”
She continued howling. Harry paced up and down, feeling increasingly frantic.
A maidservant arrived with a small tin bath and a can of hot water. “Thank God,” Harry greeted her with relief. He held the baby toward her. “She’s crying. What do I do?”
The girl shrank back. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know nothing about babies.” She dumped the bath in front of the fire, half filled it with water, and put the can beside it “She’s probably just hungry.”
“Hungry?” Harry said. “But she had a feed a couple of hours ago.”
The girl gave him a pitying look. “She’s a
baby
.”
Harry felt like an idiot. Of course. Tiny growing creatures fed all the time. He knew that about puppies and foals, why hadn’t he thought of that for Torie? “Milk,” he told the girl. “Fetch some milk for her, immediately.”
She gave a smirk and left.
Harry rubbed Torie’s back soothingly. She kept yelling. “Dinner’s coming now,” he told her. “Won’t be long.”
The girl brought the milk back in a peculiar-shaped china receptacle, with a hole in one side and a nipple-shaped spout at the end with perforations in the end. It was warm.
“You’re lucky Cook had this bottle,” the maid said. “Somebody left it behind a few weeks ago.”
He took it and carefully tried to apply the nipple to Torie’s lips.
Nothing. She roared louder than ever.
“It’s best if you’re sitting,” the girl advised.
He sat on the bed and cradled her in his arms, rocking and murmuring. He placed the china nipple against her mouth. She sobbed bitterly.
“Tip it up a bit,” said the maid.
He tipped it so some of the milk splashed into her mouth. She kept crying, but the little mouth took in some of the milk. The rest dribbled down her chin. He gave her the bottle again, but she wagged her head, avoiding it, and sobbed.
“Used to the breast, I expect,” the girl said. She was enjoying watching him flounder.
“I thought you didn’t know anything about babies,” Harry said accusingly.
“I don’t,” she said firmly and left.
He struggled on, holding her, rocking her, nudging her lips with the nipple, trying to coax her to drink, and finally persistence paid off. Torie’s howls died a sudden death and she began to drink.
Relief swamped him. She drank a good amount of the milk in the container and when she subsided, he put it away.
“Now for your bath,” he told her, and the moment he spoke, she started to wail again. He tried the milk, in case she was still hungry but she howled. He picked her up and started rubbing her back, to soothe her.
A violent burp erupted from the tiny body, and a trickle of sour milk ran down his coat. She stopped, and Harry held his breath, but then she looked at him and kept crying, though not so desperately.
Maybe the bath would help. Harry put his hand in the water. It was no longer hot, just a bit warmer than lukewarm. He was tempted to call the girl back and get some hot water, but Torie’s sobs were killing him, so holding her carefully, he lowered her into the bath.
The howling abruptly stopped on a hiccup. Her eyes widened as if she were concentrating intensely on the sensation.
“Not used to water, are you?” he said.
She gave a little shuddery breath and moved her hands. Her tiny fingers opened and closed as if trying to grasp the water.
Harry chuckled and immediately she looked up at him. “You like water, don’t you? Let’s see if you like this.” He swished her gently back and forth in the water and felt the tense little body relax.
She looked at him solemnly, a small angel, who’d never yelled blue murder in her life.
“I expect butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, either,” Harry told her.
The water turned a dirty gray. Slowly the rags wrapped around her little hindquarters softened and he was able to peel them off her one by one. Her delicate skin was red where they’d stuck.
“You need some salve on that, you poor little mite.” Harry wished Mrs. Barrow was here. She’d know what to do about that redness. He lifted her out of the dirty water, laid her on a towel, bolstered her with a couple of pillows, and rang for someone to remove the dirty water and rags.
He ordered a second bath and sent a message to the cook for a handful of salt and some almond or olive oil or goose grease.
He bathed Torie again in warm water with a little salt and she screwed up her face at first. He suspected it might sting a little so he swished her back and forth in the water to distract her. She loved it, kicking her little legs and gurgling with pleasure. He chuckled at the sound and again, she stared at him as if fascinated.
He washed her thoroughly, lifted her out, dried her, and lightly stroked almond oil over her skin. “That should help soothe you,” he told her.
She watched his face intently. She had her mother’s eyes. She was all Nell, he thought. Her mother’s daughter, wholly and completely.
Evans wasn’t back yet, so he wrapped her in a clean, dry towel, then slipped her into a pillow slip.
“Now, go to sleep, sweetheart,” he told her and left her to it. She took a deep breath, her face turned red and—“Don’t start again,” he begged her. She looked at him with troubled eyes, her lips trembling.
“That’s blackmail,” Harry said severely.
She opened her mouth. He sighed and picked her up. She calmed immediately.
“That appalling woman told me you were a well-behaved young lady,” he told her. “Of course, those weren’t her exact words, but it’s what she meant. How am I going to explain to your mother that you’ve picked up bad habits while you’ve been away?”
She sighed and watched him with big eyes. Nell’s eyes.
He rocked her against his chest. “Your mother is going to be overjoyed to see you. She’s been breaking her heart over you, young Torie, and I can see why. So it’s going to be a big day tomorrow and you need plenty of sleep.”
He placed her back on the bed in the nest of pillows. She immediately wailed. He picked her up and she stopped.
“All right, I’ll hold you till you fall asleep.” She fitted perfectly in the crook of his arm. “Sleep, do you understand, young lady? That’s an order.”
She watched him with wise little eyes and batted her small fist around. He’d never realized what a miracle a baby’s hand could be; five little fingers, each with perfect miniscule fingernails. Her closed fist was like a little fern, ready to unfurl. He stroked it with his index finger, marveling at how big and coarse his hand looked by comparison.
Her tiny fist unfurled and five impossibly small fingers closed around his index finger and clung tightly. She gave a little sigh, the long lashes fluttered and she fell asleep, still clutching his finger.
Harry’s chest felt thick and full.
The little scrap of humanity clung to his finger, claiming him. And Harry’s heart was lost to her. Torie was his. Or rather, he was Torie’s. For life.
Just like that, he had a daughter.
Evans returned forty-five minutes later and found Harry sitting on the bed. “I’m sorry, sir, I was only able to get some cloths—for the wetness, you know.”
“Didn’t you get any clothing? She’s got none. I threw out the rags she was washed in. They need to be burned.”
“I’ll work out something, sir,” Evans said. “And perhaps while I’m at it you’d like me to wash your shirt. And I’ll take your coat. It’s ruined, of course, but you’ll need something to wear home, so I’ll see if I can get it looking a bit more respectable.”
Harry stared at him. “Evans, what did you do for Sir Irwin?”
“I was his valet, sir.”
Harry grinned. “Excellent. In that case you may take my shirt and coat with my goodwill, and see what you can do with them. I’ve needed a valet for some time.”
“Thank you, sir. You won’t be sorry, sir.”
“I’m no dandy,” Harry warned him.
Evans tried to hide a smile. “Oh, I realize that, sir.”
“Hmm,” he said. “In the meantime, there’s a pie there getting cold.”
“Thank you, sir.” Evans lifted the lid and saw that none of the food had been touched.
“Not hungry, sir?”
Harry shook his head. “Starved. But I can’t move.”
“Can’t move, sir?” Evans looked concerned. “Did you hurt yourself?”
Harry looked sheepish. “No, but I’ve been captured,” he admitted. He glanced down at the infant sleeping in the crook of one arm, still clutching a finger of the other. “I’m terrified she might wake up and set to howling the place down again. My daughter has a powerful set of lungs on her.”
“
Your
daughter, sir? But I thought she was—”
“No,” Harry said firmly. “She’s mine. Her mother and I have been searching for her for weeks.”
Evans’s face cleared. “Then it was all a terrible mistake, sir?”
“That’s right, Evans. A terrible mistake.” There was no need for anyone to know any different. Harry looked down at the tiny scrap holding on so tenaciously. “But she’s back where she belongs now, or she will be once she’s in her mother’s arms.”