A bit of gin and a prostitute was usually enough to loosen a man’s tongue, something Delores had learned early on. She wrote down those whispered recollections and collected the misdeeds of her patrons in a book. Information was power. A side business of hers. Useful, if one owns a brothel.
“Remember that Freckle. When you know a man’s secrets, you own him.” She picked up the babe, holding him close to her heart. Delores had no children to call her own, not anymore. Her poor boys had been gone a long time, well before she’d come to The Dancing Swan. At times, she could barely recall their faces. But now Freckle’s tiny nose and mouth, his tuft of dark hair, those things haunted her dreams.
“I’ll keep you safe from him,” she whispered. “No one will believe you’re mine, so I’ll be your Grandmam. I’ll tell everyone, including Lark, I had a daughter. Hannah was her name, who lived in the country and never visited me in London.”
She looked down at the other infant, who was now blinking sleepily at her. “But not you. Far too dangerous to keep you both. You ain’t likely to live at any rate.”
“Mrs. Bean?” Louisa, her maid, appeared at the bedroom door, startling Delores from her thoughts. She immediately placed Freckle back beside his brother. Wouldn’t do for Louisa, nor anyone else, to see Delores Bean coddling an infant. Or having a heart.
“Stop sneaking about, Louisa,” she snapped at the girl. “What is it?”
Louisa’s throat bobbed. Her frail body trembled.
She was always doing that.Trembling.Shaking. Quivering. Never in Delores’ life had she seen a girl so terrified of her own shadow. Delores had found Louisa three summers ago digging through the trash for something to eat. Barely sixteen. Came to London with nothing but the clothes on her back and the promise of a better life. Delores happened to be in need of a maidand someone to feed her girls at The Dancing Swan, and Louisa wasn’t the sort that a gentleman would fancy.
But the girl did make an excellent cherry pie. A mark in her favor.
“The wet nurse is here,” she said, gaze on the other infant in the basket.
“Take this one, first.” Delores’ hand trailed over Freckle’s sturdy little body. “He’s hungrier. Then the other.”
Raising a child at her age, given her occupation and in The Devil’s Acre, would be a daunting task. This child was the son of a duke. A little lordling. What kind of life could she give him?
At least he’ll live.
An awful thing, knowing far more than you should. She shouldn’t have poked about in the death of Roxboro. But she had and now…well, Delores had always believed in monsters.
I’ll keep him safe.
She would educate him, as best as she could. At least his numbers and letters. And survivin’ here? Well, it would serve him far better in the future than which spoon to eat a bloody bowl of soup. She’d be tough on him, but the little bugger would be stronger for it. Allow the Larks of the world to think him…weaker. Less skilled. That would be his advantage, just as it had been hers.
Delores could shoot better than any man she knew and wasn’t shy about using a blade. A lovely surprise…for some. Also, there were poisons. A keen skill.
The truth,Freckle’s truth, was bound to come out one day. It always did. He needed to be prepared to face it. Delores thought of her book. Her poking about the duke’s murder. Every word of what she’d learned would be written down. Her darling lad would need to know his adversary one day.
She could do that much and protect him in the meantime.
“Should we…give them names?” Louisa asked, taking Freckle from her arms, all the while her adoration staying fixed on the remaining infant.
If the other babe survives, I’ll send him away with Louisa.
The thought struck Delores as the best way to handle the situation. The maid was the only other witness to the appearance of the duchess and the birth of the three boys, save for Wilkes. If the other child lived, it would be a shame to lose him.
Can’t have any witnesses.
“Fletcher for this one,” Delores said, meaning Freckle. Fletcher had been the name of the only man she’d ever loved. Dead, along with her poor boys. “After a…friend.”
“Fletcher,” Louisa whispered to the babe. “I think it suits him.” She cast one more glance of longing at the other, still nameless infant before leaving the room to find the wet nurse.
Delores’s fingers twitched at wanting Fletcher back. But he was safe with Louisa, and she needed a moment to think. Concoct the tale of her doomed daughter Hannah, estranged for many years who’d recently perished from childbed fever, leaving behind little Fletcher. Father dead as well.
Certainly not a lie.
The babe had no one else but his Grandmam, Delores Bean, so she took him in. Course, there was also the problem of the wet nurse in addition to Wilkes. The girl wasn’t stupid and knew there were two babes. She’d wait a week or so. See if the other babe lived before she decided.
Delores sighed. The wet nurse she didn’t give a fig about, but Wilkes had done her no wrong and he knew far too much. Merely a case of protectin’ her own.
After all, people disappeared all the time in The Devil’s Acre.
