Free Never Kiss a Laird by Tess Byrnes Page B

relentlessly.   “There’s more to
this story, isn’t there?”
    “Yes,” Bridget
said miserably.   “I’m going to have a
baby.”
    Sally sat back,
dumbstruck.   “How old are you, Bridget?”
    “I’m eighteen,”
she replied.   “And Robbie is twenty and
has a very good job with a carrier in London.   He wants to marry me, and bring me to his
mother’s house.   But Mrs. Cameron said
the Laird wouldn’t keep a compromised girl in his house, and she turned me
out.”
    Sally’s ready
temper surged up.   “They turned you out in
the middle of winter, when it was very unlikely that your family would take you
in?”   She stood and strode angrily about
the room.   “The Laird wouldn’t keep a
compromised girl!   If that isn’t just
like every man I’ve ever known.”   She
thought of her own family hustling her out of sight.   The poor compromised Denham girl.   She knew an irrational desire to meet the
laird and give him a piece of her mind.
    “You should
write to Robbie,” she advised Bridget.   “Let him know that you are in trouble and need him to come sooner than
two weeks.”
    “I can’t do
that,” the girl averred.   “I can’t write,
miss, nor Robbie neither.”
    “That’s a
barrier,” Sally admitted, feeling a little daunted.   “Well, when he next comes to the Castle, can
you arrange to meet him?”
    “Oh, yes.   If I can get a message to Mary, or one of the other maids at the Castle, I know they would tell him for me.   Unless Mrs. Cameron tells the carrier about
us, and gets him turned off as well.   I
have no money, though, miss, and nowhere to go until then.   If the landlord at the posting house finds
out I’m going to have a baby, he won’t give me a job, either.”
    “And in a small
village like Thorne, there’s no keeping a secret,” Sallie mused. “Well, you can
just stay here with us until then,” she offered impulsively.
    “Uh, Miss
Sally,” Millie caviled.   “Are you
forgetting that we have but two chambers, and can barely feed ourselves?”
    “Bridget can
share my chamber.   You won’t object to
sharing with me, will you?”
    “Oh, no,
miss.   Do you really mean it?”   Bridget clasped Sally’s hands to her lips,
overcome with her good fortune.   “Oh,
thank you, miss.   Thank you!”
    Sally smiled and
pulled her hands away.   “You are very
welcome.   But I must tell you that we are
not very plump in the pocket at present.”
    “That’s nothing
to me, miss,” Bridget assured her.   “My
mam has thirteen bairns , and my father works a small
farm.   We’ve always been purse pinched.”
    A hopeful gleam
appeared in Sally’s eye.   “Can you, by
any chance, cook, Bridget?”
    “Oh yes, miss,”
Bridget nodded emphatically. “I can cook anything!”
    “What would you
do with some beets, some carrots and a few potatoes?”   Sally asked casually.
    “Oh miss, I
could make a very good root vegetable stew.   My mam can take a few old vegetables and make a meal that can fill all
of us, and before I went to be a maid, I always helped in the kitchen.”
    “And can you
make bread?”   Sally held her breath.
    “Oh yes,
miss.   I can make bread, and cakes, and
stews.   I truly can.”
    Sally laughed
happily, and even Millie had to smile.   “Then this is very fortuitous.   You may stay until your carrier’s lad comes for you. You can earn your
keep by cooking, and teaching Millie and me how to do so, too.   And in return we will devise a plan to
contact Robbie when next he comes to Castle Kane.”

 
 
    Chapter Six

 
 
    The Viscount Denham sat at the
ornate, glass-topped desk in his book room at Denham Park,
his fingers turning a paperweight over again and again, his mind in a brown
study.   Ever since he had received the
letter from his mother-in-law informing him that Sally had never arrived at
Waverly, he had been unable to concentrate on business or leisure.   The door opened, and he looked up as his