Patricia Rice (8 page)

Mac dropped her like a hot rock. Ignited by alcohol, panic spread with the speed of wildfire. “What’s wrong?” he shouted.

She picked up her skirts and headed huffily for the
house. “A fat lot of help you’ll be. Your daughter could be breathing
her last breath, and you would be quaffing a few tankards with the
boys.”

“Bitsy? Is something wrong with Bitsy?” Fear evaporated any trace of alcohol as he staggered after her. “What? Tell me!”

“I think she’s eaten something she shouldn’t.” Anger
still scorched her voice. “I’ve sent to the earl’s residence to see if
they know of someone to help, but the nearest physician is in
Cheltenham.”

Bitsy would eat a toad if someone put it in her
hand. He’d dallied in the tavern, and she’d poisoned herself. It was all
his fault. Mac broke into a run past his angry hostess.

Miss C scooped up her skirts and stayed apace with
his ground-covering strides. “She’s thrown up everything she’s eaten. I
can’t keep milk down her. She’s crying and acts as if her... belly...
hurts.”

His mother had warned him never to mention body
parts around ladies. Another good reason to stay away from the lot,
except Miss C had overcome her squeamishness for Bitsy’s sake.

“Chamomile?” he suggested as he bounded up the outside stairs toward the wide front door.

“Won’t stay down. Cook suggested a tincture of laudanum and aniseed.” She trailed him closely as he ran into the lamp-lit foyer.

“No laudanum!” he shouted, racing toward the stairs. “That could be part of the problem. She’s been poisoned with the stuff.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Everyone uses laudanum. I don’t know why I’m listening to a sot.” She sailed up the stairs after him.

“I’m not a sot,” he shouted. “The more laudanum a
person takes, the more they need.” He was nearly breathless by the time
they reached the third-floor nursery. Panic exploded through his skin at
the sight of Pamela screaming and drawing her knees up to her aching
belly while a maid held her over her shoulder.

“Where’s Buddy?” he demanded, reaching for his niece.

“I put him to sleep in my room, and my maid is with
him.” Beatrice swept into the room and brushed her fingers over Bitsy’s
forehead. “She’s still feverish.”

Bitsy wept noisily, chewed on her fingers, then held
out her arms to Beatrice. The child quieted to choking sobs as Beatrice
rocked her against her breasts.

“Could it be constipation? Maybe some mineral oil...” Mac’s head spun, and he couldn’t think clearly.

“Not after what she done up here this morning,” the maid answered quickly.

From the shadows in the corner, the tall footman
gestured helplessly. “My mother always gave me warm tea with honey and
bits of sopping toast.”

Mac thoroughly disliked the bewigged weathercock, but he grabbed at any suggestion now. “If she likes warmth, that might work.”

James looked grateful and hurried out the door to fetch the requested items.

“Nothing stays down,” Beatrice warned him.

He couldn’t bear to stand helplessly by and do
nothing. “Where does the earl live? Could I go there faster by taking
the fields?”

“Landingham is the country estate of the Earl of
Coventry. He’s seldom in residence, but he often has guests who might
know who we could call on.”

The Earl of Coventry. Shocked into silence, Mac
curled his fingers into fists. The Earl of Coventry, the viscount’s
father, the children’s grandfather. How bad could any one man’s luck be?
The earl had shown little regard for his grandchildren in the past, but
he would no doubt throw Mac into a dungeon if his son had told him who
had stolen the children.

Would Miss Cavendish help him hide the children if the earl showed up?
Not bloody likely.

Think straight.
Now wasn’t the time to go off the edge. “I’ll go to Cheltenham, then. A physician should know what to do.”

“It took him three days to arrive when my father had
his seizure, and then he had nothing to suggest when he arrived. My
father died the next day.” Bitterness crept into Beatrice’s voice, but
she cuddled the sobbing infant gently, rubbing her back as she paced up
and down the carpet.

“Tell me what to do,” he begged.

“I don’t think there is anything either of us can do,” Bea said sadly. “We’ll wait and see what happens.”

James arrived with the hot tea sweetened with honey.
Beatrice sat down and tried to persuade the child to sip, but Bitsy
cried frantically, sucked her fist, and turned her head away. James
looked as if he would weep.

“I’ll go to Cheltenham,” her cousin promised. “I’ll
fetch the doctor and sell the silver to pay him. Or we can take the babe
with us?” he asked hopefully.

“Not if he’s a quack!” Mac roared. “I’ll not have quacks about her. Give her to me then. I’ll make her drink.”

Beatrice shrank back in her chair as the babe’s
father suddenly loomed over her, but he looked so miserable, she
couldn’t fear him. “You can’t force tea down her. She’ll choke.”

“You said heat helps,” he said angrily. “Then we must give her heat. If she won’t take the tea, where are your warming bricks?”

The man was either mad as a hatter or drunker than
she thought. Beatrice stared at him. “You would have her eat a warming
brick?”

“Don’t be a fool, woman! I’ll have her lie upon one.
We’ll tie it to my shoulder, and lay her there.” Pacing restlessly, he
shouted at the hovering servants. “Fetch warm bricks!”

The bewigged footman raised his eyebrows, braced a
thoughtful finger aside his nose as if considering the wisdom of this
suggestion, then ran as Mac stalked toward him with a thunderous
expression and raised fists.

Beatrice bit back a smile. If that was how one made James take orders, she would have to practice growling.

“Miss.” Mary intruded tentatively, not flinching as
Mac swung in her direction. “Mayhap it’s not just her belly hurting. My
mam always has a bit of ice when the babes are teething. It seems to
soothe them.”

“Teething?” Beatrice and Mac asked in unison.

Beatrice didn’t dare look at him but watched her
maid instead. “How can ice make her stomach better? I can’t even
persuade tea down her.”

“Ice might ease the crying,” Mary said carefully,
edging away from Mac’s menacing size. “When their teeth break through,
they turn fretful.”

“Where’s your ice?” Mac demanded.

Mary bobbed a curtsy. “Icehouse, sir. I’ll be right back.”

Mary’s departure left them alone together.
Nervously, Beatrice watched his massive frame stalk back and forth,
dodging cradles and child-size furniture.

“I’m not drunk,” he growled, as if she’d accused him of it again.

“Mildly inebriated?” she suggested. “Terminally irascible?”

“A man can’t die of irascibility,” he grumbled. “A
man might turn gray and die of worry over screaming brats, or shoot
himself in the head in a fit of madness over women, but he can’t die of
irascibility.” He heaved coals on the grate and jabbed them vehemently.

Beatrice’s mouth curved upward at this insight into
the surly man’s head. “Either case sounds like irascibility to me.”
She’d never dared speak to another person like this, but he seemed to
need distracting, and she had a lot of words bottled up inside of her
that she’d never been allowed to say.

He shot her a glare that had more pain than anger in
it. At sight of the sobbing child on her shoulder, he turned helplessly
back to the fire. “I’m not fit to care for them.”

“Someone must,” she said practically. “And it
appears as if you have been appointed. The brick will have to be wrapped
carefully or it will burn both of you.”

He shrugged. “Wrap Bitsy in blankets. I’ll not die
of a little heat.” He looked up as James raced into the nursery with an
armload of bricks. “You’ll dirty your pretty gloves,” Mac said dryly.

James pursed his lips, glanced at Beatrice, then knelt on the hearth and arranged the bricks under the grate to heat.

Mr. Warwick stared up at a china doll garbed in ruffles and lace sitting on a wall shelf. “You’re an only child?” he inquired.

“My mother died when I was less than two, and Papa never remarried.”

He grunted and turned to watch the bricks heat. “Had a governess, did you?”

Exhausted, Bitsy sobbed a hiccup on Beatrice’s
shoulder and sucked harder on her fist. She suspected Mr. Warwick felt
as uncomfortable as Bitsy, which was why he was asking awkward
questions. It was rather nice understanding why someone did something.

“No, just Nanny Marrow until I was ten. Papa said
I’d learned all a girl needed to know.” She would have liked to have
learned more, but she’d been much too shy to attend boarding school.
She’d towered over the other children from her earliest years.

Mr. Warwick’s grunt sounded disapproving, but he
said nothing as he used the tongs to remove a brick and wrap it in one
of Bitsy’s cloths. “Let’s give it a try.” He reached for his daughter.

Bitsy started to wail when he moved her, then settled down with another sob against the heated comfort of his shoulder.

Mary rushed in with a wine bucket half-filled with
ice chips. “They’ll melt quickly, this small,” she said breathlessly,
“so I did not make so many.”

Mr. Warwick attempted to arrange child and brick and
free a hand to reach the ice, but Bitsy squirmed and complained at the
shift. He glanced helplessly at Beatrice.

He wouldn’t ask. She could see he wouldn’t. He’d
bend himself into a knot trying to do it all before he asked for help.
She ought to let him. She ought to sweep out of the room and leave him
to the child he’d so obviously ignored for too long.

He didn’t strike her as the type who would neglect
his children. Rather than puzzle over the enigma of her guest, Beatrice
took the bucket. “Thank you, Mary. Why don’t you catch some rest now?
And you too, James. I think you’ve done all you can.”

At her tone of dismissal, they backed uncertainly
toward the door, no doubt wary of leaving her alone with a stranger.
Surely that was a foolish concern under the circumstances. Turning her
back on them, she held a piece of ice between Bitsy’s gums. The infant
eagerly chewed on it, and for the first time that evening, she quieted.

“Thank God,” Mr. Warwick muttered.

Beatrice echoed the sentiment as the child closed her eyes and relaxed.

Without the cries of a distressed child to intrude,
the intimacy of her closeness to this overwhelming man struck her. The
warm approval in his eyes as he looked on her almost buckled her knees.

She had handled a situation that he couldn’t, and he
appreciated
it. Her toes might never touch the ground again.

“Giyyap!”

Gremlin hands jerked at the hairs of Mac’s aching
head, and a deadweight settled on his shoulders. Moaning, he tried to
drag himself awake. Every bone in his body protested as he shifted
position. The gremlin emitted a high-pitched squeal that seared his
nerves.

“Buddy.” He groaned, recognizing the sound now that he was awake. Where was his keeper?

Eyes still clenched against the pounding pain of a
hangover, he groped behind his neck to grab the brat, hauling him down
from his perch and into his lap. He seemed to be sitting upright, at
least.

At the sound of a feminine moan, Mac pried open one
eye. He didn’t think he’d been in a state last night to induce moans of
pleasure.

A mass of crumpled petticoats spilled over the
narrow cot beside him. Setting the wriggling toddler loose on the floor,
he rubbed his eyes and looked again. Miss C and Bitsy. Morning sunlight
illuminated their fair complexions, and he was tempted to rub his
fingers over Miss C’s cheek to see if it was as silky as it looked.
Remembering the roughness of his hands, he refrained.

She’d helped him through last night’s terror. In his
mad escape from London, he’d never contemplated how he would deal with
the children if he didn’t have Nanny Marrow. He was paying the price of
that thoughtlessness now.

Rubbing his aching temple, Mac watched as his
hostess blindly located the babe with her hand, reassured herself that
all was well, and rolled to her back, nearly falling off the narrow cot.
He snickered, and she woke instantly.

Buddy crawled onto the pillow beside her. “I gots a
horsie, Missy,” he announced, pushing the stuffed remains of a
bedraggled animal in her face. “Pammy’s not cwyin’.” He bent approvingly
over his sleeping sister and planted a wet kiss on her cheek.

Missy. Miss C,
Mac’s addled
brain translated as he reached over to haul his nephew off the bed.
Buddy hadn’t learned to use his sister’s nickname yet. Maybe Miss C
wouldn’t notice. He should be grateful she hadn’t badgered him with
questions he couldn’t answer. “You’ll wake your sister, brat. Play on
the floor.”

Miss C’s eyes popped open again. Her hair hadn’t
entirely come down from its pins and combs, but wisps curled and fell
about her cheeks and neck. With those wide brown eyes staring up at him,
she didn’t look much older than the children.

“How’s Bitsy?” he asked, thinking a bit of
distraction prudent. He didn’t imagine she had much experience waking
with a man in the same room.

Her gaze shifted to the squirming babe sucking her thumb. She tested a padded bottom. “Wet.”

Mac leaned his aching head against the chair and
watched through half-lowered lids as Buddy scooted about the floor,
chasing a toy horse. The prior night was still too raw in his memory for
comfort. “They’re so damned small and helpless,” he murmured. “How can I
possibly keep them safe?”

“You can only take care of one minute at a time.”

Her calm appraisal soothed his ragged nerve endings.

He listened to the rustling sound as she sat up and
straightened her petticoats. Too bad she wore so many clothes. He’d have
liked to have seen her in only a shift. Or less. He scowled instead of
following that lustful train of thought. “They have an entire future
ahead of them. How can I see only the present?”