Three Renegades and a Baby by Vanessa Kelly

Author:Vanessa Kelly
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2017-03-14T04:00:00+00:00

Epilogue

Concealed by a rosebush, Tommy crouched beneath the open window of the sitting room. The nobs and their ladies had gone into supper a few minutes ago, so he figured the coast was clear. Besides, this was his last chance to see Lizzie. Tomorrow, the Scottish bloke and his wife would be leaving for Scotland and taking the little girl with them.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, mortified by his tears. Boys weren’t supposed to cry, and his pa had thumped that lesson into his head many times over the years. But Tommy had been helping Lizzie’s gran take care of her since she was born, and he knew the babe would miss him something fierce. Cripes, he was the closest thing she had to family now, wasn’t he?

And Tommy had done his best by Lizzie. Now she could grow up to be a fine lady. Now she would get everything she deserved and then some.

Coming up from his crouch, he peeked over the windowsill. With everyone in the dining room and the servants running to and fro from the kitchen, it was now or never.

He hoisted himself up, balancing on the sill for a moment before dropping down to the floor. Freezing, he listened for a long minute before stealing over to peer around the door. The hall was empty, although he could hear the deep voices of the men and the laughter of the ladies floating down from the dining room. Mr. Griffin might threaten to give him a good whacking if he found him skulking about, but the missus was as nice as cherry pie and never raised a hand to no one. And since everyone knew that Mr. Griffin always did what his wife told him, Tommy figured he was pretty safe.

Safer than in his own house because his pa and his ma handed out whacks on a regular basis.

Tommy scuttled as quietly as he could for the stairs. The tricky part would be finding the right room, but he had a good idea which one they’d turned into a nursery. Lizzie was a baby who made a lot of noise, either laughing or crying, so he’d lurked about in the garden last night, listening for her. She hadn’t done any crying, but there’d been laughing. Lots of laughing, as a matter of fact, which had made Tommy’s heart feel both big and small at the same time—big because Lizzie was happy, and small because he’d never hear that sweet laughter again.

“Don’t you dare blubber,” he whispered to himself as he crept up the stairs. “She deserves this.”

He soft-footed his way down the long hall to the back of the house. Even though it was almost full dark, it was easy to see. Mr. Griffin was rich as anything, so he had lots of lamps—the fancy kind, too—even here in the hallway.

Tommy breathed a sigh of relief to reach the nursery without stumbling across any of the servants. A light shone from under the door of the next room, where he figured the nursemaid slept.

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