Free Patricia Rice by All a Woman Wants

children.
    Would Miss Cavendish help him hide the children if the earl showed up? Not bloody likely.
    Think straight. Now wasn’t the time to go off the edge. “I’ll go to Cheltenham, then. A physician should know what to do.”
    “It took him three days to arrive when my father had
his seizure, and then he had nothing to suggest when he arrived. My
father died the next day.” Bitterness crept into Beatrice’s voice, but
she cuddled the sobbing infant gently, rubbing her back as she paced up
and down the carpet.
    “Tell me what to do,” he begged.
    “I don’t think there is anything either of us can do,” Bea said sadly. “We’ll wait and see what happens.”
    James arrived with the hot tea sweetened with honey.
Beatrice sat down and tried to persuade the child to sip, but Bitsy
cried frantically, sucked her fist, and turned her head away. James
looked as if he would weep.
    “I’ll go to Cheltenham,” her cousin promised. “I’ll
fetch the doctor and sell the silver to pay him. Or we can take the babe
with us?” he asked hopefully.
    “Not if he’s a quack!” Mac roared. “I’ll not have quacks about her. Give her to me then. I’ll make her drink.”
    Beatrice shrank back in her chair as the babe’s
father suddenly loomed over her, but he looked so miserable, she
couldn’t fear him. “You can’t force tea down her. She’ll choke.”
    “You said heat helps,” he said angrily. “Then we must give her heat. If she won’t take the tea, where are your warming bricks?”
    The man was either mad as a hatter or drunker than
she thought. Beatrice stared at him. “You would have her eat a warming
brick?”
    “Don’t be a fool, woman! I’ll have her lie upon one.
We’ll tie it to my shoulder, and lay her there.” Pacing restlessly, he
shouted at the hovering servants. “Fetch warm bricks!”
    The bewigged footman raised his eyebrows, braced a
thoughtful finger aside his nose as if considering the wisdom of this
suggestion, then ran as Mac stalked toward him with a thunderous
expression and raised fists.
    Beatrice bit back a smile. If that was how one made James take orders, she would have to practice growling.
    “Miss.” Mary intruded tentatively, not flinching as
Mac swung in her direction. “Mayhap it’s not just her belly hurting. My
mam always has a bit of ice when the babes are teething. It seems to
soothe them.”
    “Teething?” Beatrice and Mac asked in unison.
    Beatrice didn’t dare look at him but watched her
maid instead. “How can ice make her stomach better? I can’t even
persuade tea down her.”
    “Ice might ease the crying,” Mary said carefully,
edging away from Mac’s menacing size. “When their teeth break through,
they turn fretful.”
    “Where’s your ice?” Mac demanded.
    Mary bobbed a curtsy. “Icehouse, sir. I’ll be right back.”
    Mary’s departure left them alone together.
Nervously, Beatrice watched his massive frame stalk back and forth,
dodging cradles and child-size furniture.
    “I’m not drunk,” he growled, as if she’d accused him of it again.
    “Mildly inebriated?” she suggested. “Terminally irascible?”
    “A man can’t die of irascibility,” he grumbled. “A
man might turn gray and die of worry over screaming brats, or shoot
himself in the head in a fit of madness over women, but he can’t die of
irascibility.” He heaved coals on the grate and jabbed them vehemently.
    Beatrice’s mouth curved upward at this insight into
the surly man’s head. “Either case sounds like irascibility to me.”
She’d never dared speak to another person like this, but he seemed to
need distracting, and she had a lot of words bottled up inside of her
that she’d never been allowed to say.
    He shot her a glare that had more pain than anger in
it. At sight of the sobbing child on her shoulder, he turned helplessly
back to the fire. “I’m not fit to care for them.”
    “Someone must,” she said practically.