Page 14 of Loving an Earl (Widows of Mayfair #1)

S itting inside the dark carriage, Lilly asked, “It is another sick baby?”

“No. The note said it was a woman in labor. The duchess sent her own physician to her aid. But it appears there is some difficulty, and the physician requests help in keeping her other children occupied. That is where we are to help. Do you have any knowledge of children? Because I certainly do not.”

“I do. I would on occasion help the women in our village with their offspring. Keep them entertained during my papa’s sermons.”

“Thank goodness. My stomach is in knots. I wasn’t convinced we would be able to help at all.”

Inhaling deeply, Lilly fought her nervousness at actually going into one of the dilapidated buildings in St. Giles Rookery. She had grown up privileged, living in a cozy, well-cared-for, four-room cottage provided to the vicar. She’d never wanted for food or gone to bed with a painful hunger in her belly as she imagined the people of St. Giles did. She’d even had several serviceable dresses. She had been very happy and content living in Kent with her papa. Of course, they’d had poor people in their village, and she and her papa helped them as best they could using donations to the vicarage. But none of that compared to the rookeries in London.

Since marrying Henry, her eyes had opened to the vast differences between the classes. But it wasn’t until she’d witnessed the harsh conditions of the families living in the back slums of London that she truly understood what real poverty entailed. What little Emmeline and she did along with the Ladies’ Society of Mayfair wasn’t nearly enough. When the carriage stopped in front of a precariously leaning three-story wooden tenement, Lilly’s heart dropped down to her toes.

“Oh, dear,” Lilly murmured. “The place looks ready to fall sideways into the next building.”

“Indeed,” Emmeline said nodding her head in agreement. “We may as well go inside and pray for the best.”

“Yes.” Lilly held tight to a portmanteau Emmeline had brought that contained things for the children as she exited the carriage. “Where are we meant to go?”

“The duchess’s note said to enter the building, climb to the top floor to number six, and knock.” Emmeline led the way inside and up the rickety stairs that moaned and creaked with each and every step. Whatever was coating the stair treads stuck to Lilly’s boots with each step. With her free hand, she covered her mouth from the stench of urine and other things she didn’t want to know. Her heart broke again at the conditions these families lived in.

The sound of Emmeline knocking on the wooden door that was barely hanging on its hinges snapped Lilly out of her musings. A child, a thin girl around the age of eight or nine, opened the door, her eyes wide. The whites of her eyes were stark against the dim interior lit with one near-guttered candle. The hearth had burned down to nothing. Lilly surveyed the small room. One mattress sat on the uneven wooden floor with two small children huddled beneath a threadbare blanket. The child who had opened the door joined her siblings. None of them spoke a word.

Reaching into the bag, Lilly pulled out a blanket and covered them. Reaching her hand in again, she took out several carved, wooden toys and placed them beside the children. A sudden scream, coming from behind the only door other than the one they’d come through, tore through the air and Lilly yelped, locking panicked eyes with Emmeline, who looked equally shocked.

Handing the bag to Emmeline, Lilly said, in a shaky voice, “I have been present during several births. Perhaps I should go in and see if the doctor needs help.”

Emmeline looked ready to flee or cast up her dinner, Lilly wasn’t sure which. “I’ve never... I don’t think...”

“Do not worry. I’ll go help.” Her eyes went to the door and back to Emmeline. “There is food in the bag, is there not? Give it to the children. They look starved.” Another scream pummeled the stale air, and Lilly found her feet taking small, hesitant steps across the small room and opening the door with a loud creak. “It is the Countess of Langford, Dr. Smith. I’m here to help in any way I can.”

“Good. Come in. I could use another pair of hands,” said the tired-sounding doctor.

Her eyes traveled around the tiny room. The doctor stood at the end of a bed where a frail-looking woman with dark, tangled hair and a large protruding belly lay naked and propped up by pillows. Her eyes were closed and Lilly believed she had passed out from the pain. Her knees were bent up and her legs open. Births were not for those who had a weak constitution, which fortunately, Lilly did not have. It was true that she witnessed several births, and Lilly knew right away that something was wrong by the number of blood-soaked towels lying around the physician’s feet.

“The baby was breech. I tried everything, but the babe no longer lives,” said the exhausted-looking older doctor. “The mother is dying as well. She’s lost too much blood.” He wiped his blood-soaked hands on a used cloth. “I have given her laudanum to make her comfortable. It is only a matter of time. I have already sent word to Mrs. White and she should arrive shortly to take the children until a permanent placement at a foundling school can be arranged. When I leave I will send word to the local undertaker, and he will see the mother and her babe are buried in the paupers’ burial site.”

“But . . . what . . .” Lilly had trouble speaking.

“There is nothing else I can do.” He handed her a vial. “If she regains consciousness again, give her this to ease her suffering.” He picked up his black valise, nodded his head, and left Lilly standing there with her eyes wide and her mouth open.

Emmeline hovered in the doorway, her hair mussed and her face smeared with dirt and looking as though she’d seen a ghost. “Why did he leave?”

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, regretting it immediately as the metallic taste of blood bombarded her, Lilly said, “The baby was breech and died. The physician can do no more. We need to stay until she passes and a Mrs. White comes for the children.”

“I’m sorry,” Emmeline whispered.

“For what?” Lilly questioned.

“I can’t seem to move forward into the room.”

“I understand. Just see to the children.” Emmeline stepped back and closed the door, leaving her alone with the poor mother who was dying.

A soft moan came from the young woman. “Please come close.”

How could she refuse? Lilly approached the side of the bed and gasped. If she ignored the sweaty, matted hair and pale skin and malnourished body, the woman had fine features. In health, she must have been beautiful.

“Please send word to my father, Baron Winslow, that I have died and left him three grandchildren.” She gasped and cried out.

“The physician left this for you.” Lilly held up the vial, and the mother shook her head from side to side.

“Not yet. I need to tell you. I fell in love with my father’s valet. He died a fortnight ago. Killed during a tavern brawl. Tell my father I’m sorry.” She gasped for breath and blood trickled from her mouth. “Beg him to take my children in.”

Lilly grabbed her cold hand. “What is your name?” For some reason that became most important to Lilly. She needed a name to put with the face and person dying right before her eyes.

“Annabelle.” She gasped and gurgling noises came from her throat as she took her last breath. The hand Lilly held fell to the bed.

Lilly covered her mouth, tears stung her eyes, and she found herself sobbing for the poor woman who had grown up privileged, fallen in love with a servant, and died in squalor. Would the baron take her children in? Would he come for her body and bury her in the family plot?

She covered the body with a blood-stained sheet she found on the floor, the only option she had, and hurried into the other room. “Emmeline, I’m going to find Mitchel. I have to send a message.”

She ran out the door, down the dark, dangerous stairs, and burst out the door to the street her eyes darting around looking for their carriage. It was a little way down the road outside a rowdy tavern. Lilly pulled the hood up on her cloak, which she’d never taken off, and hurried to their conveyance. “Mitchel, I am so relieved to see you. I need to get a message to Baron Winslow and the duchess.”

“Lady Langford, where is Mrs. Fitzpatrick? And what about the mother?”

“Oh, it is so sad. The mother and baby have died. But the mother was the daughter of Baron Winslow. We must get word to him so he may come and rescue his grandchildren and take his daughter’s body home.”

“I cannot leave you and Mrs. Fitzpatrick here unaccompanied.”

“Please.” She grasped his hands. “You must at least go to the duchess and relay my message. She will contact the baron, and then you can come back for us.”

“The duchess will have my hide if anything happens to you or Mrs. Fitzpatrick.”

“Go. We will be fine.”

He nodded reluctantly and nudged the horses into movement. Lilly took a moment to watch the carriage maneuver through the crowded streets. Not crowded with vehicles but with people, mostly drunk. Just as she turned, she gasped. Was that Langford exiting a hack? It was dark, and he was dressed in respectable clothing though not of the finest quality he usually wore, but she would recognize that face and swagger anywhere. She ducked into the nearest doorway and watched, her heart pounding, as he made his way toward her. What was he doing here? As he neared her, she pulled her hood lower to shield her completely and swallowed her gasp—it truly was him.

When he ducked inside the nearby tavern, Lilly hurried back to Emmeline, wondering what Langford was doing in St. Giles this late at night or at any time. Of course, he could wonder the same about her if he recognized her. Her entire body shivered. It was a good thing he hadn’t seen her.

“Shhh.” Emmeline met her at the door. “Fredrick, Sophia, and Anna are finally asleep.”

Lilly shut the door as quietly as possible once she was inside.

“What are we to do now?” Emmeline asked.

“I’ve sent Mitchel with messages for the duchess and Baron Winslow informing him of his daughter’s death and of his grandchildren.”

“Baron Winslow?” Emmeline looked as though she’d lost her mind.

Lilly told her what the mother, Annabelle, had confided in her.

*

Edmund, feeling as though he needed punishment for his less than gentlemanly treatment of Lilly, hired a hack to take him to a tavern in St. Giles, the last place the baron said his man had spotted Thomas Dane, his erstwhile valet who had run away and married his daughter. Though the baron had been hunting for them for years, it seemed they’d moved often, evading him. The poor baron had been heartbroken when his daughter left. As shocked as he had been to learn she had fallen in love with his valet, he never would have turned his back on her or thrown her out. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been given the chance to have that conversation with her.

At the time, Edmund had been courting Annabelle Brown and thought perhaps they had a future together. Edmund fancied himself in love with the beautiful, delicate debutante. When she ran off with Thomas, Winslow spiraled into such a desperate state that he reached out to Edmund for help. Edmund had swallowed his pride for the sake of the old man and searched high and low for Annabelle and Thomas to no avail. Winslow finally hired an investigator after hunting for a solid year, but the investigator’s luck in locating them wasn’t any better. These days their leads amounted only to an occasional sighting.

Tonight, Edmund, dressed shabbily, entered the tavern and sat at an empty table in the back facing the door so he had eyes on everyone who came and went. Winslow had told him that Thomas had been seen in here recently. That led Edmund to think Annabelle and Thomas lived nearby—there was no reason to travel far just to have an ale. But his insides clenched up tight at the thought of Annabelle living in one of the dilapidated tenement houses in the area. They barely looked habitable for animals, never mind people. Was she even still alive? Had she succumbed to disease like so many living in such squalor?

Tears stung his eyes, and he fought them off. Annabelle hadn’t wanted him. Yet somehow, he felt some sort of responsibility to her and the baron. Why else had he spent so many nights in the back slums of London whenever he was in town searching for her? She was all the baron had left and Edmund wanted to bring her home to him.

After pretending to sip on the bitter-tasting ale for what seemed like an age and seeing nothing useful in his hunt, he tossed a coin to the man behind the bar and left. The stale, sour stench from inside the tavern was even worse outside as it combined with the slop tossed onto the street. One had to watch where one stepped. There were no hired hacks around, so he walked down the street, his eyes scanning from left to right and occasionally behind himself as well. There were prostitutes, drunks, and thieves filling the road. Still scanning the area, he spotted someone small in a dark cloak, hood up, huddled in a doorway. Deeming the person not dangerous, he kept walking until the road opened up, and he walked some more. If he didn’t find a hack soon, he’d be walking all the way to Mayfair.

Out of nowhere, he suddenly heard the sound of horses’ hooves, the crack of a whip, and yelling. Then there was an excruciating pain, and then nothing.

*

An hour or so after Lilly sent her message, the duchess herself arrived with an older gentleman, shocking Lilly. She never thought the duchess traveled into St. Giles. “Countess, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, Mitchel is downstairs waiting for you. I will take it from here.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Lilly and Emmeline said in unison.

As the duchess had told them, Mitchel and the carriage awaited them right out front. They hurried inside, and Mitchel took off quickly. Not long into the ride, Lilly and Emmeline were both thrown suddenly against the side of the coach and into each other. Horses were screeching, and people were shouting.

“Are you hurt?” Emmeline asked Lilly as she pushed herself off the coach’s floor and off Lilly.

“I banged my head, but I’m all right. I think.” Lilly touched her temple, and her glove came away wet. “I think I’m bleeding.” Though it was a little hard to tell in the low light.

The door swung open, and Mitchel stuck his head inside, looking positively panicked. “Are you ladies hurt?”

“The countess cut her head, but otherwise, we are unhurt. What happened?”

“A carriage lost a wheel and was coming straight at us.” Mitchel stuck his head inside. “I veered off, and the other driver crashed into someone. I must go help. Please stay inside. I’ll be right back.”

Lilly met Emmeline’s eyes and they both hurried out of the carriage and into the chaotic street. People were running about. Mitchel was barking orders to several men as they attempted to lift a small vehicle off what looked like a person. Icicles traveled up her spine and her insides chilled. She didn’t want to get closer to the accident. Her feet, however, did not listen to her.

“Lilly,” Emmeline yelled, “where are you going?”

“I need to see...” Yes, she had seen Langford recently, and he would travel on this very road to go home, but what were the odds it was him? She just needed to be sure it wasn’t him, that’s all. She just needed to be sure.

“My lady,” Mitchel said, his voice strained from struggling with the carriage. “This is not something you should see. Please get back in the carriage.”

“I can’t.” Her body refused to move. Her eyes focused on the unmoving lower body she could see pinned beneath the wheel. The men heaved again, grunting loudly, and finally, the carriage was lifted off the person enough that another man pulled the injured man out by his one good leg, and her heart stopped. Her body tried to tell her with the icy chills. Even her feet moving without her knowledge was a warning.

Even by the light of streetlamps and carriage lanterns, it was clear. The man, broken and battered on the ground was Langford.

She yelled at the top of her lungs to be heard over the commotion. “Easy! Be very careful!” With strength she never had before, she shoved several people aside to reach Langford. She dropped to her knees and cradled his head in her lap. “Edmund, can you hear me?” The sound of him groaning had her heart beating once again. He was alive. That was good, wasn’t it?

“Mitchel, I need your help,” she called.

Their driver pushed his way to her side. “My lady?”

“This is the Earl of Langford. Please try to get our carriage as close as you can. We need to get him to Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s home and call the physician. Although I’m afraid to move him, we must.” One of his legs was bent at an odd angle and blood was seeping into his tan breeches.

Between Mitchel and several other men, they placed Langford as gently as possible on the floor inside their coach. The sound of his moaning and, at one point, bellowing out in pain had Lilly clenching her teeth and swallowing hard so as not to be sick. She climbed inside the coach with Emmeline. Lilly knelt on the floor, her hand gently stroking his face and his hair as she spoke soothing words to him. “It’s Lilly. I’m going to take care of you. You have nothing to worry about. I’m here.” She didn’t know how she managed to keep the panic out of her voice as her entire body trembled uncontrollably.

The ride felt like it took forever. Every time the carriage jarred and bounced, Langford groaned. Her eyes never left his face which was etched with agonizing pain. She wanted to check for other injuries but was afraid to cause him more pain. The one thing she knew was that his leg was at an odd angle and most likely broken. She prayed he had no internal injuries. Dear God, what would she do if he died? The only family she had left was Aunt Vivian, Emmeline, and him, even if the familial connection was by marriage only. Even if she was madder than Hades at Langford for tossing her aside so carelessly, she could not imagine life without him.

As soon as the carriage stopped and Mitchel opened the door, Emmeline was hurrying up the stairs and into the townhome, rousing servants and barking orders as she went. Immediately, a footman ran down the street, presumably to the mews to get a horse and fetch the family doctor. Along with Mitchel and three other servants, they gently and carefully carried a moaning Langford into the house, up the stairs, and to a guest bedroom.

It was a good thing he wasn’t conscious of the amount of damage done to his body. If he had been alert he would have been screaming at the jostling of his person up the stairs and onto the bed.

“Countess,” Mitchel said, his face full of alarm. “I will leave you now and report what happened to the duchess. Please send word if you need anything.”

“Thank you, Mitchel. You have been most helpful.” As Lilly pulled a chair close to the bed and slumped into it, she could barely remember what had brought them to St. Giles in the first place. Then it all rushed back and tears slid down her face when she remembered Annabelle’s death and the death of her unborn baby.

With tears silently streaming down her cheeks, she stared at Langford, willing him to live. “We have unresolved issues. Don’t you dare think about dying on me, you infuriating man.”