No expense spared. Yes, that seemed to be his philosophy. Outfit the twins in expensive clothes and fill their nursery with expensive toys.
But affection and loyalty couldn’t simply be purchased.
They must be earned.
“Someday the duke will marry and the twins will have half siblings,” said Mrs. Fairfield. “Though at the moment he spends far more time at his foundry with his iron horses than with marriageable ladies.”
He may shun suitable ladies, but he made no secret of his paramours, for surely that’s what Lady India had been. They’d used such a familiar address. And she’d called him darling and kissed him good-bye in front of the children.
Mrs. Fairfield stirred her tea, a pensive expression stealing across her face. “I want a babe in the nursery before I’m too old to dandle the precious thing. And I’m not the only one. The dowager duchess is near to despairing, she wants an heir so badly.”
“Does the dowager live here?” Mari certainly hoped not. From everything she’d read of dowager duchesses in novels, they were most definitely to be avoided.
“She and the duke are estranged because of a sordid incident some years past. He walks with a limp now, I’m sure you noticed. But that’s a sad tale, and best saved for another time.”
She hadn’t noticed the limp, but then he’d been dangling her over his shoulder, so her view had been of his buttocks. His taut, rounded buttocks.
It had been rather a nice view, actually.
“I gather he’s greatly preoccupied with his foundry?” asked Mari.
“Pray, don’t label him unfeeling, Miss Perkins. He cares for the children’s welfare. But if you could find a way to maintain an air of tranquility and peace in the household... so that while he is here he may work undisturbed...?”
“Leave everything to me, Mrs. Fairfield. I’ll soon set things to rights.”
“If anyone can achieve such a miracle, I believe it will be you, Miss Perkins. Now I’ll leave you to settle in. I’m sure you’ll retire early today. Don’t worry, you won’t be needed until tomorrow morning, when you may begin your lessons with the twins.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Fairfield,” Mari said gratefully. She was drowsy and filled with tea and biscuits.
The large, comfortable-looking bed was beckoning.
Mari rose with the housekeeper and escorted her to the door.
Had she blustered her way into a duke’s household? It hardly seemed believable, and yet here she was.
She opened her cloth bag and drew out her remaining possessions, setting them on the dressing table. A worn hairbrush missing half its bristles; several beloved novels; a Book of Common Prayer with a cracked black leather cover; and a carved wooden rabbit wearing a tattered, green velvet dress.
Last year, Mrs. Crowley, the headmistress at Underwood, had contracted a fever. On her deathbed, stricken by remorse, she’d made an unbelievable confession.
She’d told Mari that, three years past, a lawyer from London, Mr. Arthur Shadwell, had visited Underwood searching for a child who matched Mari’s description and circumstances.
In an act of ill will, the headmistress had informed him that Mari was dead of a fever.
The stinging betrayal of it was still raw and fresh in Mari’s mind.
If someone had been searching for her, it could mean she had a family, that she wasn’t completely alone in life.
It could mean that the stories she’d made up in her mind about a reunion with her mother might prove to be true.
The prayer book and the wooden rabbit had been bundled in her swaddling cloth when she arrived at the orphanage. It wasn’t until after Mrs. Crowley made her confession that Mari had realized they might hold some key to her past.
She opened the prayer book and read the inscription as she had a million times before: “Ann Murray, 1808.”
Who are you, Ann Murray?
Who am I?
There were sure to be a great many Ann Murrays living in London. But how many lawyers named Arthur Shadwell could there be? She would consult a business directory and find him on her very first off day.