Free Midwinter Manor 2 -Keeper's Pledge by JL Merrow Page A

“What? And left Effie?”
She nodded. “Aye. He left me a note.”
“Can I read it?”
    “That you can’t, because I threw it on the fire. But I’ll tell you what it said: I’m sorry Mam, I can’t stay. Toby. And that was it. Fourteen years I cared for that boy, and off he goes without leaving me fourteen words. Not to mention that poor lass he’s shamed and abandoned.”
Danny’s fists clenched. “Damn it, Mam,” he swore. “It’s my fault he’s gone. I shouldn’t have hit him.”
     
“I dare say he gave you enough reason, Danny, so don’t you go blaming yourself.”
     
“So how do you know he went to Pontefract?” “Joe Gordon said that’s what he’d been talking about doing.”
    “And those two are thick as thieves, so if anyone’d know, it’d be him. Lord, what a mess. Is it worth my talking to Joe, seeing if he’s an idea where Toby might be?”
    She’d sat at the table, and now she rested her head in her hands. Danny sat down beside her and flung an arm around her shoulders. “Mam?”
    “I don’t know, love. I just don’t know.” Her voice was thick with tears. “I’d have said he’d have told me, if he’d ’a known anything, but then if you’d asked me yesterday, I’d have said Toby would never do a thing like this.”
Danny gave her a squeeze. “Don’t you worry, Mam. I’ll talk to Joe, and see that something’s done about Effie.”
    “She’ll have to come and live with me,” Mam said. “I don’t see what else she can do, and I’ll not abandon my grandchild, even if the poor thing has to be born a bastard.” Her voice broke on the last bitter word.
    “Don’t worry, Mam,” Danny said, an idea forming grimly in his mind. “We’ll see her right. You go on home now, and see to the girls’ supper. I’ll sort something out here.”
    J OE G ORDON was no help at all. Shuffling his feet, looking anywhere but at Danny, he backtracked so far on what he’d told Danny’s mam, he was halfway to the next county. No, Toby hadn’t said where he was going to stay in Pontefract. Joe wasn’t even sure he was going that way. In fact, now he came to think about it, Toby had definitely said he was heading south, not north. Or was it east? It was one of them directions, any road.
Danny sighed and went back to the manor to see the lass who’d been the cause of all this.
    Effie Smith was a thin scrap of a girl with downcast eyes, and what must even before her pregnancy have been the bosom of a much larger woman. It wasn’t hard to work out what a young lad like Toby might have seen in her, for all her shyness, and how he might have been overcome by his desires. It was harder to see why she’d let him, mind.
    Or maybe it wasn’t. Like as not, she was starved for love, coming from the foundling home. Toby was a tall, strong lad, and handsome with it, for all he took after Mam rather than their da, who Danny himself favored. Easy enough for such a lad to turn a girl’s head with a few pretty words and promises. All of which he’d broken now.
    Toby, you bastard, how could you leave the lass like this? Danny lamented silently. What was the girl to do now? Live in shame with a fatherless babe? No. He’d not allow that.
    “I’ll wed the lass myself,” he said into the silence. “If she’ll have me.”
“Have you?” Mrs. S put her hands on her hips. “Of course she’ll have you. Effie, say thank you to Mr. Costessey for his offer.”
“You needn’t thank me, lass,” Danny said hurriedly. “And I’ll not press for an answer right away.”
“ But ,” Mrs. S put in, lowering her voice and leaning in close to Danny, “have you considered what Mr. Luccombe’s going to say about it?”
    Danny took a deep breath and looked her in the eye. “Seems to me, Mr. Luccombe’s had other things on his mind of late. Other people,” he added, with a sad emphasis. “I reckon he’ll see this as a good solution all ¼round.”
She sighed, and patted his arm. “You may be right