Читать книгу No Other Love - Candace Camp, Candace Camp - Страница 6

1789

HELEN BENT OVER THE SMALL BOY in the bed. He looked so small and helpless that it tore at her heart. His hair clung in damp ringlets to his head. He lay still, almost unmoving, his eyes closed, extraordinarily long dark lashes casting shadows on his cheeks. The only sign of life was the faint movement of the sheet as his chest rose and fell. Moments earlier he had been mumbling in his sleep, tossing and turning in the grip of a high fever. Now he lay still as death.

Helen brushed the wet strands of hair back from his forehead. Don’t let him die. Please, not now. She had known him only two days, but already she could not bear to let him go.

Mr. Fuquay had arrived at the inn two nights ago in a post chaise with, oddly, this sick child inside. She knew Fuquay, of course. He had stayed at the village inn before, when Richard Montford had come with friends to visit his cousin, Lord Chilton, the Earl of Exmoor. It was whispered in the village that the Earl despised Richard Montford and would not allow him to stay at Tidings, the grand seat of the Montford family. Only now, of course, the old man was dead, and Richard Montford was the new Earl. It had seemed peculiar that Fuquay had come to the inn and not to Tidings.

It had seemed even more peculiar when she saw that he had two children with him. He had come to the door of the public room and motioned to her. She had cast a quick glance toward the tavern owner, then slipped out the door after Fuquay. He was an odd young man, handsome but very gaunt, with a peculiarly soft, almost dazed, look in his eyes most of the time. One of the other girls said that he was an opium eater, and perhaps that was true. But he had been kind and gentle to her, and it hadn’t taken much persuasion on his part to induce Helen to warm his bed while he was at the inn. He had been generous, too, and she remembered him fondly.

He had taken her to the carriage and opened it, showing her two sleeping children inside. A girl, hidden in bonnet and coat, was curled up against the opposite wall. Across from her, on the opposite seat, lay a boy, wrapped in a blanket. His face was flushed and bathed in sweat, his body visibly trembling.

“Can you take care of him, Helen?” Fuquay had asked, fidgeting. “He’s in a bad way. He won’t last long, that’s clear. But I can’t just—no matter what he wants—”

He had paused at the end of this vague speech and gazed pleadingly into her eyes. He took a gold coin out of his pocket and pressed it into her hand. “I’ll make it worth your while. Just stay with him and see him through to the end. You will do that, won’t you?”

“What’s the matter with him?” Helen had asked, unable to pull her eyes away from the small form. He had been so beautiful, so small and vulnerable.

Fuquay had shaken his head. “A fever. He’s done for, but I can’t—well, he ought to die in a bed, at least. Will you do it?”

Of course she had agreed. She had fallen in love with the child as soon as she set eyes on him. She had never been able to conceive—despite many opportunities—and she had always ached for a child, a secret, sorrowful desire that the other tavern girls had scoffed at. “You’re lucky, you are,” they had said, “never havin’ to worry about gettin’ in trouble.”

And now here was this lovely child being handed to her, a gift, it seemed, from heaven. She had climbed into the carriage without delay, not asking any of the dozens of questions that tumbled about in her mind. Gentlemen didn’t take to one prying into their affairs.

She had directed him toward her grandmother’s cottage, for she had no intention of letting her precious gift die. If anyone could save the lad, it would be Granny Rose. It was a long drive, for Granny lived in a secluded cottage on the edge of Buckminster land, and Helen had had to walk the last part of the journey, carrying the boy in her arms, for there was no drivable road leading to Granny’s cottage. Mr. Fuquay had let her out and handed her the boy with a profusion of thanks, but she had hardly paid any attention to him. Her thoughts were all on the boy and getting him to her grandmother.

Helen glanced up now and over at her grandmother. Granny Rose, as she was known to most of the local populace, was a short, rounded dumpling of a woman. Twinkling blue eyes looked out of a face so wrinkled and brown it resembled a dried apple. Despite her merry, almost comical appearance, she was a wise and highly regarded woman among the local people. She knew herbs and healing wisdom, and when Helen had staggered in, carrying the feverish boy, she had known just what to do.

For two days now she and Helen had been caring for him, dosing him with Granny’s decoctions, sponging his flaming body down with cool rags, and forcing little sips of water and soup through his parched lips. The fever had racked his body until Helen had cried for him, and it seemed with every struggling breath he took, Helen loved him more.

“Is he—” She stopped, her throat closing on the words. He looked so frightfully still and pale.

But Granny shook her head, a smile beginning to curve her lips. “No. I think he’s past it. The fever’s broken.”

“Really?” Helen put her palm against the boy’s cheek. It was true; he was definitely not as hot as he had been minutes before.

“What are you going to do with him?” Granny asked quietly, watching her granddaughter’s face. “He’s Quality, you know.”

Helen nodded. That much was obvious. His fevered mutterings had been in the perfect tones of the upper class, and the clothes that he wore, though dirty and drenched in sweat, were of the finest cut and materials.

“I know. But he’s mine,” Helen added, setting her jaw. “We saved him, and he belongs to me now. I won’t let them have him. Besides…”

She hesitated, not certain whether she wanted to admit to her shrewd grandmother what else she suspected about the child. She thought she knew who he was, but if her vague suspicions were correct, it might very well mean the boy’s life if she revealed that he had survived. If she was wrong…well, then, she had no idea who the lad was, and it would not be her fault if she could not restore him to his proper family.

Either way, she told herself, the best thing to do was to remain silent.

“Besides what?” Granny Rose asked, her bright eyes boring into her granddaughter’s.

“I don’t know who he is. Where would we take him? And I—I don’t think they want him to live.”

“And what will you say if they ask you what happened to him?”

“Why, that he died, of course, just as they thought he would, and I buried him in the woods where none would ever see it.”

The older woman said nothing, merely nodded, and did not mention the matter of the boy’s return again. She, too, Helen thought, had fallen under the sick child’s spell.

After the fever broke, the boy gradually grew better, until at last his eyelids fluttered open and he looked up at Helen with dark brown eyes.

“Who are you?” he whispered hoarsely.

Helen took his little hand in hers and replied, “I am your new mother, Gil.”

“Mama?” he repeated vaguely, his eyes clouded, giving the word an inflection on the last syllable.

“Yes. Mama,” Helen repeated firmly, stressing the first syllable.

“Oh. I don’t—” His eyes teared up. “I can’t remember—I’m scared!”

“Of course you are.” Helen sat down beside him on the bed, taking him into her arms. “Of course you are. You have been very sick. But I’m here, and so is Granny Rose, and we are going to take care of you.”

He held on to her tightly as tears rolled down his cheeks. “Mama…”

“Yes, dear. I’m right here. Always.”