Anne Gracie - [The Devil Riders 02] Page 18

  He was tempted to remind her that in the past she had objected strenuously to his commanding ways, but she was strung tight as a bow, and now was not the time.

  “I’ll do my best,” he said. “And Nell—”

  She turned back and he caught her around the waist and drew her against him. “Stop fretting. We will find her,” he said and kissed her firmly.

  Her eyes misted up and she nodded, pressing her lips together as if unable to talk, and vanished into her room.

  Harry rang for hot water and ordered a simple breakfast to be ready in fifteen minutes. He shaved—not his best effort, at this rate he might have to think about getting a valet—and dressed swiftly. Luckily whoever had unpacked his clothes had also pressed them and he looked quite respectable. Commanding he could do unshaven and half dressed.

  He’d dressed quickly but when he opened his door she was already waiting for him, dancing impatiently on her toes. She was wearing that drab brown dress again. Damn, but he couldn’t wait for her to get some decent clothes.

  “I don’t have a hat!” she said as if it was a major disaster. “You knocked my hat off in Bath, remember, and wouldn’t stop to pick it up. And now I don’t have a hat! I need to look respectable. They won’t be helpful if they don’t think I’m respectable. And how can I look respectable if I don’t have a hat?”

  “We’ll get you a hat.”

  She wrung her hands. “At this hour of the morning? From where?”

  He glanced past her and saw her maidservant hurrying along the passageway. “You should’ve rung for me, m’lady,” Cooper began. “I didn’t know you’d be up so—”

  “Lady Helen needs a hat,” Harry told her. “We’ll be downstairs having breakfast—”

  “I couldn’t eat a thing,” Nell told him.

  Harry tucked Nell’s hand into the crook of his arm and said to her maid, “Find her a hat, there’s a good girl, and bring it to the breakfast parlor.”

  “Yes, sir.” Cooper bobbed a curtsy and ran off.

  “Now, breakfast,” he said and led Nell toward the stairs.

  “But I don’t want any.”

  “You will eat something or else you won’t step a foot out of this house.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t argue. Last time you went looking for your daughter you collapsed from hunger. I’m not having that.”

  She sighed and nodded. “All right. I didn’t think . . . It’s just that I’m so nervous, I might not be able to keep anything down.”

  “You will. It’s just nerves that make you feel that way. Take it from a seasoned campaigner, you’ll feel better with something in your stomach.”

  They walked down the stairs arm in arm.

  “Did you sleep in my bed last night?” she asked abruptly.

  “Yes, I did. You started wandering again, so it was easier just to get into your bed and keep you there. And it worked,” he added, wondering why the hell he felt so defensive about it. “You slept the whole night through without stirring.”

  “I wondered if that was it. Thank you.”

  Harry looked at her in surprise. Thanks were the last thing he’d expected from her.

  She explained, “Despite everything, I do feel quite well rested.”

  It was more than Harry could say. “Breakfast,” he said and ushered her into the breakfast parlor. Cook had done them proud on such short notice. She had scrambled eggs, bacon, ham toast, sweet pastries, and a pot of coffee and another of hot chocolate.

  Nell opted for a pastry and hot chocolate, Harry for everything else and coffee.

  “I made a list last night,” he said between mouthfuls. “I’ve marked the places you went to. We’ll start with all the institutions to the northwest of the city first. I assume your father would be most likely to choose a place close to where he was, perhaps an area he was familiar with, rather than riding across town.

  Nell nodded. “That makes sense.” She hadn’t eaten a thing, but at least she was drinking the chocolate. Her fingers shook as she lifted her cup.

  He leaned over and caught her hand in his. “Stop worrying, we’ll find her. Now eat something.”

  She nodded. “We will, yes, we will,” she said, as if convincing herself. She crumbled the pastry in her fingers, then added in a voice of quiet desperation, “We must.”

  There was a knock on the door and Cooper came in, with a drab pelisse over one arm and a hat. “I’ve got a hat for you, m’lady. It’s an old one of Lady Gosforth’s. I smartened it up with a bit of ribbon and some feathers—”

  “Thank you, Cooper.” Nell jumped up and jammed it on. She turned to Harry. “Respectable?”

  “Very nice,” he said. He didn’t know much about hats, but he liked this one. It didn’t hide her face like so many of the ridiculous things women wore these days.

  “Then let’s go.” Cooper helped Nell into the pelisse. Nell buttoned buttons with feverish, clumsy fingers, saying to Harry, “Aren’t you finished yet? We need to leave now.”

  Harry gave a rueful glance at his half-full plate, drained his coffee cup, and stood.

  “Good morning, my dears.” Lady Gosforth sailed into the room. She stopped and scanned Nell critically. “Good heavens! Is that my old hat? It looks rather elegant, I must say. There’s no need to gape at me like a fish, Harry, I have several times risen at such an uncivilized hour, and with a wedding in three weeks, there’s a great deal to be done. Sprotton, some hot chocolate, if you please. I’m drawing up a plan for our shopping expeditions today, my dear. I thought we’d start with a visit to my mantua maker.”

  “But I can’t!” Nell wailed. She turned to Harry, “We have to go.”

  “Nell won’t be free today, Aunt Maude,” Harry said. “Pressing business. Tomorrow, perhaps, or some other time,” and he marched Nell out the door.

  “Good grief, Harry, the girl needs to go shopping. Tell him, my dear—”

  But they were gone.

  Eleven

  “That was wonderful,” Nell gasped as the curricle moved off at a smart trot. “When your aunt came in, I thought we’d never get away.”

  “I’m wearing my commanding clothes,” he said dryly. “Ah, here we are.”

  To Nell’s surprise, Harry pulled up and the groom jumped down to hold the horses. They hadn’t even left Mount Street.

  “Why are we stopping?”

  Harry gestured to a tall building. “The parish workhouse of St. George’s, Hanover Square. We might as well start with the closest.” He jumped down and lifted her down.

  Nell felt suddenly hollow.

  The building was large, three stories high, built of brick and good intentions, but grim, nevertheless, with small windows. If there were children inside, you couldn’t hear them.

  Harry knocked on the door. After a moment, a gaunt woman dressed in gray opened it. She looked at them in surprise. “Can I help you?”

  “Harry Morant,” Harry said, doffing his hat. “And this is my wife. We wish to speak to whoever’s in charge.”

  Nell barely took in the fact that he’d called her his wife. She was trying to control the shaking that had begun at the words “parish workhouse.”

  She’d lost count of the number she’d visited before. Had she known this one was so close she would have come last night.

  The woman stood back to let them in. “The director isn’t in, yet. But I might be able to help.”

  Inside it smelled of steam and strong lye soap. “Washing day?” Nell blurted and wondered why she’d said it.

  The woman gave her a cool look. “Indeed.” She turned back to Harry. “How can I help you?”

  “My wife’s late cousin gave birth to a baby girl several months ago,” he said, squeezing Nell’s hand so she wouldn’t react. “We believe her father might have brought the baby here—tragically, he, too, is dead, which is why it’s taken us so long to track down what happened to the child. We wish to raise the child as our own.”

  The woman escorted them to a
small office and took down a heavy blue bound ledger. “When would this have been?”

  Harry glanced at Nell.

  “Around the nineteenth or twentieth of October,” she said. Almost six weeks ago.

  The woman turned pages with infuriating slowness. “The nineteenth . . .” she said. “And how old was this child at the time?”

  “Five weeks old.”

  The woman raised her brows. “It’s unlikely we’d take an infant of that age,” she said. “Was she christened?”

  “No.”

  “But the mother or father was a member of this parish, I presume?”

  “Not the mother. I—I’m not sure about the father.” She didn’t think Sir Irwin was a member of any parish, but if he was, it wouldn’t be a London parish but the church near his home in the country.

  “We only take in members of this parish,” the woman said. “So if the child is not of this parish . . .” She made to close the heavy book. Harry’s hand shot out and slammed on top of the open page.

  “Be so good as to check your records anyway,” he said in a silky quiet voice that sent a shiver down Nell’s spine. His eyes glittered coldly.

  “Yes, of course, sir,” the woman said hastily. She ran her finger down the list. Nell held her breath.

  “The only infants we took in during that week were a boy of two and a girl of ten months who came in with her mother.”

  Nell’s heart sank. From a distance she heard Harry saying, “You said you don’t normally take very young babies. Who does?”

  “Captain Coram’s Foundling Hospital, out in Bloomsbury Fields.”

  “Then we’ll go there next,” he said.

  Nell was already halfway to the door.

  Captain Coram’s Foundling Hospital was situated in the more open country of Bloomsbury Fields. An imposing brick edifice, it was built with two substantial wings extending out around a central courtyard.

  This time they spoke to the director, a large man in a severe black suit. “Yes, we only take infants under twelve months,” he told them, polishing a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez. “Your cousin’s child is illegitimate, I presume?”

  Nell could not speak.

  “Yes,” Harry said.

  “The mother’s first child?”

  “Yes,” he said again.

  The man placed the glasses on his nose and peered through them at Nell. “And from a mother of good character?”

  “Yes,” Harry said firmly.

  “Then there is a good chance she was admitted here. The nineteenth or twentieth of October, you say.” He adjusted the fit of his pince-nez and consulted his records

  Nell’s hand slipped into Harry’s. She waited.

  “Several females of that age were admitted in the second to last week of October,” he finally said. “What was your late cousin’s name?”

  Nell stared at him blankly.

  “She’s not certain what name her uncle might have entered the child under,” Harry explained.

  “He wanted to hide the scandal,” Nell finally got control of her voice. “Her name is Victoria Elizabeth.”

  The man raised his brows. “Two given names,” he said. “I see.” He consulted the record and shook his head. “No infant of that name listed.”

  “What names do you have?” Harry asked.

  “I’m afraid I cannot reveal that.”

  Nell clutched Harry’s hand tightly. “Try Freymore.”

  The man looked through the ledger. “No.”

  “Denton.”

  Again that agonizing wait but, “No.”

  “Firmin.”

  “No.”

  “Smith, Jones, Brown.”

  The man didn’t even bother. But his eyes were compassionate, and he rang a small bell. A woman in dark bombazine entered. “Matron, could you please show this lady and her husband the tokens from October of this year? There might be something she recognizes.”

  “Tokens?” Nell wondered what he meant. She glanced at Harry but he shook his head.

  “Come this way, madam,” the woman said and bustled out. The stiff material rustled with every step. She took them to a small room with a table and a large cupboard. She gestured for Nell and Harry to be seated, then opened the cupboard. It contained row upon row of small boxes, each bearing a label. She took one down labeled October 1817 and placed it in front of Nell.

  “See if there’s anything here that rings a bell, madam.” She retired to a corner of the room and waited.

  Mystified, Nell opened the box. At first glance it looked like a pile of rubbish, odds and ends with no seeming relationship or purpose; a key, a small wooden heart with initials carved into it, an enameled locket, a roll of paper tied with a grimy bit of ribbon, a piece of rag twisted around a pin, a button, a broken sixpence, a white silk heart, exquisitely embroidered, a lead fish of the sort fishermen use, a plaited ring of what looked like human hair. Each item carried a label, tied to it with string.

  Curious, Nell picked up the carved heart to read the label. It bore a number and an inscription: Jimmy Dare his pa carved this for us both. Her heart turned over.

  “Most of the mothers leave something, a little love token for their baby,” the matron explained. “I write some of the notes. Many of these poor girls can’t read or write.”

  Nell picked up another numbered tag. God bless and keep my daughter safe. Her mouth quivered. With trembling fingers she turned over each label, faster and faster, praying to find something with Papa’s writing on it.

  Your da ws a sailor and I lovd im well.

  One simply said, Forgive me.

  The button said, Tommy Jones from his mam.

  She picked up the embroidered white silk heart. The card was written in a beautiful copperplate script. From your mother who fell from Grace and lost the most precious Gift God gave her. Nell’s eyes filled with tears.

  She examined each and every token and label, hoping desperately there would be one written in her father’s hand.

  Finally there remained just the little scroll of paper. With shaking fingers she untied the worn piece of ribbon. She stared at the paper but the harder she stared, the more the writing blurred. All she could see was that it wasn’t Papa’s writing. And that it was some kind of verse.

  “Is it in his hand?” Harry asked.

  She shook her head. “But I want to read it anyway.”

  “Give it here, then.” Harry took the paper from her and read in a deep voice:

  I leave you here my poor wee babe

  With tears I do Farewell thee

  Though Motherless through life ye’ll be

  I never will Forget ye.

  Harry carefully tied it up again with the bit of ribbon and Nell wept to see the big hands so gentle with the tiny scrap.

  “We use these so mothers can identify their children if need be,” the matron said. “Do none of these mean anything to you, madam?”

  “No, there’s nothing,” Nell said in a choked voice. “Nothing.” She mopped her eyes with the handkerchief Harry gave her. Had she known Torie was to be taken from her, she would have left something to identify her.

  “Not every mother leaves a token,” the matron said.

  Nell looked up, hopeful. “Can I just see the babies?” she asked. She would recognize Torie, she was sure, even if it was six weeks and one day since she’d seen her.

  “Oh, there’s no babies here, madam,” the woman said. “We send them to wet nurses in the country for the first four or five years, then they come back here to be trained and educated.”

  “So, where are these wet nurses?” she asked eagerly.

  “The director has the details, madam, but without proper identification, he will give you no information, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, but—”

  “I’ll speak to the director,” Harry said to Nell. “You stay here.”

  He emerged from the director’s office a short time later with a wintry expression. He tucked her hand into his arm a
nd strode from the building. Nell had to run to keep up with him.

  “Well?” she asked breathlessly.

  “I have a list of all the wet nurses who were sent a baby girl.” He swung her into the curricle. “There are six, but the director does not believe that any of them is Torie.”

  “But can we check anyway?”

  He said in a grim voice, “We can check.”

  Darkness was falling as they made their way back to London. Nell was glad Harry wasn’t much of a talker. She was too tired to make conversation. She was exhausted and dispirited.

  They’d visited every wet nurse on the list from the foundling hospital. All of them were in the country, in villages three or four miles out of London. The country was reputed to be healthier for tiny babes than the fog-ridden city with the evil miasma that rose at night from the river, bringing disease with it.

  As they’d pulled up at each cottage, Nell had been tense and keyed up. Would this baby be her daughter? Would she drive away from this house with Torie in her arms?

  Each time Harry had swung her down from the curricle, he hadn’t released her hand. She’d come to depend on that firm silent support. She’d needed it so much.

  Because each time her hopes had been crushed.

  “It’s just the first day,” he said abruptly. “There are dozens of workhouses and institutions in London.”

  “I know.”

  The light carriage hit a particularly bad pothole and she bounced. In an instant Harry transferred the reins to one hand and pulled her close to him on the seat. He made no move to take his arm away and truth to tell, Nell was glad of it, not just for the added security, but for the warm comfort it gave. He was so big and solid and somehow reassuring.

  Nell had never met a man like him before. In the whole of her life, she’d only known talkers. Liars. Dreamers. Takers.

  Harry Morant wasn’t a talker; he was a doer. A giver.

  They’d covered as much territory today as she had in a week on foot. If she’d had the money to hire a curricle or a gig before, she might have found Torie weeks ago. But she had nothing.