Under The Mistletoe by Mary Balogh

thrash you,” Estelle said indignantly, taking hold of the child’s other arm with her free hand and helping him step out onto the carpet. He was skin and bones, she thought in some horror. He was just a frightened, half-starved little baby. “He will certainly not thrash you. I shall see to that. What is your name?”
    â€œN-Nicky, missus,” the boy said, and he hung his head and wrapped one skinny leg about the other and sniffed loudly.
    â€œNicky,” she said, and she reached out and tried to smooth down the hair on top of his head. But it was stiff with dirt. “Nicky, when did you last eat?”
    The child began to wail.
    â€œHave you eaten today?” she asked.
    He shuffled his shoulders back and forth and swayed on one leg. He muttered something.
    â€œWhat?” she said gently. She was down on her knees looking into his face. “Have you eaten?”
    â€œI don’t know, missus,” he said, his chin buried on his thin chest. And he rubbed the back of his hand over his wet nose.
    â€œDid your master not give you anything to eat this morning?” she asked.
    â€œI ain’t to get fat,” he said, and the wails grew to a new crescendo. “I’m so hungry.”
    â€œOh, you poor, poor child.” There were tears in Estelle’s eyes. “Does your mama know that you are kept half-starved? Have you told her?”
    â€œI ain’t got no maw.” His sobs occupied the child for several seconds. “I got took from the orphinige, missus.”
    â€œOh, Nicky.” Estelle laid one gentle hand against his cheek, only half noticing how dirty her hand was already.
    â€œHe’ll belt me for sure.” The child scratched the back of one leg with the heel of the other foot and scrubbed at his eyes again with his fists. “I got lost. It’s dark and I can’t get me breath up there.”
    â€œHe will not hurt you. You have my word on it.” Estelle straightened up and crossed the room to the bellpull to summon her maid.“Sit down on the floor, Nicky. I shall see that you have some food inside you, if nothing else. Does he beat you often?”
    The child heaved one leftover sob as he sat down cross-legged on the carpet. “No more nor three or four times a day when I’m good,” he said. “But I keep getting lost.”
    â€œThree or four times a day!” she said, and turned to instruct her maid to sit with the child for a few minutes. “I will be back, Nicky, and you shall have some food. I promise.”
    Annie looked at the apparition in some disbelief as her mistress disappeared from the room. She sat on the edge of the bed a good twenty feet away from him, and gathered her skirts close about her as if she were afraid that they would brush against a mote of soot floating about in his vicinity.
    Estelle swept down the marble stairway to the hall below, her chin high, her jaw set in a firm line. At one glance from her eyes, a footman scurried across the tiles and threw open the doors of his lordship’s study without even knocking first. His mistress swept past him and glared at her husband’s man of business, who had the misfortune to be closeted with the earl at that particular moment.
    â€œCan I be of service to you, my dear?” his lordship asked, as both men jumped to their feet.
    â€œI wish to speak with you,” she said, continuing her progress across the room until she stood at the window, gazing out at the gray, wintry street beyond. She did not even listen to the hurried leavetaking that the visitor took.
    â€œWas that necessary, Estelle?” her husband’s quiet voice asked as the doors of the study closed. “Porter is a busy man and has taken the time to come half across town at my request this morning. Such men have to work for a living. They ought not to be subject to the whims of the aristocracy.”
    She turned from the window. She ignored his cold