“Come in,” Victoria called, without hesitation.
The door opened, and Mrs. Davies, the meticulous housekeeper, stood there, with concern on her face. The look alerted her.
“Your Grace,” Mrs. Davies murmured. “I am truly sorry for disturbing you at such an inopportune hour, but well … I believe it best if you see for yourself. Mr. Hawthorne is waiting for us downstairs.”
Victoria felt a sudden chill. She grabbed her dressing gown and tied the belt around her otherwise thin nightgown tightly.
“Has something happened? A pipe burst?” she asked, as they walked out the door.
“No, Your Grace. It’s something else. It is better for you to see it for yourself.”
By the parlor, the impeccably formal butler, Mr. Hawthorne, as slim as Mrs. Davies, stood waiting. He looked just as rattled as the housekeeper.
“Mr. Hawthorne, what is it?” Victoria demanded, glad that at least her voice did not tremble.
“Y-your Grace,” the butler stammered, gesturing to the side table right beside him.
On top of the polished mahogany, flanked by crystal glasses, lay a straw Moses basket. A worn flannel blanket mostly covered its contents.
A gift?
A threat?
What was it?
Then, she heard a small wail coming from it. It sounded so desperate and raw. And so tiny!
“Heavens,” Victoria whispered, both in awe and shock, as she approached the basket. “Did we get a kitten?”
“No, Your Grace,” Mrs. Davies breathed. “It’s not a kitten. It’s a baby. Somebody left her at the back entrance. We would not have noticed if not for her crying. She must be very hungry or cold, or both.”
“A baby?” Victoria asked, her throat suddenly dry. She walked even closer to the basket with the extra caution of a soldier approaching a mine.
Then, she dared look at what was inside the basket.
Inside, there was, indeed, an infant. She was tightly swaddled with a scrunched-up face and full, red cheeks. On the flannel blanket was a scrap of expensive vellum, in cream. The little detail made a mark on Victoria, making her fingers turn to ice with dread.
With a trembling hand, she reached for the note and read it. It was written with a neat, presumably feminine hand.
Her name is Melody.Please take care of her.I cannot.
Victoria stared and stared. The baby. The writing. Her mind tried to find various scenarios, and it fell on something she didn’t want to think about.
The expensive vellum.
Choosing the London townhouse to deliver the child.
Who else could this child be but?—
No, she didn’t want to think about it. The conclusion would make her nothing more than a fool.
She felt every bit as helpless as the baby, as her deepest fears became real. She tried to hide the feelings deep within her, as she at least regained her external composure.
“Mr. Hawthorne. Mrs. Davies,” she said, her calm a brittle mask over every coil of fury. “Take the baby upstairs to the nursery. No one speaks of this.”
The nursery. A room she had never imagined she would need to prepare for a child not her own.
Richard had granted her freedoms no other man in the ton would dare, yet now that freedom felt like a mockery. It was his alone.