The girl shuddered and India smoothed her hair. “Don’t talk, my love. It’s over now. You’re safe again.”
~ ~ ~
On the way back from the park, Alexis was the center of all attention. The little girl sat between India and Thorne, tightly wrapped in a warm blanket and the duchess’s best fur muff.
They traveled straight from London, heading east to Norfolk and the Delamere estate, where Alexis would be reunited with her brother and sister. Dev decided this was the best way to put Alexis’s bad memories behind her. The cheerful gaiety of her siblings would help her most now.
Dev did not talk to the child about what had happened. There would be time for that when the harrowed look left her face and her body stopped its trembling. For now they only talked of silly, inconsequential things, like the way the Prince Regent’s corset creaked whenever he bent over to kiss a woman’s hand and Ian’s exploits as a boy at Eton, where he had been sent down for hiding a cow in the master’s chambers.
Finally the little girl began to relax. As the green countryside sped past, her eyes blinked shut, she rested her head against India’s shoulder and fell asleep. India’s eyes met Thorne’s and he nodded. Lifting Alexis up into his arms, he cradled her the rest of the way. The fierceness in his eyes told India that he meant to see nothing ever happened to Alexis again.
The little girl was still asleep when the rolling hills gave way to a shining emerald valley. Then Swallow Hill was before them, a tangle of turrets and chimneys, without symmetry or order, almost as if the house had grown in unruly bursts right out of that green sweep of hillside. But there was a beauty to the sunlit walls, and a vitality that few other homes could match.
And as India stared at Swallow Hill’s pink granite walls glowing in the morning sunlight, she thought there was no more beautiful sight in the world.
She was going home.
~ ~ ~
Two rows of servants were lined up at Swallow Hill’s broad front steps, waiting to greet the carriage. Thorne carried Alexis in his arms and from her safe perch the little girl stared in sleepy awe at the ranks of liveried servants. Only when Andrew and Marianne ran out was her awe forgotten amid a host of noisy, tearful embraces.
The three children were still chattering when they settled in a magnificent yellow sitting room at the rear of the house, overlooking Swallow Hill’s vast rolling lawns.
“So, my little imp, I see you managed to work your way out of disaster again.” The Duchess of Cranford smiled at the girl, who nodded happily, her face covered with crumbs from a lemon tart. The duchess had arranged for several of the London servants to come to Swallow Hill, thinking it would make Alexis more comfortable, since the staff had already fallen in love with the little girl. So far Beach, Mrs. Harrison, and Albert, the footman, had all been by to say hello to the child.
But Alexis suddenly shook her head. “Oh, it wasn’t I who was clever. It was Uncle Thorne and those three other nice men.” She bestowed a queenly smile on Ian, Froggett, and Connor MacKinnon, who sat beaming on the other side of the settee. “And, of course, Lady India. She was
so
brave, even when that nasty man was growling at her to follow him to his carriage. I heard them say they meant to drive away with her after she gave them the diamond,” she explained breathlessly.
Thorne sat beside the girl, brushing her hair gently. “Did you recognize any of them, Alexis? Their names, their voices, or anything at all?”
The little girl shook her head. “I only saw one up close, and that was the man in the mask. The other three men only came at the very end. By then I was already in the carriage with my eyes covered.” Her body began to grow tense again.
Dev pulled her closer. “No more questions, Daffodil. By the way, are you sure you won’t have another lemon tart? Cook has worked so hard, and you have only eaten
four.”
The little girl giggled. “I was ever so hungry, Uncle Thorne. They didn’t feed me, except for one moldy piece of bread. And I gave that to the rats, because I realized they were hungrier than I was.”
Dev’s eyes hardened. India saw a look of fury shoot through them. “No more rats, Daffodil.” As Alexis’s eyes began to close, he picked her up in his arms. “And no more talk. I think it is time for you to rest.”
“Of course,” the Duchess of Cranford said quickly. “Beach will show you upstairs.” It had been settled that Alexis would sleep on a couch in India’s room, in case she woke up in the night.
After carrying the drowsy child upstairs, Dev went off to fetch a glass of hot milk, while India tucked Alexis beneath a thick down comforter. “You’ll sleep well here. You have Josephine, don’t you?”
Alexis nodded sleepily and held up the battered doll. “Safe and sound, just like I am.” Her eyes narrowed for a moment. “I saw him again, you know. He was there to help me when I felt like crying.”
“Who was, Alexis?”
“The child,” Alexis said impatiently. “The nice boy with the sparkling eyes and glossy curls.” She blinked sleepily at India. “He is here now, too. He is trying to tell me something. Something very important I think, but I’m so tired…” The little girl’s eyes closed and her head slid back against India’s arm.
India sat frozen, her heart pounding. A prickle worked along the back of her neck, and she had the odd sense that she was being watched.
Which was absurd, of course, since the room was empty except for Alexis, who was now asleep.
But in spite of all of the cool, clear arguments that her mind was posing, India did not move. Her hands locked, she prayed to feel the smiling spirit that Alexis had seen so clearly.
And as India sat with Alexis cradled beside her, a ray of sunlight broke from behind a cloud, casting a bright, golden beam down the center of the bed. At that same moment a thrush began to sing merrily on a bough outside her window.
And India was unable to stop the hot slide of tears over her cheeks.
~ ~ ~
“Grandmama, may I ask you a question? An
important
question?”
The duchess looked up from a half-filled basket of rose cuttings. “Of course you can, child. Are you still worried about Alexis?”
“No, this has to do with me, Grandmama. With what I have been feeling these last months. You must have noticed.”
The duchess carefully placed the last rose in her basket and sat back, studying India’s face. “I have noticed many things, my love. The way you let your words trail away in the middle of a sentence and look out at the setting sun. The way you smile when someone tells you a story, but the smile never quite extends to your eyes. Yes, I have noticed many things since you came back from Europe. Are you finally going to tell me the truth?”
“I never could keep a secret very well, could I?” Then India was in her arms, her head in the duchess’s lap. “Oh, Grandmama, It was Dev, of course, Dev all along. When we met in Brussels, it was blind and reckless and utterly wonderful. And then we—” She caught back a low sob. “We were married. In the chaotic days before Waterloo, it was not too difficult to arrange. I know I should have sent you word, but there was no time. He was to leave so soon for war, and I didn’t know if I would ever see him again.”
“And then it was too late to tell us,” the duchess said softly. “Because he was dead, lost at Waterloo. And instead of opening up the wound all over again, you simply kept it your secret.”
India nodded, her face a pale line of pain.
“But it didn’t work, did it, my love?” The duchess looked off into the distance, wrestling with her own sad memories. “Painful secrets never go away. Sometimes I think they must be shared for them to loose their sting.” The old woman sighed, then turned India’s face upward, so she could look into her eyes. “And now that Thornwood is back?”
“I don’t know, Grandmama. Sometimes I love him. But he is a different man now. He can be so cold and secretive. When he is distant and aloof, I want to pound him on the head, and that is
not
the way a person in love should feel.”
The duchess laughed. “It’s very healthy, if you ask me. I have never held with these simpering misses who swear that they’re going to languish away for the sake of love. Utter rubbish,” she said soundly. “Love is no time for die-away airs. Love is fighting and scheming and growing. It’s time that both of you learned that,” she added.
India brushed at her eyes. “I don’t know if we can, Grandmama. It’s not smooth or always sweet, the way I thought love would be. What’s wrong with us?”
The duchess patted India’s hand. “Nothing at all.”
“But there is something else, something I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. Now maybe it’s too late.”
The duchess looked up at the house and smiled. “Don’t you think you’d better go and ask your
husband
whether it is too late?”
~ ~ ~
Thornwood muttered angrily, twisting through corridor after corridor. He despaired of finding his way through this great house. His own estate, Thornwood Hall, less than ten miles to the north, was elegant but not half so large as Swallow Hill.
There was a soft cough behind him.
“If you are looking for Miss India, I believe she is with Her Grace in the rose garden,” Beach said impassively. “Shall I fetch her for you?”
“I believe that’s my job, Beach. And unless I am mistaken, I have a great deal of groveling to do. I have to explain why I haven’t been exactly honest with her, you see.”
The butler’s eyes took on a gleam. “I believe groveling is something that all the Delamere men learn to do while quite young, my lord. Something about the Delamere women has demanded it of them. I am sure you will manage it superbly.”
But by the time Devlyn found his way to the rose garden, India was gone. “She is not here? Blast!”
The duchess studied him closely. “You missed her by only a few minutes, which seems to be a pattern for you, Thornwood. India is not like your other women, you know. She is stubborn and independent, but vulnerable on the inside, where it counts. And I won’t have her hurt again, do you hear? She has been through enough,” the old woman said fiercely.
Thornwood’s hands tightened. “Hurting her was the last thing I ever meant to do. Even now, if I knew it would be better for me to leave, you may be certain I would do just that. But I’m hoping desperately that there is a chance for us.” He jammed his fingers through his hair, looking confused. “I suppose none of this makes any sense.”