Saved by Scandal (12 page)

“’Ere now, none o’ that, Anthill.” Not my lord, not Lord Penrose, not even Master Ansel, Galen noted, swallowing his anger. Then Renshaw clamped his huge hand over the child’s face, squeezing until the boy swallowed. When he
stepped back, Galen could see bruises on his brother-in-law’s neck and jaw, from the attendant’s past ministrations.

“Why don’t you go pack your things now?” the viscount managed to say through clenched teeth. “I’ll look after his lordship while you are gone.”

“I needs to get ’is medicines an’ stuff.”

“We don’t need much on the way, and we’ll worry about his clothes and such in London.” Galen doubted the boy had anything worth keeping. There was not a toy in sight, nor a book. “Just pack a satchel for him if you have one.”

As soon as Renshaw left to gather his own belongings, Galen found a basin with water that might not have been changed in a week, but it would have to do. Using his own handkerchief, he started to bathe the boy’s face.

Ansel jerked his face away, and Galen took that for a good sign, that the nipper still had some fight in him. He kept washing, but as gently as he could without holding the frail shoulders down. Ansel struggled to open his eyes, and then fought to get them to focus. His eyes were all dark pupil, Galen noted, with the slightest rim of blue showing.

“It’s all right, lad. My name is Galen.”

Ansel did not know anyone named Galen. His hands twitched, trying to bat this new tormentor away. His mouth worked, but no sound came out.

“Would you like a drink?” There wasn’t even a blasted glass in the room. Galen dribbled some of the wash water off his handkerchief onto the boy’s cracked and parched lips.

The little baron bared his teeth and growled, “No.”

It was barely a whisper, but reminded Galen forcefully of Margot’s dog. He set the handkerchief aside, then picked it up again to wipe at his own damp brow. “We’ll get you some lemonade in a minute then, all right?”

“Go…away.”

The boy was holding himself so rigid Galen feared he’d break a matchstick bone, but he was even more upset when he realized Ansel was afraid of him. Deuce take it, the nipper thought he was trying to poison him! “Shush, Ansel. I am not going to hurt you. Your sister asked me to help.”

“No…. Lies. All lies.”

“I realize you have no call to trust anyone, but I am Viscount Woodbridge, and I do not lie. On my mother’s grave, I swear that Margot sent me for you.”

“Margot?”

For an instant Galen thought the child tried to smile. His lips twitched, at least, before falling slack again as the purplish eyelids drifted closed. The viscount grabbed for his pocket watch, holding it near the lad’s mouth to make sure his breath was still fogging the glass. Galen’s hand was shaking so hard when he put the timepiece back in his pocket that he feared his own heart was threatening to give notice in panic. Lud, it was bad enough her brother might stick his spoon in the wall, without Galen leaving Margot a widow. He hadn’t yet signed the marriage contracts, confound it. They had to leave.

Lifting the youngster, blankets and all, Galen decided he’d held cider jugs that weighed more. He kicked the door open, relieved to find the air in the hallway slightly less fetid than that in the sickroom, and carefully, cautiously made his way down the dimly lighted stairs. He did not stop until he reached his own carriage. He did not make his farewells to Manfred or gather his hat and gloves from the dour majordomo.

Clegg went back for his master’s possessions, and extra pillows so they could prop the little lad in the corner of the carriage without fear of his bumping his head when they hit a rut. “Poor little blighter looks to be in queer stirrups,” Clegg declared. “And no wonder, if half what I heard in the kitchens is true.”

The butler ran a tight ship, it seemed, but as soon as his back was turned, the cook and the scullery maid and the pot boy were all too eager to open their budgets. Underpaid, housed worse than the dogs in the kennels, and abused by the master, the staff owed their employer no loyalty and
would have left ages ago, they swore, if there were other positions available.

“I asked what happened to bring the estate so low, like you told me to. Asked if it was hard times and poor crops or the Corn Laws or what. They all laughed. The farms were doing just fine, the cook said, but all the blunt was going to line Penrose’s pockets, and his wine cellar. No new equipment, no repairs.”

“That’s what it looked like to me, too. Either my solicitor demands an accounting, or I’ll steal the estate books myself. Did the kitchen help say anything about the boy?”

“I asked, casual like you said,” Clegg reported, “and no one wanted to talk about him at first, looking over their shoulders, I swear, for that butler or the boy’s guard, Renshaw. Quick with his fists, that one is. The pot boy has a black eye to prove it.”

Galen tucked another blanket around Ansel while they waited for Renshaw. It was all he could think to do, for now. “The villain will pay, don’t worry. What else did the staff say?”

“The cook finally took me aside and whispered that the household ordered enough laudanum to put a horse to sleep, permanent like. It all got delivered to the sickroom. She was afraid to say anything to anyone, for fear of her job and Renshaw. Didn’t figure anyone would believe her anyway, but she doesn’t want to be blamed if the sprout cocks up his toes. She says she brewed up every recipe in her book of simples for the little baron, but they all came back untouched.”

Galen nodded. “Go back and get her name and a different address we could write to, in case we need her testimony, or if Lady Woodbridge hasn’t hired a cook yet. And ask if she knows the direction of Mrs. Hapgood while you are there.” The viscount tossed his valet a coin. “Give her this, for trying to help the boy, but don’t let anyone else see you do it.”

Clegg knew his employer was frazzled, by his saying what didn’t need mentioning. He cast a worried look on the
too-still boy before nodding and backing out of the coach. He thought he’d see if the cook had another bottle of the excellent ale she’d served him. Manfred Penrose did not stint on certain things.

While Renshaw was carrying out his bags and the groom was helping him stow the parcels in the boot, Galen conferred again with Clegg, who was repacking the hamper of food and drinks under the seat.

“The first thing we are going to do is get rid of the ogre who manhandles children,” Galen told his man, noticing the two bottles wrapped in wet towels. The cook must have been grateful for the coin. “It can’t be here, I am sorry to say, and it has to appear an accident. I don’t want the uncle’s suspicions aroused, lest he change his mind and come after us. The law would be on his side, dash it, and the local magistrate would send Ansel back with Manfred.”

Clegg jerked his head in the former boxer’s direction. “Want I should tell Jem Coachman to have a problem with the ribbons on some empty stretch of the road so we can take care of him?”

“No, leaving Renshaw on the side of the highway would not precisely be the act of innocent men. We’ll drive on for an hour or two, till it’s almost dark, then find a small, uncrowded inn to change the horses. I’ll get him aside one way or the other, and we’ll leave him there. I’ll ride up with Jem to find the right place. You keep an eye on him inside.”

For ninety minutes Clegg pretended to sleep, keeping a watch on the boy and Renshaw. He need not have, for Master Ansel never moved, and the attendant never looked at him after patting the laudanum bottle that protruded from his coat pocket, stating the brat would stay quiet as a mouse for a few hours, at least.

When they finally stopped, Clegg volunteered to sit with the boy so Renshaw could fetch himself an ale—Clegg was not offering the fine brew from Penrose Hall—and use the privy. “For his lordship means to drive through the night, you know. He won’t be stopping for the comforts.”

Somehow Renshaw tripped on the way to the convenience out back. Jem Coachman, on his way back from the same errand, offered him a hand up, but a loose board from the roof of the rundown inn somehow managed to fly off in the slight breeze and strike Renshaw on the back of the head.

His lordship was there in an instant, all full of concern when he saw the fallen man was only stunned. “No, don’t get up, Renshaw, you might be concussed. Don’t worry, my valet can see to the boy, and I’ll make arrangements with the innkeep for you to stay overnight and get a ride back to Penrose Hall when you recover. It’s the least he can do, with this hovel in such disrepair a chap gets coshed trying to relieve himself.”

Relieving himself of some of his fury, Galen hit the thick-headed thug on the back of the head again. This time he used the butt end of his pistol, to make sure Renshaw stayed down and unconscious, concussed into confusion for sure. “I never hit a man from behind, before,” the viscount ground out as he replaced the pistol in his waistband. “But you, sirrah, don’t count, being less than human.”

As soon as the hostler was fetched and Renshaw was disposed of, Galen jumped back into the carriage, shouting to his driver, “Spring ’em, Jem. Don’t stop till you get to the next town of any size where they might have a doctor. Drive as if a life depended on you. It might.”

Chapter Thirteen

Whoever said it was better to light a candle than curse the darkness never realized that viscounts could do both. By the carriage lanterns, Galen emptied the contents of the sack containing Ansel’s medicines onto the seat next to him. He opened the bottles, sniffed at them or dipped a finger in to taste. Using every swear word he knew in English, Spanish, and French, with a few choice phrases he’d learned from the Prussian army officers, Lord Woodbridge tossed all of the potions out the carriage window. The rain that was starting to fall would dilute the drugs enough that a passing fox or straying cow would not be poisoned, which was more than Manfred and Renshaw had done for the boy.

“Faster, Jem,” Galen shouted, damning the night that forced caution on his driver. Bringing his head back inside the coach and fixing the window back in place, he vowed to kill the bastard.

Since Lord Woodbridge had already broken open Renshaw’s head, Clegg assumed his lordship meant the nipper’s guardian, not poor Jem. “Amen,” was all he said, holding out a bottle of ale.

When they finally reached a likely town, the landlord of the Spotted Dog, the only inn in sight, did not want to host an ailing infant. Not even the color of Galen’s gold was enough to convince Lemuel Browne that housing a sickly lad was good for his business, or his health.

“What’s wrong with the bantling, anyway?” he wanted to know. “The smallpox’d have me shut down for quarantine,
and the influenza would scare off my other business, by George, if I didn’t catch it myself.”

“He ate something that disagreed with him.” Holding the featherweight took no effort, but Galen was anxious to see the boy in bed and cared for. Impatiently, he said, “Here, look at him for yourself. No spots, no fever, no catarrh. He has nothing you can contract, unless your relatives want to inherit this sorry place sooner.”

At the man’s blank look, Galen cursed. “I swear to you my brother is not carrying a contagion. I also swear that your business will indeed suffer if you keep me standing here, after I tell everyone how unaccommodating you were. I can guarantee you’ll never see another crested carriage in your stable yard.”

The innkeep took up a candle to lead Galen and his burden to a suite of two bedrooms with a sitting room between. “Don’t expect my girls to be waiting on the cub,” Lemuel muttered. “They ain’t nursemaids, and my wife is off visiting her da.”

Since the landlord’s girls were currently sitting on drovers’ laps in the common room, Galen could do without their skills. “My man and I will see to him. We will need hot water, however, a meal for myself and my servants, and whatever else your kitchen can provide that is nourishing for the boy. My groom can help fetch and carry when he gets back with the doctor.” He carefully laid Ansel on the bed in the smaller room, after Clegg rushed to turn the sheets down. They pulled aside the dingy blankets from Penrose Hall and straightened Ansel’s stick-like limbs before covering him again. He did not move, not even by a flicker of his eye.

The doctor was not happy to see Ansel, either. Having finally reached his home after a birth, a broken arm, three bad coughs, and a bull calf with bee stings, he was not eager to leave. Galen’s groom did not give him much choice, for which Mr. Graham blamed the viscount.

“I don’t care if you are the King of Persia, my lord, I resent having a pistol waved in my face.”

All Galen could do was apologize for the gun, not his man’s insistence on the doctor’s immediate attendance. “It is an emergency.”

“Lemuel says he ate something,” Mr. Graham said as he followed Galen toward the smaller bedroom. “I can tell you’re not a father. Boys do that all the time. Nothing to worry—Oh, dear.”

Graham was a simple country sawbones, but he seemed as competent to the viscount as any Harley Street physician. He pulled the boy’s nightshirt off—Galen winced to see Ansel’s ribs sticking out, worse than Margot’s dog’s—and put his ear to Ansel’s chest.

“Heart’s regular, but too slow. No fluid in the lungs, though. Yet.” He pushed down on one of Ansel’s fingernails and watched the color change. “Blood’s flowing sluggishly, but not pooling. Yet.” Then he pinched and prodded at the child’s abdomen, lifted his eyelids, looked in his ears and down his throat. Finally, the surgeon turned to Galen. In a voice dripping disdain, he asked, “Did you do this to him, my lord?”