“Why?”
“Because you’ll want to make your father proud by always being on your best behavior.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re his favorite little girl and you wouldn’t want to disappoint him.”
“But why?” And then she giggled. “I’m his only little girl.”
Bridget threw up her hands. “You are behaving like a mugwump tonight. I’m going to banish you to this warm bed till morning light.”
“What’s a mugwump?” She leaned toward Bridget and widened her eyes. Her maid told the best stories.
“Into bed with you, milady, and then perhaps I’ll tell you about the mugwumps who hid in the woods near our house back in County Kilkenny.”
Mina jumped from the chair and shuffled as fast as her feet encased in the hateful slippers could carry her toward the bed.
Once she was beneath the warmed sheets, Bridget pulled a chair close and smoothed Mina’s tangled hair back from her face. “Once upon a time, there was a little girl in Kilkenny who was so naughty, she frightened nearby mugwumps out of their trees…”
3
Bridget smiled when Mina’s eyes closed midway through the story. The small sleeping girl didn’t notice her slip away to her own room to read the forbidden letter, a missive that could get her banned from the Abbey staff without lines of reference, or a feather to fly with.
Dear Miss Walsh,
I hope this letter finds you well and still in a position to care for the little one I cannot name.
You will never know the comfort your letters have provided a man without family to claim. Knowing that someone watches over her and cares about her happiness and health is more than I ever could have hoped for in this life.
Yours in gratitude, &c,
JT
Bridget walked to the tiny grate where a fire glowed in her slice of a chamber next to Mina’s. She brushed her fingers over the man’s words and moisture threatened to well from her eyelids onto her cheeks. She’d never met John Taylor, but he was a legend at Montcliffe Abbey.
She resolutely extended the letter toward the flames and watched them lick across and obliterate the tender words of a man caught between a vicious, conniving woman and the small, inconvenient result of his forced affair with Viscountess Rumsford.
He’d loved the mite of a girl ever since the day Bridget’s predecessor had risked everything to make sure he got a glimpse of his newborn daughter. That maid had been dismissed summarily without references when the viscountess had discovered the woman’s unforgivable lapse of judgment.
Lord Rumsford had secretly provided letters and funds for the fired maid without his wife’s knowledge, something Bridget had discovered much later through the network of below-stairs gossip.
Mina was not the first instance of an illegitimate child born to the aristocracy that Bridget had encountered during her years of service. However, having the child kept within the family and raised as their own was rare.
Everyone knew the heir and the spare were the only children the viscount and his viscountess would ever have together, because the gossip swirling around the viscount hinted that his preferences did not extend to those of the female persuasion. Apparently, Lord Rumsford truly adored Mina as his own, which made Bridget’s sense of loyalty toward the man iron-clad.
She’d risked a similar fate to that of the former maid when Nurse had switched Mina mercilessly with a birch branch because she could not learn to tie the laces on her walking boots.
Mina was left-handed, and so was John Taylor, according to the other front-hall footmen. On a wild hunch, she’d managed to get a message to the man, and he’d sent her a reply to have Mina on the back stoop behind the kitchen early on a certain morning. Lady Rumsford rarely rose before noon.
He’d sat down with Mina and showed her how a left-handed person tied one’s boots. There had not been a dry eye in the kitchen when Bridget had returned a half hour later to fetch the small imp who sat munching on chocolate biscuits by the kitchen fire and showing the kitchen mouser how to tie her boots as well.
Bridget’s part in the scheme had not been revealed, but word of John Taylor’s lace-tying lesson had somehow reached Lady Rumsford, and that very day he’d been banished to the family’s townhouse in Mayfair, where he’d be available for the lady’s pleasures, but no further contact with their daughter.
* * *
Julian stoodat the sideboard in the Abbey’s family breakfast room and piled fluffy eggs, sausages, and buttery toast onto his plate. His appetite seemed to be in a race to keep up with his rapidly growing body. When he’d arrived home from school for the holidays, Beesley had eyed his trouser hems which hovered a number of inches above his boot tops, well past what would be considered fashionable. The elderly man had shaken his head and had had one of the footmen send a carriage into town to bring back a tailor to see to new clothing for Julian before he had to return for the next term.
When he balanced his piled-high plate and headed toward the breakfast table, Viscount Rumsford motioned for Julian to join him and his friend, Sir Thomas James.
