Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [119]
Then she heard a baby’s cry, the weak mewling of a newborn. She stepped back from the house and glanced up toward the sound. Yes, an upstairs window stood open. Movement flashed in the dim interior of the chamber beyond, and the crying ceased.
“Sally?” Tabitha called. “Sally Belote? It’s Tabitha Eckles.”
“No,” she thought someone gasped.
“May I come in?” Tabitha persisted.
Silence.
“Sally, is something wrong?”
The baby responded with a whimper.
Not caring if she offended the haughty Mrs. Belote, Tabitha tested the handle of the kitchen door. It yielded with a touch. With an exhalation of breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, she marched into the kitchen to find it neat, the fire banked, loaves of bread rising beneath a spotless linen cloth on the worktable. For whatever reason they were gone, it appeared Cookie and her daughter Abigail would be returning soon.
But why Sally was alone with the infant and not answering her, Tabitha must find out. She remembered her way through the house and hastened up the steps to the second floor. Sally’s room overlooked the back garden and field beyond—a pleasant view, but not as fine as the bay on the other side. Nor as cool. The air grew increasingly stifling as Tabitha traversed the hallway on the upper floor and found Sally’s door.
Locked—from the outside.
Heart jumping into her throat, Tabitha turned the key and opened the door. Of course, she could be making a mistake. If Sally had suffered from a mental break, as women sometimes did after childbirth, Tabitha could place herself in danger. On the other hand, the child was most certainly in danger, and the girl shouldn’t be alone with him.
But she was alone. Quite alone. When Tabitha opened the door, the baby was nowhere in sight. No infant lay in his mother’s arms. No cradle stood by the cold hearth. The chamber, with its pastel colors and ruffles, belonged to a young woman about to launch into the world of husband hunting, not the chamber of a new mother.
Except for the smell. Tabitha caught a whiff of urine, rich mother’s milk, and another odor as familiar as those of a baby, but completely unrelated.
Her nostrils flared. She clutched her neck, where the mark of the knife barely remained.
From her chair near the open window, Sally stared at Tabitha with huge blue eyes. Her mouth worked. No sound emerged.
“I heard the baby,” Tabitha said. “And I smell him. Where is he?”
“Not here.” Sally shook her head. “He died.”
“In the last two minutes?” Tabitha closed the door, locked it, and slipped the key into her pocket. It clinked against the one to Dominick’s chamber.
His prison.
“I heard him crying,” she persisted.
“It must have been a cat.” Sally didn’t move from the chair. “We have cats in the stable.”
“Sally, I am a midwife. I have been around scores of babies. I know the difference between a baby’s cry and a cat’s.” Tabitha moved further into the room, glancing around for a hiding place, for the source of that smell.
Tobacco? Whiskey? Some herb with which she was unfamiliar?
Nothing came to her immediate attention, but the baby could be hidden in any number of locations—under the tall bed, inside the chest at its foot, inside the armoire. In any of those locations, he could suffocate in the heat of the chamber. And something had made him stop crying and stay quiet.
Her skin crawled with the possibilities.
“Where are your parents, Sally?” Tabitha asked.
“Father’s at sea and Momma is at church with the servants.” Sally didn’t hesitate in her answer. In fact, she sounded like she was reciting.
“So why were you locked in your room?” Tabitha sidled over to the bed and perched on the edge. She took out Dominick’s key and began to play with it. “It’s awfully hot in here.”
“I want to go shopping, but Momma says I have to stay