Three Dukes and A Baby
Jonathan Bradshaw hated dukes. To
be specific he hated one duke.
The day a duke ruined his life he’d
ended up face down in a ditch on the Scottish side of the border, stunned and
aching from the beating he’d suffered at the hands of His Grace’s lackeys. The
smell of whisky cut through the mud clogging his swollen nose. That was the
last straw. His pocket flask, fully charged against the chill of a northern
journey in early spring, had cracked. If he managed to lug his bruised body out
of the dirt, he wouldn’t be able to console his bruised soul and broken heart
with the Scottish breath of life.
Waiting for his miserable existence
to evaporate along with his last source of comfort, he became aware of a faint
lapping sound close to his ear. Then a tiny snuffle and a wet little tongue
licking his cheek. Something else was chewing on his boot. The ignominy of
ending his life a meal for rats lifted him out of his torpid despair. Rolling
onto his arse he found himself surrounded by a trio of puppies. Funny little
things, they were, with snub noses and floppy ears and madly wagging tails.
They must have been abandoned since their breeding was, to put it kindly,
indeterminate. He felt a kinship with the mongrels. Had he not also been
rejected by the Duke of Windlesham for his lack of the proper parentage?
The creatures yelped with joy,
butting their little heads against his legs and nuzzling his hands with wet
noses. One of them demanded to be picked up. When he obliged a wet warmth
trickled through his fingers.
The little devil had wet himself.
•••
Jonathan averted his eyes from his
housekeeper’s festive sprig of holly and checked that the decanter was full. It
was Christmas Eve, an occasion he’d dreamed of celebrating in his elegant
hundred-year-old house with his wife. If he had a wife. The Duke of Windlesham
said not, when he dragged his daughter from the Gretna Green smithy where the
smith had just declared Mr. Jonathan Bradshaw and the Lady Anthea Winslow man
and wife. A Scottish marriage apparently didn’t count unless it was consummated.
As it happened the consummation had taken place, but before the ceremony. In
any case, the question was moot. All efforts to find his bride had proved
futile. Anthea had vanished from society, from her father’s many mansions, and,
as far as Jonathan could discover, from the face of the earth.
So he’d returned to the estate he’d
purchased in a vain attempt to impress the duke, who’d declared he’d never give
his daughter to the son of a tradesman, however rich. Jonathan wasn’t in the
habit of indulging alone, but tonight he intended to get rip roaring drunk.
Something was missing. Or rather
three somethings.
“Dukes!” he called into the garden
where moonlight glittered on frosted trees. “Come in boys!”
In his loathing for all things
ducal, he’d decided to insult the highest rank of nobility by bestowing the
title on his brood of curs. Clarence, who had a penchant for spirits, was named
for the duke who was unfortunately drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine.
Wellington was the boot chewer. And the dog who peed on him was honored with
the title of Windlesham. But since he was fond of the little fellow, he usually
just called him Widdle. Except
when he widdled.
“Clarence! Wellington! Widdle!” he
shouted. Ill-bred yapping arose from the shrubbery. The dogs had either cornered
a creature or found something vile-smelling to roll in. “Come, boys. If you
stink it’s the stables for you, and not a bite of my supper.”
Jonathan’s amble across the lawn
turned into a run when a new sound joined the cacophony of barks. Good Lord! A
capacious basket wedged into the shelter of a rhododendron emitted the
unmistakable howl of an angry baby.
In short order he carried the
foundling inside. Without knowing much about infants, he was sure this one was
very young. His ridiculously small and very red face was topped by a spindly
mop of dark hair. With eyes screwed shut he emitted a level of noise
astonishing for such a tiny body.
“Hey there,” he whispered, touched
by such fragile helplessness. “What’s the matter?” Was he hungry, cold? Both? The
only response was a continuing howl. “What do you want, little one?”
The child was tightly wrapped, a
good idea outside, but his library had a good fire. He gently removed a blanket
and loosened the swaddling. The perfection of the miniature hands tempted him
to touch. Little fingers clutched at his giant one. The baby fell silent and
regarded him with big, unfocused eyes.
The dukes sat around him, regarding
him with adoring trust. He’d cared for them as orphaned babies and now it
apparently fell to him to do the same for a human one. Reaching below the
child’s bottom, he smiled. “Well, well,” he told the dogs. “We’ve acquired
another widdler.”
His competent housekeeper, whom
he’d previously dismissed for the night, responded to his ring. “Newborn, sir.
I’ll take care of him and we can decide what to do tomorrow. The mother must be
in a sad way to abandon her child at Christmas.”
“Bring him back here when you’ve
made him comfortable.”
The infant had fallen under his
protection and he’d care for it, as he would any one in need. But he felt more
than casual charity for this waif. His company for Christmas was far more
appealing than the bottle.
Her company, as the housekeeper
informed him when she returned. “Ring again when she cries, sir. She’ll be
hungry in the night. I’ve rigged up a bottle and teat for her but tomorrow
she’ll need a wet nurse.”
“Show me what to do. I’ll see to
her.”
For now the tiny girl slept
peacefully while he watched. Dry napkins, a wet nurse, a foster mother. The
needs of so helpless a creature were overwhelming. Perhaps he’d keep her. The
notion surprised him. When he’d persuaded Anthea to elope with him to escape
her arranged marriage, his mind had been possessed by love and earthy passion,
the consequences of domesticity little regarded. He wondered if she had wed the
middle-aged earl with his two dead wives and a rakish reputation. Surely he would
have heard.
Unmanly tears prickled his eyes yet
his heart was lighter. Fortune had brought him someone to care for, besides his
trio of dukes.
He didn’t know how long he kept
vigil. It was the dukes who disturbed the silence first, starting up from their
sleeping heap of fur on the hearth rug. Distantly he heard the front door
knocker. A glance at the mantle clock told him it was after midnight.
Christmas Day.
He opened the door to a pathetic
and wondrous sight. She was bedraggled and shivering but he’d recognize her in
a full face mask in the dark. His one and only love.
“Anthea!” he cried and she
collapsed into his arms.
“Joanna? Do you have her? I put her
down because I couldn’t carry her another step. I was coming to the house but I
fainted. When I awoke she was gone.”
“She is safe, my love. Come.”
He lifted her up and bore her
trembling body into the library. Her care was all for her daughter but he could
wait.
Their daughter. He was a father.
“What happened?” he asked, when he
had his wife curled in his lap in a large armchair, their child in her arms.
“Father kept me locked at his
hunting box until the birth. He was going to take her away from me and I
couldn’t bear it. Finally I found a way to escape and come to you. I’m sorry it
took so long, Jonathan. I love you and I’ve never loved another.”
“Nothing matters now. I love you, I
love Joanna, and we’re together.”
“I was so afraid I’d never see you
again.”
He stroked her smooth dark head and
drank in the lovely face he’d feared lost forever. Her cheek was chilled
beneath his palm, as were the lips he traced with his thumb. Then he kissed her
and felt nothing but warmth and the promise of a blissful future.
A tug on his boot interrupted the
tender interlude. There was a puddle on the carpet, and one pair of eyes gazed
longingly at the untouched decanter.
“My darling,” he said. “I must
introduce you to the dukes.”
For my previous Christmas reads see A Gift For A Princess and A Deranged Marriage
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