Stranger in My Arms(30)

She drew her fingers lightly over the boy’s matted hair.

“Naomi, I want you to assist me in washing him.”

“Yes, milady,” the maid muttered, though she looked taken aback at the prospect.

While Lara’s personal tub was painstakingly filled by a horde of housemaids carrying buckets up and down the stairs, she sent for a plate of gingerbread and a glass of milk. The child devoured every drop and crumb as if he hadn’t eaten for days. When his appetite was satiated, Lara and Naomi brought him to her dressing room and removed his tattered clothes.

The difficult part was convincing Johnny to enter the water, which he regarded with the highest degree of suspicion. He stood na**d by the tub, his body so frail as to be almost delicate. “I don’t want to,” he said stubbornly. “But you must,” Lara said, trying to suppress a laugh. “You’re very dirty.”

“Me pa says a bath’ll make you die of ague.”

“Your father was mistaken,” Lara said. “I take baths all the time, and it’s a lovely feeling to be clean.

Get in while the water is still warm, Johnny.”

“No,” he said stubbornly.

“You must have a bath,” Lara insisted. “Everyone who lives at Hawksworth Hall must bathe regularly.

Isn’t that right, Naomi?”

The maid nodded emphatically.

After a great deal of coaxing and persuading, they lifted him into the tub. The child sat rigidly, every knob on his spine prominent. Lara hummed a song to entertain him, while they washed him from head to toe.

The water turned gray as they rinsed him repeatedly.

“Look at them rats,” Naomi commented, touching one of the hopelessly thick tangles in his wet hair.

“We’ll have to cut ‘em out.”

“How fair he is,” Lara said, marveling at his complexion. “You’re as white as a snowdrop, Johnny.”

He regarded his spindly arms and chest with interest. “A lot o, skin come off,” he observed.

“Not skin,” Lara said, laughing. “Just dirt.”

Obeying their instructions, he stood from the water and allowed Lara to lift him from the bath. She wrapped him in a thick toweL blotting the water that streamed from his limbs. As she dried him, Johnny leaned close and tried to rest his head on her shoulder, soaking the bodice of her gown.

Lara hugged him tightly. “You did well, Johnny,” she said. “You were very good in the bath.”

“What shall I do with these, milady?” Naomi inquired, poking experimentally at the little heap of filthy clothes on the floor. “I think they’ll fall apart if I tried to wash ‘em.”

“Burn them,” Lara said, her gaze meeting the maid’s as they both nodded in agreement. She reached for a clean shirt and a pair of drill trousers borrowed from the stableboy. Although the clothes were all that had been available on such short notice, they were far too large and baggy. “These will have to do for now,” Lara commented, fastening a purloined dog collar at the boy’s waist to keep the pants from slipping down. She reached down and wiggled one of the boy’s bare toes, making him jerk back with a surprised laugh. “We’ll have some shoes made for you, and some proper clothes. In fact-” Her brow wrinkled as she suddenly remembered that she had arranged for the dressmaker to visit this week-good Lord, it wasn’t today, was it?

“Well, you always manage to surprise me,” came her sister’s voice from the doorway, interrupting her thoughts.

Lara looked up with a smile as she beheld Rachel.

“Oh, dear. I forgot I had invited you over to help me choose dress patterns. I haven’t kept you waiting, have I?”

Rachel shook her head. “Not in the least. Don’t worry, I’m a trifle early. The dressmaker hasn’t even arrived yet.”

“Thank God.” Lara pushed a damp lock of hair off her forehead. “I’m not usually such a jinglebrains, but I’ve been busy.”

“So I see.” Rachel ventured farther into the room, smiling at the little mop-headed boy. Johnny returned her inspection with silent awe.

Lara doubted the child had ever seen a woman like Rachel, at least not at this close distance. Rachel was especially lovely today, her dark hair curled in shining ringlets, pinned up to reveal the swanlike length of her neck. She wore a gown of cream-colored muslin embroidered all over with tiny pink rosebuds and green leaves, and a straw bonnet trimmed in pink ribbons and roses. Smiling in pride, Lara wondered if there was another woman in England who could equal her sister’s delicate beauty.

“Larissa, you’re a fright!” Rachel exclaimed, laughing. “I can see you’ve been grubbing with those children at the orphanage. How can you be the same girl who used to take such pains with her appearance?”

Ruefully Lara glanced down at her own dark, damp dress and made a futile effort to pin up the trailing strands of her board-straight hair. “The children don’t care how I look,” she replied with a grin.

“That’s all that matters to me.” She sat the boy on a footstool and draped a towel around his shoulders.

“Sit still, Johnny, while I cut your hair.”

“No!”

“Yes,” Lara said firmly. “And if you behave, then I’ll have a forage cap made for you, with brass buttons on the front. Wouldn’t that be nice?”