“My apologies for having incommoded you at this hour—”
“Bless me, it’s not yet dawn!” the wife contributed. She turned to the mewling baby. “Hush up, now,” she cooed. “Mama will find you somefing to eat.”
“You poor child,” said C.J. Realizing she had nothing upon her person to give the hungry babe, she reached out sympathetically to the infant, who immediately latched onto her pinky with his sticky little hand.
“Is something the matter, your lordship?” asked the farmer, who had successfully rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
“My . . . companion wished to see Delamere,” Darlington added, finally able to complete his sentence. “Once again, I apologize for the earliness of the hour, Mr. and Mrs. Midge.”
“I am entirely to blame for the inconvenience,” C.J. added hastily, drawing Darlington’s cloak more tightly about her person. “It was my idea to come to Delamere on such ridiculously short notice. I had to see the estate for myself. His lordship is entirely irreproachable.”
Mrs. Midge appraised C.J. “I would offer you something to eat, but we only had a bit of a light supper ourselves, and the larder is . . . uncustomarily . . . bare.” She caught her husband’s eye, and C.J. realized that Mrs. Midge was too gracious to say that the family had indeed been rationing their food.
Midge drew the master aside. “A word in your ear, sir, if I may be so bold.” Darlington nodded his assent. C.J. strained to overhear their conversation. The farmer pointed to the leavings on his table. “It’s gotten so it’s my family or the hogs,” he said. “In a manner of speaking, sir. Belmont is a fine man, but it is going to take a good deal of work to undo so much neglect. I’ve been feeding my family the grain that should be for the chickens . . . the missus ’ere is getting to be a regular Merlin in the kitchen with what she makes fit to eat. And getting the young ’uns to swallow it, well, that’s another act of magic. Horseflesh tough as leather, bones of the hens that starve to death for soup. But she’s superstitious, my Delia is . . . won’t eat the meat of a bird what’s died of malnutrition.”
Feeling dreadfully responsible for the situation, Darlington shook his head and explained that measures were being taken to restore Delamere to its former prosperity.
C.J., who could not continue to feign obliviousness to the conversation, opened her reticule and handed her impoverished host the entire contents of her small leather coin purse.
Darlington swallowed hard in an attempt to mask how touched he was by her compassion.
“Cor! Bless your heart, miss.” As though struck with an epiphany, an effusive Mr. Midge stepped back a pace or two and regarded Darlington’s companion. “You say you are the one to blame for dragging us all out of our beds before dawn because you had to see Delamere right away?” he asked her.
“I am afraid so, Mr. Midge,” C.J. replied, wishing there were more she could do for this man and his family—nay, all of Darlington’s tenants, were it in her power to do so.
“Then, if I may be so bold, sir,” Midge said, his eyes twinkling, “it is all the talk about the estate that your lordship is to take another wife. May I be so bold as to inquire, then, if this kindhearted young lady is to be our new mistress?”
The earl exchanged another glance with C.J. “Alas, no,” he replied truthfully. The eager solicitousness of his staff and tenants toward Lady Cassandra amused him to some extent. But for the most part, their immediate high regard for Miss Welles served to reinforce and confirm his own admiration for her and was a most painful and guilty reminder that their union was not to be.
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, Darlington thanked Lady Dalrymple for so graciously receiving him after his public embarrassment of her family at the Assembly Ball. Miss Welles’s disappearance was accounted for, and her ladyship was grateful that Cassandra had been safely returned home.
C.J. had learned a good deal from her journey to Delamere. Enough to know that being poor in this society was nothing like she ever imagined it might be. No rustic idylls, but misery, depravation, and squalor, above which even the most honest and earnest could not lift themselves. The sanitary conditions in the cottages were appalling, although Darlington was no doubt doing the best he could for his tenants. Owing to the demands of his estate, however, the earl would not be a proper husband or father to their child, and C.J. no longer held out hope that he would have a change of heart or mind. He had explained himself quite thoroughly on that point. Her wish to know his situation firsthand had quite expanded her mind, and her own future looked nearly as bleak. If she and her babe survived childbirth, no end of struggles awaited them. Cut by society, if she managed to avoid the kind of financial desperation that would lead her straight to an establishment like Mrs. Lindsey’s, she would never be more than a shopgirl or tavern maid. Perhaps she would get work as an actress. Actresses were social pariahs already. She dared not rely on Lady Dalrymple to come to her rescue once again. It was too much to either ask or expect, even from the most generous of souls. And she could never live with herself knowing that she bore the responsibility of dragging the poor dowager countess down to hell with her. Everything had gone wrong so quickly. Back in her own era, C.J. might have become the toast of Broadway, however briefly, and be able to provide state-of-the-art medical care for herself and her child. She could live an independent life, relatively free of censure. Instead, she had willingly given it all up, believing that she was beloved. Such thoughts, she knew, were
