Miss Westlake's Windfall (24 page)

Jane dabbed at dry eyes. “No, I cannot stay here after last night. I would never be able to hold my head up, with everyone knowing of Uncle’s perfidy.”

What she meant, Ada supposed, was that after last night Jane was forced to concede that there were no eligible gentlemen in the neighborhood, unless she considered the widowed vicar. No, that was not a good match.

“Then you will go with your uncle?” Ada could not imagine Jane braving the uncivilized wilds, with nary a mantua maker in sight, but Johnstone was her only kin.

“To Canada? Don’t be a cake. No, Ashmead has been everything kind. I still say you were a fool to turn him down, but that is water under the bridge now. No, I have decided to go to London with the viscount.”

“The viscount?” Ada echoed. Her viscount? Her Chas?

“And Pierre. They plan on departing tomorrow. Pierre will need help settling in to London, making the proper connections.”

“Pierre?” Ada parroted.

“Monsieur Prelieu. He is a very fine gentleman, don’t you think?”

“He seems rather ... charming.” The last Ada had seen of him, he was lying on the floor, shouting French maledictions at his near-murderer, which Ada wished she did not understand quite so well.

“And handsome.”

Bloody and bone-weary and pale. “Indeed.”

“Refined, too.”

Were they speaking of the same Monsieur Prelieu? “Jane, the man is a banker.”

“A very highly placed finance administrator.”

“He is a French traitor.”

Jane raised her chin, high enough that the one under it would not quiver. “Pierre is a patriot who deplores what the Corsican monster has wrought on his beloved homeland. He told me so at breakfast.”

“For heaven’s sake, your Mr. Prelieu is a common thief who stole secrets from his employers, and then stole money, too.”

Jane shrugged. “La, you would not believe how much. Those boots? False heels. He is actually quite short, mon petit Pierre.”

* * * *

“Ada, I need
—”

“Chas, would you
—”

“—To ask a favor. I’m sorry, you first.”

“No, my request can wait.”

“Good, for I am in rather a rush to get ready for the London trip, besides making sure Johnstone is out of the country.”

Reminded of how much Chas was doing, how much effort and expense he was going to so that no scandal reflected on her family name, scandal which could affect the reception of Tess’s play, Ada said, “Anything, Chas. Whatever you need.”

“Thank you. I knew I could count on you, my dear.” He even kissed the tip of her nose in relief. “I need you to look after Tally.”

“Your dog?” Whatever Ada had been expecting, this was not it. Call on his mother, organize the evening of drama with Epps and the Meadows housekeeper, keep watch on the orphanage while he was gone—anything but looking after his dog.

“Yes, Tally. You see, Tally cannot stay in the house because of Lady Esther’s blasted cat. I’d take her with me as usual, but I intend to ride alongside the carriage, or ahead, to make sure no one else tries to do away with Prelieu. I’d leave her with Coggs in the stable, but I want Coggs with me in case of trouble. The other grooms don’t know her as well, and she’s liable to get away from them and come after me. You know how she is.”

The dog was a scruffy shadow, always waiting outside Westlake Hall when Chas came to call. Ada nodded that she knew the creature considered herself an appendage of the viscount’s.

“If she didn’t follow me, she’d howl.”

Ada had heard that, too. All the hounds of hell couldn’t sound louder. The last werewolf on earth couldn’t be more mournful. The grooms in the stable were more likely to send her after Chas than try to console the dunderheaded dog. She nodded again.

“Good. Then you’ll take her?”

When had Ada agreed? She’d been agreeing that his dog was an unmanageable, miserable mongrel. “Why can you not simply lock her in the kennels with the hunting dogs?”

Chas wiped a speck of dust off his leg—or a dog hair. “Tally has never been caged. She isn’t used to being confined like a ... a ...”

“Dog?” Every dog Ada knew was either out working or waiting to work—in a kennel. “You do not wish her treated like a dog?”

“I knew you’d understand!”

“No, I do not understand at all. Why can’t you leave the animal with Leo, or some other friend?”

“Leo is too busy trying to shut down the smuggling operation, and practicing with Tess. Frankly, I don’t think he can concentrate on anything but your sister. I thought about it, but you’re the only one I would trust. Besides, she needs a woman’s touch.”

“Do not be ridiculous. The animal has never known a woman’s touch in her life. I am positive your mother never lets her anywhere near.”

“Of course not.” Chas frowned, as if wondering why Ada thought Tally would welcome Lady Ashmead’s attention. Lud knew, the servants avoided his mother whenever possible, and Tally had to be at least as smart. “I mean that she needs you, now that she is in a family way.”

“Your dog is increasing and you think I can do something about it?” Ada did not know whether to laugh or cry. She wanted to be his wife, and he wanted a nursemaid for his dog.

“You don’t have to do anything, just take her into your home and watch over her. It’s not like I am asking you to welcome a mob of unwed mothers, my love, just one enceinte mutt.”

His love was not listening to the endearment. “Chas, you cannot have considered. No one tells unmarried women the least thing about giving birth. For all I have lived my life in the country, I don’t believe I have ever seen a cow or a ewe or a mare produce their offspring either, although I am certain I have watched the hens drop eggs. Once. I would be no help to your pet whatsoever. Neither would Tess, nor Emery, I am certain. Why, not even Mrs. Cobble, our housekeeper, has borne an infant.”

“That’s the glory of it, my dear, you don’t have to know anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Tally will handle it all on her own. If something should go wrong, you can send for the midwife. I’ll leave a purse.”

“Now who is being ridiculous? Any one of your tenants’ wives would know far more, yes, and be far more willing to play accoucheur to a cur.”

“But I would feel better knowing that she is with you. Besides, Tally is a fine watchdog.”

“I do not need a watchdog, now that Emery is home.”

“Everyone knows Emery is injured. They might not have heard that you handed me Prelieu’s purse, though. Tally will warn you if someone tries to break in. Then I won’t have to worry about leaving you, or her.”

“About that purse, Chas. Monsieur Prelieu said it was never supposed to be in any tree.”

The viscount consulted his pocket watch. “Blast, I have to meet with the magistrate in thirty minutes.”

In ten minutes, dog, blankets, leather lead, and sacks of marrow bones were stowed in Ada’s cart. “That’s my girl,” Viscount Ashmead said with a wide smile as he waved them off

His girl? How lovely. Ada looked back to see Chas hurrying into the house. It would be lovelier still if he meant her and not the dog.

Chapter Twenty-six

“Dear Lord,” Ada prayed at the side of her bed, “thank you for all your blessings and for bringing Emery home to us. I especially thank you for keeping us all safe at Lady Ashmead’s ball. Well, perhaps not Jane’s uncle Filbert, but I am sure you will do your best. Please look after Jane and Algernon and Monsieur Prelieu, and all the orphans at the Foundling Hospital, and please help us make Tess’s play a success, for it means so much to her. And Lord, if you could bring Chas home while I still have the courage to ask him to marry me, I will be even more grateful. Amen.”

Ada got up from her knees and saw the face of one of her worst nightmares looking down at her from the bed, drooling. She sank to her knees again. “Lord? I know it is not right to bargain with Heaven, but if I promise to help Lady Ashmead with the church’s new altar cloth, could you please make sure Chas’s dog doesn’t have her puppies until he gets back?”

* * * *

Progress on the play proceeded apace. So did Tally’s pregnancy. The dog grew rounder and slower by the day, more content to stay by the fire in Ada’s room, on her bed of blankets atop towels atop newspapers. Or simply atop Ada’s bed, to Ada’s horror. At least the dog did not howl or try to run away, not after Ada had a long discussion with her about keeping Chas happy. The endless supply of bones and tidbits from the kitchen helped, too. As the hound gained weight, Ada lost it, running up and down the stairs a hundred times a day to check on her unwanted roommate. Finally she assigned Sarah’s brother Robin from the orphanage to be official dog handler for Westlake Hall. With Jane and Filbert and Algernon gone, there was less fetching and carrying for the lad to do. He could watch and walk the dog between rehearsals and lessons and set-painting.

Ada had given up, with pleasure, her role as the princess to Lady Esther, who was amazingly proficient at it, for a peagoose. She even forgot her lisp, on occasion, in Emery’s presence. Emery took on, with equal pleasure, the part of the one-armed soldier who rescues the fair maiden, in a touching duet, while Sebastian takes on the sea kraken. The dragon was four newly recruited orphans under a tunnel of green sheeting, with a fearsome, removable head. Six other children were in charge of opening and closing the makeshift curtains, and wheeling Sebastian’s cutout boat on stage and off at Ada’s cues. She was now the musical director, teaching the sea sprites their chorus and accompanying the songs and Tess’s dance, besides being prompter, prop master, and assistant wardrobe mistress, when she wasn’t helping to paint the underwater castle or the serpent’s head.

Tess and Leo, meanwhile, were spending so much time in private, supposedly learning their lines, that Ada supposed they could have memorized the Iliad by now. They did decide that Leo was going to declaim his now abbreviated speeches instead of singing them, thank goodness.

They made Chas the narrator, since he was not there to refuse, and it was his house after all.

Ada was so busy she barely had time to miss Chas or worry if he missed her, or if they had a future together, if she could be brazen enough. She did remember him in her prayers every night though, and every morning when she awoke to find a whiskery muzzle next to her on the pillow.

“Get down, you miserable mutt. I am certain Chas doesn’t let you sleep on his bed. And if he does he shouldn’t. You are spoiled and smelly, and you snore. Get down, Tally, I say.”

One night Tally would not get down. She wagged her tail and whimpered instead. Ada lit her bedside candle and whimpered too. “It’s not even three of the clock. I cannot get up to let you out. And get off my bed.”

Tally circled and dug and whined and circled and panted.

“Oh, no. Oh, most definitely no. We had a bargain, Lord, and you are not doing your part! On my bed?” She lit another candle and put another log in the fireplace and cursed at the missing viscount. “I wouldn’t ask that man to marry me if he were the last male on earth. He should be boiled in oil, that’s what, along with that black and white sheep-herding dog.”

She fetched her scissors and some thread, and put her water pitcher next to the fire to heat. That was the extent of her preparations because that was the extent of her knowledge of these matters. Tess would be no help. Little Sarah might be, since she’d seen her mother give birth to three other children, two of them stillborn, before dying with the fourth. But Ada could not wake the child in the middle of the night, not for another gruesome experience.

“No, it will not be gruesome,” she told the dog, and herself. “You will be fine. Chas said you know what to do, so get on with it.”

Tally only whined, looking up at Ada with sad brown eyes, beseeching eyes. Ada’s tender heart could not look the other way. Sighing, she climbed up on the bed, resigned to throwing the cover, the blankets, and the mattress on the fire in the morning,- and making Chas pay for new ones. She gingerly stroked Tally’s head, and the dog licked her hand.

“Good dog.” Nothing seemed to be happening, so Ada got down to fetch some towels, the dog watching her every move. “No, I am not going to leave you alone to deal with the consequences of your folly, but let this be a lesson to you, Tally. Men are not to be trusted. Where is that Tippy now, I ask you? And have you thought about your puppies? Where are they going to find good homes, half-breeds that they’ll be neither fish nor fowl, or herd or hunt in this case. You should have thought of that sooner. I hope my sister-in-law does.”

The dog just whined at Ada’s anxious chatter. “No, I did not mean to worry you. Chas will see that your babies are provided for. He would never think to drown an unwanted pup, the way someone tried to be rid of you.” The dog yelped louder. “Oh, dear. I’ll take in the puppies, if it comes to that! Just don’t die, Tally. Please don’t die! I cannot manage to tell your master that I love him and want to marry him; how in the world could I tell him I let his dog die? Please, Tally.”

Then something gushed out of the dog in a sack of slime. It had to be the ugliest, sorriest specimen Ada had ever seen, but she dutifully went to fetch her scissors and thread. And gloves.

When she got back, Tally had nipped through the cord and was eating it. Then she started on the puppy!

“No!” Ada shrieked, tossing the gloves aside, visions of the fox hunt flashing through her mind. Tally looked at her—Ada could swear the dog was laughing—and went back to licking the pup. She kept at it, rolling the unhappy little thing over to get at its eyes and ears and belly, until she cried out with the next birth.

When Tally began to clean the second puppy, Ada gently moved the first one, lest it get sat on. The baby fit on the palm of one hand, although she nestled it carefully in both. It was softer than bunny fur, with a pushed-in nose and eyes squeezed shut, and soft legs that tried to swim. The bottom of its feet were as pink as the strawberry lotion Jane used to slather on her face to prevent wrinkles. The infant made a mewling sound, so Ada set it by Tally’s side, where it immediately found its first meal.