Chapter 6

There had been no new children to add to their already large collection when they returned from London that Thursday night. But Caleb had met the three widows and provided them with more candles—long and short—with which to signal.

The children who made Southern Oaks their home were thriving. Caleb knew because he spent every day walking among them on their playground, checking and rechecking the edges of the estate, and circling through the corridors of their massive home as they slept.

He told himself it was to make sure they were safe and that no one had entered the grounds to harm any of them. But that was only partially true. He found himself gravitating to them and stopping to watch them eat or study or play. Sometimes he even joined them. He tossed the ball when they were playing catch and organized races to keep them occupied.

Sometimes he even raced against them.

Today they were tossing a ball back and forth. He cheered when they caught the ball and laughed with them when they missed.

“Keep your eyes open, Robby,” he encouraged from the side of the playing field. “Keep your eyes on the ball all the way into your hands.”

“Yes, Captain,” the little boy he’d brought here not even one month ago answered.

Oh, how Robby had changed. He was happy and had friends to play with. He was a completely different boy.

“I’m surprised you’re not out there with them, Captain,” Lady Eleanor said. “The children love it when you join them.”

“But that’s not what you’re paying me to do, is it?”

She laughed. “Actually, in part it is. How can anyone harm them when you’re with them?”

Caleb lowered his gaze and smiled. She returned it with a smile of her own, and his heart sped in his chest. Her seeming ignorance of her own beauty throttled him every time he witnessed it. She could lunge after a stray ball in her best gown. She could swing a cricket bat and let the hairpins fly hither and yon and laugh when the children gathered them up and returned them to her.

He wondered if she knew how mesmerizing she was when she smiled. Most of all, he wondered why she’d chosen not to remarry after her husband died in the carriage accident. Everything about her was most assuredly marriageable.

Caleb caught a wayward ball and rolled it back onto the field of play. Something was happening to him that he had never expected, nor did he think he could handle.

“Do you have a moment?” Lady Eleanor called after him.

Caleb didn’t answer but swung about to follow her when she walked away from the children.

“I received a note from Granny Carver. It came by way of the butcher who delivers supplies every Tuesday and Friday.”

“Are you sure it came from Granny Carver?”

“Yes. It’s her mark.”

“What does she want?”

“She has rescued several children. Too many to wait until next week. She needs us to pick them up.”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

Something didn’t feel right about this change of plan. Caleb continued to walk through the meadow with Lady Eleanor. “Have Dora or Mary ever wanted you to come early?”

Lady Eleanor paused. “No, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Are you sure?”

Lady Eleanor stopped, then turned to face him. “You think this might be a trap, don’t you?”

“It’s possible.”

She lifted her chin until her gaze locked with his. “What should I do?” she asked. Worry lines deepened across her forehead.

He slowly lifted the corners of his mouth until he wore a broad smile. “You should do what your instinct tells you to do.”

“Then we need to go,” she said. She breathed a heavy sigh.

“Yes, we need to go,” he answered.

Her eyes misted, and she reached out her hand and clasped her dainty fingers around his arm. The heat from her touch burned his flesh even through his jacket. He tried to stop himself from reacting, but he couldn’t. He reached out and placed his palm over her hand.

She looked at where their hands touched, then slowly lifted her gaze. “Thank you,” she whispered, but she didn’t pull her hand from beneath his. “Thank you,” she repeated.

Caleb lifted his hand, then took a small step away from her. “I’ll . . . I’ll have the carriage ready as usual. We’ll take extra men with us in case they’re needed.”

She nodded her understanding, then they walked back to the manor house at each other’s side.

Caleb tried to erase the emotions roiling through him. Blast the impossible attraction! She was a countess, the granddaughter of a duke. The only title he could lay claim to was that of captain in Her Majesty’s army. His father was a common laborer. He could offer her nothing, and it was impossible to think she might ever think of him as anything but an employee.

“Until tonight,” she said when they reached the house. She went inside, and Caleb remained outside.

Where he belonged.

. . .

The night sky was darker than usual. Clouds covered the moon, preventing even a sliver of light from peeking through. If Caleb had believed in bad omens, the light rain that started as soon as they left Southern Oaks would surely have been a negative portent.

The modifications he’d made to the old Clarence had not only repaired the damage, they had altered its look. But the repairs weren’t quite as water-tight as he’d hoped. The ride was becoming more unpleasant by the minute.

“We’ll go directly to Granny Carver’s,” Lady Eleanor said when they neared London. “If there aren’t two candles in the window, we’ll drive past and return to Southern Oaks.”

Caleb shook his head, although he doubted Lady Eleanor could see him. “If there aren’t any candles glowing, I’ll take the two extra guards with me, and we’ll go in to check on Granny Carver. We need to make sure she’s safe.”

“Of course,” Lady Eleanor said. “How could I have been so thoughtless?”

“You weren’t being thoughtless. You were being cautious.”

The carriage turned a corner, then slowed. Caleb and Lady Eleanor both looked up from the carriage window to where Granny lived above the rag shop. “There’s a light,” Lady Eleanor said. “Granny’s expecting us.”

Caleb hoped it was Granny who was expecting them, and not Blackboot.

When the carriage stopped, Caleb dismounted first, then helped Lady Eleanor to the ground. The mist had turned to a steady rain, and Caleb motioned for the two men he’d brought with them to follow. He clasped his hand beneath Lady Eleanor’s elbow, and they made their way through a side door, then up a narrow flight of stairs. Granny had the door open and was waiting for them.

“I was afeared you wouldn’t come,” Granny said.

“We’re here, Granny. How many children do you have?”

“Four. They’re in here.”

Granny led the way into a small room. A single candle lit the area, and three pair of eyes stared at them. The fourth pair belonged to a babe wrapped in a blanket. The oldest, a girl, couldn’t be more than five or six, and she held the babe.

Eleanor walked slowly to them and knelt to assure them that they were safe now and nothing would hurt them.

Granny beckoned him out of the room and closed the door. “I don’t think the babe’s going to make it,” she whispered. “I tried to get her to take food, but she wouldn’t. The others ate some, but they’ve gone without for so long that they couldn’t get much down.”

Caleb nodded.

“You’ll take care of her ladyship when the babe dies, won’t you? She’ll take it hard when she loses one. She always does.”

“Yes, I’ll take care of her.”

Granny stepped around him and returned to help get the children ready to leave.

“What do you know about them?” Eleanor asked.

“The girl tells me her ma died when the babe was born, and her da tried to care for them. He died a while past, and they didn’t have nobody to care for them. I found them on my doorstep yesterday morning. Don’t know who brung ’em.”

Granny handed the babe to Eleanor, then wrapped a shawl around the oldest. Next, she placed what looked like a sheet torn in two around the younger two. Caleb took their hands and led them quickly through the misting rain to the carriage. Once inside, he wrapped a blanket around the three shivering children, then went back to get Eleanor, who was just handing Granny a small purse. “I’ll return your shawl next time,” she said as she pressed the purse into Granny’s hand. “Use this to buy whatever you need.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

With the babe still in her arms, Lady Eleanor gave Granny Carver a hug, then left with Caleb at her side.

The carriage took them slowly out of Saint Giles by way of High Holborn through the streets that never really quieted in this part of London. Lady Eleanor focused on the infant, examining her as best she could.

The sweet little thing was barely breathing. Her little chest would struggle upward, then seem to collapse. Then a long moment later it would struggle up again.

It clearly broke her heart. And Caleb’s, too. Still, each time she looked at the child’s anxious siblings, her face broke into a reassuring smile. As they reached the more quiet outskirts, the children seemed at last to lose their anxious faces.

“What’s your sister’s name?” Eleanor asked.

“Ruthie,” the oldest little girl murmured. “That was our mama’s name, too.”

Caleb watched the three children huddle together on the seat across from himself and Lady Eleanor. He took a coin from his pocket and absently rotated it through his fingers, from knuckle to knuckle. The children became mesmerized by it, so he kept it up.

No one spoke or moved except Eleanor, who softly jiggled the babe in her arms and made sweet crooning sounds as she encouraged her to continue breathing.

“I’ve never had a wee one in quite such desperate straits,” she agonized. “I should have brought a jug of milk and a fostering cloth. I should have been prepared.”

She could not have known, but Caleb knew that didn’t assuage the fact that she was at a loss now to ease the child’s suffering. The trip back to Southern Oaks seemed the longest journey of Caleb’s lifetime. With every clop of the horses’ hooves, he prayed the babe was still breathing. He thought if they could only reach Southern Oaks, there would be something they could do to keep the babe alive.

Yet he knew there wasn’t. He’d seen enough death to know that.

Caleb knew the instant the babe quit breathing. Eleanor released a soft keening moan and gathered the babe closer. Her head lowered as if she didn’t have the strength to hold it up. And her shoulders shook.

Caleb was at a loss. The only action he wanted to take was completely unacceptable. And yet . . .

He wrapped his arm around Eleanor’s shoulders and brought her close. She didn’t pull away but leaned into him. He kept one arm around her while he rested his other hand atop hers over the babe. And he let her cry.

The carriage pulled beneath the broad portico of Southern Oaks, and Caleb leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Stay here. I’ll take the children inside and come back for you.”

Carruthers stood close by as Caleb lifted the children out. “Have someone come for the children, then send Jenny down. Lady Eleanor needs her.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Caleb took the children inside, then returned for Eleanor. He lifted her from the carriage and ushered her into the house. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her knees trembled with each step she took. Caleb led her to a chair in one of the receiving rooms, then stood at her side until Jenny came.

Eleanor slowly rose to her feet and held out the bundle for Jenny to take. “Her name is Ruth,” she said as tears ran down her face.

“Ah, poor wee little Ruth. Poor little angel,” Jenny said, then turned and left the room.

Eleanor watched until the door closed behind Jenny, then she turned to face Caleb. “This isn’t the first babe who didn’t survive,” she said softly, lowering her gaze. “You would think it wouldn’t destroy me so, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to losing one of them.”

“I hope not,” he answered.

She lifted her head to look at him, and fresh tears streamed down her face.

In that instant, the distance between them seemed grievously wrong. His feet carried him toward her as if they had a will of their own. He tried to keep from reaching out to her, but his arms sought her as if he would perish if he couldn’t hold her. He tried to keep from pulling her into his arms, but the attraction he felt toward her was too powerful to resist.

He held her as if she were meant to be in his arms. As if sheltering her was what he was meant to do.

As if she felt the same, she clung to him and held tight.

Caleb chastised himself for taking her wholly into his heart. But he had.

And now, nothing would ever be the same.