A Heart for the Taking (2 page)

Letty and Constance were not alone in the room. Anne Clemmons, Constance’s companion-servant, who had accompanied her from England, was also present. It was Anne who carefully lifted the sheet and viewed the progress of the birthing. Intensely loyal to the mistress she had served for fifteen years, since she had been twelve and Constance only six, Anne had come to believe that her fortunes were firmly aligned with Constance’s. It had been a maxim in Anne’s life that whatever was good for Constance was good for her. Anne wanted this baby no more than her mistress did.

Pushing the sheet farther out of the way, Anne glanced up to meet Constance’s eyes. “The head is there,” she said flatly. “A few more strong pushes and the babe will be delivered.”

Letty heard the words with a fearful joy. Her baby. In a matter of moments, her child would be laid in her arms. “Please,
dear
God, let all be well.”

Caught up in the pain of the impending birth, Letty was hardly aware of the ugly look that crossed Constance’s face or the manner in which her fists clenched at her sides. Filled with impotent rage, Constance could only stand by helplessly as the end to all her schemes was forcing its way into the world. Shattering her world.

Anne was very busy for the next several moments as Letty brought forth her child. As the worst of the contractions subsided and Letty fell back in exhaustion, Anne lifted the infant from the bed. “A boy,” she said. “Stillborn.”

A scream of anguish rose up from Letty. With tears streaming down her face, she demanded, “Give him to me! You must be wrong. He cannot be dead.”

But he was. Even Letty could see that as Anne gently laid the blue-faced infant in her outstretched arms. The cord had twisted around his neck, and the long birth had stolen what
chance he’d had of life. Weeping soundlessly, Letty clutched the small body to her bosom.

Releasing her pent-up breath, Constance shot Anne a look of triumph. To think she had worried. Letty was too old to have a
live
child.

Now that any threat to her happiness had been removed, Constance was able to offer comfort to the grieving mother. “Oh, Letty!” she cried, almost sincerely. “I am
so
sorry! I know how much this child meant to you and Sam.”

Tenderly Letty’s hands touched her dead baby, marveling at his perfection, too stunned by the tragedy to care very much for Constance’s words of comfort. “He is so beautiful,” she muttered. Instinctively she glanced at his tiny feet, noting the six toes on the right foot. “He even,” she whispered painfully, “has the six toes of Sam’s family—every Walker child since Sam’s grandfather has been so marked.” Her hand gently brushed that soft little foot, her gaze wandering over the small, still body. “Isn’t he perfect? So very perfect?” A huge sob welled up inside of her. “And so very dead.”

Anne and Constance moved quickly to soothe her, Anne eventually taking the dead child from her arms, Constance pressing a concoction of brandy and laudanum on her. “For the pain and to help you sleep,” Constance said softly as she helped the older woman to sit up against the pile of pillows and swallow the liquid.

For several moments only the sound of the storm was heard in the room as the other two women worked quickly, wrapping the dead infant in one of the towels and clearing away the stained sheets. Grief-stricken and exhausted, Letty merely lay there, welcoming the black numbness offered by the laudanum.

More moments passed, Constance mentally composing the sad little letter she would have delivered to Sam in Philadelphia as she supervised the tidying up; Letty drifting slowly into a deep, drugged sleep; and Anne, pleased that her mistress was pleased, almost humming as she followed Constance’s orders.

Suddenly, a sharp urgent pain lanced through Letty, and her eyes flew open. “Merciful heavens. What is happening?”

“The afterbirth,” Anne said calmly. “ ’Tis nothing to fret about, mistress.”

But Anne was wrong, as she and Constance soon found out. Exhaustion and the laudanum had taken firm hold of Letty, and despite the pain that racked her body, she drifted deeper and deeper into unconsciousness as her body fought to relieve itself not of the afterbirth, but of a second child! Without waking up, Letty was unknowingly giving birth to
twins.
The second boy was as strong and lusty as the first had been weak and lifeless.

Her jaw set, Anne swiftly cut the cord and wrapped the second infant in the blue-and-white blanket his mother had knitted with such joyful anticipation. The boy had a powerful set of lungs, and Anne fitted the blanket securely over his head, hoping to muffle the cries.

She and Constance looked at each other. “What do we do?” Anne hissed, holding the child to her bosom. “This one is alive.”

Constance bit her lip, fury at the trick fate had played on her giving her pretty face an ugly cast. It just wasn’t
fair
! The baby had been born dead—no one expected twins! There was only supposed to be
one
baby.

Her gaze suddenly narrowed and she glanced at Letty. Letty, who was too deeply drugged to be aware of what was going on. Letty, who thought she had given birth to a dead son. And
only
a dead son.

Constance took but a moment to make her decision. This child stood between her son and a great fortune. Letty thought her son was dead. Why not let her go on thinking that?

Constance took a deep breath. “Get rid of it,” she said sharply. “Everyone is asleep. You can slip out of the house and throw it in the river. No one will ever find out. Letty’s stillborn son lies just over there. No one need ever know about this child.”

Anne hesitated. She had taken care of Constance since the younger woman had been a mere child and she loved Constance dearly. Being Constance’s companion had saved her from a life of drudgery and uncertainty. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for her . . . but cold-blooded murder? The child wiggled against her bosom, and her reluctance grew. This was a babe they were talking about. A newborn.

“Well. What are you waiting for?” Constance demanded. “Get rid of it.”

“Mistress, I . . .”

Constance’s eyes narrowed, and reaching across the short distance that separated them, she slapped Anne hard across the cheek. “Do you hear me?” she snapped. “Get rid of it, I tell you.”

“What harm has he done you—Master Jonathan will still be a rich young man—you are a rich young widow—far richer than you ever dreamed when we lived with your father in Surrey. You have so much now. Couldn’t you—”

Constance’s green eyes flashed angrily. “How
dare
you! You forget yourself! And you forget that I am your mistress and that you will do as I say or it will go ill for you.” She stepped closer to Anne. “I could send you back to England without character. How would you like that? I could write Father and tell him that you were a lying, thieving wretch and that he was not under any circumstance to offer you employment and to tell all his friends what a terrible person you were. What would you do then? Penniless and without character?”

For a long moment, Anne stared at Constance. This was the way it had always been: Constance threatening her with some dire fate if she didn’t do or obtain something that Constance desperately wanted. Once the objective had been gained, Constance would turn back immediately into the sweetly smiling creature most people knew. Only Anne knew of the greed and viciousness that lay behind that lovely face. Constance
would
do precisely as she had threatened.

Anne’s slender shoulders drooped with defeat. “Very well.”

“Oh, Annie, dear, I knew you would not let me down,” Constance said softly, a pretty smile curving her mouth. “And I would never have really sent you back to England—how could I? You are the dearest creature. You never fail me.”

When Anne remained unmoved by her words, Constance said quickly, “I’ll make it up to you. Truly I shall.”

Her heart heavy, Anne paid her no mind. The squirming baby clutched to her bosom, she slipped from the room. Moving swiftly down the long, wide hallway, her step faltering only as she came to the ornately framed portrait of Letty’s grandmother, Charity, and her twin sister, Faith, she silently made her way through the darkened house. After finding her cloak in her room, she flung it on and, moving carefully, fearful that some servant might be awakened by the storm and find her, quickly departed from the house, the baby hidden beneath the folds of her cloak.

Outside, the full force of the storm hit her, the wind and rain clawing at her like a wild thing. Grimly Anne struggled forward, deliberately shutting out all thoughts but one. The river. She had to reach the river.

The river, a branch of the James, lay a good three-quarters of a mile from the main house and the last of the outbuildings. Usually it was a pleasant walk, several tree-lined lanes leading to a landing at the river’s edge, but in the middle of a fierce storm, with no light to guide her but the brilliant and terrifying flashes of lightening, Anne took no pleasure in her journey. The horrible thought of what she would do at the end of it filled her with pain and sorrow.

The babe was quieter now, the soft, mewling sounds that he made muffled beneath the blanket and cloak. Anne tried not to think about him, tried not to respond to the warm weight of him in her arms, or the emotions that rose up within her as he instinctively rooted near her breasts.

The sound of the river rose above the wind and rain. Swollen by the storm, it roared and surged in wildly tossed
waves, and Anne’s steps grew even slower as she neared it. How could she do this thing? Even for Constance, whom she loved more than anything in the world? But what
was
she to do? She didn’t doubt for a moment that Constance would do as she threatened—despite what she had said afterward. Anne knew Constance, and if she didn’t obey her . . . Anne swallowed painfully. Well, it just didn’t bear thinking about.

Reaching the river’s edge, she sought out a small bluff. A streak of lightning snaked across the sky, revealing the dark, furiously churning water below, the current running hard and fast. Slowly she opened her cloak and brought forth the babe. She even got as far as lifting him in the air to toss his swaddled weight in the river. But she could not. A sob broke from her. What was she to do? She could not murder this innocent babe. And she could not return to Constance with the deed undone.

As she stood there indecisively, her desperate gaze suddenly caught sight of a tiny light moving through the woods in her direction. Someone was coming. But who? Who would be out in a storm like this? Her breath caught in her throat, and she clutched the baby tighter to her. She couldn’t be discovered. Not here. Not now.

She glanced around frantically, utter blackness meeting her look. What was she to do? The small bobbing light drew nearer, and still Anne stood there undecided. The force of the storm seemed to lessen for a moment, the wind falling, the rain slacking, the thunder and lightning slowing in its intensity.

The sound of a man’s voice carried to her, and to her astonishment she realized that the fellow was singing. Singing in the midst of a storm like this?

The baby gave a great lusty cry just then, and to Anne’s horror the singing stopped and a voice called out, “Who goes there?”

Thoroughly terrorized, Anne did the first thing that occurred to her. She laid the baby gently on the ground near the edge of the bluff, and then, without a backward look, she
plunged into the undergrowth. The infant’s howl of outrage rang in her ears as she ran through the night toward the house. Please, dear God, she prayed silently, let him be safe—let whoever was singing find him and take him far,
far
away from Walker Ridge! Somewhere where he will be safe!

There was a moment when it appeared as if Anne’s heartfelt prayer would go unheeded, as a long and loud rumble of thunder drowned out the infant’s cries. Hearing nothing but the sounds of the storm, the man in the woods, Morely Walker, shrugged his broad shoulders and decided somewhat foggily (he had consumed many pints of ale over the course of the evening) that he must have been hearing things. Rather unsteadily, Morely began to make his way once more toward his destination—the overseer’s cottage at Walker Ridge.

Morely was a distant cousin of Sam’s. Somewhere back on the Walker family tree they shared a great-grandfather, and while Sam and most of the Walkers were respectable, hardworking gentlemen, occasionally within the family someone like Morely would appear—a charming rapscallion, unable to keep a penny he earned. Not that Morely was a ne’er-do-well; he was simply a handsome, amiable young man who just preferred drinking and gambling and decidedly
un
respectable feminine company to anything even faintly resembling work. Orphaned at the tender age of twelve when his parents had been killed in an Indian raid, Morely had grown up at Walker Ridge, and John and Sam had ably administered the tobacco plantation left to him by his father until Morely had reached his majority.

Unfortunately Morely had not the least head for business, and within two years he had managed to lose everything. Two years of riotous living and frankly bad management had left him deeply in debt at the age of twenty-three. Only Sam’s intervention had saved Morley’s plantation from the sale block. But while he could still claim he owned nine thousand fertile acres planted in tobacco and a charming lit
tle house, in actuality Sam controlled everything—the price Morley had had to pay to save the land.

It had always been clearly understood that this was a temporary arrangement, that when Morely had proven himself a responsible and prudent young man, Sam would return the reins of power to him. Regrettably, in the six months that had passed since the debacle, Morely had shown no indication of changing his dissolute ways. In fact, if Sam hadn’t given him the overseer’s cottage at Walker Ridge in which to live and provided him with a nominal sum—which Morely promptly spent on ale and women—Morely would have been homeless and penniless.

Since the family, with the exception of Sam, made no secret of the fact that they considered him a disgrace and a definite blot on the family honor, Morely saw no reason why he should make any attempt to change. And he hadn’t. He lived in the overseer’s cottage and spent most of his time drinking and wenching in a small, rough tavern about two miles away from Walker Ridge, where there was a tiny settlement nestled in the curve of the James River. This was where he had been this evening, and he had been making his wayward way home when he’d heard the infant’s cry. Having decided that he had imagined the noise, he had just taken two steps forward when the sound of a howling baby came unpleasantly clear to him.