“Now,” Ash said, “tell us who you are, man, and the whole of this story.”
The young man glanced at Sheena, then faced them. “M’name’s Lawrence Carr, m’lord. I know Sheena from back in Annaghdown.” Then he raised his chin. “I’m the father of her child, m’lord, and have the right to protect her.”
The child that died. The poor couple. “Sheena’ssafe,” Genova assured him. “She’s only here because her employer appears to have abandoned her.”
“Lady Booth Carew.” Lawrence almost spat it. “I tracked them across Ireland and almost to London, then realized Sheena wasn’t with her anymore. I’ve been frantic since, but then heard that a lord here was seeking an Irish speaker, and that it was to do with a baby.”
“Wiser to have presented yourself openly as the translator, wouldn’t you say?” Ash remarked.
“I don’t trust the big houses! When I found I could get in, I did. I’m not a housebreaker, m’lord. I’m not!”
He was standing bold, but shaking. It wasn’t surprising. He could end up transported for that.
“That’s all right,” Genova soothed. “But we need you to ask Sheena about Lady Booth. We need to know why Lady Booth abandoned her and Charlie with us.”
Lawrence Carr took Sheena’s hand and asked her the questions.
Sheena looked around almost furtively, or perhaps like a trapped animal, then spilled a stream of Gaelic. There was an exchange that rose rapidly to an argument. Then Sheena burst into tears.
Genova was ready to shake the English out of the man. “What did she say?”
Lawrence Carr looked at them, angry and perhaps bewildered. “M’lord, ma’am, I can hardly make sense of it m’self. She tried to tell me our child died, but when I returned to Annaghdown, me own mam told me Sheena’d had a baby, and it was a fine boy. Boxed me ears, she did, for not writing so I’d know.”
“You didn’t know?” But then it sank in. “Charlie is Sheena’s own baby?”
Of course, of course. So much made sense now. But some things, many things, still didn’t.
“And Lady Booth’s plan?” Ash asked, not showing any reaction.
“She doesn’t know, m’lord. But Lady Booth promised her money if she’d come to England with herbaby, and that the boy’d grow up to be a fine lord. The silly biddy to believe such a thing. But it was hard for her with an unwed babe and me being away. I was trying to make money so we could marry, m’lord! I don’t have the writing, and I didn’t want to spend money on someone to write for me when I’d nothing to say.”
Nothing to say to the girl he’d made love to. How very like a man, and yet Lawrence Carr had been trying to do the right thing, to earn enough to marry his sweetheart.
“So the baby died,” Ash said to no one in particular, “and Molly found a substitute.”
“Or,” Genova suggested, “there was never a baby at all.”
“What?”
Ash looked dumbfounded. Genova wondered if it took a woman to follow a tangle that deep into the knot. “Mr. Carr, I gather your village is close to Lady Booth Carew’s home?”
“That it is, ma’am. She was left her husband’s place there, though she takes no care of it.”
“So ask Sheena, if you please, whether Lady Booth carried and birthed a child there.”
After an exchange he looked back, but Geneva was already smiling, having understood Sheena’s tone and some gestures.
“She says not, ma’am. Apparently Lady Booth went about with a growing belly, complaining of her ill-usage, which was a strange thing to everyone, for you’d think she’d want to hide in shame. But her maid laundered her cloths every month, and hung them out to dry.”
She laughed aloud at that. “Never think anything can be hidden.”
Ash was shaking his head.
“Swear if you want,” Genova said, rising and going to his side to speak confidentially.
He laughed at that as he had once before.
“It should have occurred to me,” he said. “She’dbeen married to Carew for eight years without sign. But she risked her reputation.”
