Miss Delightful, page 2
Mr. Mackay prowled around behind the desk, but did not take a seat. This meant Dorcas had to look up at him from her perch on the sofa, and farther up than usual even when dealing with a man. She was surprised to conclude that he could have been attractive, had he exerted himself to show a little charm.
Not handsome in the fashionable sense, though. His features were the rough draft of a sermon on masculine pulchritude. The most striking element of his face was a pair of brilliant blue eyes, the same shade as the infant John’s, but devoid of the baby’s innocence. A weary soldier’s eyes, looking out on the world in stoic anticipation of the next battle, or looking inward on memories of combats won and lost.
He was broad-shouldered and muscular, and much as his physique lacked refinement, his brow, nose, and jaw were sculpted with an eye for durability rather than beauty. He would age into craggy distinction, and in a fight he would be tireless and without mercy.
Despite that daunting conclusion, Dorcas would rather John grew up under Alasdhair MacKay’s protection than on the dubious charity of his mother’s relatives. Charming men were not to be trusted, as Melanie had learned at such great cost.
“He has a cradle,” Mr. MacKay said, scowling at the landscape over the mantel. “I made it for him and delivered it myself. Not fancy, but sufficient for the purpose.”
“You made a cradle?”
“I was apprenticed to a carpenter as a lad, and cradles are a good project for somebody learning the trade. The result can be plain, fancy, or in-between. Designed to rock, to sit level, to do either. If I’d had more time, I might have prettied it up a bit, but Melanie wasn’t sure exactly when the baby would come.”
Dorcas hated, hated, hated to think of Melanie anticipating a birth alone, uncertain, and without family. That Mr. MacKay had not only provided a cradle, but also made it with his own hands meant much.
“You are certain he’s not your son?”
His gaze acquired a glacial quality. “I do not take advantage of ladies fallen on hard times, Miss Delancey.”
Dorcas rose rather than be glowered down at. “Very little taking advantage was involved. Melanie was a willing participant in her own sorry fate, Mr. MacKay. I warned her that her gallant officer would abandon her. I knew with the inevitability of original sin that she was authoring her own ruin, but she would not be dissuaded. Her father hasn’t spoken her name since the day she left, and my own papa mentions her only as a bad example.”
“So she loved the wrong person,” Mr. MacKay said. “Many a woman has done likewise. So has many a man.”
Had he loved the wrong person? The question was irrelevant to the matter at hand, a pesky distraction from whatever point Dorcas had been meaning to make.
“My cousin is dead, Mr. MacKay. She was a good-hearted, merry, mischievous girl, then a disgraced woman, and now she’s d-dead.” Oh, pinfeathers. Not now. Please not a bout of the weeps now.
The tears had been threatening at intervals since Dorcas had received the note yesterday morning. She’d fought them off, ignored them, and refused to acknowledge the grief that drove them. John had to be tended to and Melanie’s affairs put in order, all without arousing Papa’s suspicions.
Mr. MacKay brandished a lawn handkerchief bordered with embroidered purple flowers. “Melanie is at peace,” he said, stepping closer. “She is no longer anybody’s handy bad example, no longer suffering. We will see to John, as she wished us to, and you can ensure the boy knows your happy memories of his mother.”
His voice, so laden with command and confidence, had become an instrument of consolation. From burr to purr, and the shift wasn’t so much one of volume, though he was speaking softly, as it was intonation. Grooms knew how to speak to horses like that, so cadence and intonation soothed and reassured even while the words themselves meant little.
Dorcas meant to snatch the handkerchief from Mr. MacKay’s hand, but she missed, and instead her fingers closed on his wrist. He came near enough to touch the fine linen to her cheek, and then she was leaning against him, wailing more loudly than John when his belly was empty and his teeth were hurting.
Mr. MacKay’s arm settled around Dorcas’s shoulders, and though it meant the complete surrender of her dignity, she yielded to the tears and let herself by held.
The comfort Mr. MacKay offered now was all the more substantial for being silent. He stroked Dorcas’s back, and stood, as solid and unyielding as a Greek statue, while she mourned a cousin who should not have died, much less so miserably. Guilt limned her grief, as did a purifying bolt of rage.
At Melanie, for all her stupid choices, and at Uncle Simon, for trying to pray and exhort high spirits out of a girl who’d been meant for smiles and laughter rather than dour piety. A little anger went in Papa’s direction too, because he could have done more to interceded with his brother on Melanie’s behalf.
“I’m sorry,” Dorcas said, as an after-shudder passed through her. “I am not usually prone to histrionics.” She stepped back, and dabbed at her cheeks with the handkerchief. The scent wasn’t exactly lavender, maybe lavender and sage? No… Heather. The sachets in Mr. MacKay’s wardrobe and clothes press were apparently made of heather.
“You have lost a dear friend from childhood and a cousin,” he said, holding out a silver flask. “When our hearts are broken, we ignore the sorrow at our peril. Have a nip.”
A note of command had returned to that last suggestion. A note of challenge, too. Dorcas heeded the challenge, in part because Mr. MacKay was trying to be helpful, and in part because outside of a sickroom tonic, she’d never been permitted strong spirits.
The flask was warm and embossed with a crest, a sprig of some herb or other. Dorcas took a cautious sip, while Mr. MacKay moved away. A whiff of honey and oak was followed by cool fire trailing down her gullet. The fire ignited into a glow, and the glow developed soft edges that rippled out from her middle.
“That is pleasant. Thank you.” She passed the flask back rather than try another sip.
Mr. MacKay returned the container to an inside pocket. “I mean to have a word with the river police, and I will speak with the landlady as well.”
“About?”
“Melanie was in good spirits,” he said. “She was taking in mending, watching another bairn in the evenings, getting by. She had her own healthy little boy underfoot, and friends. She had much to be proud of and no reason to take her own life.”
Dorcas folded up the handkerchief and put it on the blotter, though she was not nearly as composed as her steady hands might have suggested. “My father would say Melanie had much to be ashamed of.”
“Then,” Mr. MacKay replied, “meaning to no disrespect to you, Miss Delancey, your father is an idiot. He probably thinks all females should be born apologizing for an error Eve made millennia ago. Adam raised his boys so the one killed the other, but we don’t hear anybody blethering on about that spectacular failure of fatherhood, do we? Adam didn’t keep a proper eye on his missus either, but again, he’s not taken to task for that, is he?”
These blasphemies were so outlandish that Dorcas did not dignify them with a rebuttal. “Please do not think to cause a scandal, Mr. MacKay. Women regularly throw themselves off London’s bridges.” That observation, while sadly true, was also a betrayal of Melanie.
Another betrayal.
“Your late cousin is not women,” Mr. MacKay retorted, “and Melanie had overcome much. She did not do herself an injury when she’d been abandoned by her dashing swain. She did not do herself an injury when she realized she was with child. She did not do herself an injury seeking to rid herself of that child, and she would not leave wee John all alone in the world with only the likes of me standing between him and your family.”
What was wrong with the likes of Alasdhair MacKay? “I insist that you allow Melania to rest in peace, sir. Poking your nose into a tragedy won’t make it any less of a tragedy.”
He gave a sachet hanging from the curtain tie a good squeeze, releasing another whiff of fresh scent. “You can come with me to call on Mrs. Jessup, or you can go back to tatting lace or however you spend your time. I intend to find out what happened to John’s cradle at the very least.”
He arched a dark brow at Dorcas.
That single gesture, issued a dare. “I’m coming with you,” she said. “I’m coming with you to ensure you don’t cause unnecessary talk. Melanie’s memory must not be burdened with further scandal.”
He opened the door and gestured Dorcas through, something pugnacious about his courtesy. She preceded him to the foyer, head held high, but inside, her emotions were rioting.
Melanie had re-established contact with Dorcas, who had been all too happy to offer what aid she could. Melanie had been doing honest work. She had no longer been attached to that man. She had clearly loved her son, and in Mr. MacKay, she’d had an ally if not friend.
And Mr. MacKay was asking valid questions.
But oh, the scandal. If Papa found out Dorcas had been in touch with Melanie, if he learned of the circumstances of Melanie’s death, if he learned about John… At some carefully chosen point, Papa had to be told the truth—Dorcas well knew the burden of keeping the truth from her father—not so soon.
“You must promise me discretion, Mr. MacKay.”
He settled Dorcas’s cloak around her shoulders. “If I find out Melanie’s death was at all suspicious, then the only thing I can promise you is one hell of an uproar, and I do keep my promises, Miss Delancey.”
Of that, Dorcas had no doubt. No doubt whatsoever.
* * *
This concludes your free sample excerpt of Miss Delightful, book two in the Mischief in Mayfair series!
* * *
Miss Delightful
Chapter Two
“That is a baby.” Alasdhair MacKay stood back lest the infant or the woman holding it touch him as she sailed over the threshold into his foyer.
“How astute you are, Colonel MacKay.”
“Mister Mackay will do.” Formerly of His Majesty’s army. Alasdhair closed the door because the day was chilly and babies were fragile. Also because this situation needed no witnesses among the nosy neighbors. “And who might you be?”
He turned his signature commanding office glower on the woman, and allowed his burr to deepen to the consistency of a growl. He did not so much as glance at the bundle in her arms, one glimpse of a cherubic pink face being more than enough.
“Miss Dorcas Delancey.” She dipped a curtsey, baby and all. “This good fellow appears to be your son, so I will leave him with you—”
“He is not my son.”
She turned earnest gray-green eyes from Alasdhair to the baby and back again. “Perhaps not your legitimate son, but there is a certain—”
“Newborns of native British stock all have blue eyes. That child is not my son, and you and I have not been introduced Miss Delancey.” He would recall an introduction to a such a woman. She exuded propriety and decorum, could doubtless deliver whole sermons on divine plans and mankind’s fallenness.
So could Alasdhair, did she but know it. So could any soldier fortunate enough to return from the wars.
“He’s not a newborn,” she said. “The child is a good six months or thereabouts. He’s beginning to teeth, you see, and that is a good thing. The landlady heard him yelling and realized his mama was not with him. He was having rather a bad time of it.”
A coldness assailed Alasdhair, the same coldness that had come over him in battle. His body would function with heightened efficiency, his mind would leap along paths of strategy and intuition, while his heart froze into granite.
But there was no battle here. No enemy. Only this well dressed female with her drawing room English and earnest gaze, and that… that bundle of trouble.
“I am sorry for the lad’s misfortune, but he is not my son.”
“He is still your responsibility.” She unfurled the word responsibility like a pristine banner of righteous certainty. “Melanie Fairchild named you as his guardian, and as she is on longer extant, and her will is quite clear, that makes you—”
“What?”
The coldness had never made Alasdhair light-headed before. “I saw her just last week. She was in great good health.” Melanie, like so many of the women offering themselves on London’s streets, had been a good girl once, the kind to suffer terribly when deemed no longer worthy of that appellation. She’d been quiet when last Alasdhair had called on her, perhaps tired. Only that. “She cannot be dead.”
“I am sorry,” Miss Delancey said. “You cared for her.”
“Of course I cared for her.” Alasdhair cared for them all, fool that he was. “She had come so far, against such odds. She had a cousin or auntie who was helping her, though the rest of her family was a worthless pack of pious hypocrites. She doted on that baby, went on and on about him.”
What a smart lad he was, how merry, what a good sleeper. Mellie had rhapsodized about one tiny infant. He had been her reason for living.
“I apologize for being the bearer of sad tidings, but you will have young John here to console you.”
“No, I will not.”
The baby gurgled, a happy sound accompanied by a tiny fist flailing in the direction of Miss Delancey’s not-quite-dainty nose.
“Might we continue this discussion somewhere warmer, Colonel MacKay.”
“Plain MacKay will do.” The dictates of gentlemanly deportment required that Alasdhair take the lady’s burden from her, but he could not. “This way.”
He led her through a townhouse that was more of a roofed campsite than a dwelling. London was not his home, God be thanked, but he bided here from time to time and had cousins here. No siblings, and certainly not a son.
“My study,” Alasdhair said, opening the door reluctantly. “My guest parlor is unheated.” Equally important, the guest parlor had windows visible from the street, and the draperies on those windows were tied back, the better to display Alasdhair’s social life to any passerby.
Fortunately, he had no social life.
Based on the lady’s merino wool cloak, matching blue gloves, and nacre buttons, she was one of those women who thrived on going from friend to friend collecting gossip. She would expect a tea tray. Where were her chaperone, lady’s maid, and footman for that matter?
“It’s half-day,” Alasdhair went on, “which is why you find me answering my own front door and without help in the kitchen.”
“You will need a wetnurse,” Miss Delancey said, taking a place in the middle of Alasdhair’s favorite napping sofa. “I’ll have Mrs. Jacobs send along Melanie’s effects, and I’m sure the baby’s dresses and whatnot will tide you over for a time. He’s taking some cereal, but he wasn’t yet weaned.”
Alasdhair remained on his feet, pacing the length of the carpet. “Miss Delancey, I care not which society for the oppression of beggars you represent. I have no need to know which variety of meddling fool you are, but I must observe that your hearing appears deficient. I cannot take in that baby. I am a bachelor. I have no staff to care for a child. I have no wish to care for a child.”
Not quite accurate. He had no ability to care for a child.
“Has anybody seen to Mellie’s final arrangements?” Alasdhair could not bear the thought of her lying in a pauper’s grave, nobody to mourn her, nobody to leave a single flower.
“Please do sit, Mr. MacKay. You have had a shock.”
Why were women such as Miss Delancey always telling others what to do? “How did she die?”
Miss Delancey adjusted the blanket swaddling the baby. “She surrendered herself to the embrace of Father Thames. No inquest has been held because we have no body. A woman fitting Melanie’s description made her way to the Strand Bridge last night, and Melanie’s favorite bonnet and slippers washed up on the morning tide.”
The proper name for that newly opened bridge was Waterloo Bridge, an irony when many of the women who chose to die there were war widows. Alasdhair perched a hip against the battered desk. He’d have a word with the river police, and see what the mud larks had to say.
First, he had to get this woman, and that baby out of his house.
“Send the lad to his mother’s family,” he said. “They can pretend, as all the best families do, that he’s the offspring of a widowed cousin in Scotland with too many mouths to feed. Make him into a badge of virtue for the very Christians who all but threw him to the lions.”
One do-gooder spinster relation had taken pity on the child. Mellie had never mentioned her by name, but the pittance that auntie or cousin had regularly sent along had been enough. Mellie—and Alasdhair—had made sure of that.
“With you named as legal guardian, Miss Fairchild’s family would have no authority to raise the child.”
“I will cheerfully give my permission for them to do just that.”
“Are you ever truly cheerful, Mr. MacKay?”
She tucked the child against the corner of the sofa, banking pillows around him. Swaddled in his blanket, he could hardly go crawling off across the cushions, but still, the lady took precautions.
Did he even know how to crawl yet?
“I will be very cheerful when I contemplate this boy growing up in the bosom of his nearest and dearest. I am a stranger to him. No relation at all. I have no children and don’t expect I will be so blessed. Take him away, Miss Delancey, and I wish you best of luck with him.”
The words hurt, like telling a wounded man he was bound for the surgeon’s tent. A boy barely shaving was to lose a limb, if not his life, and all Alasdhair had been able to do was stop by to offer a nip from his flask if the soldier survived the day.
“Melanie chose you to raise him, Mr. MacKay. You had best reconcile yourself to that honor.” The woman rose, and though she was not tall, she carried herself with dignity. She undid the frogs of her cloak and draped it over the sofa.
