Page 87 of The Duke's Only Desire

Chapter Twenty-Six

Two hours passedbefore the carriage arrived in Dulwich, traveling from Cheapside across Blackfriars Bridge and through the small villages dotting the countryside south of the Thames. Two hours of mostly long stretches of silence broken only by infrequent attempts at making small talk that went nowhere, questions Sophie asked about Cora and Ruby and their lives since coming to London…two hours of curt replies from Cora.

Sophie took no offense. Cora’s brusqueness wasn’t because she was being rude or didn’t want to share information but because she was distracted with thoughts of seeing her daughter again. What mother, who cared about her child, wouldn’t be? Every inch of Cora showed her agitation, from the tense way she sat on the bench to the way her fingers clenched at the rug that covered her legs. She stared out the window, but Sophie knew she wasn’t seeing the countryside. She was imagining her little girl, what she would look like now, how big she would be…how she would react to seeing her mother again.

But Ruby wouldn’t recognize her, Sophie knew. Her baby had been less than a year old when Cora gave her up. The wet nurse was the only mother the girl had ever known.

“Many families send their children out to stay with wet nurses during the first few years of their lives,” Sophie reminded her quietly. “They’re raised away from home until they’re nearlyfive years old, when boys are breeched and girls are old enough to mind themselves in the family household.”

Cora swung her gaze inside the compartment to stare at Sophie as she sat across from her on the opposite bench but said nothing to either argue or agree.

“Those children are welcomed back into their families, and they all go along just fine. So will you and your daughter.”

Cora nodded, distracted, and turned back toward the window.

Sophie’s heart sank. She hadn’t convinced Cora that all would be fine. But then, Sophie hadn’t believed Shay, either, when he had assured her that Malcolm’s accusations would come to nothing.

The hackney rolled into Dulwich and slowed, the jarvey following the directions Sophie had given him to a low row of weavers’ cottages next to the village green. Three stories tall, they stood like soldiers at attention, with their white stone facades gleaming in the pale winter sunlight, made even brighter by their black doors and window trim.

“Why are you doing this?” Cora asked, her nervous voice shaking as it pierced the silence. “Why would you and His Grace help me and my daughter?” She shook her head. “It’s one thing to bribe me for my testimony, but to do this… Why would you even acknowledge that Ruby exists?”

“Because she’s family.”

“Notyourfamily. Not according to the courts or the Church.”

“The courts and the Church are wrong.” She added beneath her breath, “Again.”

But her words didn’t satisfy Cora, who waited for a different answer.

“Because Shay and I both know what it’s like to grow up without a mother,” Sophie admitted as gently as she could, despite her blunt words. She turned to look out the window andadded quietly, “I would never let that happen to another child if I could prevent it.” The carriage stopped in front of the last white cottage, and the driver rapped his knuckles against the roof. Sophie cleared her throat to force away a tightening knot of emotion and announced, “We’ve arrived.”

Sophie slipped from the carriage and took a deep breath. The wet nurse, Mrs. Sneed, and her family lived in the last cottage, where her husband weaved cloth in the attic and she added to their household income by taking in babies from the Foundling Hospital. Sophie hadn’t lied to Cora. Many mothers of the gentry often placed their children in the homes of wet nurses where they were cared for until around the age of five before being brought home to their true families.

But as Sophie cast an assessing gaze over the little cottage, she knew she would never be one of those mothers. To give up her baby, even if only temporarily…never.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

When Cora gave a jerking nod, Sophie linked her arm with hers and led the trembling woman forward toward the cottage’s black door.

She knocked, then mumbled, “Just breathe, Cora. And remember, you don’t have to say anything. Let me do the talking.”

The woman took a deep breath as instructed, but it emerged as a jagged sigh, as rough as shaken gravel.

Before Sophie could offer more assurances, the door flew open, and a short, portly woman in a blue dress, grey apron, and dirty cap squinted at them in the sunlight. “Aye? Busy as bees in here.” She jerked a nod over her shoulder toward the house’s main room that served as kitchen, dining room, and parlor, and at the children whose shadowy figures Sophie could just make out in the dim interior. “What you want, then? Hurry up. Don’t have time for talkin’.”

“Then we won’t be long.” Sophie forced a tight smile. “We’re in Dulwich to see Mrs. Sneed. We were told this is her cottage.”

“’Tis. I’m the misses.” A crash reverberated inside the cottage, and the woman let out an impatient breath and yelled into the room behind her, “Get away from the pantry, you little devils, or I’ll tan your hides again!”

Sophie’s heart skipped. Oh, this wasnotgood. From the way Cora stiffened beside her, she recognized that, too.

“Well?” Mrs. Sneed demanded.

“We didn’t mean to interrupt your meal, but—”

“Ain’t no meal.” She blinked as if Sophie were mad. “Not for those devils, not today anyways. They’re being punished for causing commotion.”

“You’re punishing them by withholding food?” Sophie asked carefully as a baby began to wail. “Even the babies?”