Chapter 2
2
What sort of callous man would reject his own baby?
Anger burned in Miss Modesty Fairchild’s chest as she descended from the hackney, cradling little Augustus tightly. The infant slept peacefully, unaware of his father’s pitiless dismissal.
She hurried across the busy dirt path towards the women’s almshouse, Grace following close behind. A chilly September wind cut through her spencer, but Modesty ignored it, indignation keeping her warm. Street children in ragged clothes darted between the buildings. A woman in a threadbare shawl rushed past, and a man shuffled by, eyes staring blankly from a worn-out face.
The duke was everything her father had warned her about—aristocratic perfection masking a heart of ice.
Yet her breath had caught when she saw him. His athletic, broad-shouldered frame tapered to a lean waist, narrow hips, and long, muscular legs. Beneath windswept dark brown hair, his face was more devastating still—all sharp planes and angular cheekbones softened only by the slight cleft in his strong jaw. Deep, penetrating, chestnut-brown eyes tilted upwards slightly at the corners, and were surrounded by long, dark lashes. But his mouth—with a full lower lip and a perfect Cupid’s bow—seemed at odds with such commanding features, as if nature couldn’t quite decide between severity and sensuality.
His companion, the Duke of Eccess, had at least shown some warmth despite the scent of wine on his breath. He’d tried to look at Augustus, but Pryde had remained unmoved. No doubt acknowledging his child would tarnish his spotless reputation.
Grace opened the door for Modesty. “What will you do now?”
A former tannery, Grace’s women’s almshouse was housed in a large brick building with grimy windows set high on the walls to let in light. It was in the depths of Whitechapel, on a broad street lined with crumbling buildings that leaned towards each other like drunken workers.
Modesty’s arms tightening around her precious bundle, she passed through the doorway. “I’ll do what the duke cannot. I will care for an innocent child who needs love more than status. First, I must find a wet nurse for Augustus.”
The smell of damp stone filled her nose as she and Grace moved through the main room, her small heels echoing against the cold floor.
“After that, Papa and I will raise him as Ophelia would have wanted.”
Her own mama had died in childbirth, just as Augustus’s had. That was one reason she cared so much for the sweet boy who wasn’t her own. She loved his button nose, and the full round cheeks, and the soft dusting of blond hair on his head, and the birthmark behind his ear in the shape of a wolf.
The other reason was unthinkable…
At the far end of the large space, women bent over old workbenches, now used for sewing, with bits of cloth and thread scattered about them. Three cooking grates had been set within a large fireplace on the other wall. A cauldron stood on one of them, bubbling with the comforting smell of stew.
She cuddled Augustus closer to her as a cold wind sliced by her cheek. The place was becoming increasingly drafty, the chill seeping through cracks in the windows and doors.
“You know,” said Grace as they walked. “It is better for Augustus. You will give him so much love. A vain and prideful man like the duke could never care for him as you would.”
Modesty remembered how Pryde’s perfect features had hardened at the sight of Augustus, how that brief flicker of softness in his eyes had turned to stone.
“You’re right,” she said. “The duke would never love him.”
They walked past women who sat at tables, busy with needlework, rocking babes or bouncing toddlers, or talking in low voices.
Modesty had met Ophelia two months ago, right at this table, as the other woman had struggled to patch a skirt—the primary way women here earned petty coin. She was pretty, with blond hair and sad, wet blue eyes. Her husband had died when she was three months pregnant. After his death, all of his possessions were sold to settle his debts, and she became homeless.
Modesty and her father had taken Ophelia in as they often did with homeless pregnant women—and even some from the almshouse. It was better to give birth in a clean, warm house than in the cold, drafty space that, despite all efforts, was not the best place for newborn babies.
How had a respectable married woman of her friend’s modest status crossed paths with the Duke of Pryde? Perhaps, struggling with a husband who had always been drunk, and perpetually living on the verge of poverty, it had been easy for Ophelia to find comfort in the arms of a handsome, rich, and powerful man.
But when Ophelia had gone to the duke for help two months ago, he had cruelly rejected her, and she’d ended up in the almshouse.
Grace and Modesty proceeded towards the right side of the hall where curtains hung in a row, creating private small spaces, each of which housed a thin mattress or a wooden box serving as a cot. It wasn’t much, but this was still better than the streets.
“You had to try.” Grace nodded to a group of women who were gathered at a round table writing, while another woman read aloud. “The duke is Augustus’s only family. You promised a dying mother you would keep her babe safe, and you’re going to change your entire life for him. You’re the kindest person I’ve ever known, but will you still be able to pursue your research while caring for a baby?”
Sorrow pierced her heart at the thought of giving up her antiquarian aspirations. She would never now trek through Egypt’s ancient tombs or uncover the secrets of Rome’s buried cities, never make the kinds of discoveries that could change how people understood the past. The Roman villa she’d found on the farm of one of the church’s parishioners could have been her first step towards proving that women belonged in the field as much as men did. But dreams of academic recognition and breakthroughs in understanding humanity’s past would have to remain just that—mere fantasies.
She could still see the cylindrical bronze jewelry box that had emerged under her shovel. And below that, tesserae forming a mosaic floor. Precipitation had helped to remove the topsoil, washing centuries of dirt from the box as she lifted it. She recalled grasping the cold, age-roughened metal with her freezing, wet fingers, blinking away the rain that gusted into her face. She opened the lid and swallowed a gasp at the treasures inside: a silver mirror, blue and green glass beads, a broken fibula…and, most intriguingly, a small carved stone. The stone was not Roman at all—she was certain it was an artifact from the Picts, a Scottish tribe!
She’d been so stunned by her find that time itself seemed to stop.
But time hadn’t stopped for the pregnant woman waiting for her an hour’s walk away to make the trip home together. Ophelia had stood in the elements until she was frigid and soaked before finally giving up and walking back to the vicarage on her own.
What Grace didn’t know—what no one knew—was that Ophelia had died because of Modesty’s distraction that day. So her silly dreams were a negligible price to pay for giving her friend’s child a decent life…and it was her well-deserved penance.
“I won’t pursue my research any longer,” she answered, coming back to the present. “Your brother will be kind enough to continue the excavation.”
“And assume all the credit?” Grace clicked her tongue. “I love George and want nothing but the best for him, but…that site…it’s yours.”
Modesty’s wisest choice was to let George take the recognition, and she would do what a woman was supposed to do: support her papa and raise a child.
They stopped, and Grace pulled back a section of the curtain. Behind it, leaning against a cushion on a straw mattress along the wall, sat a woman who dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. She wore an old brown dress with patches, her tousled hair sticking out in wild strands around her tired face.
“How are you feeling, Mrs. Walcott?” Grace asked.
“Still proper sore, Miss Lockhart,” she replied with a sad smile, “but gettin’ better. Dr. Sterling said that’s wot to expect.”
Before Modesty could react, there were footsteps behind them.
“Ah, Miss Fairchild,” a male voice said, and Modesty turned to see George, his face bright and his dark eyes crinkling kindly at the corners as he looked at her. “How did the meeting go?”
George was a tall, slim man with dark curly hair—the same shade as his sister Grace’s—falling in unruly waves around a pleasant, open face. He wore a brown wool coat that had been carefully mended at the elbows, a simple linen shirt, and old breeches. He held a wooden board bearing a plate and a tin mug.
Modesty returned his smile. He had been the one who’d first sparked her interest in history. When they were children, he’d spent countless afternoons telling her tales of ancient civilizations and buried treasures. Now he brought those same stories to life by digging for antiquarian treasures.
“Not very well, I’m afraid, Mr. Lockhart,” Modesty said. “Hence, little Augustus needs a wet nurse.”
George frowned. “How disappointing.”
“Would you consider nursing Augustus, Mrs. Walcott?” asked Grace.
The woman looked at the bundle. “I—er…”
Grace walked over and took Mrs. Walcott’s hand in hers. “I am sorry, it must be so hard after losing your own babe.”
“It is, but…me chest’s full of milk, ain’t it? Proper hurts, it does. If another little’un needs a mother…least where it comes to the feedin’…I’ll do it. Right then.”
Modesty cradled the sleeping baby closer. “Thank you. My father is a vicar in Shepherdsbrook, half an hour’s carriage ride from here. I’m charged with taking care of Augustus. A woman from my father’s parish fed him until now, but that was always temporary. She already has six children of her own and can’t take another baby in. We have little, but we’ll give you food and a safe home.”
The woman nodded, still teary. “What happened to his mother, then?”
“She…” Modesty swallowed a painful memory of the afternoon five days ago that had changed everything. “She ran a fever before the labor pains began. Shortly after the birth, her illness worsened and…well… Before she died, she asked me to look after him.”
Quite distraught after Ophelia’s death, Modesty had come to the almshouse, asking for advice. Grace and George were her closest friends, and she knew she could trust them like she could trust herself.
Modesty smiled at Mrs. Walcott. “All of us will be this child’s family.”
“I’m right grateful for the bed an’ board,” said Mrs. Walcott. “Ain’t got nowhere to go. Me husband’s dead, too. Ain’t got no one, I haven’t.”
Modesty nodded and blinked away her tears. “Well. Now you have me, my papa, and this little boy. You will never be alone.”
Mrs. Walcott stretched her arms out to take the baby, and Modesty passed Augustus to her.
As she watched Mrs. Walcott rock the sweet child, her heart filled with relief.
Her mind went back to the deep chestnut eyes, the straight back, and the chiseled face—a beautiful mask that hid the ugliest, most selfish person she ever met in her life.
Grace was right.
Perhaps that cold duke rejecting Augustus was the best thing that had ever happened to him. She would dedicate her life to this baby. He’d be raised by a loving family with good morals.
The stab of regret and sadness that lanced through her heart at the thought of her forsaken dreams was nothing.