Authors: Father Christmas
Liam arrived almost in time with the May deposit. He was at his wit’s end and had left his business at Tattersalls to come beg Graceanne for help. Pru was sickly. She wouldn’t eat or leave her bed.
“And she says she hates the wee bairn.”
“Never!” Graceanne couldn’t begin to imagine such a thing. She remembered how she felt carrying the twins—a beached whale being the closest picture called to mind— but still exhilarated, gloriously enraptured of the new life she bore.
“Aye, she hates the babe,” Liam repeated. “And Old Mara the midwife is that worried, she is.” Liam shook his head, the red of his hair catching gold sparks from the sunshine. They were sitting outside the schoolhouse, in full view of the whole village. It wasn’t Graceanne’s choice, but there was no alternative.
There were other problems, too, Liam went on. No one would marry them. The Anglican curate wouldn’t perform the ceremony because Prudence was underage; the Catholic priest asked Pru to adopt their ways and swear the babe would be raised a Catholic. She refused. Graceanne could hear the bitterness in Liam’s voice when he told her this last; he’d been willing to renounce
his
church. They could have held an old Irish hand-fast ceremony, but Pru declared it wouldn’t be recognized in England, and worse, Liam’s father was saying that if they weren’t married in a Catholic church, they weren’t married in the eyes of God. So Prudence was a soiled dove in their town. None of the women but Old Mara called, not even to offer sorely needed advice. And Pru and Gilly Hallorahan, Liam’s father, were constantly at daggers drawn.
“So you can see I have nary a choice but to leave me wee dearie there. She’s too poorly to travel, and I made better time, just me and the horses I brought to auction, sleeping out in barns and such.” He rubbed at a stain on his leather breeches. “I had to come away now, b’gosh. We need the money the sale will bring, and to keep abuilding on the reputation of the Hallorahan stud, don’t you see.”
Graceanne saw that they’d all be better off if the Hallorahans had stuck to breeding horses. She also saw that she had no choice but to give Liam what money she could, along with the address of His Grace’s man of business in London, Mr. Olmstead. “He’ll know how to go about getting a special license so an English priest will marry you. I’ll write out a blank bank draft and request him to release whatever funds are necessary, as an advance on my income. We’ll worry about making that child your lawful issue first, then worry about the eyes of God and your father later.”
Liam stared at his work-roughened hands. “I don’t know if Pru will wed with me anymore.”
“That is
not
an option, either. The child’s life shall not be ruined because Pru is in one of her takings, not if I have anything to say about it.”
As she’d known all along, Graceanne was also out of options. She had no choice but to go to her sister, bringing aid, comfort, what assistance she could—and see the ninny-hammer married.
The vicar was no help, not that Graceanne had expected anything else. “If you leave my house,” he fumed, “you leave forever. Don’t come back. Both my daughters are as good as dead to me.”
Graceanne turned to her mother, who was weeping into the handkerchief she clutched in trembling hands. “Mama,” she said, “we are your daughters, too.” Graceanne knew how she’d feel if anyone tried to keep her from her sons. “Mama?” Mrs. Beckwith cried harder. Graceanne went to start the packing.
Burning Beckwith bridges was one thing, defying the duke was another. He didn’t want her to remove the twins from his domain. He’d be displeased if she took the boys away where he couldn’t see them, he’d said.
Then he shouldn’t have gone off to Austria having a high old time, Graceanne said to herself, tossing undergarments into a trunk. How much was he seeing Willy and Les from there? She read the London papers when they came her way, and couldn’t help hearing as the residents of Warefield village kept track of “their” duke. She even knew the name of his Austrian mistress. A princess, no less. Graceanne wished her well. Just let the woman keep Ware happy and busy, she prayed, and out of the country.
She didn’t think the duke would withhold her monthly funds on principle, not after he was reported to have bought the princess a bracelet worth a hundred widows’ mites. And she refused to entertain the belief that the Duke of Ware, no matter how angry or imperious, would let his wards go hungry out of pique that his every want and wish wasn’t being catered to. He was authoritative, not cruel.
There was no question of leaving the boys behind, of course. If the duke were home, with the estimable Mr. Milsom and that army of servants, an entire nursery wing, and extensive grounds, she might have considered parting with her cherubs for the duration. It was a measure of her confidence in His Grace’s affection for the boys that she’d even entertain the notion of leaving the darlings behind. That and the dread of spending days or possibly weeks in a closed coach with her precious angels. Even a mother’s love has its limits.
She and Liam hired the most comfortable carriage in Warefield, the most reliable driver, a footman who had young brothers of his own. Unfortunately the nursemaid Meg refused to leave the young man with whom she was keeping company; Susan was needed at home; Bertha was subject to travel sickness; and June was petrified of crossing the sea. In other words, they’d all rather go to Hell in a handcart than to Ireland in a rolling insane ward.
If no maid would travel with them, the dog would not be left behind. The moment Duke saw one box of the boys’ clothing being packed, he was never out of sight. Besides, the vicar would have the collie tossed out on his silky ear the second Graceanne’s carriage turned the corner. Then, too, Duke was the only loyal baby-sitter she had.
When they were ready, Graceanne withdrew the rest of her account and wrote to the bank to forward her next deposits to the address Liam gave her, care of his father in Wicklow, Ireland.
They set out, then separated. Having seen Graceanne’s party safely on the road, Liam was to ride as fast as possible to London to transact his own business. Then he had to see Mr. Olmstead, deliver Graceanne’s letter for His Grace that explained her actions, get the special license, and meet her at the ferry dock in Cardigan Bay.
Graceanne packed puzzles and books and baskets of toys. That took care of the first morning.
The rest of the journey could not be described in polite conversation. Graceanne hoped the children liked Ireland: She’d set up housekeeping there for the next ten years rather than face another such expedition.
Once the carriage was unloaded, the driver and groom treated themselves to a two-day drunken celebration—after they’d put half a county between them and the Warrington ménage. Now it was just a matter of waiting at the inn Liam had recommended.
The rooms were clean, the food was adequate, and the staff there was friendly. Graceanne was learning to trust the boys with strangers more. She had no choice if she was to have a second to herself. Thank goodness for Duke, who always went along.
Days went by with no sign of Liam. No messenger, no mail. Graceanne was alone with two small boys, running through her money, with the staff at the inn growing less friendly by the hour. What could have happened to Liam? An accident, Graceanne supposed, but he would have sent word. Unless he was dead. No, a strong, healthy young man like Liam wouldn’t just cock up his toes like that. The alternative was almost worse, that he’d taken her cash, her blank check, and the letter releasing her funds—and left for parts unknown.
Could she really be abandoned, stranded in Wales, where the people spoke an incomprehensible dialect? It certainly looked that way.
Now
Graceanne had a choice. She could take the boys home—not to the vicarage, for she had no home there—but home to England, to London. She could throw herself on the mercy of the duke’s Mr. Olmstead, who would make some provision for her and the boys, she was sure, until Ware could be contacted and advised of her idiocy. Or she could continue without Liam across the channel to Ireland, where her next allotment of funds should be waiting, to save her sister from Mr. Gilly Hallorahan, who sounded as rigidly moralistic as their own father.
Ireland was closer.
* * *
“She did what?” The rafters of Ware House, Grosvenor Square, fairly shook with the roar of shattered illusions. Leland could hardly believe that Graceanne Warrington, that most virtuous of all widows, that female of hitherto Madonna-like purity, had run off with an Irish groom. Hell and damnation, she’d turned down his own amorous overtures! Such was the message from Ware Hold’s steward, however, and here was her bank withdrawal of every last groat, confound it!
He could not even hare off to Warwick, not without duly presenting himself at Whitehall for interminable conferences about the course of the peace negotiations and rumors of the Corsican’s return. By George, what was one more opinion about the future of European politics compared to the fate of two little boys? Ware’s celebrated skills at diplomacy were sadly challenged over the next sennight, before he could order out his curricle and tear off to his country-seat.
What he found there challenged his composure even more. The steward swore he’d seen Mrs. Warrington and Liam Hallorahan together, cozylike, outside the school-house.
His housekeeper, when called forth by Milsom, who had as usual accompanied his master into the country, reported that she’d seen the two of them kissing and hugging on the main street, bold as brass.
No, it was the younger sister, Prudence Beckwith, who was keeping company with Squire’s Irish horseman, Leland swore.
The housekeeper swore right back that the whole village knew Miss Prudence had gone traveling with a wealthy lady companion well over a month earlier. She bought pretty new frocks right in Warefield, too. Word had it she was headed to Vienna and all the fancy parties. She’d be a great success, would Miss Prudence.
If Prudence was in Vienna, Leland thought, he was a monkey’s uncle. The chit would have been hanging on his coattails from the minute her feet hit the ground. That or she’d be the latest comet of the demimonde.
Milsom was sniffing his disapproval of His Grace’s gossiping with the servants, so Leland took himself off to Squire’s. Hallorahan had left, all right, Maxton confirmed, and he was sorry to see the lad go. “Dab hand with the horses, don’t you know.” Of course, Squire was also glad his Lucy was promised to a respectable young gent, else he would have had to send the boy packing ages before. “Dab hand with the ladies, too, don’t you know. Why, the pretty little sister leaves town, doesn’t the chap take up with the widow. Not that Grace’s not a beauty in her way, but it’s Pru who’s the real dazzler.”
The man’s eyesight and intellect were so deficient, Leland decided, his comments could be dismissed. Not so Vicar Beckwith’s.
“I neither know nor care,” the man snarled when pressed for the whereabouts of Prudence and Graceanne. “Fancy clothes, fancy men, fancy ideas in their heads. All of my teachings gone for naught, and their mother here weeping herself into an early grave while the household is going to rack and ruin. No, I do not want to speak of those wanton jades. I have no more daughters.”
Leland slapped his riding crop against his booted leg. “And your grandsons?”
“Hah! Taking those fiends from Hell with her and the Irishman was the only decent thing the strumpet did. I have no more grandsons.”
“Then perhaps you’ll have no more position as vicar here, if you cannot show more generosity of spirit and forgiveness. I thought that was what you were supposed to preach, Beckwith, not vituperation and scandal-mongering.”
The duke took himself back to Ware Hold, ordered his bags packed and his curricle brought around. He set out on the main road, but turned back toward the castle after a quarter of a mile or so, at the first intersection. Returned to the Hold’s drive, he threw the reins to his tiger, stomped up the steps, and pounded on the door.
“Milsom!” he shouted when a surprised footman opened the heavy portals. “Where the devil is my yacht anchored anyway?”
At least there were ponies. Hallorahan’s stud farm was a green gem where Thoroughbred mares and their foals pranced between neat fence lines on a sunlit hillside. It was everything Liam had boasted about.
The Hallorahans’ house was everything Pru had complained about. It was dark and dirty and hadn’t seen a woman’s touch since Liam’s mother’s death, eight years before. Unfortunately, it hadn’t seen Liam since he set out for London, either.
His father, Gilly, was more concerned with the missing money from the Tattersall’s sale than with his missing son. His quarterly rent to Lord Asquith was nearly due, and that English dastard would use any excuse to seize the farm now that he saw how successful Gilly and Liam had made it.
Besides, as he made plain when he grudgingly carted in Graceanne’s boxes and trunks, the last thing he needed was to be saddled with another useless, hoity-toity English female. And this one had brats to be fed.
“Ye let ’em go next or nigh me horses, the plaguey little vermin, an’ I’ll feed ’em to the wolves. Didn’t know Ireland had wolves yet, did ye? Aye, great hairy droolly beasties what chew on English bairns for breakfast. For dessert they nibble on fluffy dogs.”
The boys ran shrieking behind Graceanne’s skirts, dragging Duke with them. Welcome to Ireland, Mrs. Warrington.
Liam’s father might have been labeled an old curmudgeon had he been old. Gilly couldn’t be more than forty-five, and in fine condition from working with the horses. Graceanne saw a lot of Liam in the older man’s face, but with more weathered lines, fewer smiles.
“Can you cook, girl? T’other one’s about as useful as tits on a bull.”
On the plus side, a check had arrived from Mr. Olmstead with a generous increase in her June allowance, to offset the costs of travel. Part of the boys’ education, the man’s note said, since travel was known to be a learning experience. Graceanne was certainly finding it so.
With the money she was able to soothe Gilly and, more important, hire a maid and a housekeeper so she could see less of housework and more of Prudence, who was indeed doing poorly. Pru’s already low spirits were not raised by Liam’s desertion, either.
“It’s because I’m ugly,” Pru cried, and she was. One look at her sister and Graceanne knew something was wrong. A further outlay of money brought a real doctor, who was no more encouraging than Old Mara. He had serious doubts of a happy outcome, he confided to Graceanne, or of Pru carrying the babe to term. Old Mara’s herbs being as good a prescription as any he knew, his only suggestion was to keep Pru quiet and off her feet.
Gilly snorted when Graceanne told him. “An’ ye needed to spend yer blunt to hear that? This female ain’t done nary a lick o’ work since she got here. Won’t be no hardship keepin’ ’er at rest.”
Graceanne and the new maid helped Pru wash her hair, then they braided the long blond curls and got her into an attractive gown whose fullness concealed some of Pru’s ungainliness. Pru felt so much better that she permitted them to help her to a sofa in the parlor, which had been tidied and brightened with new curtains and pillows. She even smiled and coquetted with Lord Asquith when he came to see if Liam was back with the money. The English landlord would be put off only a bit longer; he wanted this all settled so he could summer in Scotland for the hunting and fishing. Meanwhile, he didn’t mind the flattering attention of a little English strumpet.
Gilly spat tobacco juice out the window when Asquith left. “Too bad ye’re breedin’. Looks like his highness’d take t’rent money out in trade.”
Pru glowered at the crudity and began to cry. Scowling at both of them, Graceanne had to help her sister back to bed, then go stop her sons from practicing spitting out the window.
At least there were ponies for the boys, and lots of children for them to play with, red-haired, freckled children who rode bareback on sturdy little cobs, and stablehands galore standing around to watch out for them. For every maid missing in the house, there were two brawny lads to muck out the stalls. No wonder there was not enough money to pay the landlord. By dint of careful reasoning, then shouting, which he seemed to respect more, Graceanne made Gilly aware of his extravagant overhead.
“I never did have a head for figures,” Gilly admitted, “’cept th’ female one, a’ course.” Graceanne accepted the first, ignored the second, and started helping with the bookkeeping in exchange for Gilly teaching the boys to ride properly, so they’d be safe. Duke stayed with them, thank goodness, for Graceanne was afraid to leave her sister for long. Prudence grew restless and weepy if left to her own devices, remembering every tale of death in childbirth she’d ever heard.
“That’s nonsense, Pru,” Graceanne tried to reassure the younger girl. “If I had no trouble giving birth to twins, you should do fine with just one baby. And whatever pain I had was worth it, to have my precious boys.”
Prudence moaned and cried some more.
Willy and Les, meanwhile, were growing tanned and strong, like farm children frolicking in the hayloft. Graceanne hardly saw them except for meals and bedtime and an hour or two in the morning, when she herded them and whatever other children were around into the parlor for lessons. She was not going to give Lord Ware the opportunity to accuse her of neglecting their education, in addition to whatever other grievances he held against her. She thought he’d be pleased to see the children so much less dependent on their mother, learning a rough-and-tumble, boyish life of horses and dogs, fishing and swimming. She hated it and missed her babies.
They did have a bedroom where she could stand up, she reminded herself, looking for silver linings. They’d never bump their heads on this roof no matter how fast they were growing. Of course, it was thatched, and she could hear mice scurrying in it sometimes, but she wouldn’t think about that, nor the bruised elbows, the scratches from berry picking, the wet, ruined clothes. The boys seemed happy.
Not so Prudence. As the weather grew warmer, she grew more uncomfortable and more demanding. With no word of Liam, she became angrier: at him, at his father, at the baby she carried. And her anger seemed to sap what little strength she had.
Then Tattersall’s sent a bank draft to Gilly. They’d held a successful auction, the note said, but no one had come to collect the earnings, minus the fee, of course. Graceanne insisted that Mr. Hallorahan use some of the money left after paying Lord Asquith to hire a Bow Street runner to find Liam. Liam wouldn’t run off without that money even if, as Gilly claimed, he had gotten cold feet about marrying Pru.
“B’gad and that horse money would have bought a lot o’ warm socks,” Gilly allowed, relieved now that his stud farm was safe for another quarter.
Graceanne wrote to Mr. Olmstead in London as soon as Gilly agreed to send the funds. She promised to add to the price if necessary from her next month’s income if that would help. The boys could go barefoot all summer; Prudence’s baby wasn’t going to wait that long before needing a father.
* * *
Having ascertained that his yacht was in Portsmouth having its sails refitted, His Grace took himself off to London to wait, with Milsom’s blessing. The butler chose to stay on in Warwick for the nonce, overseeing the spring-cleaning and underseeing His Grace’s foul temper.
Leland decided that he’d meet the yacht in Bristol in a few weeks rather than face countless nights at indifferent inns, and endure the hired horses and wretched roads of a drive. Going by sea would get him to Ireland soon enough. Well, not soon enough, since he was already too late, but in plenty of time to fetch the boys back before they were ruined entirely. He thought the novelty of a boat ride might console Willy and Les at the separation from their mother if Graceanne decided to stay with her lover, damn her doxy’s heart.
A visit from Olmstead revealed that the Irishman had called on Ware’s own solicitor some time ago, bringing Graceanne’s request that her money be sent to Hallorahan’s place in Ireland and asking about a special license. That confirmed the rumors, and changed matters. If Graceanne married the man, could Leland really call her an unfit mother and take the boys away? Blast it, an Irish horse trainer raising his heirs! He went to Gentleman Jackson’s parlor to polish his boxing science. Every sparring partner seemed to have red hair; the only thing that saved them from having their freckled heads knocked off was the fact that Hallorahan hadn’t come back to get the license. The only reason Leland didn’t set off for Ireland on horseback that same day was a raging storm that was reported to have washed away whole roads.
The same storm kept his yacht in Portsmouth an additional sennight. So Ware was still in London when Graceanne’s latest letter to Olmstead arrived after a long, weather-related delay. This time she wanted to hire a Bow Street runner to find the Irishman. The bastard had shabbed off on her? After sending her to Ireland? Ware didn’t bother going back to Gentleman Jackson’s. He went straight to Manton’s shooting gallery.
* * *
A report came directly from Bow Street. Mr. Liam Hallorahan was easy to trace, having last been seen leaving Tattersall’s on his way to his hotel. He wasn’t staying in one of the better lodgings, naturally, but had taken a room in a respectable inn which was, unfortunately, in a less than respectable neighborhood. Said neighborhood was visited that very evening, it happened, by a press gang for His Majesty’s Navy. Liam Hallorahan, the report concluded, was now en route to the Americas, protecting His Majesty’s foreign interests.
Prudence went into labor the day after the letter came, at least a month earlier than anyone predicted. It was an easy birthing by most standards, if you discounted the mother’s screams. To Prudence it was the most painful, disgusting event in her entire life, and she wanted only to have it over and done. She refused to look at the child.
Old Mara whispered at Graceanne not to insist, for the babe hadn’t a chance of surviving. Why break the poor lassie’s heart by showing her that pitiful scrap? Mara had to blow into its mouth just to make the infant let out a thin, feeble wail. It was as if all of Prudence’s screams had used up the baby’s voice, too.
The child was bluish and tiny, as scrawny as a baby bird. Graceanne had never seen so small an infant, and she marveled as she wrapped her new niece in the softest blankets, holding her to keep her warm, comforting the tiny body so she wouldn’t use up her tenuous hold on life in crying.
“It’s a beautiful, perfect little girl, Pru,” Graceanne lied. Or perhaps she meant it, her heart having gone out to the fragile infant the moment she took her from Old Mara, and love being notoriously blind. “What shall you name her?”
Prudence turned her face to the wall.
“Best to hurry, missus, an’ have in Father to get her blessed,” Old Mara warned. “Th’ wee bairn’s too frail to make it through till morning, I reck.”
“Not the Catholic priest, Grace,” Pru insisted, but Old Mara took another look at that tiny pinched face and said she didn’t think there’d be time to fetch in the Anglican minister. Then Gilly swore he’d have only the Catholic priest in his house, and Prudence started screaming again.
How could they be arguing over which church should baptize the baby? Graceanne wondered. Didn’t any of them care that the infant might—no, most likely would—die? Was she the only one to sorrow for this pitiful little rag fighting so hard for every breath?
“Gilly, fetch your Father Padraic, he’s closest. If God wants another angel, He won’t care who sends her. Pru, stop that carrying on, you’ll only weaken yourself further. Tell me what you want to call the baby.”
“I told you, I don’t want the thing! I was going to send it to the orphanage anyway. Let them name it, if it lives long enough.”
“Prudence! You cannot mean such a thing.” Even for Prudence, that was a shockingly heartless thought. “You’re just overwrought from the birthing. You couldn’t give away your own flesh and blood!”
“No? Watch me, Grace. Father Padraic runs the orphanage. He’ll take the brat if it’s still alive.”
Tears running down her face, whether for her new niece in her arms or for her sister, Graceanne swore, “I’ll never let you.”
“Fine, then you keep it. You name it. The brat is yours if it lives. Have someone get you legal papers if you want, Grace, and hurry, for as soon as I can get out of this bed, I’m leaving here—without a sickly little Irish bastard.”
The priest came, and Graceanne tried again to make Prudence give her child a name.
“I won’t! Just give it something pretty, something silly, not like Prudence or Grace.”
Father Padraic was waiting, the baby trembling in his arms.
“Antonia,” Graceanne choked out, giving this infant the name she had selected for Tony’s daughter. “Antonia Faith.”
“Antonia Faith Warrington,” Pru called.
Graceanne gulped and nodded. She’d do it. She had to. Prudence wasn’t going to change her selfish mind, and Graceanne wasn’t nodcock enough to believe she would. Even if Pru did have a change of heart—or any kind of heart—and decided to keep the babe, where could they go, how could they live? No, Antonia would be better with an aunt who already loved her. And no one, well, almost no one, knew when Tony had died. She’d claim little Nina as her own, his posthumous child, so there’d be no scandal. Pru could have her own life back to make of it what she could, and Graceanne would have the girl child she always wanted. If she could keep her alive.