Right on the coast, ’twas bound to be excessively damp, do you not think?”
Adam’s lips twitched, but Lady Darnell was in such grave earnest, he resisted the urge to laugh. “Just what did this dampness lead her to do?”
“Well, first you must understand that in her debut Season, Diana conceived a passion for a most ineligible young man. Though ’twas nothing ineligible about his birth—the youngest son of Viscount Seagrave—but from his earliest years, he showed himself to possess the wildest, most ungovernable character. He was expelled from Oxford the spring Diana met him, and though Lambarth had been courting her for months, once she met Gavin, she had eyes for no one else. Her family tried to dissuade her, of course. Then after being challenged by a jealous husband, Gavin killed the man in a duel and was forced to flee the country. Diana was heartbroken. But Lambarth still wanted her, so she gave in to his urging and married him.”
“The union didn’t prosper.” And small wonder, Adam thought. What fool would torture himself by marrying a woman he knew loved another man?
“I suppose not. In any event, after more than a decade immured at Lambarth Castle, Diana…ran away. We heard she’d sailed in a fishing boat to Ireland, then taken ship to the Caribbean, where she joined Gavin at the estate he’d settled. Lambarth refused to divorce her, though, so they were never allowed to marry under English law.”
Lady Darnell paused, a pensive look on her face. “I sometimes wondered if she’d regretted leaving her husband, forced as she was afterward to live as an outcast and give up her daughter. We were close growing up, but when she married Lambarth, we lost touch.”
And what of the most innocent victim of this family tragedy? Adam thought. “The poor child.”
“Indeed. It must have been dreadful, losing her mama, then living so isolated before her papa died, as well.”
“And you want to comfort her?” Adam asked.
Lady Darnell gave him a tremulous smile. “It’s always been my greatest sorrow that I was never blessed with children. Not that you and Charis are not extremely dear to me, but by the time I married your papa, you were both nearly grown. Yes, I would very much like to care for my dear cousin Diana’s poor little daughter.”
This was not sounding like a “temporary” measure, Adam thought. Still, he could hardly fault his stepmother’s concern, and how much could a little girl eat? By the time she needed a wardrobe full of gowns and a dowry for her come-out, she’d either have moved on to her paternal relations—or he’d have the Darnell fortunes mended.
“So when do we collect this waif?”
A dazzling smile illumined Lady Darnell’s face. “Oh, Adam, I knew your compassion could not fail! I shall reply to the solicitor immediately to fix a time.”
Adam rose to escort his stepmother out. As he bent to kiss her fingertips, she pulled him close for a hug.
“Thank you, my dear,” she murmured. “Your kindness will be rewarded, I’m sure. A child is always a blessing.”
Recalling some of the exuberant students who had enlivened his sojourn at Eton, Adam made a noncommittal murmur. As his stepmother hurried out, he hoped the long-motherless child he was about to introduce into his well-ordered household would turn out to be a sweet, timid thing rather than an undisciplined hellion.
ONLY TWO HOURS AFTER FIRST learning of the orphan’s existence, Adam found himself driving his curricle into the city to the address supplied by Lady Darnell. To their surprise, the footman returning his stepmother’s note to the lawyer had brought back a second missive informing them the child had just arrived. However, as there were legal issues involved which might take some time to work out, Mr. Pendenning had suggested that rather than have Lady Darnell wait while the men un-tangled the niceties, the head of the household could come alone to fetch the girl.
And so, driving the open vehicle he hoped a child would prefer to the lumbering coaches she’d probably been shut up in during her journey and bearing the beribboned doll Lady Darnell had charged him to present as a welcoming gift, Adam prepared himself to spend the afternoon armwrestling with lawyers for the dubious privilege of adopting a child entirely unknown to him.
He certainly hoped his stepmother would be happy.
This unforeseen addition to his household underlined the imperative to get the Darnell fortunes in order, he told himself as he drove. But since he’d first considered the matter this morning, he’d had an inspiration that he hoped might spare him the humiliation of having to barter his ancient name and lineage for the hand of some newly rich cit’s well-dowered daughter. As long as luck and his old childhood friend Priscilla smiled upon him, anyway.
Having been abroad for the war with France and then having leased out Claygate Manor, the Darnell country estate that bordered her father’s lands, he’d not seen Miss Standish in some years. But she was still unmarried, he knew. If the plump, cheerful lass who’d loved to trail behind him on his youthful escapades, hanging adoringly on his every word, had not changed too much, he reasoned, he would have as much chance of finding marital harmony with her as with any of the other carefully coifed, capped and costumed chits about to be paraded on the Marriage Mart.
He’d have to look into calling on Miss Priscilla Standish as soon as he settled this business of the orphan.
Half an hour later he was escorted by a clerk to Mr. Pendenning’s private salon, where, the young man informed him, the lawyer would join him shortly.
Knowing there would be lengthy paperwork to sort out, Adam suppressed his irritation at the delay. The salon to which he’d been shown was dimly lit, the curtain of the single window drawn against the light. While his eyes adjusted from the bright sunlight of the brisk late-winter afternoon he’d just left, he scanned the room, his gaze settling on a newspaper left atop a side table.
He was striding to pick up the paper when a rustling noise in the corner of the room distracted him. His vision of welcoming a small, grieving moppet into the family embrace was shaken when what he’d dismissed as an assortment of black rags piled in a chair, suddenly unfolded its length and rose phoenixlike to face him.
The image of a woebegone child died altogether as the Creature approached. Sticklike legs and narrow bare feet protruded below a faded black gown more than a foot too short for her emaciated frame—which was nearly as tall as his own. Adam’s shocked impression was of a walking scarecrow, until the Creature halted before him and extended one bony hand.
The girl’s nose protruded beaklike from her thin face. With her sharp cheekbones, lusterless, tangled black hair and the feral dark eyes fixed intently upon him, Adam was put forcibly in mind of a bird of prey about to attack.
When the Creature’s lips curved into a mocking smile, he realized he’d been simply staring at her, mouth agape, his face no doubt clearly mirroring his thoughts.
Painfully conscious of having, for the first time in his almost thirty well-bred years, failed to summon polite words of greeting, he felt hot color flush his skin. Before he could get his lips working, the Creature withdrew the hand he’d not managed to shake and made him a curtsey.
“You must be Lord Darnell,” she said, her voice low-pitched and husky. “How…charming to meet you.”
CHAPTER THREE
THOUGH THE GIRL WAS the least attractive
