Anne Gracie - [The Devil Riders 02] (38 page)

 
 
He
hired a chaise for the trip home; horseback would jolt Torie too much. Evans rode behind, leading Sabre.

He’d considered going shopping to buy a carry basket and baby clothes, but neither he nor Evans knew where such things could be purchased—in Evans’s experience women made them—and in the end Harry decided it was more important to get Torie back to Nell. The most important things were napkins and milk, and Harry had stocked up on both.

So Torie came home to her mother dressed in several towels and a pillow case and she rode in Harry’s arms. She seemed to like it there very well, gazing around her with bright, interested eyes, fingering the buttons on his coat and clinging firmly to his finger whenever he presented it.

When they turned into the drive at Alverleigh, she was sound asleep, tucked snug inside his coat. He’d stopped a few miles away and fed her and burped her and changed her napkin so she would be clean and content and ready to meet her mother. For a tiny scrap of perfection, she was able to make the most horrendous sounds and smells. The carriage pulled up and Harry climbed carefully down so as not to waken her.

Tymms opened the door and before he could say anything Harry shushed him with his finger. “Don’t say anything to the others, just inform Lady Nell—discreetly—that a visitor—no, two visitors await her in the blue salon.”

Tymms gave an impassive bow, dying of curiosity but too dignified to show it, and glided away.

 
 
N
ell sat in the drawing room, trying her best not to fidget or pace. She fondled Freckles’s ears absently. Harry had sent her Freckles. Why? Because he thought she would need comforting? She was pleased to have her dog, of course, but she hated being kept in the dark. She was worried sick about Harry. His brothers had all returned, and all that they would tell her was that Harry was all right and that he had business in London and would be back in time for the wedding.

They told her Sir Irwin had been crushed by a passing coach, and that she did not believe. It was a ridiculous tale.

They told her Harry was perfectly all right, but they’d brought Sabre home and he’d been grazed by a ball.

A
ball
. So there had been shooting.

They were telling her lies for her own sake. And it drove her mad. As if Harry, knowing how worried she was about him, would go off to London on business.

“Nell, dear, wouldn’t you like to learn how to do this?” Aunt Maude said to her. She was teaching Callie and Tibby how to knit. “I know you’re worried, my dear, but it helps to keep busy.”

Nell shook her head. “I’m terrible at knitting.” Knitting only served as a reminder.

Aunt Maude nodded and left her be.

Tymms silently entered the room and to Nell’s surprise, came right up to her, bowed and said discreetly in her ear, “There are two visitors for you, m’lady, waiting in the blue salon.”

“Two?” Nell jumped up and hurried out. Was it men come to tell her Harry was hurt, or worse? That sort always traveled in twos.

She pushed open the door to the blue salon. It was Harry, standing with his back to the door, looking out the window.

“Harry.” She flew across the room.

He turned and she skidded to a halt, seeing what he held in his arms.

“Shhh,” he said softly. “Not so loud. You’ll wake the baby.” He smiled.

She stared, rooted to the spot. Stock-still. What was he doing with a baby? Where had he got it? And why?

A cold, sick feeling stole though her. Did he think that he could bring her a substitute for Torie? Did he understand so little how she felt?

She forced herself to speak. “I don’t . . . I don’t need . . .” She pointed at the baby, her hand shaking.

“It’s Torie.”

The words tore her fragile composure apart.

She shook her head. “Torie is dead. She died—”

“No,” he said gently. “This is Torie. Your father took her to Sir Irwin.”

She stared, trying to work out why he would say such a thing.

“I don’t believe it. Why would he do such a thing?” she whispered.

“Because the law is that a baby belongs to its father. It’s the same reason that Lord Quenborough dumped me on my father’s steps that time—because I was his responsibility. This truly is Torie, your Torie.”

Nell took a ragged inward breath. Her hand flew to her mouth. She started trembling. She couldn’t take her eyes off the bundle in his arms. She didn’t believe it, but oh . . . how she wanted to.

She couldn’t bear to look, to experience again the pain she knew would come when she saw that this baby, like all the others, wasn’t her daughter.

She couldn’t bear not to.

She edged forward, one shaking hand outstretched, the other clutched fearfully to her breast. It wasn’t Torie, Torie was dead, she tried to tell herself, protect herself, to stifle the hope burgeoning within her.

Hope was the cruelest emotion.

The baby in Harry’s arms stirred and yawned mightily. She opened her eyes and looked at her mother.

And Nell saw her own mother’s remembered eyes, saw her father’s brow, saw—

“Oh God, it’s Torie,” she sobbed and lifted her daughter from Harry’s arms. She laid her face against Torie’s soft little neck and breathed her in. Her baby, her daughter, her Torie.

“Torie, oh, Torie.” Trembling violently, she sank down on the sofa cradling her precious burden, rocking her, weeping.

She smoothed shaking fingers over Torie’s face, remembering the delicate whorls of her ears, the soft golden fuzz.

Something dropped out of the fold of the towel. A small rag doll.

Nell stared. “Oh my God. What is that?”

Harry bent and picked it up. “Just a doll the girl gave me. She said it was Torie’s, but it’s noth—”

“Turn it upside down,” Nell whispered.

Harry turned the little rag doll upside down and as the skirt fell down, another head appeared. “Very curious,” he said.

“It’s a Cinderella doll. I made it for her before she was born,” she whispered. “Just like the one Mama made for me. I’d forgotten all about it. Papa must have taken it, too. She truly is my very own Torie.” She buried her face in her baby again.

Torie clutched Nell’s hair and pulled. “Look how strong you’ve grown, my darling,” Nell said, laughing and sobbing at the same time.

Harry carefully untangled the little fingers from Nell’s hair and sat down, his arm around Nell, around both of them. It felt so right, so perfect.

She looked up at him, trying to find words for something for which there were no words, and saw that his eyes were wet, too. It would take a lifetime.

He held her, watching silently as she examined every inch of Torie, marveling at the changes and trying to cope with the floods of emotion. So many weeks of aching and grieving and now Torie was back in her arms.

“Isn’t she beautiful, Harry?” she sobbed. “I told you she was beautiful.”

“Of course she’s beautiful,” he told her, his voice hoarse with emotion. “She takes after her mother.”

 
 
T
he door opened and Aunt Maude looked in. “Nell, are you all—” She broke off. “Oh ... oh, my dear ...”

“I have my Torie back, Aunt Maude,” Nell said mistily. “Harry found her for me. He promised he would and he did.”

Aunt Maude tiptoed over and gazed at the baby. And gooed, and cooed. And then frowned. “Have you dressed my great-niece in a pillowcase, Harry Morant?”

Harry shrugged. “She hasn’t got any clothes,” he confessed. “But she doesn’t mind, do you, sweetheart? She likes wearing towels and a pillowcase.” He tickled Torie, who scrabbled happily at his hands.

“Towels and a pillowcase?” his aunt exclaimed in quiet horror. “You’ve dressed that poor infant in towels and a pillowcase? Wait here.” Aunt Maude swept from the room.

She returned a few minutes later carrying a large basket. Nell recognized it from the journey from Bath. She dumped it on a table and ordered, “Bring that child over here.”

Nell brought her and watched, astounded, as Lady Gosforth brought out tiny white garment after tiny white garment. There were dresses, vests, bootees, caps, tiny mittens, shawls, and blankets, all exquisitely made. Some were even lined with silk. “Where did you get all these from?” Nell asked, half knowing the answer already.

“I told you I had to keep busy,” Lady Gosforth told her quietly, with a look. “I knew there would be a use for them one day, and now, here is Torie to make it all worthwhile.” She caressed the soft little cheek gently. “Now let’s get her into some pretty clothes and take her to meet the rest of her family.”

 
After supper Harry found his brother Marcus standing staring down at Torie in the cradle he’d had fetched from the attic.

Harry squared his shoulders. He’d come to swallow his pride and thank his brother. Within two hours of Torie’s arrival at Alverleigh, Marcus had found a wet nurse, a healthy, sweet-tempered young woman of the estate who had a babe of her own and milk to spare.

As Harry entered the room, Marcus looked up with a sheepish expression. Harry soon saw why. Torie was staring up at the earl with her wise little eyes, gripping his finger in a hold Harry knew well.

Her other fist waved aimlessly in the air. Harry caught it and went to tuck it back under the blankets, but Torie grabbed a finger and held on. She had them both, now.

“Got a grip on her like a little wrestler,” Marcus said softly.

“I know,” Harry said.

“Every time I try to pull away from her, she screws up her little face and gets ready to cry,” Marcus told him.

“I know,” Harry said.

The two men stood on either side of the cradle, caught by two tiny hands. For a long moment neither of them spoke. Then Marcus said, “I’m sorry about the way we treated you at school.”

Harry said nothing.

“And I’m sorry for what happened that time on the steps of Alverleigh house,” Marcus continued. “Father was wrong to treat you like that. Nash and I argued with him about it inside. But he was adamant.”

Harry swallowed.

“He was a hard man, our father,” Marcus told Harry. “I’m sorry.”

And with those few, simple, unambiguous words the animosity of years began to drain from Harry’s heart.

“Thank you for arranging the wet nurse,” he said. And Marcus knew what he meant. They were both men of few words. They were brothers, after all.

T
he wedding was held on Christmas Eve and, as promised, it was small, private, and very beautiful.

The ancient Alverleigh family chapel was filled with flowers grown in the estate greenhouses: amaryllis, white narcissi, hellebores, and bright poinsettias.

An organ played quietly as the guests seated themselves on oak pews polished to silk by age and beeswax.

It was a family wedding, but the Renfrews were a large family. The church was full of well-wishers. Aunt Maude sat in the front row, a wisp of lace held at the ready. Tibby and Ethan sat together, holding hands in secret. Tibby’s eyes were glowing. Nash sat with Aunt Maude, and Rafe and Luke with Harry’s beloved foster parents, Barrow and Mrs. Barrow. Mrs. Barrow and Nell’s old nurse, Aggie, were cooing over Torie while her wet nurse waited by. Freckles sat by the church door, freshly brushed by a prince of Zindaria and wearing a festive red ribbon around her neck.

Harry stood at the altar with his brother Gabe.

The music swelled into the bridal march and Nell walked down the aisle on Marcus’s arm. She was dressed in an exquisite cream silk-and-velvet dress trimmed with peach and green. She carried a huge bouquet of creamy orchids and wore a single orchid in her hair.

Harry felt his heart swell.

Princess Callie attended her, glowing in a gown of emerald green velvet and wearing her mother’s tiara. She was escorted by two small, solemn boys wearing Royal Zindarian uniforms.

Nell had eyes only for Harry as she walked slowly down the aisle. She took his hand, smiling mistily, and turned to face the minister.

“Reverend Pigeon,” she gasped. It was her own parish vicar, the dear, gentle old man who’d baptized her and seen her through so many trials. Tears rolled down her face but she didn’t care.

Neither did Harry; she was his bride, his lady, his madonna, and she glowed like a pearl against the dark beauty of the ancient church.

 
As they walked back from the chapel to the house, Barrow came up beside Harry. “If you don’t mind, lad, me and the missus won’t stay for Christmas.”

“Is there a problem?” Harry asked.

“No, no, everyone has been very kind. No, it’s them little lads. Not Nicky and Jim, I mean the two wee babes you mentioned when you told us how you got young Torie back. It’s affected the missus powerful bad. She was up half the night frettin’ about them. So we thought, if you don’t mind, we’d borrow young Evans and go to London and fetch them.”

“Fetch them?”

“Aye,” Barrow said. “About time we had some young life around the Grange again. What with you and Mr. Gabe all grown up, and then Nicky and young Jim livin’ away in Zindaria, the place has been powerful quiet. Got on her nerves, it has. Moping around the place with nothing to do.”

Harry repressed a smile. As if keeping house for her husband and a dozen grooms was nothing to do.

“But with a couple of little ’uns to raise, now, that’s the kind of thing that perks Mrs. B. right up,” Barrow finished.

Harry nodded. Mrs. Barrow’s capacious bosom overflowed with maternal love. Harry had benefited from it himself, as had Gabe and, for a while, young Nicky and Jim. The idea of her fretting over the two orphan baby boys he’d mentioned didn’t surprise him at all.

“Yes, of course you can take Evans. And Rafe and Luke are going back to London for Christmas—take them with you. And I’ll give you some money for the girl called Tilda.”

“Actually, Mrs. B had an idea about that lass, too.”