“Would it be too much to trouble you for a hug?” she whispered. “Mama always hugs us before we go to bed.”
Lorelei pulled Irene into her chest, her heart swelling and breaking at the same time. “Of course not. I shall be here any time you desire a hug.”
“Might I have one too?” Cecilia’s sleepy voice piped in.
Lorelei slipped an arm about Cecilia’s tiny body, encompassing both of them. “Of course, darling.” She grappled for control as her voice choked with emotion. “Do you think you can sleep now?”
“Yes.” Irene’s whisper was reassuring.
Cecilia nodded against her chest, and Lorelei slowly let go and tugged the coverlet up to their chins. She kissed their foreheads, and with a last glance over her shoulder, she slipped from the room.
She started for her own chamber, but too much had happened. She would never be able to rest, much like Ginny’s two girls.
A book to read would not be amiss. That should put her to sleep. A small smile touched her deep inside. For a woman who desperately wanted yet hadn’t had a child of her own, she found she now had three. She made her way to the library and pushed open the door.
Thorne stood at the windows looking out at the night sky, wondering who the devil would wish Rowena dead. There was nothing random about her death. Someone had slammed her head against the wall. That made it personal. An obsessive lover who’d followed her from London? That seemed the most likely. But he’d known Rowena for years, and one thing she was not was free with were her words.
A small portion of his brain refused to separate the disappearance of Harlowe and Rowena’s demise as coincidental. Murder in Kimpton was rare, and on his own property? Disturbing. Infuriating. He shuddered to think what Lorelei had almost stumbled upon. It sent an icy rage through him and chills up his spine. He glanced back at the door, hope dwindling that she would search him out.
Of course, she was exhausted. Still, he pulled out his pocket watch. Ten minutes longer, then he’d ring for Metzger to send for her. The scent of roasted pheasant filled the air, and he was starving, but he’d held off eating, waiting—hoping…
The door creaked behind him. His pulse thumped loudly, and he turned. Lorelei paused beneath the arch, surprise etching her features. Her gaze landed on the small table set for two.
“I thought you might be hungry,” he said.
His words seemed to startle her into action, and she crossed slowly into the room. “With all the goings-on, I hadn’t once thought of food.” A small smile tipped her lips. “Etiquette dictates that I deny such a vulgar sentiment.”
“It does indeed.” His pulse slowed, and his own smile surged through. He moved about the table and pulled out her chair. “How is our patient?” he whispered against her neck. He leaned in and breathed in her soft rose scented skin.
A delicate tremble reached through to him.Encouraging.
“Patient? Oh. Yes, Miss Hollerfield.”
He made his way across from her and lifted the cover from the pheasant. He filled her plate, then his own. “What other patient did you think I meant?” He glanced up and saw her staring at her food, and immediately regretted the question. “I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t mean to make light of—”
“Did you know that Miss Holler—” She stopped. “I mean the other Miss Hollerfield, rather,RowenaHollerfield was the girl’s mother?”
He frowned. “That doesn’t seem possible.”
“She—Rowena—admitted it to me yesterday. But there was something—”
“Something?”
She shook her head. “I’m being silly. Of course, the woman was distressed.”
“I don’t believe it,” he muttered. The woman had been his mistress for more than a year, and that was more than a decade ago. The child would have been fourteen, fifteen? Not to mention Rowena’s age. She hadn’t been all that old herself at the time. Good God, she’d have had that child as a child! He glanced up at Lorelei. “You don’t believe her?”
Lorelei picked up her fork and shrugged. “What’s not to believe? She was terrified. It was heartbreaking.” She pushed the food around on her plate. “Still, I can’t help feeling there was something she was withholding.”
“Eat, darling.” Thorne paused, his own fork raised. He lowered it back to his plate. “Lorelei, I must thank you for your generosity. There aren’t many women who would have… have—”
“Assisted her husband’s former mistress in her time of need?” she supplied wryly. She took a small bite.
He winced. “Nicely put, my dear, but yes.” One could not stay on the subject of one’s former mistress and expect an amicable outcome. “How is the child?”
She smiled. “Fulfilled. The wet nurse was a godsend. I don’t know how I didn’t think of it.”
“How could you have when”—he paused, shaking his head, confused by this reaction—“you’ve never had a child—”
