pair o’ poor half-frozen chaps, wouldn’t ye, darlin’?”
Whether it was this piece of Irish persuasion or the sight of their dripping, steaming clothes, the argument had its effect, and a bottle of cooking brandy made its appearance next to the peppermill. Jeffries poured a large tot and drank it off without hesitation, smacking his lips.
“Ah, that’s more like! Here, boyo.” He passed the bottle to Jamie, then settled himself comfortably to a hot meal and gossip with the female servants. “Well, then, what’s to do here? Is the babe born yet?”
“Oh, yes, last night!” the kitchen maid said eagerly. “We were up all night, with the doctor comin’, and fresh sheets and towels called for, and the house all topsle-turvy. But the babe’s the least of it!”
“Now, then,” the cook broke in, frowning censoriously. “There’s too much work to be standin’ about gossiping. Get yer on, Mary Ann-up to the study, and see if his Lordship’ll be wantin’ anything else served now.”
Jamie, wiping his plate with a slice of bread, observed that the maid, far from being abashed at this rebuke, departed with alacrity, causing him to deduce that something of considerable interest was likely transpiring in the study.
The undivided attention of her audience thus obtained, the cook allowed herself to be persuaded into imparting the gossip with no more than a token demur.
“Well, it started some months ago, when the Lady Geneva started to show, poor thing. His Lordship’d been nicer than pie to ’er, ever since they was married couldn’t do enough for ’er, anything she wanted ordered from Lunnon, always askin’ was she warm enough,’ad she what she wanted to eat—fair dotin’, ’is Lordship was. But then, when ’e found she was with child!” The cook paused, to screw up her face portentously.
Jamie wanted desperately to know about the child; what was it, and how did it fare? There seemed no way to hurry the woman, though, so he composed his face to look as interested as possible, leaning forward encouragingly.
“Why, the shouting, and the carryings-on!” the cook said, throwing up her hands in dismayed illustration, “’im shoutin’, and ’er cryin’, and the both of ’em stampin’ up and down and slammin’ doors, and ’im callin’ ’er names as isn’t fit to be used in a stableyard—and so I told Mary Ann, when she told me.…”
“Was his lordship not pleased about the child, then?” Jamie interrupted. The omelet was settling into a hard lump somewhere under his breastbone. He took another gulp of brandy, in hopes of dislodging it.
The cook turned a bright, birdlike eye on him, eyebrow cocked in appreciation at his intelligence. “Well, you’d think as ’e would be, wouldn’t yer? But no indeed! Far from it,” she added with emphasis.
“Why not?” said Jeffries, only mildly interested.
“’E said,” the cook said, dropping her voice in awe at the scandalousness of the information, “as the child wasn’t ’is!”
Jeffries, well along with his second glass, snorted in contemptuous amusement. “Old goat with a young gel? I should think it like enough, but how on earth would his Lordship know for sure whose the spawn was? Could be his as much as anyone’s, couldn’t it, with only her ladyship’s word to go by, eh?”
The cook’s thin mouth stretched in a bright, malicious smile. “Oh, I don’t say as ’e’d know whose it
Jeffries stared at the cook, tilting back on his chair. “What?” he said. “You mean to tell me his Lordship’s incapable?” A broad grin at this juicy thought split his weatherbeaten face. Jamie felt the omelet rising, and hastily gulped more brandy.
“Well,
It was too much. Interrupting Jeffries’s delighted cackle, Jamie set down his glass with a thump, and bluntly said, “Did the child live?”
The cook and Jeffries both stared in astonishment, but the cook, after a moment’s startlement, nodded in answer.
“Oh, yes, to be sure. Fine ’ealthy little lad,’e is, too, or so I ’ear. I thought you knew a’ready. It’s ’is mother that’s dead.”
That blunt statement struck the kitchen with silence. Even Jeffries was still for a moment, sobered by death. Then he crossed himself quickly, muttered, “God rest her soul,” and swallowed the rest of his brandy.
Jamie could feel his own throat burning, whether with brandy or tears, he could not say. Shock and grief choked him like a ball of yarn wedged in his gullet; he could barely manage to croak, “When?”
“This morning,” the cook said, wagging her head mournfully. “Just afore noon, poor girl. They thought for a time as she’d be all right, after the babe was born; Mary Ann said she was sittin’ up, holdin’ the wee thing and laughin’.” She sighed heavily at the thought. “But then near dawn, she started to bleed again bad. They called back the doctor, and he came fast as could be, but—”
The door slamming open interrupted her. It was Mary Ann, eyes wide under her cap, gasping with excitement and exertion.
“Your master wants you!” she blurted out, eyes flicking between Jamie and the coachman. “The both of ye, at once, and oh, sir”—she gulped, nodding at Jeffries—“he says for God’s sake, to bring your pistols!”
The coachman exchanged a glance of consternation with Jamie, then leapt to his feet and dashed out, in the direction of the stables. Like most coachmen, he carried a pair of loaded pistols beneath his seat, against the possibility of highwaymen.
It would take Jeffries a few minutes to find the arms, and longer if he waited to check that the priming had not been harmed by the wet weather. Jamie rose to his feet and gripped the dithering maidservant by the arm.
“Show me to the study,” he said. “Now!”
The sound of raised voices would have led him there, once he had reached the head of the stair. Pushing past Mary Ann without ceremony, he paused for a moment outside the door, uncertain whether he should enter at once,
