Bar Sinister (2 page)

With a slight start Emily realised that the farmer's wife had ceased grumbling some time
before and was staring at the sleeping trio with unabashed curiosity. Well, it had been an
impressive performance. Emily shuddered to think how her son Matt would behave in such
circumstances.

Matt was four. This little
señorita
could not be more than three. "Two
under three," the solicitor's letter had read. "The son and daughter of an officer serving in the
Peninsula. Their mother is deceased and he must find an English home for them."

Emily's tender heart had been wrung even as her rational self pointed out how odd it was
that the officer in question did not send his children to his family or his wife's family. However, the
fee offered was ample, the solicitor sounded respectable, and Emily wanted young children,
younger than Matt. She meant to give Matt rivals in the nursery. The other applicants had not met
her simple requirements.
Really, the twelve-year-old idiot son of a marquess would not do.
When she placed her advertisement Emily had expected a wider choice of children. Captain
Falk's had been the only acceptable offer.

Even so her father had objected vehemently. He disapproved the war, the army, Emily's
profiteering, and other people's brats. Her mother-in-law had also made it plain she thought Emily
deranged, but opposition only stiffened Emily's backbone, and when she found in her father's
unwed sister Frances an unexpected ally, she burnt her bridges and writ the solicitor that she would
welcome Captain Falk's children.

Bad luck to their scowling sire, I shall welcome his children.
Emily closed her eyes,
smiling a little as she recalled Aunt Fan's unforeseen intrusion into the domestic brangle.

"Do be still, Henry. Good for Emma. Needs something to take her mind off her troubles,
and the money won't hurt."

Dear Aunt Fan.
Frances Mayne had come to Mayne Hall at Lady Mayne's death
when Emily was twelve, and grumbling the while, had taken over the housekeeping. Emily had
always supposed her aunt would escape Mayne Hall at the first opportunity, but when Sir Henry
Mayne invited his newly widowed daughter to make her home with him and act his hostess, Aunt
Fan had been surprisingly firm with him.

"Nonsense. Emma has her own house and she will be wanting to oversee young Matt's
estate. Be practical, Henry. Can't keep your children under your eye forever."

And Emily's father, rumbling his displeasure, had given the idea up. He had ridden over
to Wellfield House every day in the month after Edward's death, all the same.

At first, in the shock of her double loss--for the fever that had killed her husband had also
taken the life of their two-year-old daughter--Emily had been grateful, but Sir Henry was no passive
observer. When he began to take the reins from her grasp Emily had had to deal with him. She
must learn to manage the estate herself. Edward had made her Matt's guardian. It was her duty, and
besides, she needed to be busy. She would accept Papa's advice but he must not be running things.
So went her arguments.

It had taken more than a year to convey the full impact of her message to her father and
there had been some injured feelings. That he had opposed her scheme of baby-farming without
being able to prevent it showed she was finally emerging from the permanent nursery of the mind
to which he had mentally consigned all of his children.

Emily swayed with the coach and regarded her dozing employer through half closed eyes.
You do not know it, my dear sir,
she thought,
but your children are my passport to an
independent life.

The carriage lurched again, and this time the baby gave a muffled yowl. Captain Falk
opened his eyes--Emily wondered if he had really been asleep--and gave the bundle a competent
jiggle and pat. The baby sobbed a few times and lapsed again into silence.

"I'll take him, if you like," Emily offered.

Her employer stared. His eyes looked wary, dark as midnight.

"I am Mrs. Foster."

"Indeed."

"I should have made myself known to you sooner, sir."

He grunted. Very gracious.

"The baby," Emily prompted.

"He's asleep. And rather wet."

"Oh, dear."

He did not dignify that with a response. After a moment he said acidly, "If you are indeed
Mrs. Foster then perhaps there's some hope we'll be met."

"My father's coachman has been waiting for you at the Rose and Crown in Mellings since
one o'clock," Emily retorted. "He's probably drunk as a wheelbarrow."

"We arrived in Mellings at half past twelve."

Dismay smote Emily. "Mellings Magna! Oh dear, weren't my directions clear?"
Manifestly they were not. A further thought struck her. "Noon? You cannot have come from
London."

"Portsmouth," Captain Falk said tersely.

"But you writ from London."

"I'll edify you with an account of my travels later, ma'am. We certainly set out in the
small hours from Portsmouth."

"The small hours! No wonder the children are tired!"

"You think it would have been preferable to start at noon and arrive at three in the
morning?" His daughter had flung up a starfish hand. He tucked it neatly back and straightened the
skirt of her pelisse.

"Could you not have journeyed by easy stages?"

"No."

Emily blinked. She was unused to such bluntness--rudeness, really. He ought to have
hired a chaise. "Well, we're nearly at Mellings. Parva," she added hastily at his unvoiced snarl. He
had white, slightly crooked teeth. "I shall see them both snugly in bed as soon as we reach
home."

When he made no comment she said in careful, neutral tones, "The, er, person in the
guard's box is the baby's wet nurse, I take it."

"It would certainly seem so."

Emily flushed. "I was not expecting to accommodate strange servants."

"I presume you were also not expecting me to bring a suckling child without its nurse. Be
reasonable, madam. Mrs. McGrath has her wages of me, and she is clean and a hard worker."

"I shall be feeding her."

"It would look odd indeed if you didn't."

Unwillingly Emily grinned. "I starve my servants, of course. And beat them. Come, sir,
let's not bicker."

He shifted the sodden baby, on his left arm. "I'm peaceful by nature."

"'As any sucking dove.'"

His mouth twisted in an answering grin. "Your hit, Mrs. Foster."

The farmer's wife had been listening to their exchange with interest. Now she snorted,
and the captain gave her a wry glance.

"The little girl has excellent manners," Emily interposed, tactful.
Unlike her father.
"Does she speak no English at all?"

"A few phrases."

"What can you have been thinking of?"

"Spanish is her mother tongue," Captain Falk said coolly.

Emily bit her lip. "Yes, I see. I'm sorry." She meant she was sorry his wife had died, but
he misunderstood her.

"She'll learn English quickly. She is forward for her age."

"So I observed."

"Mellings Parva," the coachman bawled, and the vehicle lurched to a stop.

The farmer's wife bestowed a smile on Emily, a scowl on Captain Falk, and descended.
Emily followed suit, handed down by the guard. When she stood on solid ground she turned
back.

"Has your daughter wakened? Yes, I see she has." Emily smiled into the sleepy hazel eyes.
"Buenas dias, Emilia."

The child's mouth formed an O and she turned to her father. A spate of treble Spanish
followed. He translated drily, "She says it is
buenos tardes,
is it not, and the lady speaks
strangely."

Emily laughed. "Oh, dear, and I tried so hard. Ask her, please, if she will come down to
me. You may tell her that my name is also Emilia."

"Is it?"

"It is Emily."

Emily heard herself introduced as Doña Emily. The child slid from her seat,
bobbed a creditable curtsey, and without further ado launched herself from the top step.

Fortunately Emily caught her in midair. She gave her small namesake a hug and set her
down, murmuring, "You're quite a handful, I see. Rather like Matt. Shall you come for a ride in my
papa's carriage?"

Emilia blinked up at her and gave a tentative smile.

"Pegeen, where in the devil..." Captain Falk had extricated himself from the coach with a
single lithe movement. "Lord, woman, you're blue as megrim."

"It was that cold I like to fell off," the wet nurse agreed from behind Emily. The woman's
teeth were chattering. "Is the great man not awake then?"

"Asleep. Wet." Captain Falk's style was decidedly terse. "Change him, Peg, if you please.
In the inn. This lady is Mrs. Foster. She assures me a carriage awaits us, but I daresay she's cutting a
wheedle."

Emily gave him an indignant look and led the parade into the inn. As she entered with her
charges, the proprietor of the Rose and Crown bustled up, all attention.

"No, thank you, Willis. I shan't require a private parlour today, but do show Mrs.
McGrath where she may change young Thomas." That, according to the solicitor's letter, was the
baby's name. "And roust Papa's coachman from the table beneath which he is no doubt sleeping. I
shall require him to pole up the carriage at once."

Willis, eyes bright with curiosity, complied. Emily did not enlighten him. Everyone
would hear of her eccentric undertaking soon enough.

The inn was uncrowded. The few old men by the hearth ignored the intrusion. Emily led
her small companion to a vacant armchair. She sat, lifting the child to her lap. Although Emilia
stiffened she did not resist. "What a pretty bonnet," Emily murmured. "And a pretty girl, too. I
hope you like rabbits, because there are five already, and Matt says there are kittens in the
barn."

The child regarded her with large, unblinking eyes, hazel, flecked with colour, and
thickfringed.

"She doesn't understand you."

"I know," Emily said calmly. "Children listen to the tone of one's voice as much as to the
words."

"Interesting if true." Captain Falk sat rather heavily on a nearby bench.

"You played the trick yourself, in the coach."

He looked up, eyes narrowed.

"I don't speak Spanish at all well, so I couldn't follow the story you were telling young
Emilia, but it very nearly put
me
to sleep."

That startled a smile from him. "Very dull tale. It always seems to work."

Emily smiled, too, and gave her charge a jiggle. The little girl bounced enthusiastically.
"Aha, do you know that one? Here comes the lady--pace, pace, pace. Here comes the
gentleman--trot, trot, trot. Here comes the trooper--gallop, gallop, gallop."

Emilia leapt up and down to the verse with an energy that showed her to be unaffected by
long travel in coaches. Her delighted laugh rippled like clear water.

Emily laughed, too, rather breathless. "Whoa!
Basta!"

The child quietened after one more small bounce.

"I have the feeling I may learn Spanish rather more rapidly than your daughter
English."

Captain Falk was watching with an unfathomable expression in his eyes, which were,
Emily noted, not black after all, but hazel like his daughter's and also flecked with colour. In his
case, green.

He inclined his head in response to her remark but said nothing. Not a forthcoming man.
No small talk,
Emily thought critically. Her other critical thoughts she pushed to the back
of her mind.
After all,
she told herself with conscious charity,
he has been travelling all
day and half the night and is probably tired. No doubt he is ordinarily civil and clean-shaven.

She jounced the willing Emilia several more times and talked to her of Matt and rabbits
and chickens. Presently she had the satisfaction of finding the little girl, quiet and boneless as a
puppy, curled against her side and playing with the strings of her reticule.

When Mrs. McGrath returned at last Captain Falk rose and gave her his seat on the
bench. The baby was awake and fractious.

Watching the nurse comfort him, Emily reflected ruefully that young Thomas was going
to give her father a shock. He was a pretty child, but quite the most unEnglish-looking baby Emily
had clapped eyes on. His hair was black and straight, his complexion olive, and his enormous eyes
black as midnight. Every inch the foreigner and not yet in leading strings. He seemed to want to
creep on the mucky floor. The wet nurse contained his wriggling as long as she could, then let him
stand at her knee. He clutched one of her fingers and glared balefully about.

"There's a wee gentleman," Mrs. McGrath said brightly in the tones of one who has
reached the limit of endurance. "Will ye walk, Tommy? Show the lady your paces, there's a good
babby."

Tommy glowered and sat with a resounding thump on his draggled petticoats. He let out
a screech of pure rage. Before he turned quite purple his father scooped him up and strode with
him to the yard.

Emily and Mrs. McGrath exchanged glances.

"I hope he may not dump his son in the horse trough," Emily ventured.

The wet nurse looked shocked. "No, now, missus, himself has a way with the bhoy.
Ye've no need to fret. He'll show Tommy the horses and bring him back when he's stopped his
screeching."

"I daresay. You've had a tiring journey, Mrs. McGrath."

"Me name's Peggy, missus. A long journey, aye. The coach wasn't a patch on the bluidy
ship. Five days was all she took from Lisbon, like a bluidy yacht race it was, and the gale howling in
the rigging all the way like the souls of the damned. Amy, there, was sick as a cat. Her da kept her
on deck, thanks be to God, and didn't she bounce back when we made port like one of them India
rubber balls, but we was that worried about her."

As if in response Emilia gave a small bounce.

"Do you call her Amy?"

"I do, and the captain does most of the time. 'Twas her ma called her Emilia."