Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“That’s her ladyship’s coach,” Mr. St. Didier said. “Lorne arrived in time to prevent unnecessary upheaval.”
St. Didier would not lie. Alice took a peek through the coach window for herself. There, indeed, sat her ladyship’s stately vehicle, the coachman on the bench, the footman and a groom loitering by the door.
Thank heavens, and thank Camden Huxley, disaster had been averted. “You had doubts, Mr. St. Didier?”
“Concerns. His lordship isn’t much of one for the saddle.”
Alice pulled on gloves. “He has you fooled, then, or perhaps he’s been fooling himself. Camden Huxley was so skilled on horseback that the local boys stopped racing him. He never rode the made mounts his brother was given, so Cam had to learn to actually ride. One doesn’t forget that skill.”
One would also never forget the sight of the vicarage coach sitting at the foot of the drive, hampers on display. Empty hampers, in all probability.
“I had concerns too,” Alice said as the Lorne Hall coach drew to a halt. “The best jockeys fall. The fleetest mounts can trip or land in bad footing.” And Cam was no longer that brooding young fellow trying to gallop his way to paternal approval.
St. Didier climbed out and offered Alice his hand. Bernard descended from the box and treated his mother’s vehicle to baleful scrutiny.
“I wanted to be wrong,” he said. “I wanted to be guilty of a complete, foolish overreaction that misread evidence and jumped to erroneous conclusions. She meant to steal that child.”
“Of course she did,” St. Didier retorted. “And she would not trouble herself in the least if great harm befell the girl, provided no taint of scandal resulted for her ladyship. Truly, Huxley, I pity you your mother.”
What would Gabriella think of her own mother, assuming Alice found the courage to broach that topic?
“You gentlemen can debate the details of Lady Josephine’s venery all day. I would like to consult the baron.” Alice strode forth before they could stop her, escort her, admonish her to exercise caution, or remind her of the need for discretion.
She was done with all that.
By the time she reached the terrace steps, she was nearly jogging. Cam met her on the stairs and wrapped his arms around her.
“Gabriella is safe, Alice. She’s safe, she gave a very good account of herself, and she has many allies in this house.”
Alice allowed herself one moment to cling, to rejoice, to acknowledge the battle nerves, and to let the what-might-have-beens terrify her anew.
“Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my much-shaken heart. Lady Josephine was ready to cast my daughter out into the world, friendless, prey to any who’d take advantage of a helpless child.”
“And all the while,” Cam replied, “she’d be congratulating herself on having done an orphan and you a good turn. She even informed me that her actions were for my benefit as well. I am angry enough to set the magistrate on her.”
“Not the magistrate.” Her ladyship would weep and sniffle and plead good intentions, all the while pretending ignorance of the terrors a lone little girl in service faced, assuming Gabriella had ever made it to Ireland.
“We can discuss Lady Josephine’s fate later. Right now, I want to see Gabriella.”
“I believe the household is preparing for a game of cricket on the back lawn. Cider and biscuits were mentioned.”
Cam offered his arm. Alice took him by the hand instead and led him across the terrace. “We are engaged to be married, and the day has been trying. Modest displays of affection are permissible.” Also necessary, given the state of her nerves.
“Set a reasonable pace, please. I am not the equestrian I used to be and will have the sore muscles to prove it. Galahad is quite a horse.”
Galahad. Oh, of course. “He simply wanted for some proper attention, and there are remedies for sore muscles, my lord.”
What could remedy the breach between Alice and her daughter? Years of deception, distance, and worry, and Alice’s defense would also be that she had meant well.
“What do I say to her? I have longed for and dreamed of this day, but now… Cam, what do I say to my only child when I have been such a shamefully inadequate parent?”
Entering the orphanage had abruptly become daunting.
“You will know what to say, Alice. She’s a very astute little girl—gets that from her mother—and she knows firsthand what a besom Lady Josephine has been. Would you like me to join you?”
“Yes.” Alice answered instinctively. “Please.”
“Then lead on, and let’s hear the tale of Gabriella’s adventure from the child herself.”
As it happened, the retelling of the day’s developments involved all of the girls. When Alice emerged onto the back porch, the girls swarmed her, and Cam at some point let go of her hand.
He remained near, a quiet, smiling presence, while Alice enjoyed a barrage of hugs and greetings. Mrs. Dumfries smiled a welcome while arranging cups on a long wooden table in the shade.
“Miss Alice, Miss Alice. Lady Josephine tried to steal Gabby,” Jeanine bellowed.
“We didn’t let her,” Lizzy shouted. “Mary made a plan, and we all pretended to look for the locket, and Jeanine was the lookout, and Gabriella wouldn’t run away.”
Penelope tugged on Alice’s skirts. “Will you read us a story, Miss Alice?”
“She can’t read us a story,” Jeanine retorted. “We’re to play cricket, and I am on Miss Alice’s team.”
A riot of pick me and me too and that’s not fair ensued, and all the while, Gabriella stood quietly, her gaze moving between Alice and Cam.
“But who will be on my team?” Cam asked at a moment when the pandemonium ebbed slightly.
The uproar crested again, and Alice used the moment to bend low and whisper in Gabriella’s ear. “Let’s introduce ourselves to his lordship’s horse, shall we?”
Gabriella nodded.
While Cam distracted the horde, Alice sauntered off with Gabriella. The moment should have been prosaic. Mother and child going to pass the time with a horse, but for Alice…
All the gratitude, hope, and joy she was capable of filled her heart and gave her courage. “Gabriella, what did you make of Lady Josephine’s actions today?”
“Lady Josephine is mean, and she lies,” Gabriella said, pausing a good dozen yards from where Galahad cropped grass.
Archibald had removed the horse’s gear and found a halter somewhere, then gone back to his weeding near a corner of the back wall.
“Her ladyship isn’t very nice,” Alice said. “You don’t have to pretend otherwise now.”
“But we did pretend, didn’t we? Mrs. Dumfries was always making excuses for the mostly empty hampers and for how Lady Josephine didn’t even know her Proverbs. Mrs. Dumfries didn’t like making excuses, but she always made them.”
“Let’s sit on the swing, shall we?” Alice had never sat beside her daughter on a swing before, never had a private conversation with Gabriella before. “Galahad looks to be having a fine snack. We might as well leave him to it.”
“He’s very grand.”
“I think so too. Did Lady Josephine upset you?”
“Nah.” Gabriella hopped onto the swing, but her legs were too short to reach the ground.
Alice sat to one side of her and gave the swing a push. “She upset me. She’s been upsetting me for years, but I was also afraid of her.”
“Did she threaten to put you on bread and water?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“Or make you copy out a whole Gospel with perfect penmanship?”
How to make children resent their Bibles. “She threatened to harm somebody I care about very much. To toss them onto a coach, never to be seen again.”
Cam was in the middle of a knot of little girls, each one trying to instruct him on the niceties of cricket. Even Mary was smiling at his exaggerated stance with the bat.
He’s here. I am fortified by the mere sight of him pretending to negotiate the rules of cricket with a lot of juvenile experts.
“She said I was going to a loving family,” Gabriella muttered. “Mary said that was a lie. Mary is a grouch but she doesn’t lie. I was scared, and I was mad. I haven’t been bad, and I did not deserve to be kidnapped.”
Alice slipped an arm around Gabriella’s shoulders. “His lordship said you were very brave.”
“I wasn’t brave. I was scared. I live here. These are my friends. They tried to help. Lady Josephine is bad, and nobody puts her on any coaches.”
Gabriella’s composure was slipping, and so was Alice’s. “When we are scared, when we are terrified, it’s hard to be brave, but you were.”
And so was I. The thought bloomed like the first rose in spring, too bold for the winter-dull garden, too much, too bright and undeniable. So was I. For years, I was brave, and I kept trying, and I did my best.
“I can run fast,” Gabriella said. “Mary told me that if Lady Josephine took me to the inn, I should ask to use the jakes and run like hell. ‘Hell’ is a bad word.”
“Mary was being emphatic. We cannot fault her for that in the circumstances.” And sometimes, even the most demure lady needed a bit of colorful emphasis in her words.
“Lady Josephine would never, ever have been able to catch you. She does not run, she never plays cricket, and she thinks fresh air is bad for the complexion.”
“She’s bigger than me.”
Than I. “But she’s slow and nowhere near as nimble as you are, and nobody likes her. If she’d shouted, ‘Stop, thief!’ nobody would have stopped you. She would have looked very foolish, and somebody might even have tried to trip her if she gave chase.”
Gabriella peeped up at Alice in a manner reminiscent of Jeanine. “And I would have got away.”
“Of course, but fortunately, your friends came to your aid, and the baron dealt with Lady Josephine. I wish I could have seen that.”
Gabriella wiggled a little closer. “He was mad. Not mean-mad, but actions-have-consequences mad.” She’d raised her voice to imitate Mrs. Dumfries. “I hate Lady Josephine. I’m glad the baron stopped her.”
So am I. “She is very hard to like, but I doubt you will ever see her again.”
“Good. Somebody should put her on a coach to darkest Peru.”