2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

T homas took his time making his way down through the castle.

If whoever was waiting in his drawing room had already waited five hours, then they could wait another half hour for him to veer to his study and down a healthy glass of brandy to help him wake up.

Adjusting his arms in the wrinkled coat he’d found in his study—adding a waistcoat would have been far too much work—he stepped into Ravenstone’s main drawing room.

He saw everything in the room at once, as he’d learned to do years ago, for one never knew who was hiding in a dark corner waiting to attack.

An older, stout man with a coarsely woven yellow-tinged shirt peeking out of his dark threadbare coat that was admittedly less wrinkled than Thomas’s, sat on the settee by the fire. Probably a farmer in his Sunday best.

Across the room from him, curled on the floor in the corner, was…was…

Was something he couldn’t quite describe.

No wonder Jensen had called it an “it.”

A body—small, but adult sized if he had to guess—crouched. Dark, torn trousers that were four times too big for the legs hung to the ankles where the threads had tattered, torn at some point. Bare feet. Filthy to the point he couldn’t count all the toes. A shirt that had probably been white at some point years ago, now hung about the frame of the body, so dirty there were only small pockets where the cloth was yellow instead of shades of dirt. Fingers poked out of the wide sleeves, picking at the trouser threads atop its knees. Atop all of it sat a wild nest of dark hair that crinkled and strayed in all directions—a matted, filthy mess that hung long in front of the face.

A long-ago memory—one forgotten on purpose—poked at his gut, making him heave a sudden breath.

The shiver that accompanied the memory skittered down the back of his biceps and he twitched, shaking his arms as he stepped forward.

At his footfalls into the room, the man on the settee scrambled to his feet, his hat in his hand, and he bowed his head at Thomas. “Ye are Lord Hedstrom?”

If Jensen would have been around to announce Thomas, they wouldn’t have to go through this, but a proper presentation to his guests was one of the things that was beyond Jensen’s skills.

Thomas nodded to the man. “I am. You are?”

“Walt Smith, m’lord.”

Thomas waited a breath, but the man didn’t continue. “What are you doing in my home, Mr. Smith?”

“I…I…” Nervous, he glanced over his shoulder at the small being in the corner, then looked back to Thomas. “I brought ye yer kin.”

Thomas’s head snapped back. “Kin?” His eyebrows lifted high. “You said kin?”

His fingers frantically pinching the brim of his hat, Mr. Smith spun it, bit by bit in his hands. “Aye, m’lord. Yer kin. I brought her here for ye. She’s become a nuisance in our parish and it was suggested she be returned to her kin—her cousin—you, m’lord.”

Thomas pointed to the human lump in the corner. “That is a she?”

Mr. Smith nodded, cringing at having to verify his words. “It is a she, m’lord.”

Utterly laughable.

But he would humor the man. Curiosities like this didn’t often come to Ravenstone to liven his days. “And you believe her to be my kin?”

“Aye, m’lord. Her great-great-grandmother was Miss Jocelyn Halcomb. I have been told she was your great-grandmother’s youngest sister. The Halcomb line.”

The hope in the man’s eyes as he mentioned the surname was laughable, but Thomas was no longer laughing.

His jaw fell askew, the name falling from his lips. “Halcomb...”

“Aye, m’lord. The third daughter of that family. I have been told Miss Jocelyn Halcomb was the fallen lady in the family—not to speak ill of such matters and the dead…” Mr. Smith’s words petered out, the man clearly uncomfortable with the topic. “It is just with how Miss Jocelyn arrived in our village many years ago, compromised as she was…well…it is a small village and chatter like that does not die. It lasts generations.”

Thomas stared at the lump in the corner.

Well…fuck.

This couldn’t possibly be right.

His eyes went to slits on Mr. Smith. “Where exactly are you from?”

“Cloughton village, m’lord. In Yorkshire.”

Ballocks.

In the far reaches of his memory, his father’s voice echoed, telling him that very story about his mother’s family—about the affair one of Halcomb sisters had that nearly brought ruin upon the family. She’d been branded a whore and had been cast out of her family, sent to Yorkshire to live with a family friend. There had never been any mention of the woman having issue, not that there would have been. Once cast out, one is only spoken of in hushed whispers behind closed doors.

But if what this man said was true, that made the lump sitting in the corner of the room his third cousin, once removed, if his quick calculations were correct.

Thomas grasped at the thin thread fluttering in the wind. “So this—this girl—is the great grandchild of a bastard?”

“No, m’lord.” Mr. Smith shook his head. “That babe died in birth. Miss Halcomb married and became Mrs. Lewston soon after that. They had a boy, Walter, who died a young man, but had a son, Junior, and he produced Walter the third. Also dead.” He motioned with his head to the lump. “The girl is his daughter. None of the line a product of that bastard child. And this child’s mother, Mrs. Lewston, died in childbirth with their second child—didn’t have good hips, that one.”

For all that Thomas was alone in the world, he did have one cousin, Nemity Wheldon—recently wed to Callum Lonstrick—who he actually quite adored. The only relative he thought he had left. The only relative that mattered.

But not the last.

That was, if he were to believe this man in front of him.

Thomas’s stare lifted from the lump in the corner and he looked out the window at the dreary day, the barren trees that lined this side of Ravenstone swaying in the bitter sea wind.

He knew he should feel something, he just wasn’t sure what that feeling should be.

He had another relative. Far more removed than Nemity, but a relation just the same.

Silent for long minutes, trying to absorb that fact, Thomas shifted his stare to what he could only describe as the wild animal in the corner.

His mouth opened, his words halting instead of in their usual clipped cadence. “But…but…she’s feral.”

There was no other way to describe the mess in the corner.

“She is that, m’lord.” Mr. Smith nodded, a low whistle sliding through his widely spaced teeth. “I couldn’t stand the stench of her so I made her ride in the back of the wagon.”

Mr. Smith paused, looking over his shoulder at her, his countenance turning grim. “Lord Dufrane, our justice, told me to just remove her from the earth, but I knew her mother back when she was alive and I couldn’t do it to her child.”

Thomas’s look whipped to the man. “Lord Dufrane said to kill her?”

Mr. Smith lifted his shoulders, unruffled. Like he disposed of people all the time.

Harsh.

“The Baron had already wiped her from the rolls to make it easier—she never existed—and no one will ever think to look for her. He wanted her to just disappear, said it was efficient…” Mr. Smith’s voice trailed off as he looked to Thomas and saw the distaste on his face.

Thomas seethed out a long breath, his stare going back to the girl curled in the corner. “Why is she like that?”

“Her mother died long ago. Her father was a heaping pile of rotten ballocks. Used to treat the wee one like a dog. My Nellie used to bring the child food, taught her to speak halfway proper ‘fore her father ran my Nellie off. Crazy bastard, that one. He hasn’t been around in years—five or so. Dead, I imagine. To be honest, my Nellie is the reason I brought her to ye. She wouldn’t welcome me in the grave with her if I didn’t do right by the child.”

A glimmer of hope and Thomas looked to the man—no reason his wife couldn’t handle the child. He’d send them both on their way with a sack of coins and be done with the intrusion. “Your wife is alive?”

Mr. Smith shook his head. “Gone a year now.” He motioned with his hat toward the girl. “I just thought to do right for my wife, for she liked the girl.”

“Right is bringing her to me?”

Mr. Smith met his look. “Better than the pond I was supposed to sink her into.”

Thomas stifled a sigh. The man did have a point.

He ran his fingers through his hair and could feel it standing on end, madcap on his head. “What the hell am I going to do with that thing?”

“Don’t rightly know, m’lord.” Mr. Smith looked to the girl. “Ye can’t even send her to an asylum in the state she’s in—though that’s a sorry lot for a child to end up in that don’t need it. My sister went there and I wouldn’t put that upon my worst enemy. Seminary, maybe, but ye’ll need to make sure she can function around others first, if ye know what I’m getting at.”

Thomas lifted a brow to the man. “She speaks?”

“Aye. I think. Just feral is the best I can describe it. Her father treated her like a dog, so that’s what she is. Don’t mean she’s stupid. Dogs are smart.”

Thomas shuddered. “What am I to do with her?”

“With due respect, m’lord, feral can be tamed.” He waved his hat around him. “Plus, my Nellie would tell me an upstanding lord like yerself wouldn’t want no kin in a place like an asylum. Not when ye could afford better.”

Thomas stared at the lump’s rounded shoulders, her face hidden from them. It did strike him as odd that they were talking about her like they were bartering over an old horse no one wanted to bury, but he had no other way to approach this situation. It wasn’t often that a feral relative was presented to him.

It was never, in fact.

“How old is she?”

“Best I can figure, seventeen. Eighteen at most. Maybe younger. Her father burnt the family bible long ago—ran through the center of town with it, flaming at the end of his arm at dusk. Ole Joe threw a bucket of water on him. A sight.” Mr. Smith gave a sad shake of his head. “After his wife died, Walter wasn’t right. Wasn’t right for a number of years, really, ever. And he was an ass to start with. No one in the village remembers when she was born. Her father never talked of her. There was an older boy in the family that disappeared long ago—no one knows to where. Except for my wife, we near all forgot the girl even existed until she started stealing food, breaking into larders during Sunday service.”

Thomas’s eyebrow arched. “And no one visited her home?”

“There might have been someone—the old witch, Mrs. Dellcrane—her cottage was close by to the ramshackle bones of that girl’s cottage. But the old witch died near ten years ago. Maybe she kept the girl fed before that, for yer kin was never a nuisance to village folk before then.”

Mr. Smith looked to him, unabashed hope in his eyes. “Ye’ll take her then?”

Another shudder ran through Thomas. “Honor, unfortunately, takes precedence over what I actually want to do. You are positive of her lineage?”

“I am.” He pointed to the side table next to the settee where a charred book sat, the leather looking to have melted onto the crispy black edges of the papers. “That is their bible—charred from the flames, but ye can still open the pages and see some of the line upward from Walter the Second. ’Tis the only thing I found in her cottage. No furniture—nothing. And enough in our village know of her great-grandfather and where his mother came from—fallen lady and all. That lore stews about a village for generations. We all knew of it.”

“You mentioned.” Thomas seethed a sigh, giving him a curt nod. “You can leave her. What is her name?”

“Don’t know for certain—if memory serves, I think my Nellie said Izzie, but village folk just called her the Lewston girl.”

Thomas turned from Mr. Smith, moving toward the drawing room doorway. “Jensen,” he bellowed.

Footsteps, not hurried, echoed along the hallway. Thomas started talking before Jensen reached the room. “Jensen, get that new driver—what is his name?”

Jensen stopped just outside the doorway. “Hal, m’lord.”

“Get Hal and have him fetch the maid, and then tell Cook to start heating water. Boiling water. The maid can wash the filth and the lice off this thing before she moves from this room.” He scratched at his own arm, a visceral, phantom itchiness spreading across his skin at the mention of lice. “And then see that the maid scrubs down the room and we’ll probably need to burn all the furnishings so it doesn’t spread.”

“Spread, m’lord?”

“The lice.”

Jensen frowned, nodded, and disappeared into the castle, his footfalls drifting away on the stone floor.

Thomas looked back to creature in the corner of the room.

What in the hell was he going to do with her?