Minor Indiscretions (17 page)

That was not a friendly token of affection at all. No friend's handshake ever left Corey Inscoe sweating and shaky, nor caused yet another restless night.

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Why bother going to bed if you know you won't sleep? Lord Coe threw another log on the library fire and picked up his book of Scott's ballads. He must have dozed off, dreaming of heroes and wars and crowds screaming, for the noises stayed in his mind when he jerked awake. The fire was still high and banshees were still wailing. It was all of a piece, the viscount figured, taking the gun from the desk again, that the blasted house would be haunted; nothing about the place seemed to fit his notions of reality. The sounds were all too real, however, and coming from the front door. Fiend seize it, what if Angel was back, hysterical and seeking revenge? Let it be a banshee.

It wasn't. If there was one other feather-headed female in the world beside Miss Ashton who believed Dower House actually was, is, or should be, an orphanage, Lord Coe had missed the woman by minutes. What she left was tucked in a basket, crying as if the hounds of hell were after it.

Coe gingerly picked up the infant—no, he picked up the basket—and the wailing stopped. He carried the whole thing back to the library to set it down while he considered his next action, and the shrieks started again. Not a slow learner by any means, the viscount hefted the basket and did his thinking on the move. Not that Corey had a great deal of deciding to do, for there was not a soul in his house who would or could know what to do about a screaming infant. Mrs. Tolliver went home evenings, and Bates would likely reenlist if Coe so much as asked him to hold the blasted thing so the viscount could dress. There was no hope for it, Corey and the baby would have to make their way in the dark, in still damp soft slippers, back along that wretched path, praying Miss Ashton was yet awake. He juggled the basket from arm to arm, trying to shield his candle and avoid jagged stones. Hell and damnation, he never should have left London!

The light was on in the kitchen, thank goodness. He looked dubiously at the item in the basket, wondering if he dared chance putting it on the ground in order to knock. The thought of facing an abruptly wakened household of screeching, swooning women was less appealing than facing Boney's cannons again, so he sacrificed his manners and his foot and kicked at the bloody door.

Melody was still wearing her green cloak when she opened the door, and Corey could see that her eyes were red rimmed from crying. Damn and blast, he thought, it needed only that!

"Don't you dare even think about—" Then she took a better look. "What in the world do you have?"

"Well, it's not another shipment of pig feed, ma'am. And no, it is not more evidence of my debauchery." Melody's bruised lips were enough of that! Corey avoided her eyes as he walked past her into the kitchen. "Some fool woman left it on my doorstep by mistake. Here, you take the little blighter."

Melody was even then lifting the infant out of the basket and cooing to it. "Why, what a beautiful baby! And look, Corey, the clothes are fine white lawn and silk embroidery. This isn't some beggar's foundling. Maybe someone in the village will know what happened to the poor mother, that she would leave her baby."

"But that's tomorrow. What will you do tonight? I'm warning you, it does nothing but scream if you put it down."

"Poor dear is most likely hungry. There is no waking Nanny so late, and Betsy has gone home with Mrs. Tolliver, but don't worry, I have been around infants all my life. I know what to do. Here." She moved to hand the child to Corey, who jumped back as though it were live coals in her hands. Melody laughed. "I cannot warm the milk or find the bottles and those leather nipples Nanny used to have unless you take the baby. Or would you rather I put it back in the basket and chance waking Mama or Felice?"

Corey held his arms out, like a prisoner awaiting shackles. "No, silly, here," Melody instructed, cradling the babe in his arms against his chest.

While Miss Ashton bustled about in cabinets, Corey examined the scrap of humanity he held. "You know, she's hot so homely after all, now that she's stopped squalling. She's got the prettiest smoky blue eyes."

"All babies have that color eyes at first," Melody called from the pantry. "But why do you suppose the baby is a she?"

"She's so light and pink and dainty. Look at those tiny hands."

"But all babies start out so sweet and delicate," Melody explained, coming over to look. "You're right though, she must be a girl; she's already smiling at you."

"Uh, Angel," he said, holding the baby out, away from the wet spot down the front of his robe, "I think it's time we found out for sure."

No one in the village knew anything about a baby or a lady in distress, Betsy reported later that morning, but that sharp-nosed constable Mr. Pike was sniffing around about it, and he promised to call at the Oaks that afternoon to take the infant to the county workhouse and foundling home. Not if she could help it, Melody vowed.

Unfortunately, no one else thought she should keep the baby. Nanny shook her head and kept on knitting. "I'm too old for a young 'un, missy," she admitted, "and Ducky is already as much as I can handle, and he'll always need me. Don't look to your mama neither, for she's always been too busy being a lady to be any kind of mother. I can't figure she'll change now. Tigers don't change their spots, you know."

Lady Ashton merely asked if Melody had checked the basket carefully for an envelope or a bank note. Without compensation, the waif was just another orphan, and what did Melody think this was, a charity home? Felice, of course, had no time before the viscount's house party to tend to anything but her wardrobe and her complexion. She would not even hold Baby, for infants were so messy.

Harry moaned, "Not another girl!" and even Pip tried to show Melody in the books that they had no money for a wet nurse or a milk cow. Mrs. Tolliver had too many chores as it was, and Betsy too many mouths to feed at home, with her Jed out of work now.

Only Meggie agreed with Melody that the baby should stay with them. She even tried to give the infant her doll. "Because I have Uncle Corey, and Baby has nobody."

Mr. Hadley was no help. "No, my dear, I cannot sign the papers for you. It would be a life sentence, and the remnants of your dowry would never see you or the babe above dirt-scratching poverty. What you want is a husband, girl, to give you children of your own! If you take this infant you would never have such a life, for no man would want such an encumbered female. And think of your reputation. All the evil-minded gabble mongers would spread it about that the babe was yours, then you would be subject to every kind of insult known. No, I am sorry, I cannot let you take on another burden. Find a rich man, Melody, then you can be as generous and warm hearted as you please."

Melody did not feel warm hearted; she felt absolutely pudding hearted at the thought of facing Lord Coe again after last night, after that kiss. All she had to do, however, was ask him to sign some papers.

Unbelievably, he said no.

"I'm sorry, my lord, perhaps you did not understand. I am not asking you to support the child or anything, just become the guardian, the male guardian, of record."

He was pacing around the library in beige whipcord pants and a serge jacket, thinking furiously. If Melody had another child, an infant at that, she would never come to London. Besides, she was too young to have such cares by herself. Damn it, he wanted to make her life easier, not more complicated. "I'm sorry, Angel, I did understand you, and I cannot do it. You've been at such pains to bring home to me my responsibilities. I couldn't just sign a document and walk away. She would be my ward forever! My way of life, my habits and interests, they just do not include babies. I don't even know what I am to do about Meggie, ah, Margaret."

"I haven't yet said you could take Meggie."

"And if you are thinking of offering me Margaret in exchange for the baby, it won't fadge. You are too young, and you cannot afford the infant." He stopped his pacing at her protest. "No, don't tell me about all the girls who are married with two babes before they are sixteen. Half of them are dead before they are twenty, and they have husbands to care for them. You cannot do it alone, and I won't help you."

Melody was stricken. So the hero had feet of clay after all. Why, oh why had she let herself forget he was nothing but a pleasure-seeking reprobate? "Spoken like a true nobleman," she sneered. "As long as you are comfortable and your peace isn't cut up, you'll write a check and consider yourself the most generous of fellows."

Corey's jaw was clenched, and Melody could see a muscle flicking at the side of his cheek. She didn't care; her own hurt and disappointment were too great. How could she ever have considered him a friend, and more than a friend? She continued: "I suppose you have your own standards, noblesse oblige and all that, until someone asks you to get your hands dirty."

"I have got my hands dirty, Melody." His voice was low, controlled.

She remembered him helping with the fence posts, carrying dirty dishes, holding sticky hands. "When it suited you, my lord. Thank goodness your true care-for-no-one colors showed before I made even more of a fool of myself. I was right the first time, you are nothing but a heartless flirt playing fast and loose with every woman who comes your way."

"Not every woman," he said with a deep breath, coming closer to where Melody stood fighting her tears. He stroked her cheek once with the back of his hand. "Come, we will work this out. My sister will be here soon, and Lady Cheyne. Between them they must know of someone who is pining away for just such a pretty little babe. Less than a week, Angel."

They did not have a week. They had less than ten minutes before Coe's butler announced there was a person, not a gentleman, mind, but a person, zealously and stridently demanding to see Miss Ashton.

Coe raised one brow and told the butler to show the person in. "Unless you wish to be private, Miss Ashton?" Melody quickly shook her head no.

Pike waited for an introduction to the London toff and waited to be offered a hand to shake or a chair to sit in. He was going to have a long wait. His weasel face turned red, and he retallied all the insults he'd received at Miss Ashton's hands.

"I got you now, Miss High Boots," he crowed. "Waylaying a ward of the county and interfering in the rightful disposition of a minor under the laws of the king's justice. And I got papers."

Corey looked at Melody for an explanation. "It seems Mr. Pike, our local constable, gets a fee from the county for each resident of the local almshouse, which he also manages."

Pike never noticed how the viscount's eyes narrowed at the information. Pike was too busy demanding the vagrant child be instantly handed over to his legal care. Melody looked from his runny nose to his dirty hands to the hairs growing out of his ears and swore she wouldn't let him touch one of her pigs, much less an infant. If Baby had to stay at the county farm, temporarily only, then Melody would bring the child there herself. Pike waved his papers, and Melody crossed her arms over her chest. He threatened to have her arrested, and she offered to accompany him to the magistrate that very minute. Then Pike laid a hand on Melody's arm. Now that was a big mistake. Before he could say jack rabbit, the constable's feet were dangling inches off the ground, and his bony Adam's apple was bobbing over a rock-hard fist wrapped in his dingy shirt collar. An ice blue stare bored into Pike's watery eyes with the promise of unimaginable mayhem.

"The
lady"
Coe rasped, "said she would bring the child tomorrow. Was there anything else?"

Still dangling like a bunch of onions hung to dry, Pike gabbled out, "No." Nothing happened. "No, my lord."

Corey drove Melody in his curricle, a groom up behind, the baby in her arms swaddled in the multicolored blanket Nanny declared finished for the occasion. They hardly spoke beyond her softly voiced directions, and soon enough they reached the dry dirt track leading to the grounds the county set aside for its orphans and elders, its sick, drunk or crippled, its indigent homeless of whatever variety.

There were barefooted children poking in the ground with a stick and a scabrous old crone trying to get water from a well. A woman in a faded smock on a stool near the door coughed and coughed and coughed, and a bundle of rags issued wheezing snores. A man wearing the faded tatters of a uniform, with one leg and a crutch, stood propped against the wall.

While the groom held the horses, Corey helped Melody down. She clutched the baby more tightly to her shoulder.

"Who's in charge here, soldier?" the viscount asked the one-legged man, who merely jerked his head toward the house.

Inside was worse. The filth, the stench, a child wailing, people sprawled around like so many discarded scarecrows. "Who's in charge?" Corey asked again, and a scrawny hand gestured to a rear door. The soldier had followed them in, and now he added, "Dirty Mary keeps tabs for Pike, when she ain't shot the cat. She'd be in the kitchen cookin', if you can call it that."

Dirty Mary was facedown at the littered table, the bottle in her hand dripping onto the floor, where roaches and a toddler crawled. The one pot on the stove was scorched, and whatever it contained smelled so rancid Melody had to put her hand over her mouth. Corey led her out, keeping his arm around her and the baby. Unchecked tears streamed down her face.

"Were you on the Peninsula, private?" Corey was asking the soldier.

"Aye, servin' my country, and look what it got me." There wasn't even bitterness left in the man's voice, just resignation. He spit on the ground.

"Would you work if you could?"

"Aye, if anyone would hire a cripple, I'd work."

"Would you wash and sweep and carry water and see that these people get fed and bathed and, by Harry, treated like human beings?"

The veteran made a harsh sound in his throat that might have been a laugh once. "And who would pay for food and clothes and soap and medicine, eh, my lord? Pike?"