11 June 1790, Gracechurch Street, London
It was late when I reached London and the temporary haven of my foster mum’s home. I hadn’t slept in days, partly out of fear of discovery by his lordship’s men and partly because the babe fussed so much. The brat was always hungry and I had no idea how to feed her. I was tempted to leave her with the family who took us in the first night—the farmer’s wife who found a way to feed her cow’s milk seemed that taken with her—but then his lordship would get her back and how would that serve my purpose? But oh, if I had known how much trouble it would be to sneak off with a puling infant while trying to keep out of the way of a powerful earl, I might have considered some other form of revenge.
“Open up, mum, it’s me, Marnie!”
Finally, the door opened enough for Mum Herne to peer at me in the darkness.
“Marnie? It is you! For goodness sake, I thought you were in Derbyshire… Come in, I’m so glad to see you… it’s been ages since you took that position with the Cranbournes. Oh!”
She had just shut the door behind us when she saw the babe in my arms. “You have… a child?”
I held the babe out to her, pleased for the respite. I never realized how much it could hurt to hold a babe—even a tiny one—for hours at a time. “A girl child.”
Mum Herne cuddled her in her arms. “Such pretty blue eyes. A blonde,” she commented as she looked over my dark gypsy coloring with questioning eyes. “Must look like her father?”
“The spittin’ image,” I assured her. “The earl was a towhead when he was a babe, although his hair has darkened a bit since then.”
Mum’s head jerked back. “The earl is her father? The Earl of Cranbourne?”
I nodded as I looked hopefully in the direction of the kitchen. “I don’t suppose I could trouble you for a bite of bread and cheese? I haven’t had anything to eat since this morning.” When I’d managed to lift a meat pie off a pie maker’s cart without him noticing. But she didn’t need to know that. The mention of food had the intended effect of distracting her—at least temporarily—from the lecture about my morals I knew would be coming.
“Yes, of course. In the larder.” She looked down at the babe in her arms. “And the child? When did you feed her last? Looks downright poorly, she does.”
I shook my head and collapsed into the nearest chair. “So sorry, mum. It’s just that—I’m famished. We’ve been one step ahead of his lordship all the way, and the worry of it all just took my milk away. I was hoping you might have some cow’s milk for the poor mite… it’s only by the grace of God that I’ve found a few kindly folk along the way to keep her from starving.”
Mum’s eyes widened. “You’re running away from… the earl? Why on earth…? Never mind, you can tell me the whole later. Right now this child needs tending.”
An hour later, the babe asleep in a makeshift bed in mum’s bedchamber, she and I sat at the kitchen table and I told her my story. She already knew I’d been a maid in the household of the Cranbournes and that I’d agreed to travel all the way to Derbyshire because I’d hoped to catch the eye of the comely earl. She’d warned me against it, telling me it was foolish to set my cap at such a high falultin’ gent and that it would all come to no good—and while I hated having to admit she was right—she seemed to accept my story at face value. Some of it was even true. Maybe.
The story I told her was that the earl seduced me without any intention of marriage, all the while he was courting another woman. The affair continued after his marriage, and when I found myself with child, I was turned out without a character by her ladyship. I had no place else to go but the workhouse, but when the babe was born so pretty and so much like her father, I thought he might be willing to part with a few quid a month for food and lodgings. Little did I know that he would be so desperate to keep the babe’s existence from his wife that he would threaten to take her away from me and kill her! Which is what sent me flying from Derbyshire.
I’ve always been good at acting—my birth mother always said I should tread the boards at Covent Garden—and Mum Herne knew this, but I think the presence of the poor babe set off her maternal instincts and all she could think of was how to protect poor little Annie from the evil earl who threatened her life.
That was when we heard the sound of horses charging down the street.
“It’s his lordship!” I cried. “He’s found us! Quick, find us a place to hide!”
I ran to the bedchamber to pick up Annie.
“The earl?” But how…?”
I reminded her of the reference she had sent with me when I applied for the position. No doubt they would have gone back to ascertain the direction. She bit her lip and then shook her head.
“There’s no place here he won’t find you. A rich and powerful earl? I can’t imagine how you managed to get so far!”
Then a strange look came over face. “Although perhaps there is a way. We’ll have to bind the babe securely, though…”
By the time the loud banging at the door began, she had already bound the babe tightly around me with a red wool scarf and pressed a small black stone into my hand.
“I’m sending you into the future,” she whispered, urging me toward the back of the house. “Only for a short time. I’ll send you a signal when the coast is clear. But you mustn’t lose this stone.”
“The future?” I knew mum had a gift—’the sight’—which quite a few of our clan claimed to have—but traveling through time? I’d never heard of anyone who could do this, and I wasn’t sure I believed she could either.
That was when we heard the door give way and the sound of loud voices and footsteps.
Mum gave me a push and I felt myself floating through darkness before I felt myself collide with something big and heavy. My last thought before my soul abandoned my body was that at least I had my revenge. The Cranbournes would never find their baby now.
About A Home for Helena
Believing that she has been misplaced in time, Helena Lloyd travels back two hundred years in an attempt to find out where she belongs.
Widowed father James Walker has no intention of remarrying until he makes the acquaintance of his daughter’s lovely new governess.
Lady Pendleton, a time-traveling Regency lady herself, suspects that these two belong together. First, however, she must help Helena discover her true origins—and hopefully, a home where she belongs.
A Home for Helena is Book 2 of The Lady P Chronicles.
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About the Author
Susana Ellis has always had stories in her head waiting to come out, especially when she learned to read and her imagination began to soar. A former teacher, Susana lives in Toledo, Ohio in the summer and Florida in the winter. She is a member of the Central Florida Romance Writers and the Beau Monde chapters of RWA and Maumee Valley Romance Inc.
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