Devil in My Bed (3 page)

“Ask her who her father is,” Aidan prompted.

The little girl looked up at him with a tilt to her head and a slight frown that clearly said, I can hear you, you idiot.

So familiar . . .

Colin gave the child a conspirator’s grin. “Himself wants to know who your father is, pet—but why don’t you tell me your name first?”

She dimpled at Colin. “Melody.”

What a little flirt! Not sure why he did so, Aidan found himself kneeling beside Colin. “What is your surname?”

Melody crinkled her brow. “My name is Melody.”

“Yes, but what is the name that comes after Melody?”

Colin elbowed him. “Don’t bark at her. She obviously doesn’t know.”

“How can she not know her own name?”

Colin turned his head to stare at Aidan. “Because she’s not yet three years of age. I doubt she can count the fingers on one hand yet.”

Aidan scowled at the child as if she’d kept something from him. How did Colin know such things?

Melody began to look wary now. Colin tugged gently on a curl. “Don’t worry, lemon drop. He’s just a big—”

“My apologies, my lady,” Aidan interrupted. He bowed as graciously as he could from one knee. He was not about to allow Colin Lambert to make social excuses for him! “My curiosity has outmatched my manners, I fear.”

Melody switched her attention to Aidan, gratifyingly entranced once more. “You’re funny.”

Colin rolled his eyes and raised his hands in defeat. Aidan felt a little silly then, competing for the smiles of a child. Colin stood and dusted off his knee.

“I’ll just leave the two of you—”

“There’s a note.” Aidan leaned forward. Colin bent down as well. Sure enough, there was a folded note pinned to the rough wool of Melody’s tiny coat, half-hidden beneath the lapel.

Aidan gently pulled the pin and removed the note. Melody watched calmly as the two men unfolded it and read with their heads tilted close together.

The mony stopped coming from the mother. I can’t keep her no more. The father can take her now.

Don’t know his name. He’s a memmber of Brown’s.

Simple became complicated in a heartbeat.

“Oh, damn,” Colin breathed. “She’s not a lost child—she’s a foundling!”

“Indeed,” Aidan murmured. They both gazed somberly down at the child who was no longer simply a little girl, but a large and awesome responsibility.

One that Aidan wanted no part of. “We should take her to the local magistrate.”

“They’ll put her in one of those places.”

“An orphanage, yes. Isn’t that what’s done in these cases until they find her family?”

“Look at the little mite—she’ll be eaten alive!” Colin turned to glare at him. “Think, Aidan. Her father is a member of this club, correct?”

“According to a misspelled note.”

Colin tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “She’s probably not quite three years. It’s spring now, meaning she would have been conceived perhaps end of summer of four years past.”

“I commend your mathematics, but what does that have to do with taking her to an orphanage?”

Colin grabbed his arm and pulled him aside. “Stop saying that word in front of her!” he scolded in a whisper.

Aidan shook him off. “Get to your point then.”

Colin glared at him. “Do you think any of the men in that club were out sowing their oats so recently?”

Aidan had to admit Colin had a point there. Most of the members of Brown’s were of the geriatric variety. He wasn’t entirely sure that the two dotty old fossils permanently installed before the fire playing chess were actually still breathing. Aidan doubted a single game piece had been moved in a decade.

He folded his arms and gazed narrowly at Colin. “What about you? You’re a member of Brown’s and you’re still full of oats.”

Colin snorted. “I was keeping my oats to myself right about then, thank you very much.” He looked suspicious, however. “What about you? Weren’t you mooning over some lovely creature three and a half years ago?”

Aidan stiffened. “A bit more than that, actually. She was already in my past at that point in time.” He was quite sure of his own mathematics—if the child were not yet three.

Colin nodded. “My point still stands. If it isn’t one of them,” he hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the club, “and it isn’t one of us—”

“Oh, God,” Aidan breathed. “Jack.”

Colin nodded. “Precisely. That was just the time he came home from the war. Remember how grim he’d become?”

Aidan rubbed his hand over his chin. “And then that little Clarke creature jilted him . . . God, what a mess that was!”

Colin grimaced in remembered worry. “There were weeks that summer when we couldn’t find him at all, if you’ll remember.”

“I’m not likely to forget it.” Aidan shrugged uncomfortably. Jack’s black and disheartened bender had been frightening enough at the time. Now it took on a new significance indeed. “Does she look like Jack?”

As one they turned to gaze intently at her. She gazed solemnly back while chewing the end of her wispy little ribbon. Her features were still too babyish and unformed. Colin shrugged. “She doesn’t not look like Jack.”

Aidan straightened. “Yet that doesn’t prove—”

Colin lifted his chin. “I don’t care. If there is the slightest possibility that she is Jack’s child, then I refuse to expose her to some filthy, crowded orph—institution for even a single moment. You’ll have to take her to your house.”

“Er—that’s a problem.” God, the Breedloves would think the child was his, no matter what story was told them. They, in turn, would instantly inform his mother. “Unless you want me to bring Lady Blankenship into this matter?”

Colin shrank back slightly. “Crikey, no.”

“What of your house?”

Colin shrugged. “Rented out. I hate rattling about in that thing alone. Besides, I wanted to wait for Jack here at Brown’s.”

They might not have much else in common, but Aidan knew that Colin was just as worried about Jack as he was. “Right then. We’ll all wait at Brown’s. You, me, and Melody. She can stay in my rooms. There’s hardly anyone in residence nearby to hear or see her. It won’t be long. Jack is due back from his plantations in Jamaica any day now.”

Colin’s eyes widened. “Aidan de Quincy, best boy at Eton, break a rule? Should I inform the Prince Regent that the world is at an end?”

Aidan gazed at Colin gravely. “It’s for Jack.”

Sobering, Colin nodded. “Right then. For Jack.”

It was all very well and good to decide to conceal a child in his rooms for the few days until Jack returned, but Brown’s wasn’t known for its excellent service for nothing. The house man, Wilberforce, chief of staff and general captain of the ship, was not the sort of fellow to let a mouse take up residence in the linen closet, much less allow a female of any size into the male bastion of Brown’s Club for Distinguished Gentlemen. No wives, no mothers, not even so much as a girl to scrub the steps.

Wilberforce was tall, with the profile of an eagle and black eyes just as sharp. Add a shock of coal black hair and the elegant blue and gold livery of Brown’s and one had the impression of a general very much in control of his troops. The various footmen and chambermen followed his orders to the letter, without chatter or hesitation. It was one of the blessings of Brown’s—no cheeky commentary, no grudging service, no miffed feelings because one forgot to notice someone’s new hairstyle. Only seamless attendance without a single shrill voice to break the tranquility.

Melody would hardly fit in his pocket. Too bad the weather was too fine for a cloak.

“You go first,” Aidan told Colin. “Hold Wilberforce’s attention while I get her through the entrance hall.”

Colin shook his head. “We’ll never get that far. Haven’t you noticed the doorman?”

Aidan had forgotten the fellow, quite frankly. He usually simply walked up to the club and through the open door without seeing who opened it for him. “Right.”

Colin tapped his fingers on his folded arms while thinking. “The kitchens.”

“Aren’t they full of cooks and such? It’s nearly supper.”

“Exactly. They’ll be far too busy to notice anything. I’ll carry her and you walk between to block their view. If someone gets curious, just give them the Blankenship Glare. That’ll stop them in their tracks.”

Aidan shook his head. “No, that’s my mother.”

Colin gave him an unreadable look. “You think so?” Then he shrugged. “All set then. Let’s go.”

Surprisingly, the mission began much as Colin had suggested. The kitchen staff never even looked twice as they scurried past the steaming kitchens burdened with pots and racks and large, indescribable hunks of meat.

Such luck never lasts long. Footsteps, military-crisp on the tiled hall between the kitchens, rang unmistakeably ahead.

“Damn,” Colin whispered. “Wilberforce is on the move!”

Prompted by what self-sacrificing instinct he could not be sure, Aidan handed the tiny child off to Colin.

“Take her while I distract him!”

A flare of respect in Colin’s usually ironic gaze was all the answer there was time for. Wilberforce rounded the corner just as Colin leapt back into the shadows.

“Ah, there you are, Wilberforce!” Aidan strode forward with his hand raised high, waving energetically and, he realized, foolishly, for there was no possibility of Wilberforce missing his presence.

The man was no fool. No matter how outrageously one of his “charges” behaved, no one had ever seen the fellow lose his serene composure. Not even the time that old Lord Bartles and Sir James had nearly come to blows over a chess move—well, that was perhaps an exaggeration. As the story went, Bartles raised his rheumy gaze from the board long enough to glare at James and denounce his last move.

“Balderdash.” James had more or less immediately responded with a bang of his cane on the floor and an actually audible “Hmph!” Of course, that had been years ago when both men were much younger and still full of piss and vinegar.

“Yes, my lord? How may I be of service?”

Aidan gazed helplessly at the butler for a long moment. Think! He opened his mouth. “Jack—I mean, Lord John Redgrave—is expected back to town in a few days.”

Wilberforce didn’t so much as blink. “Yes, my lord. His rooms await him, fully prepared.”

“Right. Of course. Er . . . you see . . .” Bloody hell. “It’s the . . . it’s the . . . it’s the monkey.” What? What monkey?

Wilberforce didn’t move a muscle, not a twitch, but Aidan rather thought the man’s sallow complexion faded, just a touch. “The monkey, my lord?”

Aidan nodded a bit too enthusiastically. “Yes. The monkey. It’s coming along.”

“To Brown’s, my lord?” Tendons tightened momentarily in Wilberforce’s throat. As far as the inscrutable servitor’s reactions went, he might as well have screamed in outrage and despair.

Aidan replied, “Yes. That’s right. To Brown’s.” He was going to go to hell, that’s all there was to the matter. Poor Wilberforce. “So there will be a need for . . . er . . . bananas.”

Wilberforce nodded. “I see, my lord.” Some color returned to his cheeks. Bananas, it seemed, were a soothing thought. Bananas could be bought at the market for a dear price, but they could be had.

Brown’s would not fail in its perfect record of perfect service.

Aidan nodded absently, hearing suspiciously girlish sounds from somewhere behind him. “And flannel nappies.” Where had that come from? He had babies on the brain.

“Nappies, my lord? For the—” Was that a shudder? “The ape requires nappies?”

Taking the considerably deflated manservant by the arm, Aidan managed to turn him back down the hall. “Nappies, Wilberforce. Lots and lots of nappies. A veritable mountain of them. The laundry will never be the same.”

Wilberforce began to move down the hall, somewhat shaky and the worse for wear. Just as Aidan hoped he would turn the corner and disappear, the man turned back to him with a faint trace of plaintiveness in his frozen expression. “Do you know, my lord . . .”

Aidan twitched with impatience. There were definite sounds of childish rebellion behind him. “What is it, Wilberforce?”

Wilberforce twitched as well. “My lord, is it . . . is it a very large monkey, do you think?”

Aidan’s lips shivered slightly, but he kept the grin easily in check. From behind him, he heard Colin’s helpless snort of laughter. “It is, I’m afraid to say, a perfectly enormous monkey. The very biggest one of all.”

Wilberforce nodded and turned somewhat blindly to make his way back down the hall, his crisp tread rather slowed. “Thank you, my lord. That’s . . . excellent news. Have a good evening, my lord.”

Aidan watched him go out of sight, then swiftly turned back to Colin and the girl. She was bright-eyed and pink-cheeked and had Colin’s fine gold pocket watch stuffed in her mouth. She waved at him happily. Aidan blinked. “Is that sanitary?”

“Probably not, but it worked.” Colin was gazing at him worriedly. “You’re a bit on the evil side, aren’t you? The poor bloke might never recover.”

Aidan snorted. “Knowing Wilberforce, he’ll have prepared the world’s finest indoor monkey environment by the time the supper gong sounds.”

Colin grimaced. “True.”

With that, Colin and Aidan calmly walked their own little monkey up the back stairs to the fourth storey.

Colin complained, of course. “Too many bloody stairs,” he gasped.

“Don’t be theatrical,” Aidan grunted. “You’re not carrying anything but that little satchel.” He liked the fact that his room was high and isolated. Most of the members had gravitated to the lower floors because of their age. Their preference had defined Aidan’s.

“Why your room? Why not mine? It’s closer.”

“The only man sharing my floor is old Aldrich. He won’t hear a thing. In addition, Jack’s room is just below mine, so no need to be careful of noise.”

Colin only grunted, but ceased his argument nonetheless.

Brown’s Club for Distinguished Gentlemen was once a prime establishment, a grand refuge for the fathers and scions of the finest families in England—a refined place of stately grace, sedate cards, and fine tobacco.

The tobacco was still quite good, but the place itself had slipped somewhat off the fashionable palate.