The baby’s cries could wake the damn dead. What to do? Perhaps she was hungry. Where was food? Was she old enough to gnaw on a biscuit? I moved to the windows. “There, there. You like the horses and buggies?”
Fat tears traveled down her cheeks. More than one person on the street glanced toward the window, hearing her sobs through the glass. Just what I needed, to be seen holding a babe like some damn nanny. I stepped back into the shadows. “Shush now.”
I bounced her lightly.
The house had grown oddly quiet, as if we were the only two in residence. A sickening feeling of dread washed over me. Holy hell, the Lamier women had not left me, had they?
“Please,” I begged the child, bouncing her. “For the love of God, please.”
Her cries subsided, thank the heavens, leaving her round cheeks red and damp. “Miss Lamier?”
The baby’s wide, innocent eyes peered up at me, as if I was the oddity she was trying to figure out. They seemed greener than they had the last time I’d held her.
As I stared into her eyes, something odd tugged at my chest. Something warm, painful almost. Hell, she was mine. Her body so damn fragile, tiny, like a little bird. She was mine and she had no one to protect her. She lifted her fist and put it in her mouth, gnawing, her wide gaze on me the entire time as if to say, it’s your fault I’m hungry.
Mesmerized, I settled on the settee. “There now. It’s not so bad.”
She sank onto my thighs, a relaxed bundle of warmth. Never in my life had I expected to hold a baby, not even my own child. I lifted the corner of her blanket and dabbed at her chubby cheeks, wiping away tears. She was sweet, I supposed, although I wouldn’t really know. She had Ginny’s dark hair, but my eyes. She had my eyes. She was mine. My family. Would I hurt her the way my parents had destroyed me?
“You have a way with her, my lord,” the seamstress said softly.
So, she hadn’t abandoned me after all. There was no point in pretending that Ginny and I didn’t know each other. Miss Lamier wasn’t an idiot. I dared to glance up. “Do they live here with you?”
“No. I have a townhome not far from here. Ginny and the child live here, in the room upstairs.” She shrugged. “She looks after the shop while I’m not here, and has a place to stay. It works.”
I nodded, although I didn’t like the idea of my child living in a garret room. “Do they have enough? Enough clothing? Enough food?”
She quirked a brow. “Do you think I’d let them starve?”
I swallowed hard. Course not. Ginny, in the short time I’d seen her, had grown into a lush, healthy woman. And it was obvious the child was not lacking. They did not suffer. “I owe you.”
I hadn’t even realized I’d said the damning words until she quirked a brow. Hell, I’d all but admitted I was the baby’s father.
She smiled. “Don’t be silly. I did it initially as a favor for a friend.”
I frowned. A friend? Why would a friend of Miss Lamier want to help Ginny? Unless… “Mr. McKinnon?”
She gave me a demure smile.
My mood soured. The anger I felt was completely unwarranted. To know that another man had helped my child, another man had come to Ginny’s rescue, didn’t sit well. It downright irritated me. “He wants her.”
“He does.” She said it in a matter of a fact way, there was no softening of the truth. But then she knew the ways of this world. She’d most likely produced trousseaus for mistresses. Yes, she understood. “She is certainly his type of woman.”
Having finally given up, the baby had closed her eyes and slept. She looked so peaceful, so innocent, so vulnerable, I knew in that moment that I had to protect her. My parents had not told me fairytales, they had not hugged and kissed me, they had left us to our own devices. I would not be my parents. I could, at least, protect her, give her whatever she wanted.
“And what type would that be?”
“Strong, fearless, determined. What man wouldn’t be attracted to her?”
Miss Lamier was correct. Ginny was all those things, and wasn’t that why I’d been attracted to her? McKinnon had seen something in her that he’d appreciated. I couldn’t blame him. I could hate him. But I couldn’t blame him.