To Rescue a Rogue Page 29

  Everyone seemed frozen, not knowing what to do, but then Amy St. Bride went to the woman.

  “You must sit down, ma’am,” she said in English, for she’d learned little French, and that long ago. With a gentle hand, she steered the Belgian woman back to the sofa. “All will be well, but there’s no point in upsetting the children. We’ll all have a nice cup of tea and decide what to do for the best.”

  The flow of words and her innate kindness got the Belgian woman back on the sofa, arms still tight around the silent, weeping Delphie. Face set, Pierre marched to stand beside them and took Delphie’s hand. She clutched his, and the tears stopped.

  The duchess stepped outside and ordered tea.

  Mara could laugh at her mother’s solution to every woe, but a nice cup of tea could not solve this. If Delphie truly was this woman’s lost child, she must be returned to her, even though Dare loved Delphie and Delphie loved Dare.

  Had loved. Would the child recover from this betrayal?

  Mara went to stand by Dare, taking his hand as Pierre had taken Delphie’s. Delphie clearly did not remember this woman, however. Wouldn’t a child of five have some memory of a loving mother from two years ago? Or did terrible events wipe out memory?

  She broke the silence, speaking in French. “The child doesn’t seem to recognize you, Madame Clermont, and you have offered no proof.”

  The woman’s glare was almost feral in her fear, but she scrabbled with one hand for a pocket and produced a paper. The duke took it and read it. “A birth record for Annette Marie Clermont, dated August twenty-fourth, 1812, in Halle.”

  For a moment, it exploded hope, but Simon said, “So she had a child. That doesn’t prove that Delphie is that child.”

  “How many stolen girls of that age and appearance could there be?” Dare asked.

  “What of your family, madam?” the duke demanded of the woman. “Surely you have not come to England alone, not speaking the language? There must be others who know your child.”

  She glowered at him. In her arm, Delphie could as well have been a wax doll. “Back in Halle, yes. There, everyone knows my Annette. I read the paper, the advertisement. I travel to England, to London. It is not hard. I ask directions to the office given. A man brings me here.” She rose, Delphie tight in her arms. “Now I will leave.”

  “Non.” It was the tiniest plea from Delphie, but she directed it at Dare.

  “No,” he said. “My apologies, madam, but I cannot permit you to leave this house with Delphie until there is proof. You may stay here and be with her, but you may not take her away.”

  Madame Clermont looked as if she would argue, but servants entered then with tea, creating a bizarre interlude with the prosaic ritual of setting out pots, china, and plates of small cakes. The servants left and Mara’s mother somehow got Madame Clermont back on the sofa. The duchess, looking dazed, poured tea.

  Mara took a cup to the Belgian woman, but it was rejected. Perhaps she feared it was poisoned. Mara did feel sorry for her, for she was alone in the company of enemies, but she felt sorrier for the children and Dare.

  She sat on the sofa and offered Delphie a cake. The child shook her head, looking at Mara as if saying, Won’t you stop this horrible situation?

  Mara couldn’t resist the silent plea. “Madam, the child is frightened. She will become sick with it. Please let me hold her for a while. I won’t move from this spot, but she will be a little less upset as we all discuss this.”

  She hoped the fact that she wasn’t Dare might help, and perhaps that she was young and female. The woman searched her eyes, sighed, and passed over the little girl.

  Delphie clutched Mara, burrowing her damp face into Mara’s neck, trembling all over. “Papa?” she whispered.

  “Papa is near,” Mara murmured in English, rocking the child, “but he cannot hold you just now.” She wanted to tell Delphie that all would be well, but she didn’t believe in lying to children. “He loves you very much, but this lady seems to love you, too. It is very difficult, but we will do our best to keep you safe.”

  Delphie sniffed and whispered, “Mariette?”

  Mara hadn’t noticed the doll’s absence. She saw it on the floor by Madame Clermont’s soiled dark skirts. “Pierre, could you give Mariette to Delphie, please?”

  The boy picked up the stick doll, straightened the rag skirts, and put it in Delphie’s hands. She clutched the doll close. “It’s all right, Mariette,” she whispered in French so softly Mara could hardly hear. “Papa is here.”

  Mara fought tears herself.

  The duke and Dare had been talking together, and now the duke said, “Madam, we must send to Halle for witnesses. Whom should we send for? Your husband? A priest?”

  “My husband is dead. But send for whom you will. Anyone will tell you this is my daughter. My Annette.”

  “Your parents?” the duke asked stonily. “They, too, are dead?”

  “No.”

  “Their names and direction?”

  “Lameule. They have a farm outside Halle. They will tell you. The priest will tell you. Everyone will tell you that this is my Annette.”

  Mara saw Dare whiten. The woman’s firmness was terrifying. But even if she was Delphie’s true mother, would it be right to force the devastated child to go with her?

  “I will arrange for messages to Halle,” the duke said. “My dear,” he said to his wife, “perhaps a room could be prepared for the lady. She will probably prefer to be close to the child in the nursery area. Dare.”

  Dare left with his father. Delphie twitched, but then settled back, a limp weight in Mara’s arms. Mara would like to think the child felt safe, but was sure Delphie was limp with misery. She stroked the girl’s hair, desperately seeking a solution.

  Soon they made their way upstairs, led by the duchess, with Mara still carrying Delphie, but Madame Clermont almost glued to her side. Dare came behind with Pierre.

  A bed had been made up in the nursery, next door to the children’s bedroom.

  “Madam,” Dare said, “please be comfortable here. Ask for anything you need, and spend time with Delphie as you wish during the day. Do not disturb her in the night. You may not take her away. You may not be alone with her. I’m sorry, but you could be a madwoman intending her harm.”

  “You will see. Now, my little one,” she said coaxingly to Delphie, “come to your mother.”

  Delphie tensed and her hands clutched into Mara like claws.

  Dare raised a hand. “First, I must try to explain to her, to both of them.” He took Delphie in one arm, and knelt, putting the other around Pierre.

  Mara sighed for love of him. It would be so easy for him to take the children apart for this, to exclude this intrusive stranger, but he wouldn’t do that. He even spoke to them in French.

  “I love you both as you know,” he said, “but you know it is possible that you have parents who love you just as much, and who have been searching for you ever since you disappeared. That must be very hard to bear.”

  “You are our papa,” Pierre stated, not giving an inch.

  “In so many ways, but not by blood. If Delphie really is Madame Clermont’s daughter, there are laws about these things, and good laws overall. If you were my true children and had been taken from me, it wouldn’t matter that years had gone by and you might have forgotten me, I would find you, and bring you home. You see?”

  The children nodded, but uncertainly.

  “It will not matter what we want?” Pierre challenged.

  “It may not. But whatever happens, I will not lose you. We will not be truly apart.”

  Mara wanted to protest a promise that could not be kept.

  Dare put Delphie on her feet and stood. “You are both to try to be kind to Madame Clermont, but one of the footmen will be nearby at all times, and he will find me if you need me. Now it is time for bed, I think. Say good night to madam.”

  They did so, resentfully, and then he led them into their bedroom. When he emerge
d, he and Mara followed the silent duchess downstairs.

  Dare let his mother get ahead, however, and took Mara into his bedroom. She wrapped her arms around him, remembering that first night here, when he’d rescued her. Her predicament had seemed so serious then. It had been nothing.

  He sighed and moved away. “I think she’s telling the truth.”

  “There’s no evidence but her word,” Mara protested.

  “But her word is convincing, and she passed Solomon’s test.”

  “What?”

  “She surrendered the child to you to because Delphie was suffering.”

  Mara sat on a chair. “It can’t be true.”

  “Why would she come so far and at such effort to tell a lie that will explode as soon as its investigated?”

  Mara had no answer to that.

  “One solution occurs to me,” Dare said, turning to look into the fire.

  “What?”

  When he didn’t answer, she repeated, “What, Dare?”

  He turned to face her. “I could marry her.” Before Mara could protest, he said, “Then I will be able to care for Delphie and she and Pierre would not be separated.”

  Mara couldn’t find words, but then she exploded to her feet. “What about me?”

  He closed his eyes. “I must protect the child first.”

  “Then what about another child?” Mara protested. “Our child? I could be carrying one now—you know I could.”

  He covered his face with his hands. “Don’t.”

  She dragged his hands down. “I must. What am I to do if I’m carrying your child? Marry someone else and live on dry bread all my days? Bear a bastard and try to explain to him one day that you put another child first, a child not even your own?”

  He stared at her. “You are cruel.”

  “We took vows, Dare. Did you not mean them?”

  “I took vows to the children, too. That I would never let anything harm them again.”

  Mara swallowed over an agonizing lump in her throat and enclosed his hands in her own. “That was a vow you could never keep, my dearest love. I would give you up, I would, if I thought it right. But what sort of husband will you be to that woman, all the rest of your life? How will it help Delphie to see you suffer. She’s a caring, sensitive child, and as she grows, she will understand. And how will this affect your addiction?”

  He tore away from her and turned to brace himself against the window frame. “I cannot betray Delphie by letting her be taken away. I simply cannot. You saw how she looked at me. She’s suffered so much.” He turned, haggard. “Do you know how long it took to persuade her to cry aloud like a normal child? To laugh? To complain or object?”

  Mara remembered the child’s total silence in the midst of terror and betrayal. Then something else made her gasp. “Our betrothal ball!”

  “Cancel it,” he said.

  “We can’t.”

  “What does my reputation matter?”

  “Blanche’s does.”

  He turned away again, gripping the curtain so hard, Mara feared he’d rip it down. She ran to find Ruyuan. Only when he and Salter were with Dare did she feel able to leave Yeovil House.

  She wished desperately that she could stay.

  Chapter 28

  The next day was Sunday. Mara attended service at St. George’s in Hanover Square with her family and didn’t think she’d ever prayed so fervently in her life. Her prayers were entirely for a solution to the dilemma that seemed to have no happy ending.

  Afterward, she, Simon, and Jancy went to Yeovil House to see how things were. They learned that Madame Clermont had insisted on taking Delphie to a Catholic mass. It had been allowed, but Dare had escorted them and Pierre had gone, too. He refused to let Delphie out of his sight.

  Dare looked fine-drawn and pale, but his voice was even when he said, “The mass stirred some memories in Pierre, but nothing to identify his family or home.”

  “What about Delphie?” Mara asked.

  “No, but that doesn’t prove anything. She was young.”

  Not that young, Mara thought, but time would reveal the truth.

  She went up to the schoolroom with Dare, to find a chilly atmosphere. Madame Clermont was attempting to play with Delphie, offering the pretty dolls. Delphie was clutching Mariette and pretending the woman didn’t exist. Pierre stood on guard. He even, Mara noticed, wore a wooden sword on a belt.

  The Belgian woman was quietly angry, but much improved in appearance. She had been persuaded to wear brighter clothes, and the yellow-striped cream suited her. Perhaps she had eaten and slept well for the first time in ages, for her skin and eyes seemed more alive. She still wore her white close cap with its strings beneath her chin, but wisps of hair that escaped were dark and curly. Perhaps not so dark as Delphie’s but dark.

  Delphie looked instantly at Dare, but she didn’t run to him. Something flickered on her face that might have been hope, but clearly the child was terrified of doing the wrong thing and being punished—the worst punishment being loss of Dare.

  Mara ignored the tense atmosphere and any rules and swept Delphie up into a hug. “Hello, my precious,” she said in French, so as not to upset Madame Clermont. “Here it is the day of rest and you are working so hard at dressing dolls.” It was nonsense, but the best she could do. “And poor Mariette never has new clothes.”

  “Mariette likes her clothes,” Delphie said.

  “That thing,” Madame Clermont spat. “It is ugly and dirty. It should be thrown on the fire.”

  She was correct, but oh so wrong.

  “Children’s tastes are unpredictable, madam. If you wish Delphie to be happy, you must permit her Mariette.” She spoke to the doll. “Would you permit me to give you some jewelry, Mariette?”

  After a moment, Delphie replied in the squeaky voice. “Yes, please.”

  Mara casually passed Delphie to Dare. “Hold her as I take out my earrings.” She took off the pearl earrings, then used the wires to attach them to Mariette’s cloth head, watching to be sure that the bit of necessary puncturing didn’t upset Delphie.

  Then she took Delphie back, gave her Mariette, and carried her to the mirror. “There, Mariette. Are they not pretty?”

  “Very pretty,” Delphie squeaked. “You are most kind, Milady Mara.”

  “May I give you something, Mariette?” Dare asked, coming over.

  Mara turned child and doll to him. He took out the golden pin that fixed his cravat and carefully set it into the doll’s rag clothing.

  Mariette thanked him. Then Delphie added, “Mariette would like to kiss you in thanks, Papa, and so would I.”

  It broke Mara’s heart that the child thought she had to ask permission, but both Dare and Delphie needed the hug.

  Mara glanced at Madame Clermont and caught a strange expression. The woman’s lips were tight, but sadness accompanied fear and irritation. She, too, understood how impossible a happy ending might be.

  Everyone had decided that the ball must go on, for to abandon it might confirm the stories about Dare and possibley harm Mara’s reputation. The story of the woman who claimed to be Delphie’s mother had already escaped, but no one would think that sufficient reason to cancel a hastily arranged important event.

  Eventually they had to leave the children, but Mara stayed at Yeovil House, trying to help, but even if she had the power to bring sunshine into people’s lives, the shadows here were too dense. Dare evaded her most of the day. Would he really marry the woman to save Delphie?

  Yes, he would, and Mara might permit it. Both she and he were strong and would survive. Delphie might not.

  She returned to Marlowe House to sleep, but took a coach to Yeovil House after breakfast the next day. She couldn’t stay away. She arrived at the door at the same time as Major Hawkinville. “Berkstead’s back,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “Let’s find Dare.”

  Dare hurried downstairs and they all went into the library.

 
; “He claims to know nothing of the story,” Hawkinville reported. “He’s probably lying, but there’s no way to force him to admit it short of torture. He’s blinded by jealous hate to such an extent that he probably believes the story himself. Still seems convinced that Mara’s being compelled to marry you against her wishes. Even came up with Madame Clermont as a new attack on you.”

  “How?” Dare asked.

  “She was your mistress in Brussels. Then you abandoned her and stole the child you’d made together.”

  “Delphie’s five. The man’s fit for Bedlam.”

  “Probably, but he’s not frothing at the mouth yet, so he can sound quite plausible, and he does have friends. He was a good soldier and a good officer. What do you want us to do with him?”

  Dare rubbed his head. “Oh, leave him be. He’s spread his poison and we’ve applied an antidote, which will work or not as fate disposes. But, Mara,” he added, “don’t go anywhere alone.”

  She nodded. “This is my fault.”

  “You had no reason to think that a flirtation would be taken to this extreme.”

  He was not mentioning her true folly, and she supposed there was no benefit from confessing it here.

  “This woman who claims to be your child’s mother? Is it true?” Hawkinville asked.

  “Probably.”

  “Easy enough to settle the truth, I’d think.”

  “Not before tomorrow night,” Dare said, “which is when Mara and I announce our betrothal to the ton.”

  “I don’t see the connection.”

  Dare glanced at Mara. “One way to unravel the Gordian knot would be for me to marry the woman. Delphie would still have me.”

  “Gordian knots are usually cut,” the major said. “Pay the woman off.”

  “It’s been tried,” Dare said, shocking Mara. “No amount of money will suffice. You see,” Dare said to her. “Solomon, again. Her sole desire is to take her daughter back to Halle.”

  Mara could almost hear Major Hawkinville’s brain clicking like a rapid machine. Could he actually come up with a solution?

  “Compromise,” he said at last. “She can live as the child’s mother as long as she lives with you and Mara. Uncomfortable all around, but it’s the best balance.”