She must not keep up with the papers. Nick was relieved.
She led them through the garden, turning before they entered the house. “This is providential, you arriving while the young lady is still here. I have a sense for these things. Over fifty years as a vicar’s wife will do that, you know.” She led them into a parlor, chattering all the way. “The nurse is sitting with Mr. Moorshead. The doctors say he does not understand what I tell him, but I just know that he shall be interested in the news I shall be able to share with him today…”
She stepped inside a warm, tidy parlor that smelled of her garden and the slices of cake sitting on the table where a young lady with hair the color of a sunset sat.
Nick heard Richard suck in a breath behind him.
CHAPTER 35
“Miss Rothschild!” Richard said rather loudly. How charming she looked in that color of green with Mrs. Moorshead’s flowers beside her on the table.
Richard felt his skin heat as everyone turned to him. The young lady’s eyes brimmed with amusement. He prayed it was amusement of the favorable kind—that she was as pleased to see him as he was to stumble upon her. “What are you doing here?” he blurted, then bit his tongue before another forward exclamation burst from him.
“I am here to call on Mrs. Moorshead, the same as you it appears. I could ask what you are doing here!” she replied with enough sauce to provoke Richard’s laughter and effectively break the ice.
Mrs. Moorshead clutched her hands at her chin. “Areunion! How wonderful.” Wagging her finger in the air, she added, “Providential.”
After brief introductions and a clipped version of how they had met, Richard sat back in his chair and ceded the conversation to Nick. He stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing one foot over the other, hoping to appear as though he had not a concern in the world.
In reality, his feet bobbed and twitched with the effort to contain his unasked questions. Questions he would not voice even if it were appropriate to do so: Was she happy to see him? Had she thought of him as much as he had thought of her? He was not the handsomest man—of that, he was aware. However, he would be content to know she thought of him kindly maybe once or twice. Any more than that would be the height of presumption. She was a beautiful lady—an heiress—who could have her pick of gentlemen.
Still, he sat taller in his chair and tried to calm his fidgeting feet as she and Nick exchanged the little they knew of their stories.
Mrs. Moorshead pinched her chin as she listened.
Darcy asked her, “What do you remember of Nick’s arrival?”
So, Nicholas was Nick now. Richard was glad to hear it.
With a sigh, Mrs. Moorshead said, “I am afraid there is precious little to tell. I woke early one morning to milk the cow and feed the chickens, and nearlytripped over a basket filled with blankets perched just outside the door. At first, I thought that someone had left the blankets there for the poor, but when I lifted the basket to put it inside, I noticed how heavy it was. Heavier than it ought to have been.” She smiled at Nick, pressing her hands against her heart. “Imagine my surprise when I moved the blankets aside and saw a baby! He did not cry or make any noise at all. He simply looked up at me and glowered.”
That sounded about right for a Darcy. Richard looked down at his boots and bit the insides of his cheeks.
Mrs. Moorshead chuckled. “I see your expression has not changed much, dear boy.”
“A family trait.” Darcy smiled at his brother. Richard was relieved to see his cousin’s easy acceptance of the newcomer to his immediate circle when he tended to be cautious with new acquaintances.
“My husband was similar. I often wonder how he made any friends at all before I came into his life.” Mrs. Moorshead looked up, in the direction of her husband’s sickroom, Richard presumed, her eyes warm, her face soft. She took a deep breath and dabbed her eyes with a bit of lace tucked into her sleeve. “I hope you find young ladies who encourage you not to take yourselves so seriously.”
Darcy and Nick smiled confidently, and something in Richard’s chest tightened. Some day, he would be the one grinning as wide as his lovelorncousins. Some day.
He knew the danger of getting caught, but he could not help a brief flicker of his gaze to Miss Rothschild. Not many young ladies in her position had the persistence or wherewithal to question what others would encourage her not to trouble herself over. If a wrong had been done, her appearance in Mrs. Moorshead’s parlor was proof that she was determined to right it. Truth and justice above her own comfort as they ought to be.
Before Darcy or Nick could distract Mrs. Moorshead with stories of their betrothed (for what man or woman could avoid the indulgence of speaking of the person they most adored), Richard asked, “That must have been a shock. What did you do with Nick after you found him?”
“The Fleys had no children of their own, and they had been kind enough to keep on a milkmaid who had fallen into sin. She lost her baby—a sad business, even if it was the price of her sin. I took Nicholas to them directly, and they were happy to take him in.”
“What became of the milkmaid?” he asked.
She frowned. “Some women do not learn. Nicholas must have been nearly three years old when she bore a child of her own. Happily, the man—a fisherman from Exeter—married her.”
Nick rubbed his side whiskers. “I don’t remember her. Did she ever ask about me … later?”
“I am afraid not, my dear.” Mrs. Moorshead’s voicereflected her regret. “In any case, she knew nothing more of your origins than I do.”
The milkmaid was a dead end, then. On to the next. “Does the name Currey mean anything to you?” Richard asked. He cast a glance at Miss Rothschild, but the mention of Mrs. Finchley’s nurse did not alter her expression.
“Currey, Currey. Now, where have I heard that name? It is not too uncommon, you know,” Mrs. Moorshead mumbled.
