shook his head and turned from the window. There was no sense in worrying—or praying. He knew that from all those wasted prayers he uttered when he found out Deborah was expecting his child. What would be, would be. And he could do nothing until morning. He might better spend his time sleeping because, one way or another, tomorrow was going to be a hard day. He snuffed out the lamps, left his study and headed for the stairs. The sight of his hand on the banister evoked the memory of Sarah Randolph’s white-knuckled grip as she had climbed. She had trembled so beneath his hand, he had expected her strength to give out after a few steps, had worried she might fall. But she had made it to the top. And to the nursery. He had listened to make sure.
Clayton cast a quick glance down the hallway to the nursery door. All was quiet. He entered his bedroom and crossed to the dressing room to prepare for bed. What could have happened to make Sarah Randolph so terrified of a storm? Something had. When he noticed her pale face and asked if she liked thunderstorms she had answered, Not anymore. Yes, something frightening had definitely happened to Miss Sarah Randolph during a thunderstorm. But what?
Clayton puzzled over the question, created possible scenarios to answer it while he listened to the sounds of the storm’s fury. It was better than dwelling on the possible damage the weak locks were sustaining.
Chapter Four
“Tompkins, start those men digging a runoff ditch five feet back from the top of the bank, then follow me.” Clayton slipped and slid his way down the muddy slope and turned left to inspect the lock under repair. One quick look was enough. He squinted up through the driving rain at his foreman and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Tompkins, get some men and timbers down here! We need to shore up this wall.”
His foreman waved a hand to indicate he had heard him above the howling wind and ran off to do as ordered.
Clayton swiped the back of his arm across his eyes to clear away the raindrops, tugged his hat lower and sloshed his way across the bottom of the lock to check the other side. The pouring rain sluiced down the fifteen-foot-high wall to add depth to the water swirling around his ankles. He turned and slogged along the length of the wall, checking for cracks or weak spots, but the gravel and clay loam they’d used to reinforce it was holding up well beneath the deluge.
Lightning rent the dark, roiling sky and sizzled to earth with a snap that hurt his ears. Thunder crashed and rolled. Sarah Randolph’s pale, frightened face flashed into his head. He frowned, irritated by the break in his concentration, but could not stop himself from wondering how she was handling the storm. Perhaps it was only at night—
“Look out below!”
Clayton pivoted, squinted through the rain to see a heavy timber come tumbling down the wall on the other side. Men at the edge were poised to drop another. He cupped his mouth. “Stop! Hold that beam!”
His voice was lost in another loud clap of thunder. The two men holding the beam upright at the top of the lock wall gave a mighty shove and leaped aside. The beam tumbled down end-over-end, hit one of the horizontal beams of the form for the new stone wall and knocked it askew. Clayton broke into a run, shouting and waving his arms, trying to catch the attention of someone on the opposite bank before the carelessness of the unskilled laborers caused the unfinished wall to collapse.
Water splashed over the top of his boots, soaked his pant legs and socks as he ran. Rain pelted his upturned face, coursed down his neck and wet his shirt. Lightning flashed. Another beam came tumbling down the wall. No one was paying him any attention.
He ran faster, angling toward the bank where he could climb in safety. His hands and feet slipped and slid as he scaled the slope, adding the offense of mud to his sodden clothes. He heard a loud crash and rumble, stopped climbing and looked to his left. There was a gaping hole where a section of the newly placed, but unsecured, stones of the wall under repair had collapsed.
Clayton glanced up, saw the men who had pushed the last beam over the wall waving other men forward and pointing down at the damage it had caused. He sucked a long breath of cold, damp air into his laboring lungs and resumed his climb, wishing, not for the first time, he had personal fortune enough to hire ten men knowledgeable about engineering work and skilled in the performance of it.
“What a good girl you are, Nora.” Sarah smiled approval. “You ate all of your lunch.”
“Soup.”
“Yes, you liked the soup, didn’t you?”
Nora’s answering nod set her golden curls bouncing. “Cookie?”
Sarah shook her head, wet a cloth and washed the toddler’s face and hands. “No cookie today. You had pudding for dessert.”
“Cookie!”
Sarah looked at the toddler’s determined expression. It seemed a battle of wills was about to ensue. At least the sound of the storm would cover Nora’s squalls. She lifted her charge into her arms. “No cookie. It is time for your nap.”
Nora let out an irate wail. Sarah lifted the yelling, kicking toddler into her arms and walked to the rocker on the hearth.
“Cookie!” Nora howled the word, pushed and twisted, trying to free herself.
“No cookie. Not today.” Sarah tightened her grip enough so the child would not hurt herself and began to rock. She hummed softly, ignoring the fighting, crying toddler. Nora’s storm was as furious as the one outside, but she lacked the strength to sustain her effort to get her own way. After a few minutes of futile exertion, she gave up the fight, stuck her thumb in her mouth and began to suck.
Sarah watched the tiny eyelids drift closed as the toddler succumbed to the rhythmic motion, the steady whisper of the wood rockers against the floor. She wiped away Nora’s tears, studied the dainty brown brows, the tiny nose and soft contours of her baby face. She was a beautiful child. Spoiled but beautiful. Why did Clayton Bainbridge refuse to allow her in his presence? Refuse to even acknowledge her by name? Was she not his?
Sarah’s pulse quickened. She stared down at Nora, thinking, remembering, drawing a parallel between her childhood and Nora’s. Even if Nora was Clayton’s natural child, it could be that he didn’t know how to be a father. Perhaps he only needed to be encouraged in his relationship with his daughter—the way Elizabeth had encouraged her father to love her and Mary.
Her father.
Sarah leaned her head against the chair back and closed her eyes. She had never told anyone, including Mary, that she knew Justin Randolph was not their real father. Justin, his servants, everyone thought she had been too young to remember, but the day that man had come to Randolph Court and taken her mother away was indelibly etched in her memory. And she remembered how the servants had gossiped about how Justin Randolph had gone after them and found the man dead and her mother severely injured from a carriage accident.
She had been only three years old, but she vividly recalled Justin bringing her mother back home, and the horrible whispering when she died. She remembered it well because her nanny had taunted her by telling her the man who died was her real father, and that he and her mother were both evil and that’s why they had died, that she would die, too, if she wasn’t good. She had been so terrified she had decided not to talk for fear she would say something wrong that would make her die. But when Justin Randolph had married Elizabeth, everything had changed.
Sarah opened her eyes and looked down at Nora asleep in her
