With that she bent over the lad’s feet and started untying his shoes. The wet, frozen laces had been knotted several times. She worked at the small, tight knots in the dim light, but they wouldn’t budge. She tried just pulling the high-top boot off, but without undoing the laces, that wasn’t going to work, either.
“Oh, gooseberries,” she exclaimed under her breath and jerked her hands to her hips in frustration. “How could such a thin waif tie his strings so tight?”
The duke touched her shoulder, and she glanced up at him in surprise.
“Allow me to help you, Miss Quick.” He reached down and pulled a small pearl-handled dagger from inside his boot and within seconds cut the laces all the way up the boot.
“Do you always have—”
“Yes,” he answered before she finished her question.
“Thank you,” she said and went back to her task.
Holes had been worn in the soles of the cheaply made boots, and as she tugged off the first one she realized that they were really too small for him. She wouldn’t be surprised to find that his heels and toes had blisters on them. His stockings were in no better shape. Dirty, holey, andmuch too small. His trousers were worn at the knees, too short and frayed at the hem. Loretta had never been very good with a needle and she’d found out that her maid wasn’t, either, but she would see to it that he had better clothing and coverings for his feet before he left her house.
Once the boots and stockings were removed, she lifted his cold feet and wrapped a blanket around them until the duke was ready to remove his trousers. When she looked back toward the lad, his shirt was off. His face was still. Not a twitch or flutter of his eyelids. His chest was rail-thin and a bluish white.
Loretta could have counted every rib if she’d had the courage to keep looking at him. Her throat closed and her heart went out to this youngster who’d been reduced to begging for food. It didn’t seem right. Suddenly he didn’t feel like a stranger, but a part of her household, and now her responsibility.
“I have some clothing,” Mrs. Huddleston said, rushing up beside Loretta. “Oh, the poor dear,” she whispered staring down on his frail body. “I’m here now. Out with the both of you,” she said brushing her hands toward the duke. “I’ll take care of him from here.”
“We want to help him,” Loretta said.
“I know,” the housekeeper said. “You’ve already done more than you should. I’ve got the girls to help me. This isn’t proper for either of you. Now go on, out with you. Go finish your dinner, your conversations, or what have you. Out.”
Loretta looked at the duke, and he nodded. Perhaps it was time to let Mrs. Huddleston take over. She would know best what to do to warm him quickly.
“All right,” Loretta said, looking at her housekeeper. “I’ll check on him in a little while.”
The duke looked down at Mrs. Huddleston, too, and said, “After you get him dressed and covered warmly, rouse him and give him something warm to drink. Do it often throughout the night.”
“I will, Your Grace. I’ll take good care of him.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Huddleston.”
The woman beamed a smile at him and turned to her task.
Loretta led the way out of Arnold’s room and back the way they’d come and toward the dining room. She was chilled and shaken. And she desperately wanted the boy to be all right.
At the entrance to the dining room she stopped and asked, “Would you like to go back to the table? I don’t believe dessert was served. I can do that.”
The duke shook his head. “I think I have a brandy waiting for me in the drawing room, unless you’d like to go back to your dinner.”
“No, I was finished.” She turned and they walked back to the drawing room.
The corridor was wide in the old house, and the duke walked beside Loretta. She didn’t turn to look at him but felt his presence. There was a calming sense of safety being so close to him. She entered the drawing room before the duke and walked over to the secretary where she’d left the glass of brandy she’d poured him earlier. The duke strode over the fireplace, picked up the poker, and stirred the embers before adding a piece of wood to the rekindling fire.
“I’m sorry we have so few servants here and you have to tend the fire yourself.”
He turned back to her and, after a slight chuckle, said, “Though I seldom have the opportunity, I actually enjoy doing some things for myself.” His gaze zeroed in on hers.“Besides, there’s something pleasing about stirring up warm, glowing embers.”
Loretta had a suspicion he wasn’t talking about the embers in the fireplace but the ones that had been simmering between the two of them all throughout the evening. She walked over and handed him the glass, holding it very close to the bottom so there would be no chance their fingers would touch. The sensations he’d stirred inside her last time were too confusing to repeat.
“Thank you,” he said, and took a drink.
Loretta glanced toward the window. The storm hadn’t abated. She could hear the sleet hitting the windowpanes and the howling wind whipping fiercely around the corners of the house. She breathed a sigh of relief that the duke had found the boy and that they were all safe inside. Shaking off the chill she felt, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms and moved closer to the fire. Her sleeves were damp from the short time she’d waited outside.
“I keep wondering what he was doing this far out. There are no other houses nearby, and it’s almost half a day’s ride to the village by carriage. We’ve had Gypsies once or twice stop and ask for food but not often. They don’t usually travel this far out. Perhaps he could have been running away from someone and became disoriented and lost.” She looked up at the duke and asked, “Did you have a chance to ask him anything?”
