Free A Winter Scandal by Candace Camp Page A

astonishment as Thea marched over and slipped the knitted cap and sweater back on the baby. He giggled with delight and reached his hands for Thea as she bent over him.
    “Whatever are you doing, miss?” Mrs. Brewster asked, her voice tinged with some trepidation. “Why do you look so? Where are you going?”
    “I am going to set things right.” Thea swept the baby up and once again wrapped the blanket around him tightly. Then she marched out the door, leaving the housekeeper staring after her blankly.
    Thea’s anger carried her swiftly over the bridge and through the graveyard behind the church. Though it took some time to reach the Priory if one went by the road through town, it took no more than twenty or thirty minutes if she struck out through the grounds of what had once been the abbey. The December day was cool, but the vigorous walk kept Thea warm enough inside her cloak, especially since the weight of the child she carried added a good bit to the exercise.
    Carrying a child, she discovered, was not the same as carrying a package weighing the same amount. In one way, it was easier, for Matthew held on to her with a grip like a monkey’s and wrapped his little legs around her. But packages did not squirm and wriggle, nor did they reach up to explore one’s features or spectacles or hair with their hands. The baby soon managed to work his head and shoulders free of the blanket, and no matter how many times Thea tugged it back up to cover him, he knocked it off his head again. He appeared to be fascinated by the glass lenses of her spectacles, and he reached for them time and again, often catching them and trying to jerk them from her head.
    She tried pulling up the hood of her cloak to thwart him, but he was happy to grab the hood, as well, dragging it back and forth across her hair. She tried wrapping her cloak around Matthew, too, in an effort to keep him warm since he was so persistent in shrugging off the blanket. But then he was able to grab the front of her frock and the frilled fichu she wore tucked into the neck of the dress to add modesty and warmth. He liked to hold on with both hands and bounce, she discovered. At one point, she decided, he even seemed to be trying to climb up the front of her dress. To add to her difficulties, it began to mist, not heavily but enough to spot the lenses of her spectacles and to cling to her hair, now exposed by the hood that Matthew had finally succeeded in shoving off her head. The cloak ties had come loose as well, so that her cloak was inching back on her shoulders.
    Thea finally had to take off her spectacles and thrust them into her pocket because they had become so bedewed that they were more an obstruction to her vision than an aid, but fortunately she was close to the Priory by that time and could make her way to its front door. She brought down the knocker with a force that made Matthew jump in her arms, alarmed, but in the next moment he decided that the noise was simply another fun thing and shouted back a loud sound of his own.
    A footman answered the door, and his eyebrows shot up when he saw Thea standing on the doorstep, baby in her arms. “Miss?” He glanced around as if unsure what to do. “Can I, um, help you?”
    “Yes, indeed, you can, by letting me inside,” Thea retorted in some irritation, and she stepped into the house, forcing the young man to either physically block her progress or step back.
    He chose to step back, spluttering, “But—miss—what—”
    “I wish to see Lord Morecombe.”
    “I’m sorry, miss, but—”
    As he began to speak, a man’s voice shouted, “Bravo! Direct hit, Gabriel!”
    Another, indistinguishable shout came in a male voice, as well as the sound of feet stamping and of metal clashing against metal. The noises all came from the room to the right of the entryway.
    “Thank you, I can find my own way.” Thea started past the servant, thrusting her rapidly slipping cloak into his hands.
    That gesture