One Little Sin (6 page)

“Oh, to be sure, sir,” said the nanny. “But ’tis generally my job to take the children for walks and such.”

“I see,” said Alasdair. “So a governess
and
a nurse?”

“Aye, sir,” said the servant defensively. “’Tis a great deal o’ work raising a child.”

Alasdair pondered that for a moment. “She speaks very well,” he said. “At what age do they begin to speak fluently?”

“Mercy, sir, have you never been around children?”

Alasdair smiled again. “A disgraceful shortcoming, to be sure,” he admitted. “I had a younger brother, but not by much.”

“Well, by three they’re generally chattering like magpies,” said the servant. “Before that, there’s lots of babbling, much of it known only to them.”

They continued their sedate promenade round the park, Penelope and Apollo in the lead, Alasdair and the nanny behind. The woman was gregarious enough, and Alasdair took the opportunity to ask all manner of questions about the mysteries of child rearing. She looked askance at him from time to time, but answered his queries thoroughly enough. Near the foot of St. James’s Street, he tipped his hat, thanked her, and set a swift pace up the street to White’s.

He felt a bit like an idiot talking to a stranger—a servant—in the park. But he wanted to
know,
damn it. He needed to understand what was to come of this strange, unexpected turn his well-ordered life had just taken. And for reasons he could not quite explain, he did not want to ask Miss Hamilton. She was not the enemy. No, not precisely. But already, if seemed as if she held the key to some important secret. Something held tantalizingly just beyond his reach.

This morning, he’d felt like a stranger in his own home. His smoking room was gone, his billiard table was shortly to follow, and in their place he was to have
females,
one of them very small and willful, and the other disconcertingly pretty, with eloquent all-seeing eyes, and the scent of the Highlands still clinging in her hair. Yes, better to be thought an idiot here, with a woman he did not know, than in his own home in front of his little spitfire of a governess and his own…
child.

Good God! There it was again. Reality, intruding on what otherwise would have been a trouble-free life of ease and debauchery. Alasdair tucked his hat down to hide the mortification in his eyes and hastened his step toward the sheltering portals of White’s. One little sin, and now all this! It really was too much to absorb in one day.

It was early afternoon by the time Esmée decided what her next step ought to be. Swiftly, she dug through their trunk and extracted Sorcha’s walking shoes. She looked at them and sighed. Regrettably, the little leather boots were not as tidy as one would wish.

“Come along, my wee trootie,” she said, hefting the child to her hip. “I’ll no’ have you looking like a dirty little jaudie out amongst these fancy English.”

Together, they went belowstairs, Sorcha jabbering merrily about everything she saw along the way. On the last landing, she saw an oriental vase she took a sudden liking to. But when thwarted, she went rigid and began flailing and squealing, “Gee! Gee me!” at the top of her lungs.

Somehow, Esmée soothed her, but at the butler’s pantry, Sorcha began to squirm to be put down. Her hands full, Esmée bumped the door open with her hip and started through. Unfortunately, she did not see MacLachlan’s valet coming in the opposite direction. The swinging door cracked him hard across the elbow, resulting in a muffled curse.

“Och, what have I done!” said Esmée, hastening on through. A pile of cravats and a puddle of black wool lay scattered across the floor. “Oh, Mr. Ettrick! Do forgive me.”

“Really, Miss Hamilton!” said the testy valet, seizing the trousers. “I just this instant finished brushing that set of clothes!”

Esmée had put Sorcha down, and was on her knees, trying to salvage the freshly starched cravats. “I am so sorry,” she said, swiftly gathering them. “My hands were full. I did not see you.”

Esmée stood, and laid the stack of cravats on the brushing table. Ettrick was shaking out the coat now, a lovely garment which looked to be made of premium superfine. “Well, I daresay there’s little harm done,” he said, picking a piece of lint from the hem. “Just a speck or two. Hawes, look sharp, man!” he called across the room to one of the footmen.

The footman looked up from his work at the opposite end of the long table. “What is it now, Ettrick?” asked Hawes irritably. “I’ve these boots to finish, haven’t I?”

Ettrick shook the coat at him. “Sir Alasdair wants this delivered to Mrs. Crosby’s house,” he said. “Have it there by four or else.”

“Oh, aye, I’ve nothing better to do than run all the way to Bloomsbury!” complained the footman.

“No, you’ve nothing better.” Ettrick smiled sourly and hung the coat on a hook at the footman’s end of the table. “And for pity’s sake, Hawes, put a muslin sleeve over it this time.”

Ettrick returned to the table and began inspecting the cravats. With one eye on Sorcha, Esmée picked up one of the many shoe brushes. Curiosity got the better of her. “Who is Mrs. Crosby, Mr. Ettrick?”

At the distant end of the table, the footman sputtered. Ettrick gave a weary sigh. “Mrs. Crosby is Sir Alasdair’s particular friend.”

“Aye, one of ’em!” interjected the footman. “You might as well tell the chit plainly, Ettrick, if she’s to live here. Mrs. Crosby is an actress, and one of his mistresses. But you daren’t say so past these walls.”

Ettrick shot the footman a quelling look, but said no more. Hastily, Esmée cleaned Sorcha’s shoes and made a retreat to the nursery.

A particular friend.
One of them,
the footman had said. So how many such “particular friends” would a man like MacLachlan have? He probably couldn’t keep count. Obviously, he couldn’t remember them all, which proved once again what a fool her mother had been to fall for his charms. And there lay a warning worth heeding where MacLachlan and his charms were concerned. His brown eyes melted, aye. But for anyone wearing skirts, most likely.

Exasperated with her line of thinking, Esmée forced the matter from her mind. She dressed Sorcha in a light pelisse and hat, put on her freshly cleaned boots, then informed Wellings that they were going out for a walk. Esmée was not at all sure what an English governess’s duties were, but apparently taking one’s charge for a stroll was one of them, for Wellings never lifted a brow.

“Go out!” said Sorcha, as Esmée carried her down the last flight of stairs. “Out, Mae! Me go out now!”

Wellings smiled indulgently at the child. “She knows her own mind, does she not?”

Esmée nodded. “Yes, and everyone else must know it, too,” she muttered, putting the squirming child down so that she might fasten her own pelisse. “Can you tell me, Wellings, which way Mayfair would be? I confess, I became quite turned about in finding this place.”

“We are rather off the beaten path, miss,” he said, then gave her directions. Esmée realized at once it was too far for Sorcha to walk. But she dared not hire a hackney, and the perambulator had not come, so she set off, following the route the butler had given her. She would simply have to carry Sorcha when the child tired.

The air was blessedly cool and scented with rain. After crossing what seemed to Esmée like an almost frivolous expanse of parks, she reached the edge of Mayfair and soon felt more acquainted with her surroundings. She had been here twice before, and the elegant Georgian homes were starting to look all too familiar.

With Sorcha balanced on one hip and the old blisters on her feet rubbed nearly raw, she set off up the hill in the direction of Grosvenor Square. She had suffered a long, hard week on the road, followed by a disheartening two days in London, and already Esmée was beginning to hate England and everything in it. The only good to come of it, if one could call it that, had been Sir Alasdair MacLachlan. Still, she was quite sure she had no business living with the man and pretending to be her own sister’s governess. Mamma would have scolded her soundly for such shocking behavior—though the irony of that fact was not lost on Esmée.

There would surely be talk when polite society learned that the wicked Sir Alasdair had suddenly acquired a ward. Esmée had thought to keep a low profile, but this morning’s foray into the dining room had underscored the fact that she was, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, at the beck and call of another. She was a
servant.
Not even in her stepfather’s home had Esmée been treated so condescendingly. Her palm still itched to slap Sir Alasdair’s brother through the face. Lord Wynwood, at least, had been sympathetic. She had not missed the reproachful look he’d tossed in Merrick MacLachlan’s direction.

Slightly out of breath now, Esmée had reached the glossy green door she sought and paused to shift Sorcha to the other hip. “Geen, Mae,” she said pointing at the door. “Geen. See?”

Yes. Green. Just as it had been for the last two days. And just as it had been for the past two days, the knocker was down. But Esmée had not walked so far for nothing. She stepped up, and hammered her knuckles on the solid wood slab. She could hear the sound echoing hollowly through the house.

“Damn and blast,” she whispered.

“Damin bass,” said Sorcha, mimicking Esmée’s glower.

Oh, lud! Time to watch her language. “Aye, ’tis a very wicked door, is it not, wee Sorcha?” said Esmée, planting a loud, smacking kiss on the child’s cheek. “Why does it never open for us?”

Just then a glossy red-and-black landau came rattling up the street, stopping at the house adjacent. A thin, dark man got out and barked at his driver to take the carriage round to the mews. The coach rolled away, and turned onto Charles Street. Intrigued, Esmée followed. A few yards down the hill, the coachman cut his horses to the right and turned into an alley. Esmée did the same.

Cleaving between the high brick walls, the unmarked lane was shadowy and cool. Esmée kept walking, counting off the houses as she went. The landau had stopped just a few yards in, and the coachman had leapt down to speak with a woman who stood on the pavement with a market basket swinging from her arm. Casting caution to the wind, Esmée rushed toward them. They noticed her at the same time, and turned toward her.

“I beg your pardon,” said Esmée breathlessly. “Do you live here?”

“Aye, to be sure.” The woman looked her up and down, clearly wondering why Esmée was calling in the yard rather than in the square.

Esmée shifted Sorcha to her other hip. “Can you tell me please if Lady Tatton still lives in the house next door?” she asked the woman breathlessly. “The knocker is down, you see, and—”

“Oh, yes!” said the woman. “Gone off to Australia, she has.”

A sense of relief flooded through Esmée. “Thank heavens,” she whispered. “I’d not heard from her in ever so long. Are there no servants in the house?”

Clearly certain he had nothing helpful to add, the coachman climbed back up and clicked to his horses. “There be but the Finches, the couple that look after the house,” said the woman with the basket. “But Bess—that’s Mrs. Finch—her mother fell ill in Deptford, and they went down Tuesday last.”

“Oh,” said Esmée, sagging with disappointment.

The woman took in Esmée’s attire again. “Would you be wanting her ladyship, then?” she asked. “For so far as I know, she’s not expected anytime soon, or not as Bess has mentioned to me, which I daresay she would have done.”

“I—yes, I was looking for her,” Esmée admitted. “But I have not seen her in some years.”

“Aye, she went out with her daughter who was in a delicate way,” said the woman. “Then the babe was sickly. Then came a set o’ twins. And then, as Bess says, one thing led to another as such things will do, aye? But since she hasn’t given up the house, she must surely mean to return.”

On her hip, Sorcha was starting to squirm. “Abble, Mae!” she shrieked. “Gee abble!”

The woman took an apple from the basket, and held it out. “What a pretty little thing she is,” she said, breaking into a smile. “And such rare blue eyes! Is this what you want, child?”

Sorcha squealed with glee, opening and closing her fingers as she had done earlier in the morning when she’d set her sights on Merrick MacLachlan’s watch.

“Thank you, but you needn’t,” said Esmée. “She does not need it, truly.”

“Oh, let her have it, do,” said the servant, surrendering the red fruit into Sorcha’s greedy little hands. “I just came up from Shepherd’s Market, so ’tis fresh.”

Unwilling to risk Sorcha’s temper, Esmée thanked her. The woman smiled at Sorcha. “Such a pretty babe!” she went on. “Now, about Lady Tatton. I could pass on a word to Bess, if you’d wish?”

Esmée widened her eyes. “A letter,” she said hastily. “I’ve a letter for Lady Tatton. Would you be so kind?”

The woman looked sympathetic. “Aye, I’ll give it to Bess, ma’am, but so far as I know…”

“Yes, yes, I understand,” said Esmée. “She is not expected. But will you ask Mrs. Finch to hold it for her? No matter when she might return?”

The woman took the letter Esmée dug from her pocket. “I daresay she could forward it, if you wish?”

Esmée shook her head. “That will take months, and I’ve already sent two, though I wonder if they got there at all.”

The woman nodded sympathetically and returned her attention to Sorcha, who had already sunk her tiny teeth into the apple’s tender flesh. “Ah, such eyes!” she said again. Then she smiled at Esmée knowingly. “From her father’s side, I’m guessing?”

“Oh, aye,” said Esmée a little wearily. “Definitely. From her father’s side.”

Alasdair listened to the sound of Julia’s breathing, soft and regular in the night as it had been for the last several hours. He found it a pleasant, soothing sound. Sleep had not come to him so easily. Restless, he had left the bed and moved to the chaise by the windows so as not to disturb her. He was staring down into Bedford Place and watching a blue-uniformed policeman pace sedately through the gaslight when suddenly, Julia’s breath hitched.

“Alasdair?” she murmured, rolling up onto one elbow. “Alasdair, what is the time?”

“About four, I daresay,” he responded absently. “Did I wake you, my dear?”

Julia rose, sliding into her wrapper as she crossed the room toward him. “What’s wrong, Alasdair?” she asked. “You usually sleep the sleep of the innocent.”

He laughed. “God has finally rectified that error,” he answered. “I’ve been up half the night.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Heavens, you’re smoking. Rather early for that, is it not?”

“Or rather late, depending upon one’s viewpoint.” He caught her hand and drew her down beside him on the chaise. “I’m sorry, Julia. Shall I put it out?”

“You know you needn’t.” She pulled her legs up and tucked her wrapper around her toes. Julia was plump, pretty, and good-tempered, and Alasdair had enjoyed every minute he had spent in her company since meeting her some months earlier.

“Did you enjoy the play, my dear?” He rolled the ash off the end of his cheroot. “I thought your friend Henrietta Wheeler was magnificent.”

“Pish, Alasdair!” said Julia. “You never even noticed her.”

“What, when we went particularly to see her?”

Julia laid a hand on his cheek. “Quick, then, which character did she play?”

In the moonlight, he could not hide his chagrined expression. “I—oh, you are right, Julia,” he admitted. “I fear my mind was elsewhere.”

Julia shrugged amicably. “It does not signify,” she answered. “But listen, dear boy. Before you slip out into the night, I have something I wish to tell you.”

Alasdair gave up and stubbed the cheroot out. He had taken a sudden dislike to it. “I have something to tell you, too, Julia. Please, let me go first and get it over with.”

“Oh, God, I’ve been expecting this!” Julia’s voice was tinged with wry humor. “What is her name? No doubt she is half my age
and
half my weight.”

Alasdair grinned. “Not even a fraction of either, I’m afraid,” he admitted. “And her name is Sorcha.”

“Ah, a Scot, then!” said Julia. “Well done, my boy. Stick with your own kind, I always say. Now tell me, how long have you known your Sorcha?”

Dawn was flirting with the rooftops along Bedford Place by the time Alasdair finished answering
that
question. Early in his narrative, Julia had wisely gone to her side table and poured him a glass of his favorite whisky, which she always kept at hand. By the time his tale was told, she was pouring one for herself.

“Good Lord!” she whispered, turning from the table. “You really do think—?”

Alasdair propped his forehead in one hand. “Julia, I have just the vaguest of memories,” he said. “Memories of having done something I knew I would regret in the morning, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, too well!” she said sympathetically. “But Alasdair, you do so many wicked things, it could have been something else altogether.”

He shook his head. “The child is the very image of my brother Merrick.”

Julia made a clucking sound. “And this young woman, the sister. What of her?”

Alasdair groaned. “She is little more than a child herself.”

“Indeed? How old?”

“Oh, seventeen perhaps? No, wait. Twenty-two, she said.”

Julia laughed. “Heavens, Alasdair! She is a grown woman!”

“Hardly. The chit wouldn’t weigh seven stone were she soaked to the skin, and she’s as green as a girl from the Highlands could possibly be.”

Julia shrugged. “My dear boy, by the time I was twenty-two I’d buried one husband and cast off two protectors,” she said. “And as to naïveté, appearances can be deceiving. Now, I really must say my piece, Alasdair.”

Alasdair waved his glass. “By all means. My life could scarce be more confusing.”

But he was to be proven wrong on that score. Julia sat up very straight, set aside her whisky, and folded her hands in her lap rather primly. “This is quite shocking news, my boy,” she warned. “You are not old enough to have an apoplexy are you?”

Alasdair scowled. “I am six-and-thirty, as you well know. Out with it.”

Julia leaned across to kiss his cheek. “Alasdair, my dear—” She paused and drew an unsteady breath. “—I am…
enceinte.”

Alasdair dropped his glass. It landed on the carpet with a soft thud. “Oh, God, Julia.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “You cannot possibly mean this.
No.
Have mercy.”

She laid her warm hand on his knee. “I am not jesting, love,” she said quietly. “I am stunned, of course, and my physician is still abed, recovering from the shock. But Alasdair, the babe is not yours.”

He made some sort of choking sound and opened one eye. “Not…
mine?”

Julia frowned at him. “Alasdair, my dear, we promised one another nothing save friendship,” she answered. “Indeed, we go weeks without even seeing one another. Have
you
been faithful to me?”

He cleared his throat roughly. “I—well, I would have to say…that I am not perfectly…”

The grip on his knee tightened. “Alasdair, let me be blunt,” Julia interjected. “I know all about Inga Karlsson and her little flat in Long Acre.”

“Come, Julia! It was just a loan! I swear to God. We are just friends.”

“As we are just friends?” she suggested slyly. “And we won’t even talk about Lord Feald’s wife. Or that tavern maid in Wapping. Or that French dancer. I know you can’t help it. I know women adore you. Indeed, I don’t know why you trouble yourself to hide any of it from me.”

Alasdair swallowed. “I don’t hide it,” he lied.

Julia laughed. “You
do
hide it, my dear,” she said. “You prevaricate reflexively, like some eight-year-old scamp when one asks him what he is doing, and in his first breath he says, ‘Why, nothing at all!’ And says it with such charm and innocence, one knows immediately he is up to some sort of wickedness.”

“It just never crossed my mind, that is all,” he swore. “How could I even think of Inga when I am with you?”

“Because Inga is blond, buxom, beautiful, and so thin she slinks like a cat when she walks?” Julia suggested. “Besides, she’s at least two decades younger than I.”

“I rarely go for that sort,” said Alasdair truthfully. “Besides, Julia, what we have is something…special.”

“Yes, I’m old enough to be your mother,” she said dryly. “That’s frightfully special.”

He seized her by the arm. “You certainly are not,” he responded. Then he looked at her with grave concern. “But you are a little old, Julia, to be with child. Good Lord. Who is the father? What are you going to do?”

“Pray,” she said with a muted smile. “And the father is Henrietta’s brother. We have been dear friends for twenty years, you know.”

“Edward Wheeler, the playwright?” Alasdair looked askance at her. “Do you love him, Julia?”

She laughed, a light, tinkling sound. “Lud, what a question, coming from you! I respect and adore him.” She set a hand on her abdomen. “And I want this child, Alasdair, if there is any way possible.”

“Do you mean to marry him, Julia?” He scowled at her. “You should, you know.”

Again, she laughed. “Oh, Alasdair!” she said. “What kind of rakehell
are
you? I begin to think you are not quite as advertised!”

“Don’t tease, Julia. This is serious.”

Her face fell. “I know,” she said. “And I do not know what I shall do. I’ve told Edward, of course. We are in quite a quandary. It would be terrible at our ages to rush to the altar, when my chances of carrying the child to term are…well, not good.”

“God, Julia. I wish you all the best, of course.”

She smiled a little sadly. “Another year or two, and it would have been quite impossible,” she said. “Indeed, I thought it was something else altogether until the morning sickness struck.”

Alasdair knew what she was getting at. Julia was forty if she was a day, probably more—possibly a
lot
more. She was a former actress, and knew how to disguise the signs. But with child? He was more than a little worried. “He will do the right thing?” Alasdair demanded. “Wheeler, I mean?”

“I think so,” she said. “He’s still in a state of shock. But I want the child, regardless.”

He stood and kissed her hand. “You need a husband, Julia. I mean to insist on it.”

She looked up at him with damp eyes. “Yes, you are probably right,” she answered. “I will think on it, my dear.”

“Do you wish me to have a little chat with Wheeler? By God, I will, and gladly.”

Julia blanched. “Good Lord, no! What I am trying to say, Alasdair, is that we cannot continue to see one another at all.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “It would feel wrong, somehow, don’t you see? So tonight was—well, just for
auld lang syne,
as you Scots might say.”

Alasdair had reached for his shirt, and was pulling it on over his head. “So it’s good-bye, then?” he said teasingly. “After all we have been to one another, I’m to be cast off like an old shoe, without a second thought?”

Julia’s smile began to return. “Well, that would look a bit odd, wouldn’t it? Since everyone knows we are dear friends.”

Alasdair kissed her nose. “Dashed odd, old thing.”

Her eyes sparkled again. “No, no, Alasdair, I could never completely cast you off,” she said. “I just won’t go to bed with you again.”

“Ah, now
that,”
he said regretfully, “is a true loss!”

Esmée was standing at the schoolroom window, and staring down into Great Queen Street when she saw Sir Alasdair MacLachlan crawl gingerly out of a hackney cab and make his way up the steps. Though Esmée had taken breakfast some four hours earlier, MacLachlan was still wearing the evening clothes Ettrick had been brushing yesterday. Out all night, then—and God only knew where he’d left his other clothes. Well, she had suspected as much. All day yesterday, she had sensed his absence in the house. The strange feeling had carried into the night.

“Ma’am?”

She spun away from the window to see one of the footmen standing behind her.

“Where do you wish these?” The wooden chairs were so small, he held one in each hand.

Esmée’s eyes widened. “Are there more?” The footmen had been carrying in furniture for the last hour.

“Yes, ma’am,” said the footman. “Ten in total.”

Ten chairs?
“But that is wasteful,” said Esmée. “What was Wellings thinking?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t say, ma’am.”

Esmée just shook her head. “Put them round the table with the other four,” she said. “Then set the others against the wall, I suppose?”

And there was another problem. Just as MacLachlan had claimed, everything she said was beginning to come out sounding like a question. She knew how to be a lady, and give polite instructions to the servants. But it was another thing altogether to be one of them, or almost one of them. The truth was, she was neither fish nor fowl in this very English house, she considered, turning back to the window. If there was anything Scottish about Sir Alasdair MacLachlan save his fondness for whisky, it had long ago vanished. A pity, that.

Just then, there was a sound at the open door. She turned again to see Wellings inspecting the furniture. “Is everything satisfactory, ma’am?” he asked.

“Aye, thank you.” She motioned toward the nursery door, which was slightly ajar. “Sorcha is already napping in the little bed. But why so many chairs?”

Wellings lifted his brows. “I’ve no notion, ma’am,” he replied. “Sir Alasdair decided to do the shopping himself yesterday afternoon. I suppose he wished to purchase everything the child might possibly need.”

“I see.” They did fit the room very nicely, Esmée secretly admitted. But it seemed extravagant, something no good Scot would condone. Perhaps MacLachlan was expecting a crowd. Perhaps he had a whole regiment of illegitimate children dotting London’s landscape.

Wellings made a little bow. “Sir Alasdair asks that you join him for coffee in his study,” he added. “In half an hour, if that suits?”

“I fear I cannot,” Esmée answered. “Sorcha might awaken and—”

“Sir Alasdair says Lydia is to come up,” he interjected.

Esmée had already met Lydia, the fresh-faced girl who brought up their tea and turned down their beds. Still, Esmée was surprised MacLachlan had troubled himself to anticipate their needs.

“Lydia is the eldest of eight,” said the butler reassuringly. “She is extremely skilled with children.”

Something inside her shriveled a little at that. Lydia could scarcely be less qualified than Esmée, could she? Perhaps Wellings already suspected his master had hired a fraud. Perhaps if she had not agreed to stay, Sorcha would have been given into the care of someone who knew what to do. Someone who was actually qualified to raise her. Until rather recently, Esmée had done little more than romp and play with her sister. It seemed such a luxury now. And a lifetime ago.

“Miss Hamilton?” said the butler. “The coffee?”

Her head jerked up. “Aye, then,” she said. “In half an hour.”

Lydia soon appeared with a basket of darning to occupy her time. Esmée went into her room to tidy herself. As she did so, she caught her reflection in the looking glass which hung above the washbasin. Two wide-set green eyes under dark, arching brows looked back. They were, she knew, her mother’s eyes, and her finest feature.

Esmée had often been told she resembled her mother, but the thought frightened rather than comforted her—especially when she was around men like MacLachlan, and felt her pulse ratcheting wildly up. But her mother’s hair had been a rich chestnut, whilst Esmée’s hair was a nondescript brown, so fine and heavy it was forever slipping from its arrangement. Her nose was…just a nose, her chin just a chin, unlike her mother, whose features had been perfect in very way. Esmée had no charming tip-tilt or dimple or cleft to catch the eye.