Lord of Scoundrels - Loretta Chase [120]
"When Annie passed on, there weren't no one else wanted to look after the tyke," said Phelps. "As I reckon, his ma made trouble in front o' your new bride, figurin' you'd have to do some' at— mebbe give her money to go away or get a nuss for the lad. But you never sent nobody lookin' for her, not even when the boy were raisin' hell in the village— "
"I didn't know he was raising hell," Dain interrupted irritably. "Because no one bloody told me. Not even you."
"'T weren't my place," said Phelps. "Not to mention which, how were I to know you wouldn't go about it all wrong? Transportin', Her Ladyship said. That's what you had in mind. Both on 'em— ma and boy. Well, I reckon it didn't set right with me, me lord. I stood by once, watchin' your pa go about it all wrong. I were young when your pa sent you off, and skeered o' losin' me place. And I reckoned the gentry knowed better 'n an ignorant village boy. But I be past the half-century mark now, 'n I sees things some'at different 'n before."
"Not to mention that my wife could persuade you to see pixies in your pockets, if that suited her plans," Dain muttered. "I should count myself lucky she didn't talk you into secreting her in one of your saddlebags."
"She tried," Phelps said with a grin. "I tole her she'd do more good gettin' ready for the lad. Like findin' the rest o' them wooden soldiers o' yours. 'N pickin' a nussmaid 'n fixin' up the nuss'ry."
"I said I would fetch him," Dain coldly informed the coachman. "I did not tell her the filthy beggar could live in my house, sleep in my nursery— " He broke off, his gut churning.
Phelps made no answer. He kept his gaze upon the road ahead.
Dain waited for his insides to settle. They covered another mile before the inner knots eased to a tolerable level.
"A problem 'of cosmic proportions,' she called it," Dain grumbled. "And yet I must solve it, it seems, somewhere between here and Postbridge. We're coming to the West Webburn River, aren't we?"
"Another quarter mile, me lord."
"And from there, Postbridge is what— less than four miles, isn't it?"
Phelps nodded.
"Four miles," Dain said. "Four bleeding miles to solve a problem of cosmic proportions. God help me."
Chapter 18
An accomplished strumpet Charity Graves certainly was, Roland Vawtry thought. Clever, too, to come up with a fresh plan or the spur of the moment, with the village louts bearing down on her on one side and Lady Dain on the other.
As a mother, however, she was utterly useless.
Vawtry stood at the window overlooking the innyard, trying to ignore the revolting sounds behind him and the more revolting stench.
Immediately after the encounter with Lady Dain, Charity had hied to her tiny cottage in Grimspound, collected her belongings, and hurled them into the broken-down Dennet gig she'd bought a week ago, along with an equally broken-down pony.
The brat, however, had balked at getting into the gig, because of the thunder miles away.
Unwilling to risk his bolting from the vehicle and disappearing into the moors, Charity had pretended to sympathize. Promising they'd wait until the thunder stopped, she'd calmly set out a bit of bread and a mug of ale for him. To the ale, she'd added "the tiniest bit— not half a drop— of laudanum," she claimed.
The "half a drop" had quieted Dominick to the point of unconsciousness. She'd stuffed him into the gig and he'd slept the whole way to the inn at Postbridge and for some time after, while Charity explained to Vawtry what had happened to destroy their original plans and what she'd contrived instead.
Vawtry trusted her. If she said Lady Dain wanted the loathsome child, then it was true.
If Charity said Her Ladyship would tell Dain nothing about it, that must be true as well, although Vawtry had rather more difficulty accepting this truth. He'd gone to the window more than once to survey the innyard for signs of Beelzebub or his minions.
"The worst that can happen is he'll turn up tomorrow instead of her," she'd told him. "But you only have to keep a sharp