A Candlelit Regency Christmas. Louise Allen

was interrupted by a baby’s wailing cry. The door opposite opened and a young woman backed out, clutching the child to her breast. ‘But, Mr Twinford, I can turn my hand to anything. I’ll wash, I can sew, scrub—’

      She was of medium height, neatly and respectably dressed, although not warmly enough for the weather, Tess thought, casting an anxious look at the baby who was swathed in what seemed to be a cut-down pelisse.

      ‘You’ve turned your hand to more than domestic duties, my girl.’ The voice from the office sounded outraged. ‘How can you have the gall to expect an agency with our reputation to recommend a fallen woman to a respectable household?’

      ‘But, Mr Twinford, I never...’ The woman was pale, thin and, to Tess’s eyes, quite desperate.

      ‘Out!’ The door slammed in her face and she stumbled back.

      ‘I do beg your pardon, Mrs Ellery. Shocking!’ The clerk moved round the side of the desk. ‘Now, look here, you—’

      ‘Stop it. You are frightening the baby.’ Tess stepped between them. ‘What is your name?’

      ‘Dorcas White, ma’am.’ Her voice was quiet, genteel, exhausted. Close up, Tess could see how neatly her clothes had been mended, how carefully the baby’s improvised coverings had been constructed.

      ‘Are you a lady’s maid, Dorcas?’

      ‘I was, ma’am. Once.’

      ‘Come with me.’ She turned to the spluttering clerk, who was trying to get past her to take Dorcas’s arm. ‘Will you please stop pushing? We are leaving.’ She guided the unresisting woman out to the street and into the waiting carriage. ‘There, now at least we have some peace and we are out of the wind. You say you are a lady’s maid and you are looking for a position?’

      ‘I was, but I can’t be one now, not with Daisy here. I’ll do anything, work at anything, but I’ll not give her up to the parish.’

      ‘Certainly not.’ All that was visible of the baby was a button nose and one waving fist. ‘Where is her father?’

      Dorcas went even whiter. ‘He...he threw me out when I started to show.’

      ‘What, you mean he was your employer?’ A nod. ‘Did he force you?’ Another nod. ‘And his wife said nothing?’

      ‘He told her I’d... He said I had...’

      She would get the full story later when the poor woman was less distressed. ‘Well, we won’t worry about that now. I need a lady’s maid. You can come and work for me. Or for Lord Weybourn, rather.’

      ‘You are Lady Weybourn?’ Dorcas was staring at her as though she could not believe what she was hearing.

      ‘Me?’ Tess steadied her voice. ‘No, I am his new housekeeper, but it is an all-male household and I need a maid for appearances, you understand.’ She looked at the thin, careworn face, the chapped hands gently cradling the baby, the look of desperate courage in the dark eyes. ‘It would be more like a companion’s post, really. Would you like the position?’

      ‘Oh, yes, ma’am. Oh, yes, please.’ And Dorcas burst into tears.

Chapter Nine

      ‘Where is Miss...Mrs Ellery?’ After the chaos of the morning, the previous day had passed uneventfully. Alex had dealt with his paperwork, visited some art dealers and then gone to his club, where he had dined and spent the evening catching up with acquaintances and what gossip there was in London in early December. A good day in the end, he concluded, one mercifully free from emotion and women.

      He’d had some vague thought of calling on Mrs Hobhouse, a particularly friendly young widow. When he had last been in London she had sought him out, had been insistent that only Lord Weybourn with his legendary good taste could advise her on the paintings she should hang in her newly decorated bedchamber. It was so important to get the right mood in a bedchamber, wasn’t it? It had impressed Alex that she could get quite so much sensual innuendo into one word.

      At the time he had considered assisting her with viewing some likely works of art from a variety of locations, including her bed, and yet somehow, when it came to the point of setting out for Bruton Street, he found he’d lost interest.

      This morning’s breakfast had been excellent. Alex folded his newspaper and listened. Everything was suspiciously calm. It was surely too much to hope that Hannah had made a miraculous recovery and was back at her post.

      ‘Mrs Ellery is in the kitchen, my lord.’ Phipps balanced the silver salver with its load of letters and dipped it so Alex could see how much post there was. ‘Shall I put your correspondence in the study, my lord? Mr Bland said to tell you that he has gone to the stationer’s shop and will be back directly.’

      ‘Very well.’ Alex waved a vague hand in the direction of the door. His secretary could make a start on it when he got back; he wasn’t ready to concentrate on business yet.

      So Tess had spent the night upstairs in the bedchamber above his own, had she? Alex picked up the paper, stared at the Parliamentary report for a while. Hot air, the lot of it. The foreign news didn’t make much more sense.

      Spain, West Indies, the Hamburg mails... He hadn’t heard so much as a footstep on the boards overhead, but then she’d doubtless been fast asleep when he’d arrived home and had risen at least an hour before he was awake. So far, so good. The heavens hadn’t fallen and he had obviously been worrying about nothing.

      Alex tossed down the Times. He was wool-gathering, which was what came of having his peace and quiet interrupted. What he needed to do was turn his mind to the possibilities for offloading a collection of rather garish French ormolu furniture that he was regretting buying. He made his way down the hall towards the study, then stopped dead when an alien noise, a wail, wavered through the quiet.

      A baby was crying. Alex turned back towards the front door. Surely no desperate mother had left her offspring on his blameless front step? Well, to be honest it was hardly blameless, but he had made damn sure he left no by-blows in his wake.

      The noise grew softer. He walked back. Louder—and it was coming from the basement. Then it ceased, leaving an almost visible question mark hanging in the silence.

      When he eased open the kitchen door it was on to a domestic scene that would have gladdened the palette of some fashionable, if sentimental, genre painter. Tess was sitting at the table with a pile of account books in front of her. Byfleet was standing by the fireside, polishing Alex’s newest pair of boots, while Annie sat at the far end of the table, peeling potatoes.

      And in a rocking chair opposite Byfleet was a woman nursing a baby while Noel chased a ball of paper around her feet. The stranger was crooning a lullaby and Alex was instantly back to the nursery, his breath tight in his chest as though arms were holding him tightly.

      A family. They look like a family sitting there. Alex let out his breath and all the heads turned in his direction except for the baby, who was latched firmly on to its mother’s breast. The woman whipped her shawl around it and stared at him with such alarm on her face that he might as well have been brandishing a poker.

      ‘My lord.’ Tess sounded perfectly composed, which was more than he felt, damn it. ‘Did you ring? I’m afraid we didn’t hear.’

      There was a pain in his chest from holding his breath and he rubbed at his breastbone. ‘No. I did not ring. I crossed the hall and I heard a child crying.’

      The stranger fumbled her bodice together, got to her feet and laid the baby on the chair. ‘My lord.’ She dropped a curtsy and he noticed how pin neat she was, how thin. ‘I am very sorry you were disturbed, my lord. It won’t happen again.’ Her voice was soft and her eyes were terrified.

      ‘Babies cry,’ he said with a shrug. Admittedly, they weren’t normally