“Tommy was a pretty talker, told me all the things I wanted to hear, anyway. Somehow, he knew what I really wanted.”
“And what was it you really wanted?”
She shrugged, wry and slightly sheepish. “A house in the country. An arched gate with roses blooming all over it. Garden full of green grass. Half a dozen children. The sort of life that didn’t rely on makeshift work to make one end meet the other. Then…”
When Lucas could wait no longer, he said, “Then?”
“Then I turned up with child.”
Oh.
“At fifteen?” He was shocked. Truly so.
“I was sixteen by then,” she said. “And I told Tommy.”
Lucas understood this story didn’t end well. “Then?”
“I never saw him again.”
There.
Lucas felt as if the bottom had dropped from his stomach. He saw the pain in her eyes, heard it in her voice, and didn’t know how to make her feel better, and he wanted to.
“I was a stupid girl.”
He wouldn’t stand for this. “Trumble promised you a life—one you desperately wanted—and you believed him. That doesn’t make you stupid.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No. It makes you open to life and love. He took your trust and betrayed it.” But her story hadn’t reached its conclusion yet, and he wanted to know. “And the child?”
Her jaw clenched, and her eyes grew shiny. “He was born still.” She tugged at the delicate silver chain around her neck and pulled a locket from beneath her bodice. “Ewan.Born with a head of the brightest red hair you ever saw. I have a lock of it in here.” She tapped the locket.
“So you always have him with you.”
“It’s all of him I have left.”
“Except what’s in your heart.”
She nodded and cleared her throat. “The next morning, word reached Mum of a babe who needed wet nursing.”
“And you agreed?” He wouldn’t use the word harsh. But that wouldn’t stop him from thinking it.
“I hardly knew what I was doing, truth told, but I went. As I was leaving, Mum told me I didn’t ever have to come back. So, I didn’t.”
“You haven’t seen your family since?”
She shook her head. “You have to understand. There were too many of us, and I’d found a new situation—a good one, it turned out.”
“But she couldn’t have known that.”
“You take your luck where you find it in this world, Mr. Kendall, and I don’t hold any grudges against Mum. Nursing Ariel was a great comfort to me after I lost Ewan, and his mum and aunt, Eva and Isabel Galante, well, they became my family. And now that they’ve both married lords, I run their dressmaking shop. I hold no hardness in my heart.”
Looking into her soft amber eyes, Lucas believed her. How impressive was this small woman who had described herself as a little mouse. Didn’t she know she was a lioness? Every obstacle thrown at her she’d turned into a success. “I’ve never met anyone like you, Miss Tait,” he found himself saying.
She laughed her self-deprecating, little laugh. “Oh, you have, Mr. Kendall. You’ll find more than a few like me in any scullery in England.”
He shook his head. On this point, he was certain. “Likeyou,” he could allow. “Butyou? No. You are not a replaceable person, Miss Tait.” He hesitated. “I must ask you one more question.”
