‘Oh, I am sorry...please excuse me,’ the stranger murmured.
How could Hetta have left her toes where a society beauty might tread?
‘It was nothing,’ Hetta lied politely.
‘All this bustle is distracting and I hate the sea,’ the lady explained as if she was grateful to have another woman to talk to, even a travel-worn and weary one dressed in a shabby cloak and old gown.
‘I’m none too fond of it myself,’ Hetta admitted ruefully.
The lady grimaced at the mud-grey water. It was calm at the moment, so she would have a far better crossing than Hetta had endured coming the other way, but it was still the sea and she obviously did not want to be on it.
‘I wish I could stay,’ the lady said wistfully, glancing back at the town as if she was having second thoughts about leaving it.
‘Then why go if you don’t want to?’
‘Because I must,’ the lady said, then seemed to recall Hetta was a stranger and stepped out of her path, looking regal and chilly again.
‘The swell has almost calmed now, so you should have an easy journey,’ Hetta said and turned to go.
‘Thank you,’ the lady said absently, her attention now fixed on a woman walking towards them with a grizzling baby of about eight or nine months in her arms.
‘She needs you, Lady Drace,’ the nurse said.
‘I know,’ Lady Drace replied, with a tender smile for her little girl. Love for the pretty, dark-haired and dark-eyed baby lit her face to a beauty far more compelling than the icy mask she seemed to use to keep the adult world at bay.
‘No, my lady, she needs you,’ the woman insisted.
Hetta saw the lady blush as the meaning behind those careful words sank in—Lady Drace must be suckling her child herself. Hetta had been happy to dislike her as a privileged being who stood on other people’s toes and then frowned as if it was their fault. Now she sympathised with a dilemma she knew all too well and warmed to a fellow mother.
‘There is nowhere private enough to feed you, my angel, but I expect you’ll work yourself into a tantrum and refuse to be comforted if I don’t, and the sea is quite enough to contend with without you adding to it, my pet,’ Lady Drace told her fretful infant with a besotted smile and shot a panicked look round the bustling harbour. Her pale blue eyes looked tearful, as if this was the last straw for her. Hetta could not make herself pretend it was none of her business and simply walk away.
‘Over there,’ she said, pointing at a pile of baggage waiting to be claimed and unwilling to admit it belonged to her family since it was much used and had their names on and she had learned to be wary on her travels. ‘That looks a quieter place than most and out of the way of all the hustle and bustle. If you hold your cloak around your mistress on one side, I can do the same with mine on the other, and Lady Drace will be hidden from view. Between us we can make a tent and glare at anyone rude enough to try to overlook us,’ she told the maid. Having to feed Toby in all sorts of odd places when she had been tracking her father across Europe after her husband died, Hetta knew how rude and crude some could be to a lady suckling her baby. ‘You will be nigh as private as at home in your own bedchamber, your ladyship.’
‘Ah, home,’ the lady said wistfully, eyeing her hungry and fretful baby as if torn between love for her child and her dignity. She must have made up her mind the little girl was more important since she sighed and shrugged. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You are very kind.’
‘High time I found Toby,’ Hetta’s father muttered and left the ladies to it.
“Coward,” his daughter whispered at his retreating back, but since she was worried where her boy had got to, she hoped her father really did mean to look for Toby. It felt wrong to dismiss this stranger’s dilemma and find Toby herself now she had made her impulsive offer. So once Hetta and the maid formed their circle, Lady Drace sat down to nurse her child while all three of them thought their thoughts and the baby fed. Hetta wished this trip to her homeland was over and she could go back to the warmth of a real summer somewhere more interesting. Now the greyish-brown waters of the Channel seemed to mock her with gentle ripples after the bitter squall on the way over here and she was quite surprised she was still alive. She stared towards Dover as tame little waves lapped at the quayside gently enough to soothe a fretful babe to sleep.
‘And they call this summer?’ she muttered as soft drizzle began to crown her miserable homecoming. She had barely been back in England half an hour and she was wet and chilled and her head ached. She felt dull and weary and almost wished she could go with this almost haughty lady and her child to Paris and beyond, although it would mean crossing the Channel again while her stomach was still heaving from the journey over, and even if she could find her son in time, that felt like a bad idea.
‘I believe you are finished, my little minx. She might even sleep now,’ Lady Drace announced hopefully at last. Hetta heard rustling as the lady got herself back in perfect order then settled her little girl in the crook of her arm and shook her head at the maid as if she didn’t intend letting her child go. ‘You can let the world back in,’ she said resolutely.
‘I wish you well on your travels,’ Hetta said gently, wondering where this blonde, blue-eyed lady was going with the dark-haired, brown-eyed baby now looking about her with wide-eyed wonder and not in the least bit weary.
‘Thank you. It was kind of you to help a stranger,’ the lady said as if she was surprised anyone would put themselves out for her.
The lady’s life must have been a hard one to make her put on so much elegant armour to keep it at bay. Hetta was glad the woman felt she could love her child wholeheartedly and she was pleased she’d stopped to help a lone mother. Now a nagging anxiety for her own child was urging her to leave the lady to get on with her journey. Her father had already said Toby should be allowed to run off his high spirits so he would be more bearable on the journey to London, so he would not make much effort to track him down, and Hetta knew her son too well to trust him very far with all this bustle and excitement to intrigue him.
‘And they do say you should be careful what you wish for, don’t they?’ the lady added with a rueful smile.
‘But learning when to ignore the naysayers is half the fun,’ Hetta said as she peered around the dock and saw no sign of her son or father and felt more like an anxious sheepdog than an English lady of gentle birth and unusual education.
‘Do you really think so?’
‘Travelling is a lot easier if you can see the lighter side of the obstacles in your way,’ Hetta said encouragingly, even if she did think there was little to be cheerful about in the sea crossing her new friend was about to undertake. ‘Paris is on the other side of the Channel, don’t forget, and if you can’t have an adventure there I despair of you,’ she added and found out the lady had a surprisingly earthy laugh.
‘Thank you. I will do my best,’ Lady Drace said, bade Hetta farewell with her baby cuddled close and turned resolutely towards the sea.
Hetta turned to go as well, but the noise and bustle of the busy dock faded away to nothing as a furious-looking and ridiculously handsome man strode into view so fast he was nearly running. The sight of Toby wriggling like an eel under one of the stranger’s muscular arms made her gasp in panic and her heart race with anxiety. Protective fury masked fear as she watched her son bundled along so fast he didn’t even have breath left