Читать книгу Tallie's Knight - Anne Gracie - Страница 7

Yorkshire, February 1803

‘My lord, I…I am sure that Mr Freddie—’ Freddie?’ Lord d’Arenville’s disapproving voice interrupted the maidservant. She flushed, smoothing her hands nervously down her starched white apron.

‘Er…Reverend Winstanley, I mean, sir. He won’t keep you waiting long, sir, ’tis just that—’

‘There is no need to explain,’ Lord d’Arenville coldly informed her. ‘I’ve no doubt Reverend Winstanley will come as soon as he is able. I shall wait.’ His hard grey gaze came to rest on a nearby watercolour. It was a clear dismissal. The maid backed hurriedly out of the parlour, turned and almost ran down the corridor.

Magnus, Lord d’Arenville, glanced around the room, observing its inelegant proportions and the worn and shabby furniture. A single poky window allowed an inadequate amount of light into the room. He strolled over to it, looked out and frowned. The window overlooked the graveyard, providing the occupants of the house with a depressing prospect of mortality.

Lord, how unutterably dreary, Magnus thought, seating himself on a worn, uncomfortable settee. Did all vicars live this way? He didn’t think so, but he couldn’t be certain, not having lived the sort of life that brought him into intimacy with the clergy. Quite the contrary, in fact. And had not his oldest friend, Freddie Winstanley, donned the ecclesiastical dog collar, Magnus would be languishing in blissful ignorance still.

Magnus sighed. Bored, stale and unaccountably restless, he’d decided on the spur of the moment to drive all the way up to Yorkshire to visit Freddie, whom he’d not seen for years. And now, having arrived, he was wondering if he’d done the right thing, calling unannounced at the cramped and shabby vicarage.

A faint giggle interrupted his musings. Magnus frowned and looked around. There was no one in sight. The giggle came again. Magnus frowned. He did not care to be made fun of.

‘Who is there?’

‘Huwwo, man.’ The voice came, slightly muffled, from a slight bulge in the curtains. As he looked, the curtains parted and a mischievous little face peeked out at him.

Magnus blinked. It was a child, a very small child—a female, he decided after a moment. He’d never actually met a child this size before, and though he was wholly unacquainted with infant fashions it seemed to him that the child looked more female than otherwise. It had dark curly hair and big brown pansy eyes. And it was certainly looking at him in that acquisitive way that so many females had.

He glanced towards the doorway, hoping someone would come and fetch the child back to where it belonged.

‘Huwwo, man,’ the moppet repeated sternly.

Magnus raised an eyebrow. Clearly he was expected to answer. How the devil did one address children anyway?

‘How do you do?’ he said after a moment.

At that, she smiled, and launched herself towards him in an unsteady rush. Horrified, Magnus froze. Contrary to all his expectations she crossed the room without coming to grief, landing at his knee. Grinning up at him, she clutched his immaculate buckskins in two damp, chubby fists. Magnus flinched. His valet would have a fit. The child’s hands were certain to be grubby. And sticky. Magnus might know nothing at all about children, but he was somehow sure about that.

‘Up, man.’ The moppet held up her arms in clear expectation of being picked up.

Magnus frowned down at her, trusting that his hitherto unchallenged ability to rid himself of unwanted feminine attention would be just as effective on this diminutive specimen.

The moppet frowned back at him.

Magnus allowed his frown to deepen to a glare.

The moppet glared back. ‘Up, man,’ she repeated, thumping a tiny fist on his knee.

Magnus cast a hunted glance towards the doorway, still quite appallingly empty.

The small sticky fist tugged his arm. ‘Up!’ she demanded again.

‘No, thank you,’ said Magnus in his most freezingly polite voice. Lord, would no one come and rescue him?

The big eyes widened and the small rosebud mouth drooped. The lower lip trembled, displaying to Magnus’s jaundiced eye all the unmistakable signs of a female about to burst into noisy, blackmailing tears. They certainly started young. No wonder they were so good at it by the time they grew up.

The little face crumpled.

Oh, Lord, thought Magnus despairingly. There was no help for it—he would have to pick her up. Gingerly he reached out, lifting her carefully by the waist until she was at eye-level with him. Her little feet dangled and she regarded him solemnly.

She reached out a pair of chubby, dimpled arms. ‘Cudd’w!’

Again, her demand was unmistakable. Cautiously he brought her closer, until suddenly she wrapped her arms around his neck in a strong little grip that surprised him. In seconds she had herself comfortably ensconced on his lap, leaning back against one of his arms, busily ruining his neckcloth. It had only taken him half an hour to achieve its perfection, Magnus told himself wryly.

She chattered to him nonstop in a confiding flow, a mixture of English and incomprehensible gibberish, pausing every now and then to ask what sounded like a question. Magnus found himself replying. Lord, if anyone saw him now, he would never live it down. But he had no choice—he didn’t want to see that little face crumple again.

Once she stopped in the middle of what seemed an especially involved tale and looked up at him, scrutinising his face in a most particular fashion. Magnus felt faintly apprehensive, wondering what she might do. She reached up and traced the long, vertical groove in his right cheek with a small, soft finger.

‘What’s dis?’

He didn’t know what to say. A wrinkle? A crease? A long dimple? No one had ever before had the temerity to refer to it. ‘Er…it’s my cheek.’

She traced the groove once more, thoughtfully, then took his chin in one hand, turned his head, and traced the matching line down his other cheek. Then carefully, solemnly, she traced both at the same time. She stared at him for a moment, then, smiling, returned to her story, reaching up every now and then to trace a tiny finger down the crease in his cheek.

Gradually her steady chatter dwindled and the curly little head began to nod. Abruptly she yawned and snuggled herself more firmly into the crook of his arms. ‘Nigh-nigh,’ she murmured, and suddenly he felt the small body relax totally against him.

She was asleep. Sound asleep—right there in his arms.

For a moment Magnus froze, wondering what to do, then slowly he began to breathe again. He knew himself to be a powerful man—both physically and in worldly terms—but never in his life had he been entrusted with the warm weight of a sleeping child. It was an awesome responsibility.

He sat there frozen for some twenty minutes, until a faint commotion sounded in the hall. A pretty young woman glanced in, a harried expression on her face. Freddie’s wife. Joan. Jane. Or was it Jenny? Magnus was fairly sure he recognised her from the wedding. She opened her mouth to speak, and then saw the small sleeping figure in his arms.

‘Oh, thank heavens!’ she exclaimed. ‘We’ve been looking everywhere for her.’

She turned and called to someone in the hallway. ‘Martha, run and tell Mr Freddie that we’ve found her.’

She turned back to Magnus. ‘I’m so sorry, Lord d’Arenville. We thought she’d got out into the garden and we’ve all been outside searching. Has she been a shocking nuisance?’

Magnus bethought himself of his ruined neckcloth and his no longer immaculate buckskins. His arm had a cramp from being unable to move and he had a nasty suspicion that there was a damp spot on his coat from where the little moppet had nuzzled his sleeve as she slept.

‘Not at all,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s been a pleasure.’

And, to his great surprise, Magnus realised he meant it.