AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Who would be desperate enough to do such a thing?
‘And abandoned.’ Alice could hear the judgement in Liam’s tone, but she didn’t have time to argue with him. Later, she could explain the choices that some women had to face, and the reality of their world that could make such a dreadful decision necessary. Later, she could cry and hurt for all the feelings this moment had dredged up from where she’d tried to bury them.
For now, she just needed to get help for the baby.
‘We need to call the doctor.’ She eased herself to her feet, still clutching the baby close to her chest. Liam tucked a hand under her elbow to help her up.
‘And the police,’ he added, and Alice shook her head.
‘No. Not yet. We need to see if we can fix this ourselves, first.’ Getting the police involved would make everything official.
‘Why? And besides, if you don’t, surely the doctor will,’ Liam argued.
‘Not Dr Helene,’ Alice disagreed. ‘She’s worked with us before.’
‘This has happened before?’ Liam’s eyebrows shot up.
‘No. Not this.’ But plenty of other stuff. Enough for Alice to know instinctively that this was a desperate, last chance act for someone—not an act of cruelty. She wasn’t about to punish a desperate woman—and certainly not before they’d tried to help her.
The baby started to squirm in her arms again, and Alice joggled him a little to try and calm him. Poor thing was probably starving, or in shock or both. Adjusting her grip, she felt in the hidden pocket in the folds of her dress for her phone and pulled it out. Reception at the castle was spotty, but if she could get hold of Heather at least she’d have some help. Someone she could hand the baby to and take a step back, regroup, recover her equilibrium.
‘I need to make some calls,’ she said again. ‘But we can’t... I don’t want everyone to see him. Could you...?’
‘You want me to get rid of the rest of the guests?’ Liam guessed.
Alice nodded, relieved. ‘I’ll take him through to the library. I can call the doctor from there.’ And Heather. She’d be able to get together some things to look after him. They’d need clothes, formula milk...everything. She started a mental list, knowing that Heather’s well stocked store cupboard would be able to provide. Practicalities. That was what she needed to think about.
‘Okay. I’ll meet you there.’ Liam turned to push the basket back under the tree before he went, then paused. ‘Hey, there’s something else in here.’ Liam crouched over the basket and pulled out a scrap of paper—one of the leaflets that Alice had distributed around the shops and businesses of the local village, inviting women to Thornwood Castle whenever they needed support or aid.
Apparently someone had taken her up on the offer in a fairly major way.
‘Is that writing on the back?’ Alice squinted at the paper to try and make it out.
Liam flipped it over and started to read. ‘“This is Jamie. He needs your help. I’m leaving him to Alice Walters and Liam Jenkins. Please take care of him and tell him I’m sorry and I love him.” Well. That answers all our questions, then.’
‘Jamie,’ Alice murmured. ‘It suits him.’ Jamie had settled down into her arms now, perhaps having cried himself to exhaustion—or perhaps because he needed serious medical help. She needed to get the doctor there quickly... ‘Wait. She left him to me?’
Oh, God, no. She couldn’t take responsibility for a baby. Not now. She couldn’t even think about this now, because if she did...
A paralysing sadness washed over her as the memories broke out of the cage she’d kept them locked in for the last few years. Since she’d woken up in that hospital bed and knew her life would be something new now. Gazing down at the sleeping baby, the depth of everything she’d lost yawned open inside her, a gaping hole at the centre of her being, one that could never be filled. Not now. That chance had been taken away from her.
Except she was holding a baby in her arms. Almost as if...
‘To us,’ Liam clarified, his voice harsh, and Alice blinked as the moment broke. She had to focus. This was an emergency—one she would deal with the same way she dealt with every other crisis that hit the women at Thornwood. With practicality, sensitivity and order.
Emotions she could deal with later. First, she needed to deal with the astonishing request in the note.
‘She left him to me and you?’ Her, she could understand—she’d been looking after the people of this community for over a year and a half, and Jamie’s mother wouldn’t necessarily know that she had no experience looking after babies. But why Liam?
‘Apparently so.’ Liam shoved the note in his jacket pocket, shaking his head. ‘God only knows what his mother was thinking—if she was thinking at all. Go on. You get to the library and make the calls. I’ll meet you there once I’ve got rid of everyone else. We’ll deal with what on earth this note means then.’
A plan. Good. That was exactly what she needed.
Alice nodded and, adjusting the baby in her arms, set off for the safety of the library as quickly as she could, given her long dress.
Maybe there would even be some books on childcare in there. God knew they were going to need them.
* * *
The library was thankfully empty. Alice sank into one of the battered leather wing chairs in the corner, her legs still shaking. She pulled out her phone again, scrolling through until she found Heather’s number.
Heather answered on the third ring and, from the background noise, Alice was interrupting the servers and helpers finishing off the canapés in the kitchen. ‘I need you in the library. Now. And grab one of the baby bags on your way.’ Her voice stayed steady, which Alice was proud of. She could handle this. She had to—for Jamie.
Heather didn’t question the order—she knew as well as Alice that sometimes when help was needed there wasn’t time to debate. ‘I’ll be right there.’
Alice’s second call was to Dr Helene, who promised to leave for Thornwood immediately too—although she required a little more information. ‘I’ll bring more supplies,’ Helene promised, and Alice let out a tiny sigh of relief.
She needed professionals here. For all that she wanted to help Jamie’s mother, she hadn’t a clue what she was doing.
Alice took a shuddering breath and admitted the truth to herself—she was totally out of her depth. She’d protected herself from everything she knew she could never have—could never be—by avoiding everything to do with babies, as far as that was possible in a place like Thornwood, always filled with mothers and children. She’d never learnt how to change a nappy, or how to soothe a child, or how to know a baby needed feeding.
If someone wanted a fundraiser organising, a seminar programme setting up, an escape route for an abused woman, she was their girl. She could fix the leaky toilets on the ground floor, and plug holes in the draughty windows of Thornwood. She could even manage the accounts and feed fifty women on a budget set for half that number.
But she couldn’t look after a baby. That was knowledge she simply didn’t have—knowledge she’d never sought or needed.
Until now.
The door to the library opened, and Alice tensed until she saw Liam slip through and shut it firmly behind him.
‘The doctor is on her way,’ she told him. ‘And Heather. Both of them with supplies.’
‘Good.’ Liam eyed the baby with what Alice was sure was annoyance. But then he added, ‘Poor little guy will freeze in this castle if we don’t get him some warm clothes and some formula pretty soon.’
‘They won’t be long,’ Alice promised, surprised that he cared at all. Perhaps Liam really did have a softer side—one that he’d kept very well hidden since his arrival at Thornwood.
But tonight wasn’t a night for dwelling on the mysteries and annoyances of Liam Jenkins. Alice gaze
d down at Jamie, adjusting the blanket again to keep his tiny hands covered. Whatever deal she’d just struck with Liam, whatever promises she intended to hold him accountable to, she knew that her decision to stay at Thornwood for the time being had just been made a whole lot easier.
It wasn’t just her women, her work or her legacy she needed to see settled before she left. She needed to make sure Jamie was safe and well cared for too—however much it broke her heart.
Until Jamie was reunited with his mother, Thornwood was home. Again.
* * *
‘Could that phone call have been any more cryptic?’ Heather burst into the library, a plastic bag dangling from one hand, the other placed firmly on her hip. ‘What the hell is going on up here?’
