Elisabeth Kidd (11 page)

Kedrington’s horse snorted impatiently and he brought his wandering wits to heel. He urged his mount up a slight rise and rode along it for a
time until, looking down, he saw a small cottage set on what must have
been the edge of the Fairfax property. Antonia’s gig stood in the front
yard, but there was no horse between the shafts, indicating that she must
have been there for longer than she would ordinarily spend in a visit with
a tenant.

Curious, he rode to the cottage and dismounted. No one came out to
see who was there, so he led his horse to a shed on one side of the
building and saw Antonia’s Dolly already stabled there. He knocked on
the cottage door, which was opened to him by a large, hulking man with a
young face and staring, uncertain eyes. They blinked in confusion and
ran quickly over Kedrington’s leather coat and breeches, coming to rest
on his top-boots, spattered with mud from the yard but still obviously of a
quality the man had never before beheld.

Kedrington asked for Miss Fairfax. The man moved backward and
waved his hand into the large, low-ceilinged room behind him. There was
a huge fire in the grate, but the room had a chill about it, as if the fire had only just been kindled. In one dark corner, Kedrington could see a bed,
occupied by a slight feminine form. Beside the bed was a cradle, from
which emanated a light raspy breathing. Antonia knelt on the floor
beside it, but the light from the door caused her to look up and shade her
eyes with her hand.

“Ned?” She stood up. “Oh, Lord Kedrington. What are you doing
here?” She sounded as if she scarcely remembered him.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I saw your gig in the yard—is there
something amiss?”

“The baby is ill. I
….
Baskcomb has gone for Ned Fletcher. I thought
you were he, and—oh, I don’t know what to
do!”
She had at first sounded
merely distracted, but at this she put her fist to her mouth in an attempt to keep her concern from the child’s mother, who stirred on the bed and
reached out a hand to Antonia.

“Only a bit of chill, miss,” she insisted in a plaintive voice. “Naught to worry tha’self on.”

Antonia smiled weakly at the woman and patted her hand. “Yes, Mrs Hatcher, to be sure it is, but I will wait for Mr Fletcher just the same. He will know what to do.”

“Why do you not send for Dr Metcalf?” Kedrington asked. “That is his
name, is it not? In Melton?”

“Ned can get here much more quickly, and with six boys of his own, he
has as much experience in such things as any physician. He will send
Baskcomb or one of his boys for the doctor later, if he is needed.”

“What happened?”

“I am not perfectly sure. Henry is mute, you see. Mrs Hatcher says the
fire went out after he left this morning—I imagine the door blew open.
She was asleep, but the cold woke her and she tried to crawl to the
fire—she is not yet recovered from the baby’s birth, I fear—and she
fainted before she could start the fire again. When I arrived, Henry had
just come in for his midday meal and had got the fire going. It is the baby I am concerned for.”

Just then the child woke and began to cry and make feeble attempts to
cast off the blanket Antonia had carefully wrapped around him. She
reached out to pick him up, and cradled him as best she could against her
shoulder, but the child continued to whimper. Kedrington watched her
and cursed himself for his helplessness, wondering how in all his experi
ence of wounds and illness and emergency surgery he had never
encountered anything so simple—and yet so dangerous—as a sick child.

His frustration must have been mirrored in his face, for when a
moment later Ned Fletcher opened the door and surveyed the scene, his black eyes lit on Kedrington and something like a sympathetic smile
flickered across his angular features. He carried several blankets over his
arm and a bottle of something in one hand, which he handed to Antonia
while Kedrington retreated into the shadows to watch.

Ned took the child from Antonia, holding him expertly while he felt
the small forehead and moved his strong hands over the rest of the tiny
body. He then placed him back in the cradle and wrapped another blanket
around him, folding the ends over the tiny feet. He turned to Antonia
and said, “It is not so bad—do not look so anxious!” Then he sat down
on the bed and laid his hand on Mrs Hatcher’s forehead.

“How are you today, Susan?” He smiled, but studied her carefully.
When Susan admitted to feeling poorly, Ned asked why she had not sent
for Mrs Fletcher to help her. “You got up and to your work before you were strong enough, didn’t you?”

Susan nodded.

“But you know that Henry can find his own meals —as he has done
these twenty years past! —and my Maureen would happily have cared for
the baby. Shame on you, Susan!”

Mrs Hatcher smiled weakly and confessed, when Ned confronted her
with it, that she could not nurse the baby.

“Do you have any cow’s milk in the house?”

“Aye. In the cooler.”

Ned turned around. “Miss Fairfax, can you find something to heat a
little milk in for young Henry here? And give me that barley water,
please—Mrs Hatcher needs it far more than he does.” Ned turned again and said to the doorway, “Henry!”

Hatcher came forward eagerly, and Ned told him to fetch more wood
to keep the fire going. The mute Henry nodded and stamped out, closing
the door carefully behind him. Ned smiled at the gesture and said to
Kedrington, “Poor Henry! He’s lived alone so long that he’s not yet accustomed to have to think about other people. He married Susan only
last year, and he’s older than I am. Having a wife he adores and a son on
top of it is more that he can contend with. I wonder, my lord ... ?”

“Yes?”

“May I ask you to see Miss Fairfax home?” Ned asked in a confidential
whisper. “When she’s finished warming the milk? Baskcomb’s gone for the doctor and won’t be back soon.”

“Yes, certainly. That at least is something I can do!”

Ned chuckled. “I can’t in all conscience recommend every man to have
six children, my lord, but I’m bound to say they have been an education!”

“I’ve seen some of your brood. They look to be a lively tribe.”

“They’ve not caused you any trouble?”

“Not at all. What about this one, however? How did you know his
name is Henry, by the way?”

Ned laughed. “The first one is inevitably named for his father. He’s
very ill —although we needn’t tell Miss Fairfax that just yet—but I believe
it is not so much the cold as simple lack of nourishment that ails him.
Susan can’t nurse him, and I don’t suppose he’s had enough cow’s milk to
keep hope alive, much less a newborn child.”

“If only the trouble is so easily remedied! I trust you may find all you need here, but I’m certain that Miss Fairfax, and myself in particular, are
superfluous. I shall see to her horse, now, if you will convince her that she may leave the Hatchers in your care.”

Antonia had found the bottle Mrs Hatcher used to feed the baby, washed it in the water she had previously put on to boil for tea, and filled it with the warmed milk. Mrs Hatcher reached out for it and insisted on
giving it to the baby herself. Antonia gave her the child and stood over
her, watching as she fed him, until Ned put his hand on her shoulder and said, “I wish you would go home now. There is nothing further to be done until Dr Metcalf comes.”

She protested, but he would hear none of it. “Lord Kedrington will see you home. I’ll come myself after the doctor’s been, and tell you what he
says. I’m certain the case is not so desperate as you think.”

“Thank you, Ned. I hope not.”

Antonia found her cloak, and Ned accompanied her outside, where between them Kedrington and Henry Hatcher had already put Dolly to
the gig. Henry then picked up his load of firewood, and Kedrington led
his own horse out of the shed as Ned handed Antonia up into the gig.

The drive to Wyckham was accomplished in silence, and Lord
Kedrington declined Miss Fairfax’s invitation to come into the house for refreshment.

“I think I must make haste if I am to arrive dry-shod at Windeshiem.
Our fine weather seems to be coming rapidly to an end.”

Antonia looked up at the sky, but replied without interest, “So it would appear. Good-bye, then —and thank you for your assistance.”

“I did nothing.”

She frowned at the harsh tone of his voice, but he only smiled regretfully
and said, “I shall go now. Do not be standing about in the cold.” He took
her hand and pressed it between his two. The lingering distress in her eyes
made him want to say more, but he thought she would not understand.

“Good-bye,” he said quickly, and left her.

* * * *

The storm broke that evening and continued overnight, signalling a
return to the cold weather that had plagued the country that winter. By Monday afternoon the wind had eased, but the rain continued, so that
Belding was amazed to open the door to a caller who came in dripping water from his heavy frieze cloak and slouch hat and asking to see Miss
Fairfax. Belding, ill concealing his fascination at this bizarre costume,
relieved him with some trepidation of the cloak, said he would inform the lady of his arrival, and send a maid scurrying for a hairbrush and a towel.

Antonia found her visitor a few minutes later in front of the library fire, and for an instant she did not recognise him. He was wearing a shirt
of some rough cloth, open at the neck, over which he had thrown a
sheepskin vest of sorts, with no sleeves. His boots were uncharacteristically
scuffed, and his dark hair, although recently brushed, shone with damp.

He had brought in with him an unmistakeable aura of the out-of-doors,
and Antonia, coming from a small, well-heated room, was a little taken
aback at his vitality, as if a wild creature had been let into the house.

“Why, Lord Kedrington! What an intrepid caller you are, to be sure.
Are the roads very bad?”

“I rode across country,” he said, advancing quickly toward her and
taking her hand. “It was quicker and not at all discommoding, so you may
spare your kind solicitude.”

“I assure you, my solicitude was all for your unfortunate horse!” she
said, then gave in to curiosity and asked, “Is that how you dressed in
Spain?”

“Only to informal parties,” he said, smiling.

As if the words triggered some instinct in her, she waved him toward the sofa and said, “You will, of course, take some tea to warm you.”

“Thank you, but I cannot stay long. I merely came to say...but tell
me first if you have heard anything of the Hatchers?”

She made him sit down, if for no other reason than to reduce the
forceful effect of his proximity. “Oh, yes! The baby is much improved. Maureen—Mrs Fletcher, that is—has taken both Susan and the baby into
her home, where they may be properly looked after until Susan is well
enough to take the child back to the cottage. Little Henry improved immediately when Dr Metcalf found a wet-nurse for him in the village,
and a few bowls of Maureen’s excellent potato soup will soon put Susan
back on her feet. Ned complains loudly about having his two youngest
boys sleeping on a trundle bed in their parents’ room, but I know he is
glad to help.”

“You are fortunate to have such a man in your service.”

“Yes, he is a great help to me. My brother’s first bailiff was not so
honest and thought he could cheat an inexperienced woman. I was
forced to let him go shortly after Anthony died, but Philip Kenyon happened upon Ned during one of his—Uncle Philip’s, I mean —
expeditions into the West Country. The poor man was obliged to pack up
and move his home and entire family all the way to Leicestershire, but I
am very grateful that he did.”

She did not know why she was rattling away in this distracted fashion and made herself stop and take a deep breath before asking, with more
composure, “What is the other thing you wished to say to me?”

“That I am leaving for London in the morning.”

She thought for a moment that she had not heard him, through the
sudden ringing in her ears. But he was still speaking.

“Urgent family affairs call me away. I had a letter only this morning
from
...”
He said something more that she did not hear. When she
realised that he had fallen silent, she looked up, confused.

“I’m
...
I am sorry to see you leave so soon.”

He put his hand under her chin and turned her face up to his. “Are you
truly sorry, my heart, or was that only the usual courtesy?”