Patrica Rice (5 page)

When she finally arrived in the foyer, a child of immense girth wearing a straw hat with ribbons streaming down her back watched her from small eyes lost in a pudgy face. Melanie could only stare. Surely this ... exceptionally large child could not be Jane’s precious little baby.

“You must be my Aunt Melanie,” the child stated with satisfaction. “I have come to live with you.”

Melanie thought she might sink to the chair beside the hall table to catch her breath at this declaration, but she thought better of it. The child didn’t look scared, but surely adults shouldn’t show weakness at moments like this. Taking a deep breath, she asked carefully, “Where is your nanny, Pamela?”

“Oh, I got rid of her a long time ago,” she said with that same satisfaction. “And I told the maid that I received a letter from you asking me to come. Mama read me your letters. You do want me to come, don’t you?”

Oh, my. Oh, dear. Melanie looked helplessly to Watson, who remained as stoic as ever, seemingly not heeding this conversation at all. She glanced back at the child who didn’t look at all like the lovely Jane of her memory except for the long blond curls. Despite the child’s much too adult complacence, she sensed a certain wariness behind those small eyes now. Without another thought, Melanie offered her hand.

“Why, of course. I have wanted to meet you for ever so long now, just as I’ve said in my letters. Let us go up and find you a room, and then we shall have a nice coze over tea, shall we?”

She could practically see the miniature giant fight back an expression of relief as she nodded haughtily and took her offered hand. When Melanie used her cane to help her up the stairs, the child looked at her with interest. “Mama said you was a cripple, but you have a stick to help you walk. Does it have a sword in it like Lord Aberdeen’s?”

Leave it to a child to consider a handicap as something excitingly innovative. Melanie bit back a smile and answered seriously, “No. One needs two good feet to fence with a sword. How did you know to come here?”

“I heard the maids whispering that Lord Reister had married Mama’s sister. When he came to call, I went down and took his card. He’d scribbled this address on the back. I showed it to the driver, and he took me right here,” she answered proudly.

Alarmed at the precociousness of a child who could only be ... Melanie tried to count back. Nine? Surely not already. Jane always spoke of her as an infant. But she’d been married ten years ago…  Shaking her head, she returned her thoughts to the child now following her down the corridor. “That was a very dangerous thing to do,” she warned in her sternest voice. “Ladies never go out by themselves. Hackney drivers might sell them to the gypsies if they catch them alone. Don’t ever, ever do that again. Do you understand me?”

She could see obstinacy welling up in Pamela’s face, but Melanie refused to back down. She didn’t know who had responsibility for raising this entirely too clever child, but someone had to put a firm foot down. “I want your promise, Pamela. If you’re to stay with me until your mama returns, you have to listen to what I say. Even grown-up ladies daren’t go out in the city by themselves. We could have lost you. Do you know how unhappy that would have made me? I’ve wanted to meet you forever, but what if the gypsies had stolen you before I could?”

“You could have come to meet me sooner,” she answered defiantly, her bottom lip stuck out. “Nobody comes to visit me.”

Melanie handed the child into a chair in her sitting room, then rang for a maid. “One is supposed to wait until invited before visiting. Your mama knew I couldn’t come, so she didn’t invite me. Would you like some tea?”

The child’s face brightened immediately. “Oh, yes, please. Will we have little cakes? I love the ones with thick frosting Cook makes.”

Cakes with heavy frosting were definitely not what this child needed. How could Jane let her eat so inappropriately? Or had Jane even noticed what her child ate if she was not there to supervise the meals?

Not wanting to think a thought that sounded too much like something Damien might say, Melanie ordered the maid who appeared to bring up some lemonade and watercress sandwiches.

Pamela’s expression immediately grew mutinous. “I wanted cakes. I don’t like nasty old watercress. And I like tea with lots of sugar. And cream. Nanny says cream is good for the complexion.”

“Sugar is bad for the complexion. It makes it all spotty. And my cook doesn’t know how to make cakes because I can’t eat them. We shall have strawberries for dessert if you eat your sandwich all up.”

Torn between the desire to have her way and curiosity at the lady who couldn’t eat cakes, Pamela wiggled restlessly in her chair. “Why can’t you eat cakes?” she asked sullenly.

Good question. Lying to a child wasn’t as easy as she thought. Frantically, Melanie tried to come up with a reasonable answer that wouldn’t pull her deeper into a web of deceit.

“Because if she gets too fat, she won’t be able to climb the stairs,” a voice from the door responded. “Hello, Pamela, what brings you here?”

The child in the chair brightened perceptibly, turning to peer around the chair’s wing to investigate the newcomer. “Damien!” she cried happily, leaping from her perch and rushing to meet him.

With ease, he caught all six stone flung at him, whirling the child up in his arms before depositing her back in the chair where she belonged. Amazed at the lordly gentleman so apparently at ease with the difficult girl, Melanie merely sat back and watched as Damien placed both hands on the chair wings and trapped Pamela between them.

“Now tell me what you are doing here. Did your mama bring you?”

Pamela immediately became belligerent, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring back. “No, and the gypsies didn’t sell me either. I’m going to stay with Aunt Melanie. She told me I could.” She didn’t even look at Melanie for confirmation.

Neither did Damien. He merely stared disapprovingly at the child. “That is very good of your Aunt Melanie, but she doesn’t know what a spoiled little brat you are. If you’re staying here, you will have to behave yourself. You’ll do exactly what your Aunt Melanie tells you, or I’ll personally paddle your little bottom.”

“You would not dare!” she shouted back. “My mama said she would shoot your brains out if you take one hand to me, Damien!”

Shocked, Melanie could only stare. Damien had no right to punish the child, although admittedly, the child needed firm guidance of some sort. But Damien’s behavior was no less shocking than Pamela’s. She’d never heard a child talk to an adult so. And how could she possibly have heard Jane say such a horrible thing?

“Then if you want your mama’s protection, you can go right back to her,” Damien informed her. “I will not have any spoiled brats in my house.”

Deciding this was the point where she ought to interfere, Melanie interrupted smoothly, “I’m certain Pamela isn’t a brat, Damien. She just misses her mama. Now have a seat, do. We’re just about to take tea.”

Damien straightened and gave her a glare. “You have no idea . . .”

“I’m certain I will soon enough,” she interrupted before he could continue. “Pamela’s nanny has apparently left her with a maid, so she is more than welcome to stay with us until her mama comes home. You can show Lord Reister how well you behave, can’t you?” She asked this last of the child who clearly absorbed every word said.

“If you feed me cakes,” she declared promptly.

“Strawberries,” Melanie reminded her firmly. “And perhaps Lord Reister will take us to Astley’s. I have always wanted to see a circus.”

Distracted by this happy thought, Pamela bounced in her seat and sounded almost like an excited child as she bombarded them with questions while eating the dreaded watercress sandwiches. Damien raised a puckish eyebrow but genially complied with the undertaking, although he consumed almost everything on the tea tray in the process. Watercress and strawberries did not appease a hungry man.

Once they finished tea, Melanie sent her niece off to a hastily prepared room, sent a footman to inform Jane’s servants where the child could be found and to fetch some clothing, and rose from her seat to follow Pamela to see that she got settled. Damien stood in front of her, blocking her path. She looked up at him with surprise.

“I can’t think of another woman in the world who could manage that obnoxious child so well, or who would even take the time to bother,” he said softly, with almost an air of puzzlement. “Do you have any idea at all what you have let yourself in for?”

Melanie bit her bottom lip and looked skeptical. “I’m afraid a great deal more than I am able to handle.” She turned a defiant look to him. “But I could scarcely do less, could I? She’s just a child, Damien. A shamefully neglected one, I fear to say, I don’t understand Jane at all.”

“No, someone as good as you wouldn’t,” he murmured.

Then before she had any notion what he was about, Damien pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

Too utterly surprised to protest at first, Melanie was quickly caught by the myriad pleasures of Damien’s embrace. She leaned against his strength, absorbed the masculine scents of tobacco and shaving soap, and fell headlong in love with the sensation of his lips pressing along hers. Before she knew what she was doing, she circled his neck with her arms. He rewarded her with a low groan as he lifted her closer against him, and his tongue stroked along the seam of her lips. Before she could part them in an exclamation of excitement, he stiffened and set her carefully back to the floor.

“I apologize, Melanie. I should not have done that. As much as I wish to convince you to marry me, I don’t want you to feel as if you must.”

Dazed, she gazed into the stark lines of his face, searching for answers that neither of them possessed. “If marriage means more kisses like that, I think you’ve convinced me,” she answered somewhat breathlessly. “I had no idea, Damien . . .”

Lifting one eyebrow, he grinned a trifle rakishly. “That good, am I? Behave yourself, and I’ll give you another for dessert.”

Laughing shakily at his ability to take such a soul-racking moment and reduce it to a jest more easily dealt with, Melanie stepped away from his dangerous proximity and picked up her walking stick. “Then we shall have to have dinner half a dozen times a day,” she replied, striving for the same light tone. She didn’t think she was very successful.

Damien stood straight and tall as he watched her stride bravely away, her weak foot dragging only slightly. Only when she was completely out of sight did his shoulders sag, and he crumpled helplessly into the nearest chair.

She had taken in Jane’s obnoxious child without a qualm. Drawing a shaky breath, Damien wished for a cigar and a glass of port right now. He needed to do something to calm this wildly escalating wave of hope. Of course she would take in Jane’s child. Jane was family. She would feel obligated to help family, no matter how much she despised the burden. He’d rather thought of his “wife” as a helpless child herself, but she wasn’t. Lord, after that kiss, he couldn’t convince himself she was a child anymore. She was more woman than Jane would ever be. More woman than he deserved.

He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on his plans to seduce her and sweep her into marriage, but he couldn’t get any further than the feel of her slender waist in his arms, the warm, eager pressure of her lips on his. The realization that she knew no other man but him in that way made his lungs constrict with the burden of responsibility laid on him. She would be completely, wholly his. He’d never possessed anything untarnished and complete before. He’d scarcely known his drunken father. His mother’s memory faded into the distant past. He’d had to put his home out to let when his father died because he couldn’t afford the upkeep. He’d lived off that small income and his wits ever since. He had nothing. Melanie could give him everything.

If she never learned of his reprehensible past.

That didn’t seem very likely. He could try to keep the truth from her until the vows were said, but then he fully meant to present her with the facts in all their dismal glory. That was one of the main reasons for his decision finally to sell his title in marriage. He didn’t need just the money. He needed to establish a real home, a place to live, with a woman to run it properly. He would be the first to admit that Jane made a mighty poor bargain in that department, but he didn’t have a great deal to trade beyond his title. The possibility of obtaining someone like Melanie nearly took his breath away.

She still thought of herself as inferior to Jane. He would have to show her otherwise, then perhaps he could convince her that he really, truly wanted her for his wife. He felt as if he grabbed for the stars, but a man couldn’t be blamed for trying when they seemed so close at hand. She thought her lame leg put her beyond the pale, but he didn’t see her lameness at all. With specially constructed shoes, she could even learn to dance if she wished. He didn’t ask for perfection in bed either. He needed forgiveness and understanding and a great number of other things, but he didn’t need perfect physical beauty. He, above all others, knew the uselessness of beauty.

He didn’t know if he was adequate to the task. He’d spent the better portion of his life idling it away in pursuit of pleasure like the rest of society. He couldn’t do that any longer. He had responsibilities he meant to uphold. If it meant waiting on Melanie hand and foot, he would do it. The odd part was, she really didn’t know how much she could demand of him right now. She had some strange idea that they were equals. Sooner or later, events would dissuade her of that notion.

* * * * 

"I heard you got shackled, Reister, but did you have to grovel for a cripple with a kid? Even the fair Jane would be better than that."

Melanie gave the man credit for not intentionally saying the words loud enough for her to hear. They just unfortunately fell into a lull in the crowd noise and some trick of their surroundings sent them wafting her way. She couldn't imagine why a fop like that stood outside with the noisy throng entering Astley's, but she didn't pretend to understand the whims of society. She just muffled a gasp when Damien caught the man by his starched cravat, hauled him to his toes, and nearly throttled him.