Angel's Touch by Elizabeth Bailey

and we will start for the house. I
will have to think this over.’
    The
butterfly having flown out of reach, Lady Margaret made no
objection to being removed from its vicinity, but trotted happily
at her brother’s side, able, even with her unsteady gait, to keep
pace with their much slower father.
    By
this time the unaccustomed exertion had begun to tell on the
marquis, and he was obliged, after crossing the lawn, to sink down
on the low stone wall that ran up to the ornate double stairway
which marked the entrance to the house.
    ‘ I
am sorry, children, but I must rest awhile,’ he said faintly, and
immediately came under the scrutiny of his son’s intelligent
gaze.
    ‘ Are
you very bad? Shall I fetch Inskip to you?’
    ‘ No,
no, Hoff will be here presently,’ Salmesbury said, and managed a
self-deprecatory smile. ‘I had meant him to carry Peggy, you know,
but perhaps he will after all have to play nursemaid to
me.’
    ‘ Oh,
I can carry Peggy piggy-back,’ Braxted said offhandedly. ‘Hoff may
help you, by all means.’
    ‘ Let us hope he is not obliged to
carry me piggyback.’
    Braxted found this
idea so exquisitely humorous that it was some time before he could
speak. His laughter was infectious and Peggy soon joined in,
shrieking with mirth.
    But
even while the marquis smiled in sympathy, images crossed his mind
of the many occasions when his faithful groom had in fact borne his
weight, after he had collapsed in exhaustion in those early
attempts to get back upon his feet that Hoff had himself bullied
him into making. But for Hoff, he would probably be bedridden to
this day, for he had been able to find no incentive in himself at
that time for resuming his life, and no representations by his
doctors or certain members of his family had served to induce him
to throw off the invalid. Only Hoff, who had guided his first steps
when, as an infant not much older than Peggy was now, he had
tottered into the stables to look at the horses, had been able to
persuade him to learn to walk all over again. Hoff, who was, he
knew, as successful at pacifying the daughter as he had been the
father. His eyes were on the little girl.
    ‘ Do
you think she will come to me?’ he asked Braxted
suddenly.
    The boy was still
chuckling, and in his present mood he did not hesitate, but lifted
his sister and handed her up to the man sitting on the wall.
    Peggy’s own squeals were instantly quenched as she gazed
uncertainly at the face of the man who held her on his
knee.
    ‘ Peggy, do you know who I am?’ the marquis asked
quietly.
    Watching with interest, the young boy poked at his father’s
arm. ‘Who’s this, Peggy? Who’s this?’
    The infant looked from
one to the other, a little pink tongue travelling uncertainly about
her lips. One tiny finger pointed at the man and she looked to her
brother for guidance.
    ‘ Oo
dis?’
    Braxted poked again. ‘It’s Papa, Peggy. Papa.’
    The
word on his lips warmed Salmesbury’s heart, and he cradled the
infant a little closer. She was looking at him again, savouring
this new identity, as if she was not quite sure of its
significance.
    ‘ Oo
dis?’ she asked, pointing again.
    ‘ I told you,’ her brother said impatiently.
‘This is Papa. Papa, Peggy.’
    The
lesson had gone home. Her little finger jerked forward and prodded
the marquis in the chest. She said it with confidence.
    ‘ Papa. Papa.’
    Salmesbury could not
speak.
     
     
     

Chapter
Five
     
    ‘ It
will not do, Inskip.’
    The
gentleman addressed, who had served as secretary to the most
unexacting master anyone could wish for since the marquis came into
his inheritance just after the birth of his son, nodded his
head.
    ‘ I
agree, my lord. But it is difficult.’
    Salmesbury frowned up at him from the huge desk that
dominated one end of the saloon that served as his office, while
his secretary had a smaller desk on the other side of the room,
which in practice he rarely used. Since the accident, it was he