Page 13 of To Claim the Long-Lost Lover
They rode in silence at first. Elias knelt on the seat so he could look out the window, but Sarah could tell he was thinking deeply. They were still a few miles from the inn when Elias spoke.
"Is what they said true, my lady?" he asked. "Am I a by-blow? What is a by-blow?"
Sarah couldn't think what to say. This was Nate's fault. If he hadn't burst back into her life, she would have left Elias in London, safe in his own schoolroom, surrounded by people who loved him.
"Mr Wilson said I was a nobleman's cuckoo," Elias added, quoting the man in charge of the workhouse to which Elias had been taken after his foster parents died. "What does that mean, my lady? I don't understand."
Sarah had known she would have to explain to Elias one day, but not yet. Not when the child was only six years old. Not when they were still so new to one another.
"Now, then, Master Elias," the nursemaid interrupted. "Don't thee be bothering Lady Sarah with thy questions. She's taken thee in and it is grateful thee should be, think on."
Elias's fallen face was enough to break Sarah out of her paralysis. "Thank you, Morris, but Master Elias is welcome to talk to me about anything that bothers him. Elias, darling, ‘by-blow’ is a very rude word. It means a child born to two people who made a mistake, but you are not your parents, Elias. You are not the mistake they made, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool. You are a dear and precious person, and I love you."
Elias accepted the hug that Sarah could not resist giving, his usual hesitancy a momentary thing before he returned the embrace. "I love you, too, Lady Sarah."
Sarah threw caution to the wind. Thetonwould think the worst anyway, and Uncle James and her sister would stand by her whatever other people said. "Would you… Do you think you might wish to call me 'Mama', darling?" Perhaps it was time to follow her first plan, and retire to the country under another name.
Elias drew back without letting her go, meeting Sarah's gaze. His eyes brimmed with tears. "May I?"
Sarah nodded, her own eyes overflowing. Elias burrowed in again, muffling his next question. But Sarah heard it well enough. "Who were my real mother and father, Mama? Do you know?"
* * *
A collapsing wall brought a flood of injuries into the clinic just as the sky began to lighten, and it was well after dawn before Nate had time to check again on the boy Tony. He was sleeping, but he was breathing easily and showed no sign of fever.
Nate went to take his leave of Blythe, who thanked him for all his hard work. “You hit a busy night, Beauclair, and you proved your worth. I hope you’ll stick to it. We need doctors, and few are willing to give up their time to those who can’t pay.”
Nate decided the Winshire mansion—townhouse was too unpretentious a word—was not far out of his way on his drive home, so gave that address to the driver of the hire carriage he found a few doors from the clinic. No fashionable lady would be up at such a time, but he could leave a note to be given to her with her morning cup of chocolate, or whatever she ordered when she woke up.
But when the carriage stopped outside of the main doors to the mansion, several horses and riders waited in the street. He recognised Lady Charlotte by the steps, talking to—arguing with, by the looks of it—a fair-haired man. “Wait here for me,” he told the driver. “I’ll want to go to Fairview Square after this.”
The three men with the horses were Winshire’s fearsome foreign guard, who watched him as he strode towards the lady. Their faces were impassive, but he had no doubt that any untoward move on his part would be terminally unwise.
The man Lady Charlotte was talking to, though, put a hitch in his step—the Marquis of Aldridge, who was the son and heir of the Duke of Haverford. The marquis had been pointed out to him by Libby one evening, and she had favoured him with a brief summary of the aristocrat’s career as a rake and his impending elevation to one of the highest titles in the land, given the approaching death of his father.
She had also speculated whether the feud between the Haverfords and the Winshires would continue for another generation. Given the warmth in Aldridge’s eyes as he observed Lady Charlotte watching Nate approach, Nate rather thought he could answer that question.
“You are early, Lord Bentham,” she greeted him. “My sister is still away.”
“I came to see you this morning, my lady. Or at least to leave you a message. I expected to be told you were not available to visitors.”
“I have been out early,” Charlotte agreed, “and I fear that we must go out again directly. Aldridge, have you meet Bentham, Lechton’s heir?”
Nate nodded at Aldridge, heir to heir, but spoke to Lady Charlotte. “I have a message from a boy named Tony.”
Everyone stilled, even the retainers. “Tony? You have seen him?”
“I treated him. He will recover.” Always start with the most reassuring news. “He fell and broke a leg. Bruised ribs. A few bangs and cuts. He is safe and in the Ashbury Clinic in Brightwell Lane just off Wintermount Street.”
“Ruth’s clinic?”
Nate didn’t know who Ruth was, so ignored Lady Charlotte’s interpolation. “He said to tell you he did not run. He was taken from the garden.”
“There, Aldridge,” Charlotte said to the marquis. “I told you. Thank you, Lord Bentham. Yahzak, can we go now?”
“Is he awake, Bentham?” Aldridge asked, and when Nate shook his head, he said, “Breakfast first, now that we know he is safe, my lady. I am sure your men are hungry, and I know I am. Why don’t you invite Bentham to join us? He can tell us how Tony came to be at the clinic.”
“I will dispatch a man to stand guard,” the man addressed as Yahzak suggested, and at his nod another leapt on one of their magnificent horses and cantered away down the street.
