Lord of Scoundrels (Scoundrels 3)

“The worst that can happen is he’ll turn up tomorrow instead of her,” she’d told him. “But you only have to keep a sharp lookout. It’s not like you can’t see him coming from a mile away, is it? Then all we do is make ourselves scarce, quick-like. And if we can keep the pesky boy quiet another week, we can go back to the first plan.”

The first plan involved criminal acts.

The second plan merely required keeping a sharp lookout—and listening to common sense, meanwhile. Even if Lady Dain had tattled, even if Dain decided to hunt Charity down, the bad weather would keep him at home for the present. In another two hours, the sun would set, and he was not likely to set out in the dark, through the mud, for Postbridge, especially when he couldn’t know Charity was there already. That, anyone would agree, was too much bother for Dain.

All the same, Vawtry couldn’t help wishing that Charity’s common sense extended to child care. If she’d minded the boy properly in the first place, matters wouldn’t have reached a crisis with Athton’s populace. If she’d beaten the brat in the second place, instead of dosing him with laudanum, he wouldn’t now be vomiting up the dinner he’d just wolfed down and working on spewing up whatever he’d had for breakfast as well.

Vawtry turned away from the window.

Dominick lay on a narrow cot, clutching the edge of the thin mattress, his head hanging over the chamber pot his mother held. The retching had stopped, for the moment at least, but his dirty face was grey, his lips blue, his eyes red.

Charity met her lover’s gaze. “It weren’t—wasn’t—the laudanum,” she said defensively. “It was the mutton he ate for dinner. Spoiled, it must’ve been—or the milk. He said everything tasted bad.”

“He’s got rid of everything,” said Vawtry, “and he doesn’t look any better. He looks worse. Maybe I’d better fetch a physician. If he D-I-E-S,” he added, hoping Charity’s spelling abilities were better than her mothering ones, “Her Ladyship won’t be pleased. And someone I know might find herself closer to a gibbet than she likes.”

The mention of the gallows washed the color from Charity’s rosy cheeks. “Leave it to you to look for the worst in everything,” she said, turning back to the sick child. But she made no objection when Vawtry collected his hat and left the room.

He had just reached the top of the stairs when he heard an ominously familiar rumble…which might as well have come from the bowels of the inferno, for it was Beelzebub’s own voice.

Vawtry did not need a whiff of brimstone or a puff of smoke to inform him that during the moment he’d looked away from the window, the Golden Hart Inn had turned into the black pit of Hell and that, in a very few more moments, he would be reduced to a shriveled bit of ash.

He raced back to the room and flung open the door. “He’s here!” he cried. “Downstairs. Terrifying the landlord.”

The boy sat up abruptly, to gaze wide-eyed at Vawtry, who ran frantically about the room, snatching up belongings.

Charity rose from the boy’s side. “Never mind the things,” she said calmly. “Don’t fly into a panic, Rolly. Use your head.”

“He’ll be here in a minute! What are we to do?”

“We’re going to hustle out real quick-like,” she said, moving to the window and surveying the innyard. “You take Dominick out this window and scoot along the ledge down to that hay wagon and jump.”

Vawtry darted to the window. The hay wagon looked to be miles below—with not very much hay in it, either. “I can’t,” he said. “Not with him.”

But she’d left the window while he was assessing the risk, and she’d already opened the door. “We daren’t chance meeting up tonight. But you must take my boy—I can’t carry him, and he’s worth money, remember—and look for me in Moretonhampstead tomorrow.”

“Charity!”

The door shut behind her. Vawtry stared at it, listening in numb horror to her footsteps racing toward the back stairs.

He turned to find the boy staring at the door, too. “Mama!” he cried. He crawled off the cot, managed to stagger three steps to the door, then swayed and crumpled upon the floor. He let out a gagging sound Vawtry had heard all too often in the last hours.

Vawtry hesitated, halfway between the sick child and the window. Then he heard Dain’s voice in the hall outside.

Vawtry ran to the window, unlatched it, and climbed out. Not ten seconds later, as he was edging cautiously along the ledge, he heard the door to the room crash open. He heard the bellowed oath as well. Forgetting caution, he scuttled hastily to the spot above the hay wagon and leapt.

Roaring into the room like the juggernaut, intent upon mowing Charity Graves down, Lord Dain very nearly crushed his son under his boots. Fortunately, one angry stride away, he noted the obstacle in his path and paused. In that pause, his glance took in the chamber, strewn with various items of female attire, the remains of a meal on a tray, an empty wine bottle, an overturned cot, and some unidentifiable odds and ends, including the disgusting heap of dirt and rags at his feet.

Which appeared to be alive, for it was moving.

Dain hastily looked away and took three deep breaths to quell the bile rising within him. That was a mistake, because the air was rancid.

He heard a whimper from the animate pile of filth.

He made himself look down.

“Mama,” the thing gasped. “Mama.”

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.

Dain remembered a child lost, alone and despairing, seeking comfort from the Virgin Mother, when his own was gone.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.

That child had prayed, not knowing what he prayed for. He had not known what his sin was, or what his mother’s was. He had known, though, that he was alone.

Dain knew what it was to be alone, unwanted, frightened, confused, as Jessica had said of his son.

He knew what this hideous child felt. He, too, had been hideous and unwanted.

“Mama’s gone,” he said tightly. “I’m

Papa.”

The thing raised its head. Its black eyes were swollen and red-rimmed, the great beak dripping snot.

“Plague take you, you’re filthy,” Dain said. “When was the last time you had a bath?”

The brat’s narrow face twisted into a scowl that would have sent Lucifer running for cover. “Sod off,” he croaked.

Dain grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up. “I am your father, you little wretch, and when I say you’re filthy and need a bath, you say, ‘Yes, sir.’ You do not tell me—”

“Bugger yourself.” The boy choked out a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh. “Bugger you. Bugger, bugger, bugger. Sod, sod, sod.”

“This is not puzzling behavior,” Dain said. “I am not in the least puzzled. I know exactly what to do. I shall order a bath—and have one of the stablemen up to scrub you. And if you happen to take in a mouthful of soap in the process, that will be all to the good.”

At this, the wretch let out a hoarse stream of invective and began writhing like a fresh-caught fish on a hook.

Dain’s grip remained firm, but the boy’s thread-bare shirt did not. The ragged collar tore off and its wearer broke free—for exactly two seconds, before Dain caught him and swung him up off the floor and under his arm.

Almost in the same heartbeat Dain heard an ominous rattling sound.

Then the boy threw up…all over His Lordship’s boots.

Then the squirming bundle under Dain’s arm turned into a dead weight.

Alarm swept through him and surged into blind panic.

He’d killed the child. He shouldn’t have held him so tightly. He’d broken something, crushed something…murdered his own son.

Dain heard approaching footsteps. His panicked gaze went to the door.

Phelps appeared.

“Phelps, look what I’ve done,” Dain said hollowly.

“Got them fancy boots mucked up, I see,” Phelps said, approaching. He peered down at the lifeless form still wedged against Dain’s hip.

“What’d you do, skeer his dinner out o’ him?”