Edward felt his brow rise in question.
“It was Croome’s final word on the subject. He told me in his gruff voice, ‘His name is Edward. She named him that. My father’s name, and my second name as well. I’ll not have you changing it.’ ” Lord Brightwell chuckled. “I did not dare.”
Edward shook his head, failing to see the humor in the situation. Edward . . . How ironic. How strange. He had been named for his father’s gamekeeper, a man he had spent his whole life avoiding.
When Edward walked into the kitchen, Mrs. Moore looked up, mouth slack, eyes wide. He almost never came belowstairs, save for Christmas carol singing and the like a few times each year. Any directions for the cook were delivered through the housekeeper or butler.
Two young kitchen maids stared up at him, one blushing profusely, the other daring a saucy look.
Edward asked, “Mrs. Moore, might I have a private word?”
The woman swallowed, evidently expecting news of the worst sort. “Of course, my lord.”
She directed him to the stillroom off the kitchen, with its floor-to-ceiling shelves of blue-and-white china, jarred pickles and ruby red preserves, and the sharp, tangy aromas of beehive and gooseberry vinegars.
Once inside, he closed the door behind them, startling her further.
“I have been speaking with Mr. Croome. . . .” he began.
“Oh dear,” she interrupted. “What has the old fool been up to now?”
“Nothing to fret over, I assure you. I was asking him about his daughter, Alice.”
She frowned, clearly troubled. “Were you? I am surprised you even know of her. She . . . left us . . . before you were born.”
“Did she?”
Mrs. Moore squinted in thought. “One or two days before, I believe. It is so long ago.”
He nodded. “You delivered her of a child, I understand.” He added gently, “It is all right, Mrs. Moore. I know she died.”
Her mouth puckered, her round cheeks paled. “Avery told you that?” She looked stricken indeed. “I know he has never forgiven me . . . but to tell you? After all these years? When he swore me to secrecy?”
“I don’t think he blames you. I suppose at the time, in his grief . . .”
She shook her head. “He planned to send her north to his family to have the child, but never did. Never could bear to part with her. When her time came, he asked me to stay with Alice while he went to find the doctor or midwife. I was only to sit with her. But he didn’t return for hours, and when he did, he was alone. He could find no one to deliver her. I understand your father had the same problem when your mother’s time came soon after.”
Edward nodded. “Nurse Peale attended my mother.”
She squinted once more. “Yes, I do remember hearing that.” Mrs. Moore grimaced. “I did what I could for Allie, but I knew so little. I had never even had a child of my own. I have never felt so helpless. My own dear niece, my sister’s lass, and I couldn’t save her.” She shook her head, clearly reliving those mournful images once more. Tears filled her small hazel eyes and rolled up and over her round cheeks. “Avery has never forgiven me. He sent me back to the house soon after, as if he couldn’t bear the sight of me.”
Mrs. Moore swiped at her tears with the back of a fleshy hand. “And the child . . . a little boy. He never would tell me what became of him. I suppose he took him to kin in the north, or found some family to take him in. I was surprised he could part with him, all he had left of his Alice. But he was in no fit shape to raise wolves, let alone a child in those days.” Her lips trembled as she spoke. “He was mad with grief, repulsed my every effort to comfort him. Refused to speak of it. To tell me where the boy was.” Her voice broke. “The boy she died bringin’ into the world.”
“Mrs. Moore,” he said gently. “You will not believe it, I fear. But Alice died bringing me into the world.”
She stared at him, brows furrowed, lips tight. She looked angry or at least frustrated and confused.
“Mr. Croome did not take Alice’s son to the north,” Edward continued quietly. “He gave that child to Lord and Lady Brightwell. To raise as their own.”
Her small mouth slowly drooped into a sloppy O. She looked nearly comical, and he bit his lip to stay a rogue grin.
“I said you would not believe me.”
She peered up at him, shaking her head in wonder. “I never saw it,” she breathed. “You are not very like her.”
“Ironic, isn’t it, how I look so much the Bradley.”
“God’s hand, I should say.”
“I don’t know about that.” He ducked his head, giving way to a sheepish smile.
“There. I see a hint of her.” Mrs. Moore’s hazel eyes twinkled. “Something around your mouth, when you smile. I can’t remember seeing you smile, not since you were a lad.”
“I shall have to work on that.”
Her mouth dropped open again as a new thought struck her. “That must be why it was all such a secret! Why he refused to say what became of you.” She sucked in a long breath. “And why he stayed on, when we all thought he would leave. Why does he stay, I used to wonder, since he had family in the north that would care for him in his old age. What keeps him here now his Maggie is gone and Alice too?” She stared at Edward, slowly shaking her head in amazement. “He couldn’t bear to leave you.”
Edward’s chest tightened, and his throat followed suit.
“I cannot believe it.” Tears sprung anew into her eyes, but the desolation of moments before was replaced by apparent joy. “Allie’s boy.” She reached out to him, but quickly caught herself as she realized what she was about to do. “Forgive me.”
He took both of her hands in his own. “There is nothing to forgive, Mrs. Moore. After all, you are my great-aunt, are you not?”
She laughed and beamed up at him, squeezing his hands. “I suppose I am.” She bit her lip. “Though I suppose it is all still a great secret?”
He inhaled deeply. “At present, yes, if you don’t mind. But not forever.”
“How long have you known that you are not . . .” She let the question go unfinished.
“I only learnt of it when Miss Keene arrived, last autumn.”
“Miss Keene? What has she to do with it?”
He pulled an apologetic face. “It is a long story, I fear.”
As if sensing a dismissal, she withdrew her hands and straightened. “I am sure you are quite busy, and I . . . well, supper will not cook itself.”
She opened the stillroom door, but he stopped her with a gentle entreaty.
“Mrs. Moore. Please.”
She hesitated in the threshold.
He stepped near, closing the gap between them. “I should very much like to tell you all, but another time. Perhaps we might take tea together some afternoon? Say, in the gamekeeper’s lodge?”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “He won’t like that.”
“You might be surprised. And I think it would do him a world of good.”
“Do you indeed?” Her eyes twinkled once more. “Then I should like that above all things.”
On impulse, he leaned down and kissed her cheek.
As he turned, he heard the kitchen maids gasp, followed by giggles and frenzied whispers.
Mrs. Moore’s officious voice followed him as he ascended the stairs. “He was only thanking me for my best plum cake, and had you ever tasted it, you would buss me as well. Now, haven’t you garden peas to shell?”
Edward smiled.
Edward Stanton Bradley knocked on the gamekeeper’s lodge and held his breath, the tool case heavy in his hand.
After a long minute, Avery Croome opened the door, his silvery blue eyes narrow. “Hope you ain’t come to ask me to break my word.”
“I am asking you to break nothing, Mr. Croome,” Edward said, feeling strangely buoyant. “I am here to repair what is already broken.”
Croome’s overgrown eyebrows rose. He looked from Edward’s face to Matthews’s tool case and back again. “You?”
Edward gestured toward one of the front windows, eyeing a deeply cracked pane. “I shall call out the glazier for that. Will Tuesday suit?”
Croome only peered at him, suspicion pinching his features.
“Now, let us take a look inside,” Edward said, gesturing toward the door.
“Why?”
Edward said innocently, “Because I have it on good authority that the place is all but in ruins. I believe you spoke of wanting a lodge that is not falling down about you?”
Keeping his eye on Edward, Croome pushed open the door and stepped backward, as though not to turn his back on a potentially dangerous predator. He said, “I weren’t expecting company, mind. Not since Miss Keene left. She’s the only one what bothered to come out here.”
“Was she indeed?”
“Up and left, ey?” Croome shook his head, mouth twisted in disapproval.
“I fear I am to blame,” Edward confessed. “If it is any consolation, I miss her too.”
Croome scowled. “Never said I missed her.”
“Oh, and before I forget—” Edward pulled a wrapped bundle from the tool case—“Mrs. Moore sent along a slice of plum cake. Still warm.”