Time to Heal Read online

  “I think not,” he rumbled. “Let the lady speak.”

  “As I was saying,” Emmeline went on, shooting the big Kindred a grateful look. “If I could just speak to my mother, Lady Hastings, I’m certain I could clear all this up.”

  “Lady Hastings is out for afternoon calls and you are not welcome in this house,” the Tick-Tock butler proclaimed.

  “Well, let me see my baby then.” Emmeline was beginning to feel desperate. “Have the wet nurse bring him out—I need to make certain he’s all right. I won’t even come in the house—please, just let me see him!”

  “Negative,” the Tick-Tock butler declared. “You are not to be allowed contact with the ward of Lord and Lady Hastings.”

  “What—never?” Emmeline demanded. From somewhere inside the house she thought she could hear a thin, unhappy wailing. Her heart contracted in her chest and her breasts ached at the sound, though she had no milk to give.

  My baby—Jamie needs me!

  But the shiny brass butler was still standing in the doorway, blocking her entrance as immovable as a boulder.

  “I am told this is a permanent order which cannot be revoked,” it said in its high, tinny voice. “You should go now—you will not be allowed to see the child.”

  Emmeline’s outer façade of calm broke.

  “He’s my baby!” she exclaimed, tears of rage rising to her eyes. “I never would have brought him here if I had known he would be taken from me permanently. I’m his mother—let me see him!”

  “Negative,” the butler said again and she knew there would be no reasoning with it. It was made of metal and completely soulless—she could stand here and argue with it all day and it wouldn’t move an inch until her mother got home and had a couple of footmen throw her off the estate.

  “I do not think this thing intends to let you in,” Skahr remarked from behind her.

  Emmeline realized she had forgotten all about the big Kindred in her distress. Rounding on him, she blinked tears out of her eyes and glared up at him.

  “Then do something!” she demanded. “You told me you would help me get in to see my son—so help me!”

  Skahr nodded thoughtfully.

  “As you wish,” he rumbled.

  In one swift move, he let go of the door he had been holding open and seized the brass butler by its shiny shoulders instead.

  Emmeline wondered if he intended to wrestle with it. She had heard that the new Tick-Tock servants were immensely strong due to their solid brass construction. And also immensely heavy for the same reason.

  But though the butler must have weighed almost half a ton, Skahr simply picked it up by the shoulders and set it to one side. Then he made a welcoming gesture to Emmeline with one arm towards the now-open doorway.

  “Enter,” he said simply.

  Behind him, the Tick-Tock butler was going crazy, its arms moving in jerky, up and down arcs and its head twisting from side to side.

  “Negative, negative!” it kept saying. “Direct orders have been circumvented! Negative!”

  Emmeline might have been frightened of the thrashing metal servant but Skahr was shielding her from it with his big body. So she felt safe enough to walk quickly past it and into Hastings Hall, in search of her son.

  She knew exactly where the nursery was, of course, but even if she had not, she could have followed the sound of Jamie’s thin, unhappy cries. She was nearly running when she got to door and twisted the knob to open it.

  The nursery had been freshly papered in the latest shade of Arsenic Green—the brilliant wallpaper was as bright as spilled emeralds in the sunlight coming from the window.

  But it wasn’t the new nursery décor which drew Emmeline’s gaze.

  Jamie was lying on his side in a cradle, wailing and Nurse Higgins, who had come so highly recommended—at least according to Emmeline’s mother—was sitting in a chair beside him. She was rocking the cradle briskly with one foot while she knitted something which might have been a tiny jumper.

  “Just hush your fussing,” she was saying sharply. “You know I’ll not pamper you every minute of the day by holding you all the time. You get held when you get fed and that’s enough.”

  Emmeline’s heart raged at her words.

  “Jamie needs to be held!” she exclaimed. “He needs to be loved! How can you just let him lie there and cry, you heartless creature?”

  Nurse Higgins looked up with a jerk of her head and her mouth formed an almost comical O of surprise.

  “What…what are you doing here?” she finally managed to get out. “Who let you in? The new Tick-Tock has express orders to keep you out.”

  “I do not think it will be taking orders anymore.”

  Emmeline turned and saw Skahr standing behind her again. He was holding something in his hands. He held it up for her to see and she recognized the molded brass head of the mechanical butler. Its glowing yellow eyes were dark and there were wires like snakes coming out of its neck, some still dribbling bright sparks.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. “You beheaded it!”

  “It was becoming troublesome,” Skahr rumbled. He nodded to the cradle. “Is that your son?”

  “Yes—this is Jamie.”

  Emmeline went to pick him up but Nurse Higgins was there—her sour, thin face twisted into a look of defiance.

  “No you don’t, missy!” she exclaimed. “I have my orders and all of them include keeping you away from Lady Hastings’ ward.”

  “He’s not just her ward, he’s my son,” Emmeline said fiercely. She nodded at the heavy brass head Skahr was still holding in his hands. “So if you don’t want to end up like him, you’ll stand aside and let me hold Jamie.”

  The wet nurse’s gaze flickered up to the Tick-Tock’s head and she seemed to register what it was for the first time. Her squinty mud-brown eyes widened in shock and she took a step to the side, clearing the way for Emmeline.

  With a little cry of pure relief, Emmeline reached down and swooped her baby up into her arms.

  “Oh, Jamie, Jamie,” she whispered in his tiny pink shell of an ear, holding him close and breathing in his sweet, baby scent. “It’s all right, my wee little man—everything is all right. Mama is here. Yes she is, my darling, yes she is.”

  Little by little, Jamie ceased crying. His big green eyes looked up into Emmeline’s own, as though he was trying to focus on her. Then he gave a weak, questioning coo.

  “Yes, it’s me—it’s really me,” Emmeline told him. Cuddling him close to her breast, she felt as though her heart might burst with all the love flowing out of her. “Oh Jamie, Jamie,” she whispered through her tears. “I’m so sorry I left you here. I love you so much—so very, very much! I’ll never leave you again, I promise!”

  But when she had finished kissing and cuddling him, she took a closer look at her son and what she saw made her feel sick with worry.

  “He’s so pale and thin!” she exclaimed, looking at Nurse Higgins accusingly. “And so weak he can barely move! Haven’t you been feeding him?”

  “It isn’t my fault he doesn’t thrive!” the skinny nurse exclaimed defensively. “I feed him on a regular schedule—he just doesn’t suckle properly.”

  “Or maybe your milk is too thin to sustain him,” Skahr rumbled, looking her over critically. “In my world, we have the belief that a female must have full curves to make the rich, nutritious milk a baby needs to grow. Like her,” he remarked, nodding at Emmeline whose full figure was flattered by her dove gray afternoon dress.

  Nurse Higgins bristled.

  “I’ll have you know, I have nursed nine babies before young James there and fully five of them lived and are living still!”

  Skahr frowned. “Five out of nine? I would not boast of such a poor record if I were you.”

  “It’s a very good record, considering how few babies survive infancy!” Nurse Higgins exclaimed. “And it’s to be expected that young James is sickly—if the rumors I have heard from the other servants are true, he