Kasey Michaels - The Bride of the Unicorn

Morgan was elated by this information, but he deliberately tamped down his enthusiasm, saying only, “Yet you told me, as you told this other man you spoke of, that Miss Caroline is gone.”

Peaches allowed the bundle of rushes to fall to the ground. “Miss Caroline, is it, now? And don’t that sound grand fer a foundlin’ brat?” She peered at him again, as if assessing him for flaws. “Now I’m thinkin’ mayhap it’s time some more of your worship’s lovely gold passed over Miss Mary Magdalene O’Hanlan’s palm?”

“Perhaps,” Morgan replied tightly, and then for the first time spoke aloud of the memory his uncle’s patently false, contrived confession had brought crashing to the forefront of his mind. “Or perhaps it’s time I rode to the village to summon the constable, so that you can tell him that Mary Magdalene O’Hanlan is a member of the gang of nefarious and long-sought kidnappers of one Lady Caroline Wilburton, daughter of the earl and countess of Witham, who were cruelly murdered on a roadway not thirty miles from here some fifteen years ago?”

Peaches plunked herself down atop the bundle of rushes, her skinny calves sticking out from beneath the hem of her gown. “The divil you say, boyo,” she responded as she looked up at him, her voice tinged with wondrous awe but not a trace of fear or guilt. “And would ye be knowin’ if there’s a reward in the offin’ for the safe return of this poor little darlin’? After all is said and done, it’s me what kept her little heart beatin’—what with m’lovin’ good care of the tot, don’t ye know.”

Morgan knew he could either dole out a coin for each piece of information or shorten the process by some minutes by acknowledging how important the woman’s answers were to him. Deciding to leave subterfuge for another day and for someone less sharp than Peaches O’Hanlan, he pulled a small leather purse from his pocket and dropped it in the Irishwoman’s lap. “Where is she?”

The purse followed the gold coin before Peaches answered him. “That’s what I like, boyo—a fella who comes right to the heart of the thing. She’s not here, nor has she been in this stinkin’ hole fer this year or more. But I knows where she be, and it’s more than a good ride from here. Ye’ll be needin’ me ta get ta her, don’t ye know. Needin’ me to point her out ta ye, ta get her ta trust ye. And it’s the only real mither she’s ever known or remembered since the fever struck that I am, the only one she loves. I’m her dearest Peaches, that’s what I am.”

“How commendable of you. You’ll be well rewarded if you continue to cooperate. That purse is only a pittance, one that could be trebled. Gather whatever belongings you have and meet me outside these gates in an hour. I’ll return with my carriage.”

Morgan felt very tired as he turned to mount his horse. What was he doing? The Irishwoman could be lying to him. His uncle James most probably had been lying to him. And yet some of the puzzle pieces were already beginning to fit. He had to continue the search for his instrument of revenge against Richard Wilburton. He had been patient for three long years. It was time to act. “An hour, Miss O’Hanlan, and no more. And don’t breathe a word to anyone.”

“Me?” Peaches responded, scrambling to her feet. “It’s close as an oyster I’ll be, and ye can take that as m’word.”

“I’d prefer not to take either your word or your person anywhere, Miss O’Hanlan, but as you Irish say, ‘Needs must when the devil drives’.”

Morgan swung himself up into the saddle. “Oh, and one more thing. Kindly bathe before I come back. You reek of the sewers, Miss O’Hanlan.”

Peaches gave a flirtatious flip of her bony hand as Morgan guided his horse toward the path. “Dip m’self in parson’s ale? Well, all right—but only a little bit, and only ’cause ye’re a such pretty thing, boyo.”

Beware, as long as you live, of judging people by appearances.

Jean de La Fontaine

“DULCINEA? DULCINEA! You sweet, wretched angel, I see you skulking out there. Come in here to me at once! I have just now had the most splendiferous notion!”

Caroline Monday lifted her small chin from her chest, where she had let it drop while she indulged herself in a moment of exhaustion not unlike all her waking moments, and tiredly hauled herself up from the slatted wooden bench pressed against the wall of the hallway outside one of the small rooms reserved for affluent patients.

“Aunt Leticia, all of your notions are splendiferous,” she soothed kindly as she walked toward the open doorway, “and as you have these notions at least three times daily, I see no need to rush lickety-split to hear the latest one.”

“Oh, pooh,” Leticia Twittingdon, who would never see the sunny side of fifty again, complained from her cross-legged perch on the wide cushioned window seat, thrusting her lower lip forward in a pout as Caroline entered the room. Miss Twittingdon’s long, angular body was dressed from head to toe in brightest scarlet, and a crimson silk turban perched primly on her childlike curls. “And I was so certain you’d want to have me teach you the names and various titles of all of good King George’s royal princes and princesses. All accomplished young ladies should know these things by rote, Dulcinea. It isn’t enough merely to be beautiful. We must complete your education. Let’s see, is Princess Amelia still alive? I seem to remember some tragedy about that dear little thing.”

Caroline bent to pick up Miss Twittingdon’s wool shawl, which had somehow found its way to the threadbare carpet, and laid it over the back of a wooden chair. “Another time, dear lady,” she said, smiling wanly as she pushed her palms against her arched back at the waist, trying to ease her aching muscles. She was so tired. But then, she was always tired. “This particular well-informed debutante is woefully late emptying the chamber pots today.”

“Dulcinea! How many times must I remind you that genteel ladies such as yourself do not speak of such base mortal necessities? Chamber pots, indeed! Don Quixote de la Mancha, that dearest and bravest of knights—a veritable saint!—would have deemed them golden chalices. Oh, dear. Should I have said that? Have I been sacrilegious?”

“I really wouldn’t know. If I understand the meaning of the word correctly as you have taught it to me, life itself is sacrilegious. Perhaps you should call me Aldonza, as in Mr. Cervantes’s book?”

“Never!” Miss Twittingdon lifted one index finger and jabbed it into the air, as if to punctuate her denial. “I may not be a man, and thus forbidden the splendiferous adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha, but I will not be denied my Dulcinea!”

“Of course you will not be denied her. Please forgive me, Aunt Leticia. I must be overtired to have forgotten my high station so far as to mention the pots. I spent most of the morning peeling potatoes in the kitchens and half the afternoon on the public side attempting to convince Mr. Jenkins of the folly inherent in his wish to bite off Mr. Easton’s left ear as he held the little fellow tight in a stranglehold.”

Miss Twittingdon shivered delicately as she leaned forward, her long, needle-sharp nose all but twitching, to hear the latest gossip. “The horror of it! And did you succeed?”

“I’m not quite sure,” Caroline told her before sinking into the chair and leaning back against the shawl, which smelled of dust and the old lady’s rose water. “Mr. Jenkins ended by biting off the bottom half of Mr. Easton’s right ear—although Mr. Easton didn’t appear to mind. But then, Mr. Easton doesn’t mind much of anything, not even his lice. Tell me, should I consider a change of ears a success?”