Patricia Rice (39 page)

She nodded blindly. She couldn’t believe Morgan was
here. It was as if she had stepped from the streets into a dream, or a
nightmare. Morgan.
Here
. How could that be? Why would he do this?

Her thoughts traveled ahead to the infant awaiting
her return. What would Morgan say when he learned of the child? She
should never have kept his son from him. She had written to Miles after
George was born, but there wouldn’t have been time for Morgan to have
received the news.

She tried not to eagerly drink the tall figure
riding beside the carriage. If she let her mind wander to Morgan’s wide
shoulders, she would see them bare and broad and looming over her as she
lay under him. If she watched his hands, she would remember how they
had taken away the bloody blankets carrying their unborn child. If she
listened to his voice, she would remember the soothing words of comfort
he had offered as she wept on his shoulder, or the laughter as he taught
her to ride, or the pride as he displayed the mare’s new foal. She
shivered beneath the heat of the midday sun and all her newfound
composure crumbled into dust.

They were a silent trio as they returned to the inn.
Morgan cocked his brow in surprise at their destination. He had
scarcely begun his search of all the numerous inns, and he certainly had
not come to this one tucked away behind shady trees on a side road. Had
there not been a sign out front, he would have assumed the brick facade
to be part of a particularly pleasant house belonging to the young
couple.

He handed his horse to a boy who came running, and
stepped to the side of the curricle before the young man could. Faith
reluctantly took his hand, and for the first time in nearly a year,
Morgan clasped the touch of her warm fingers again.

“I could call another time if I am intruding,” he
murmured for her ears alone. He liked having her close again, the fresh
fragrance of her hair in the hot sun stimulating his senses and her
delicate beauty tempting his gaze. He had no desire whatsoever to leave
her here, but he could see she was flustered, and he had no wish to
torment her. If she had become this man’s mistress, she wouldn’t wish
him to know.

Faith looked at him with relief. “If you wouldn’t mind... I don’t know what to say. I didn’t expect...”

He put an end to her halting phrases by bowing over
her hand and bringing it to his lips for a gentle kiss. “Give me a time.
I’m at your command.”

Randolph did not smile as Faith turned to take his arm and go inside.

Thoughts spinning, Faith scarcely heeded her
companion’s surly attitude. As they entered, Bess ran up with a problem
that needed to be solved, and a wail from above warned it was time for
George’s feeding. With a slight curtsy, she made as gracious a farewell
as she could manage.

Upstairs, Faith unfastened her bodice and brought
her son to her breast. As she stared down at the head of curly black
hair, she knew she could not keep news of his son from Morgan. He had to
know. But the complications that arose were deep and disturbing.

She could not live as she had before she came here.
She had been dependent on Morgan then and had accepted his choice of
pursuits because she had no alternative. But God had seen fit to give
her independence and an opportunity to make an honest life, and she
could not give them up simply because she loved Morgan more than common
sense should allow.

Even if Morgan had become an honest man, she wasn’t
certain that it would make a difference. She didn’t wish to return to
England. She liked it here. She felt safe here. Overall, she was happier
here than she had been anywhere, with one exception.

Faith sighed and leaned back against the chair and
tried to let her love flow into the child at her breast instead of
churning restlessly with thoughts of Morgan. Morgan had made her happy,
undoubtedly, but at the same time, he had made her miserable.

Why, then, did her thoughts keep floating ahead to their next meeting?

“Stop worrying, Lettice. What do you think can possibly happen to the chit now that we know where she is?”

“
Think
we know,” Lady
Carlisle corrected nervously, fingering the pearls at her throat. “The
letters Watson found could have been forgeries. We could be chasing
halfway around the world for naught.”

“You mean Edward can. Damned good way to get him out
from under foot, if you ask me,” the marquess responded dryly, easing
his gouty foot to a more comfortable position. “He’ll find her, if only
to wring that highwayman’s neck. I must say, his temper surprised me
when he heard that bit of news. How does it feel to talk to a
highwayman, Lettice?”

“He seemed a perfectly amiable gentleman to me,
although a trifle intense, I suppose. Do you really think he followed
dear Faith, or is it just some ruse to draw us out?”

The marquess sighed, then grimaced after swallowing
the medicinal waters the quack had condemned him to. “How the hell would
I know? What I wonder at is young Thomas rampaging off after being
newly wed. It’s not as if I threatened to throw him out for his deceit. I
even offered to give him a place in the country where his bride could
have the babe without gossips counting on their fingers. And still the
ungrateful pup goes haring off without a by-your-leave. P’raps I should
have kept Edward here awhile longer to look for his cousin.”

The fingers working at the pearls moved even more
restlessly. “I never liked young Thomas, I confess, Harry. He’s handsome
enough, and well-spoken, I suppose, but he has a nasty habit of
sneering when he thinks one isn’t looking. ’Tis a pity his father died
at such an early age. You’ve not given him the attention he needed, I
fear.”

“I’ve not done a lot of things I should have,
Lettice. I must be growing old to admit such a thing to you. But I’m
trying to make up for it now. After Edward, Thomas is the next heir to
the title. It’s time I took him in hand, I suppose. If only I knew where
to find him.”

Lady Carlisle shifted from the window to watch the
sun play about the marquess’s still-handsome eyes. The years of
dissipation had left their mark, but his eyes were clear now, and
worried. As well they should be.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, Harry, but Watson says
Thomas took ship with Edward. I do think you had better give serious
consideration to the contents of your will.”

***

Speaking cultured French to the French wife of the
owner of White’s Tavern, Morgan managed to sweet-talk his way into a
room. He discovered an added benefit when he was introduced to the
general populace as a nobleman in disguise by the voluble and rather
creative Frenchwoman. Morgan unexpectedly found himself sharing his
evening meal with a table of planters and representatives to the
Assembly, speaking to them authoritatively on the status of various
navigation acts in Parliament.

From listening in on conversations of the society he
had been keeping and talking to the ship’s captain on the voyage,
Morgan knew more than enough to hold his own and managed to convey the
difficulty these colonists must face in turning Parliament to their way
of thinking. They were overjoyed to have someone who would listen to
their complaints, and the night grew long in their company.

The company and the conversation helped to ease the
pain, but not enough to keep Morgan from seeking Needham Inn long after
the others had gone to their beds. Faith had refused to see him until
the next day, but he couldn’t stay away. Morgan took a table by the fire
and gazed around at the homely tavern to learn more of this place she
apparently called home.

One of the council members Morgan had just met
wandered over to share a tankard. The man introduced the bartender, who
was more than willing to credit the excellence of their meals to the new
manager. The talk of food lured the young lawyer who kept his rooms at
the inn, and soon Morgan was listening to some of the town’s most
eligible men singing Faith’s praises. The praises of those
accomplishments he knew she possessed—but had not prized enough to
keep—struck like arrows in his heart, but Morgan took his punishment in
silence.

It was only when he questioned the absence of this
paragon of virtue that Morgan was slapped with the final blow. Dazedly
he listened to these strangers speak of his son and of his wife’s
talents as a mother, and felt his insides crack and crumble until there
was little left of him to stand up when he could take no more.

Morgan staggered as if drunk, though he could hold
more than thrice the amount he had taken this night. Someone offered to
accompany him back to White’s, and he responded negatively in French. It
had been a long time since he had spoken this language he had learned
at a priest’s knee in the hedgerows and polished in the armies on the
Continent. He didn’t know why he employed it now. He only knew his
foundations had been kicked out from under him, and he was struggling
for solid ground.

He didn’t want to go back to White’s. He wanted to
see his son. His son. His and Faith’s. Damnation, but what a fool he’d
been. One selfish roll in the hay and he had made it impossible for her
to do anything else or be anyone else but his wife. She had half the
bachelors in town panting at her feet, but she could take none of the
advantages they offered because he had selfishly made annulment of their
farcical marriage impossible if she wished to give their son a name.

It never even occurred to Morgan to doubt that the
child was his. His Faith would never have betrayed him while he was in
Newgate, and he knew from the signs she had left throughout the cottage
that she had not betrayed him afterward. Her parents had chosen her name
well. He could place all his faith in her. ’Twas a pity she could not
do the same in him.

Morgan wandered like a lost soul around the outside
of the inn, scanning windows, trying to determine which one might be
Faith’s. There was light in one of the upper rooms, and he watched it
without much hope, just for a reason to linger.

He needed to talk with her. Just to hear her voice
again might soothe some of the raw places in his soul. If only he could
just see her... His hand gripped the rough bark of a tree so tightly the
pain brought tears to his eyes, or he blamed it on the pain.

The shadow that appeared against the curtained light
above was small and slender, and when the feminine silhouette lifted a
tiny bundle, Morgan felt his insides constrict with the first glimmer of
hope. It had to be her. No one or nothing else could fit the scene. He
could almost imagine the faint cries of an infant through the window.
Faith would keep the panes closed to prevent night drafts even on this
warmest of nights when others left theirs open. It had to be Faith.

Fate had held out a helping hand, and Morgan wasn’t
one to refuse an opportunity. Counting windows, he placed the room’s
location. Then he stalked back to the kitchen yard, pried open the latch
on the back door, and slipped noiselessly up the back stairs. There was
no reason to allow all of Williamsburg to know that Faith had midnight
callers.

He didn’t know what he was going to do when he got
to her room, but the task of finding it was sufficient to keep his mind
occupied. Reaching the attic floor, he counted doors. The one with the
light beneath it corresponded exactly with the window count. He had
found her.

Knocking was out of the question. Holding his breath, Morgan turned the latch and let himself in.

He halted in the doorway, the scene before him
robbing him of the ability to move forward. Russet curls tumbling in
abandonment down a fragile gown of lawn and lace, Faith sat propped
among her pillows, holding a tiny black head to her breast. She glanced
up in surprise as the door opened, but she merely smiled at him and
turned her attention back to the infant, as if giving him permission to
admire what they had wrought together.

Morgan entered and shut the door. His pulse raced as
it once had when he rode the highways. The tableau of mother and child
was foreign to him, and he felt an outsider looking in. The challenge
lay in making himself welcome where he was neither wanted nor needed,
for he could not imagine being anywhere else but here ever again.

This was home. Perhaps he had had more ale than he
thought, but the feeling wouldn’t dissipate. His home in Ireland had
been torn apart by misery and hate. He’d never known anything akin to
home since then, other than the brief months with Faith. He wanted a
home, and he wanted his son and wife to live in it.

It was a foolish fancy and one that would pass with
time, but Morgan gave in to it for a while. He sat on the edge of the
narrow bed and watched helplessly as his son fed at the breast that he
had loved and caressed just the summer before. He had lived alone for
the better part of his life. He had never needed anyone. But the desire
to need and be needed grew in him as he watched what he could so easily
have been denied.

“He is greedy,” Morgan whispered, more to be certain this was real than from the need to be heard.

Faith looked up with a smile. “He is much like his father,” she agreed.

Morgan heard the admonishment and grinned, suddenly
feeling the weight lifting off his chest. This was Faith. He could say
anything to her. “I suppose he is an arrogant bastard, then. You will
teach him better manners.”

“Not a bastard,” she said softly, averting her eyes
to the small black head. Morgan’s proximity was unsettling. She could
feel the heat of his gaze on her bared breast, but she made no move to
cover herself. He had seen all of her there was to see, and she was
rather proud of her accomplishment. There had been some fear that she
was too small to feed her own child, but she had proved them wrong.

As the babe sighed and squirmed and drifted off to
sleep, Morgan reached to caress a silken black curl at his nape. “Would
you let me hold him?”