Three
Lord Wykeham did not snub her as he had every right to do. ‘I will not lie to her,’ he said abruptly. ‘Do you take cream or lemon with your tea, Mrs Jordan?’
‘Lemon, thank you.’ Laura was hardly aware of the automatic exchange. ‘But you—’ She caught the rest of the sentence, her teeth painful on her tongue. But you let her think you are her father. ‘You do not think that is more difficult for her to accept?’ His expression became even more sardonic. ‘I beg your pardon, my lord, it is not my place to speak of it.’
‘Alice likes you,’ he said without answer or comment on her question. ‘Have you children of your own, Mrs Jordan?’
‘I lost one child. I have no others.’ It was quite safe to mention that she had given birth to a child, he would never associate her with Alice’s mother, of that she was confident. His natural supposition, should he trouble to think about it, would be that she had married perhaps three or four years ago, some time after her first come-out to allow for the normal processes of upper-class courtship and marriage. She was almost twenty-five now, and her mirror told her that she did not look older.
‘She is a naturally loving and friendly child, I imagine.’ He nodded and passed her a plate of small savouries. ‘Has she many playmates in the neighbourhood?’
‘No, none. Alice has lived virtually her entire life abroad. We have only been back from the Continent for just over a month. There has been a great deal to do, but you are right to make the point, Mrs Jordan, I should make the effort to socialise locally in order to find her some friends of her own age.’
‘My lord, I had no intention of criticising.’ Which was an untruth. How fast he caught her up. As a diplomat the man was used to watching faces, listening to voices and hearing the reality behind the facade. She would have to be wary. She glanced towards the house, then quickly away. He must not see the hunger she was certain was clear in her eyes.
‘Hinting, then,’ he said with the first real smile he had directed at her. Laura felt her mouth curve in response before she could stop it. When the man smiled he had an indecent amount of charm. And that was confusing because there should not be one good thing about him. Not one, the child-stealing reptile. She dropped her gaze before he could read the conflict.
‘Papa! Here is Blackie.’ Alice, who never seemed to walk anywhere, bounded to a halt in front of Laura. That energy is so like me as a child. The pang of recognition was bittersweet. ‘Mrs Jordan, this is Blackie.’
The nurse bobbed a neat curtsy. ‘Miss Blackstock, ma’am.’
‘Miss Blackstock. Miss Falconer is a credit to you.’ And you are a credit to Lord Wykeham’s care for Alice, she thought, reluctantly awarding him a point for the care of the child. Not such a reptile after all, if Alice could love him and if he could choose her attendants with such care. Being fair was unpalatable, she wanted to hate him simply and cleanly.
‘Thank you, ma’am.’ There was a stir as the nurse took a seat beside Alice, then a small tussle over the need to eat bread and butter before cake. All very normal for an informal family meal and not at all what she had expected and feared she would find. And that, Laura realised as she nibbled on a cress sandwich, was disconcerting.
She had been braced to rescue her child from some sort of domineering, manipulative, bullying tyrant and found instead a happy girl and, she was coming to suspect, a doting father behind the facade of firmness.
* * *
Tea was finished at last, a final sliver of cake wheedled out of the earl despite Miss Blackstock’s despairing shake of the head, and Alice wriggled off her chair. ‘May I get down, Papa?’
‘You are down,’ he said.
Alice dimpled a smile at him and came to gaze earnestly at Laura. ‘Will you come and visit again, Mrs Jordan? We are very cheerful and there is always nice cake and perhaps you won’t feel so sad then. You could play with my kittens.’
‘Miss Alice!’ Miss Blackstock got to her feet with an apologetic look at Laura.
‘It was indeed very nice cake and I feel very cheerful now after such good company,’ Laura said. Could she come again? Dare she? She must not promise the child something she might not be able to fulfil.
‘Jackson!’ A footman came striding across the grass in response to the earl’s summons. ‘Send to the stables and have Ferris harness up the gig to take Mrs Jordan back to the village.’
‘Please, I do not wish to be a trouble, I can walk,’ she said as the man hurried away across the grass to the side of the house. ‘My ankle feels quite strong now.’
‘I cannot countenance you attempting it without an escort and it is probably best if we do not emerge from the woods together.’ The smile was back, this time with a hint of something that was not exactly flirtation, more a masculine awareness of her as a woman.
‘As you say, Lord Wykeham.’ To drop her gaze, to hide behind her lashes, would be to acknowledge that look. She sent him a carefully calculated social smile that held not one iota of flirtation. ‘Thank you.’
* * *
‘I do not know what to do.’ Laura paced across the parlour and back, her black skirts flicking the bookcase at one side and the sofa on the other as she turned. ‘I thought she would be unhappy and lonely, but I think she loves him and he loves her.’
‘What were you planning to do if she’d not been happy?’ Mab demanded. ‘Kidnap the poor mite?’
‘Go to law, I suppose,’ Laura said. ‘And, yes, I know it would ruin my reputation, but it is the only remedy I can think of. This isn’t a Gothic novel where I could snatch Alice and hide in some turreted castle until my prince came along and rescued us both.’ Not that I have a prince. Or want one.
‘But she is happy and well cared for and loved, so why not leave things be?’ her henchwoman demanded, fists on hips. ‘I can’t be doing with all this handwringing, I’ve my dusting to get on with.’
‘Because he doesn’t deserve her! He lied, he deceived and he bought a child as if she was a slave. He has no right to her.’
‘She’s base-born,’ Mab stated, attacking the bookshelves with a rag. ‘No getting round that. He’s family and she’s better off with him, provided he’s kind to her. He can protect her better than you can.’
‘He is rich, he is privileged, he is—’
‘And so are you,’ Mab pointed out with infuriating logic. ‘But he is a man so he can protect her in ways that you cannot. His reputation isn’t going to be dented by having an acknowledged love child, but yours would be ruined and all the influence you can muster goes with it.’
‘I do not like him.’ Laura flung herself onto the sofa and slumped back against the cushions, exhausted by tension.
‘What’s that to do with the price of tea?’ Mab demanded. ‘You haven’t got to live with him. Alice has.’
‘I am her mother.’ The words were wrenched out of her. ‘All those years when I thought she was gone. And then to find that she hadn’t died, and to have hope and to have that wrenched away and then to
