The Reluctant Suitor (23 page)

“Oh, dear,” her mother murmured apprehensively. A disfigured face was certainly no honorable excuse for terminating a contract of marriage, especially when such wounds had been gained in valiant service to one’s country. Still, imagining her beautiful young daughter entrapped in the arms of a hideous monster made her stomach convulse. From there, her concerns swiftly mounted by torturous degrees.

A
driana struggled up from the depths of sleep and reluctantly lifted her head off the pillow, allowing her to bestow an ominous squint upon her bedchamber door from whence came an insistent rapping. Her father had left the house shortly after breakfast, and she had dragged herself back to her bedchamber to try to get some more sleep with the hope that, if she did, she would feel better. Her mother was too polite to do anything more than gently tap more than three or four times upon the portal, which seemed to leave none other than her sister, Melora, as the determined culprit.

“Enter if you dare,” Adriana called out irritably. “Or better yet, just go away. I really don’t want to see anyone right now.”

As she might have expected from her sibling, the door swung wide. Adriana was just in the mood to set

her testy sister back upon her heels for daring to disturb her, but, much to her surprise, it was not Melora who hastened in, but Samantha, wearing a cape and bonnet.

“What? You lazy thing, are you still slumbering at this hour of the morning?” Samantha asked in amazement. She had grown up with this particular individual and been occasionally annoyed by and even envious of Adriana’s ability to present a cheery disposition even at the crack of dawn. For once, Samantha could revel in the chance to return a sampling of all the reproaches she had received from the energetic young woman. “Shame on you. Here you are, lying abed amid your silken sheets while others are suffering in misery. Now get up and get dressed. We have some business to attend in Bradford.”

Adriana moaned as she buried her face beneath a pillow. “I don’t feel at all well this morning,” she mumbled miserably from underneath its feathery confines. “Whatever you’re up to, you’ll have to take care of it without me. My head is aching too much for me to even contemplate leaving my bed, much less my home.”

“Nevertheless, you’re coming,” Samantha insisted, sweeping the bedcovers off her friend as that one tried her best to burrow beneath them. “The scullery maid who was let go from Wyndham Manor last night has three young children who, according to the groom that carried her into her cottage, looked to be very much in a bad way. He said all three were terribly thin and garbed in filthy rags. As much as you may want to lie abed till a late hour, lazybones, we must go see what we can do to help those children.”

“Who will
help me
if I become ill?” Adriana demanded petulantly.

“You shouldn’t have drunk so much wine last night,” Samantha chided. “You know it always makes you sick the next day. Besides, a little fresh air will be more beneficial to you than lying abed all day. Now get up. I refuse to allow you to hide out in your bedchamber like a spineless little coward simply because my brother has returned.”

Adriana groaned in rebellion and flopped over on her back. Squinting at the ceiling above her head, she couldn’t even begin to imagine the agony she’d suffer trying to get out of bed. “What in the world did I ever do to deserve a friend as heartless as you?”

“Well, if you want me to start naming the reasons, we’ll be here for some time, which we don’t have,” the other woman rejoined sprightly and went to the armoire to search through the gowns it contained. “Now get washed and please hurry yourself along while you’re doing it. I don’t have all morning to stay here and listen to you whine like a pampered youngling. You’re going with me, and that’s all there is to it, so you might as well accept that as a fact, because it will do you little good to resist.”

“Sometimes I think I hate you,” Adriana moaned dejectedly.

“I know, but most of the time you adore the very ground I walk on.”

“Humph!”

Less than an hour later, the Burkes’ driver nudged the pair of lead horses of the four-in-hand close behind the boot of another conveyance parked in front of a small, shabby hut. In growing curiosity, Samantha craned her neck to peer out at the dapperly garbed driver who stood alongside. At his friendly wave, she frowned in bemusement, recognizing her family’s driver, Bentley.

“What on earth is Colton doing here?”

A gasp issued forth from Adriana’s throat as she sat upright, her headache forgotten. As she peered out, Bentley waved again. Her response was rather weakly conveyed with fluttering fingers before she

collapsed back into her seat again. After their encounter in the bathing chamber, the last person she wanted to meet was the marquess. “Why don’t you go inside and ask him while I sit here and wait for you,” Adriana hurriedly suggested. “If Colton is already seeing to the needs of the children, then you certainly don’t need me with you.”

“Nonsense, you’re not getting off that easily,” Samantha informed her. “You’re coming in with me even if I have to drag you.”

“I’m sick . . . ,” Adriana complained, pressing a trembling hand to her brow. Just the idea of having to face his lordship made her stomach roll queasily; no telling what it would do if he gave her one of those confident, manly grins that seemed to have the ability to strip away whatever pride she once had.

“Not as sick as you’re going to be if I have to send Colton out here to carry you in,” the older woman warned.

A forlorn sigh was greatly exaggerated as Adriana bemoaned her plight. “You’re bereft of pity.”

“Why? Because I won’t let you wallow in the maudlin mire you’ve created for yourself? I once thought you had fortitude, at least more than you’ve been evidencing since my brother returned, but obviously I was mistaken about that. You certainly don’t appear to have much backbone
now
. No, nary a thin thread.”

Adriana raised her dainty chin as she took umbrage at her friend’s claim. “The way I feel right now has absolutely nothing to do with your brother.”

“Good, then it isn’t going to bother you any if we go in and see what he’s about.”

Adriana lifted her upper lip in a mutinous sneer as her friend alighted. “If you treat Percy the way you do me, all I can say is that it’s a downright miracle he hasn’t disappeared over the border to Scotland.”

“He can’t! If you haven’t noticed lately, there’s a ball and chain attached to his ankle,” Samantha flung back as she sashayed up the rough stone walk.

Mumbling sourly to herself, Adriana made a reluctant descent with the driver’s help and followed her companion inside the cramped, dank, sparsely furnished cottage.

As the two women stepped through the open door of the hut, Colton turned solemnly from the cot upon which lay an ominously draped form. He managed a meager smile for his sister before his eyes moved beyond her to the slender woman who had followed. Though Adriana felt his gaze sweep her from head to foot, his inspection seemed more like a strongly ingrained propensity of the human male than anything deliberate, for his expression remained noticeably somber. Behind him, the hearth was dark, dank, and cold. Across the room stood three young children, ranging in age from two to five. Huddled together in a far corner, they stared in wide-eyed trepidation at the strangers who had entered their home. Seeing their filthy state and the thinness of their faces and bodies, Adriana forgot her own misery as her heart went out to them.

“I’m glad you’re both here,” Colton acknowledged in a muted tone.

Samantha dragged her gaze away from the morbid shape shrouded by a badly frayed quilt and lifted a silent inquiry to her brother. He nodded, affirming her suspicions that the mother of the children was dead.

“Obviously she died shortly after she was brought here,” he explained in a muted tone. “She was stiff and cold when I arrived. I can’t imagine how she could’ve consumed so much brandy, but she obviously did,

at least enough to kill her.”

Once again, his eyes shifted to Adriana. In spite of the gloomy circumstances of the moment, he seemed once again naturally disposed to look her over from pert bonnet to small, neatly slippered feet.

“I haven’t been able to approach the children,” he explained quietly. “They’re terrified of me.”

Adriana hurried to the waifs and, in spite of their mewling fear, doffed her cape and wrapped it around the youngest, a tiny girl with straggly, unkempt blond hair and a dirt-encrusted face. Lifting the child within her arms, she held out a hand to the second oldest.

“Come, children,” she bade in a motherly tone, “we’re going to take you to a nice, warm, wonderful home where there’s a very kindly couple who love children.”

The eldest boy shook his head. “Can’t. Gotta stay here an’ look aftah me sister an’ brother. That’s what me mum tol’ me I should do no matter what.”

“You can still watch over them at the Abernathys’,” Adriana reasoned, “but there you’ll be warm, fed, and clothed. Do you happen to know the Abernathys?”

Once again, the boy responded with a negative movement of his head. “Me mum didn’t want us leavin’

the house whilst she was gone. Said some strangers’d take us ta the work houses.”

“Well, let me tell you a little bit about the Abernathys, and then they will cease to be strangers. They’re an older couple who live in the country, not too far from here, in fact. They’ve never been able to have children of their own, and yet, because of their desire to have a large family, they’ve been taking in orphans and raising them as their own for some years now. They’ve also adopted animals in much the same manner. Do you like animals?” At the eldest boy’s chary shrug, Adriana began to chant off various kinds that she had seen at the couple’s home as she playfully tossed her head from side to side. “They have cats and dogs and chickens and geese and goats and sheep and horses and cows. . . .” She paused to drag in an exaggerated breath, and then questioned, “Have you ever milked a cow?”

The eldest shook his dirt-mired head. “Nope. We ain’t hardly seen a cow, ‘less someone led her past our cottage. We been livin’ here since our pa was killed in the war. Me mum ne’er wanted us ta go out.”

“You poor darlings, have you never been outside to play or to see the trees or the sun?”

“Only from the windows.”

Adriana was totally amazed that a mother could do such a thing to her children. “It’s wonderful to be outside when the sun is shining and there are butterflies flitting about, to see the animals, and to breathe in the fresh air. Outdoors is not a bad place at all. Although there are some evil people of whom children must be wary, the Abernathys are very kind, tenderhearted folk who can be trusted. They love to teach little ones all about animals and also how to read, write, and cipher. Can you do any of that?”

Again she received a negative reply from the eldest boy.

“Well, Mr. Abernathy just happens to be a very fine tutor, and he loves children as much as his wife does. Besides that, he’s very clever at whittling animals out of wood. Would you like to have a wooden animal of your own?”

This time she smiled as she gained an affirmative response. “Then I can almost promise you ere the evening comes nigh that each of you will have one. But before we can reach the place where the Abernathys live, we must all go for a ride in one of those nice, shiny carriages outdoors. Would you like

that?”

The three orphans looked at each other warily.

“Don’t know,” the eldest boy mumbled. “Ain’t ne’er ridden in one afore.”

Adriana laughed and cuddled the tiny girl in her arms. “Then you’re about to have your first ride in a conveyance fit for a prince. My friends and I will take you to the Abernathys’ and introduce you to all the orphans the couple have taken under their wing. You can question them about their home just to see if they’re pleased and happy to be living with the family. If they’re not, then you needn’t stay. We’ll find another kindly soul who’ll care for you, but I bet the children living under their roof are as delighted to be there as you will be in time. In fact, I don’t think I can recommend a nicer place for children to be.”

“Me ma’s dead, ain’t she?” the boy blurted.

Adriana slowly nodded. “I regret to say she is. That’s why we’ve come . . . to help you. But first, I should know your names.” She grew thoughtful for a moment as she considered the dirty face of the child she held in her arms, then she peered questioningly at the eldest and ventured a wild guess. “Something tells me that your name is Thomas. . . .”

“Joshua . . . Joshua Jennings,” he announced and threw a thumb to indicate the ragamuffin at his side. “

Me brother here is Jeremiah. An’ me sister’s Sarah.”

“Well, it sounds as if the three of you were named after characters in the Bible. That’s truly an honor. Did your mother name you perhaps?”

“Nah, me pa did. She weren’t fond o’ readin’, but whilst me pa were alive, he used ta read ta us from the good book. He e’en started teachin’ me ta read, but, afore he finished, he went off ta fight in the war an’ got shot dead.”

“I’m truly sorry, children.” Adriana looked at each sympathetically, and then asked, “Have you ever heard the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho, how the men were instructed to march around the city six days and on the seventh to march seven times around it and then to blow the ram’s horns . . . ? To everyone’s amazement, the walls fell down.”