The first room he peeked into was eight-year-old Preston’s room. When Andrea suggested the name, he had not liked it. It seemed too formal. He wanted to name the boy after Richard or Sebastian, but Richard thought it was disrespectful to Miles’s real father. Sebastian said he had had a lisp when he was young and the name had been the bane of his existence and pleaded that they not continue the name.
Everyone wanted them to name him Miles III but as a junior, Miles hated being little Miles—a name that stuck for many years after Miles Sr.’s death and he did not want his son to be called little Miles. Moreover, the name was not conducive to nicknames.
Preston was a name that the boy would have to grow into. He had been afraid the boy might be soft or lazy as he imagined British lords to be. But Preston was not. The boy was one hundred percent red-blooded male. He could not see a stick on the ground without it suddenly becoming a sword or a musket. He loved to chase Andrea and his sisters around with frogs and worms.
By the end of the day, the child was so worn out, that he slept extremely deeply and it was almost impossible to wake him up.
Too bad the girls were not heavy sleepers like their big brother.
Miles crossed the hallway and quietly opened the door to the girls’ bedroom. He hated entering their room at night because their nurse slept in the room with them. For what purpose, he had no inkling. The woman slept like the dead and seemed to take ages to wake up if they cried at night. By then, Andrea was up and in the nursery.
He opened the door and poked his head in. Lightning flashed revealing an empty rocking chair. Miles backed out quietly and headed down the stairs. As soon as he found himself on the landing, he saw the dim light from a lantern coming from the dining room and heard her refined accent speaking softly to someone.
“Sit up tall like Mama,” she said. “Someday, you may meet Queen Victoria or maybe the president and his wife.”
Miles frowned. When he had peeked into their room, he hadn’t noticed either of the girls out of their beds, but who else would she be talking to? It upset him to think Andrea was teaching their girls the pretentious lessons her mother taught her.
“More tea? Don’t hold out your little finger. Some people think it is fancy, but really, it’s rather silly. Besides, Mama has enough trouble drawing hands without your pinky sticking out like that.”
Miles stepped into the room to find the females of his family having a tea party. They sat at the dining room table wearing their nightgowns and fancy hats. As the girls sipped at weak tea, Andrea sketched the four and three-year-olds, their heads not even completely above the table. No wonder she was telling them to sit up, otherwise she would only be able to sketch the top half of their heads.
“Papa!” three-year-old Lida squealed.
Andrea craned her head around to see Miles. A wide brilliant smile crossed her face. It reminded him of the first time he had seen her—only then, she had cast the smile at Rory. He no longer felt jealousy because he knew she only smiled at his cousin out of politeness. The look she gave to Miles reflected in her eyes.
He bent and kissed Andrea, his hand casually seeking out her enceinte belly and stroking a bit of its girth. Keeping his hand in place, he pulled back, a look of alarm on his face. It felt unusually firm as it did when she was in labor.
“Are you having pains?” He looked at her more closely and thought she looked flushed.
“Yes, I believe we must have miscalculated when my time would come. But just look at how big I am. I am larger than with the first three.”
It seemed with their first child it had taken forever for her to begin to show, but with the girls, it had been obvious sooner. She had gotten big so quickly with this one that people were speculating that she would have twins.
“Maybe we should put the tea party to bed and all three of you as well, then I will go fetch the midwife.”
“I’ve already sent a groom. Would you like to join our party since you are up?”
“Please, Papa,” Lida said.
Miles looked like he wanted to refuse, but after a glance at his little girls wearing their mother’s most elaborate hats, he could not.
“One cup, then it’s off to bed for everyone.”
“But Papa doesn’t have a chapeau,” four-year-old Eva said, using her mother’s British accent.
“He can have mine,” Lida said lifting it off her head. The unfortunate child, born nearly completely bald, just like her sister, still did not have enough hair to cover her ears, much less arrange it with pins or ribbons.
“Gentlemen do not wear hats indoors. A gentleman who would wear one inside would be considered quite uncouth and would not be allowed in finer drawing rooms.”
“Grandpa wears his nightcap in the winter,” Eva said.
“That is a special exception to the rule,” Andrea said as she poured tea into the china cup and handed it to Miles.
“Why exactly are we having a tea party in the small hours of the night?” he asked, removing the teacup from the saucer and setting the small plate on the table.
“I promised the girls we would have one tomorrow but I’m going to be otherwise engaged. When the thunder woke them up, I thought what an enjoyable way to forget the storm.”
“But….” He gave her a look of exasperation.
“My shortest labor has been fifteen hours. I have been having pains for five.”
When he took a sip of tea and found it tepid, he realized she had cooled it for the girls.
“Your father came by my office today. He’s being very persistent about expanding business along the Mississippi River.”
Although Sebastian had not officially moved his office or his home to New York, he now had his own apartment there and rarely went back to London to visit his wife.
“His business or yours?”
“Both,” he said, plucking a teacake off the tray and putting the whole thing in his mouth. When he realized Eva was watching closely to see if he talked with his mouth full, he quickly chewed it up and swallowed. “I think he’s right. The country is expanding west and there is money to be made.”
“Don’t we have enough money—can’t we leave some for other people?”
“You keep telling me you’d be happy having a dozen children—don’t you want to ensure that all twelve of them are taken care of, and their children as well?”
“Of course. Fine. Pick a nice city somewhere centrally located along the river. I shall tell Papa to build us a house to stay in and ask him to let us borrow The Andrea to sail there.”
“Andrea, you and the children don’t have to go. I can go by myself to decide if it would be a wise investment. I’ll set up a manager to run the place until Preston or one of our future sons is ready to take over.”
Andrea looked down at her belly. “Do you want to live in the west?”
“You are convinced this one is a boy?”
“Have I been wrong yet?”
In fact, she had not. He laughed. “Good we need to even up the numbers,” he said before taking a sip and frowning at the cool brew. “Have you decided on his name?”
“I’m leaning towards Allister.”
“No! That’s worse than Preston. My sons need manly names. How about Calvin?”
“I don’t see that Calvin is much better.”
“Sure it is. Cal is manly.”
She smiled indulgently. “If that is what you would like. But if it’s a girl, I get to name her.”
He laughed. “As long as you don’t name her Olive Pitts, you can name her anything you like.”
A wide smile crossed her lips at the reference to their brief courtship. “I was hoping you’d say that. I know we agreed not to name the girls after your mother,” she said measurably.
Although they had seriously considered naming one of the girls after his mother, they were worried, if they did, that Lillian would try to pressure them into naming one after her. In the end, they decided they would not name any of the children after fami
ly.
“I’d like to use a derivation of her name,” she said.
“Not Kathleen, I hope. There must be three or four Kathleens on Richard’s side of the family.”
“No, I was thinking Caitlin.”
A slow smile form on his lips. “My mother would have liked that.”
“Oh,” Andrea said as another pain encircled her belly.
He could tell immediately that it was a strong one. “The tea party is over,” Miles announced.
~*~
The midwife arrived just in time for the big event. Five minutes after the birth, the woman emerged carrying a tiny squalling baby wrapped in a blanket and handed it to Miles. His brow lowered at the size of the infant. It did not appear they had miscalculated after all. The baby was early.
“It’s a boy.”
“Hello, Calvin,” he said rocking the baby. “How is my wife?”
“Mrs. Huntington is resting now,” she said. “Since you know how this works, I believe I shall be on my way. Mrs. Mueller was having pains ten minutes apart and it is her first baby.”
“Yes, I believe you mentioned that when you arrived. Our coach is waiting downstairs for you.”
Miles asked a nearby housemaid to show the woman out. It was eight o’clock in the morning and the children had been so excited that the new baby was arriving that, even the girls with their lack of sleep, they were already up and begging to see the baby. Cradling Calvin in his arms, he went into the playroom to show the children their new brother. He handed the baby off to the nurse while he returned to the bedroom to checked on Andrea. He quietly entered the bedroom expecting to find Andrea sleeping after her ordeal, but found her awake. Andrea was holding her belly and panting breathlessly.
“Miles, thank God. Ask the midwife to come back in. I believe there is a second baby.”
He had heard the sound of the carriage on the gravelly driveway minutes earlier and knew it was too late to catch her.
“She had another delivery to attend to. I’ll send one of the grooms after her.”
“No! It’s too late. The baby is coming now. I need to push.”
“I’ll fetch a maid,” he said, his tone high pitched with panic.
“Aah!” she cried as the pain increased. “It’s coming out now! Catch it.” She threw off the covers and grabbed her knees.
Miles stood there rooted to the spot until he saw the baby’s head emerging. He instinctively did what needed to be done to deliver the baby.
~*~
Miles held Caitlin while Andrea slept. She had been born blue with the cord wrapped around her neck, but had turned the most beautiful shade of pink as soon as he freed her. Her cries had sounded weak to Miles’s ears. She was tiny—smaller than her twin brother, and Calvin probably didn’t weigh much more than a five pound sack of sugar. Miles was afraid Caitlin might not make it through her first day. He suspected no one else had heard her frail cries, because no one had come in to check on her—which perhaps was for the best if she didn’t live. It would be difficult to explain to young Eva and Lida why they were burying their baby sister.
He prayed not only to God, but also to his mother, asking her to be with the baby that was named to honor her.
It wasn’t until Calvin was brought back to be fed, that anyone else in the household realized there had been a second baby.
The nurse let herself into the bedroom without knocking and seemed surprised to see Miles sitting in the chair, covered in a quilt.
“Mr. Huntington, is it cold in here? I best put some wood on the fire,” Maggie said bouncing a squalling Calvin in her arms, her hand supporting the baby’s small head.
“No,” he said in a quiet tone as he pulled the quilt down to reveal the tiny infant upon his chest. “It’s fine. The blanket is not for me.”
The nurse gasped. “What…? When…?”
A sad smile played on his lips at her surprise but faded quickly. “Right after the midwife left,” he said solemnly. “She seems a bit sickly.”
Waking up from Calvin’s cries, Andrea sat up and reached out her arms to take the baby. Nearly as soon as Maggie’s hands were empty, she turned to take Caitlin from Miles.
He didn’t protest but he wanted to.
“Well, she’s no bigger than a loaf of bread.”
She wasn’t quite that small—even if they folded her arms and legs, she would not have fit in a bread pan, but she certainly was the smallest baby Miles or Andrea had ever seen.
He felt bereaved of her presence, the moment the nurse took her. It felt important to Miles, that if the baby should die, she would have felt loved during her short life.
No one was more surprised than Miles, when she lived through her first day, and again when she made it through her first week. For the first time in his life, Miles became superstitious—if he didn’t hold her every day, he was afraid something would happen to her. Even when she began walking and chasing after her brothers and sisters, when Caitlin began getting sleepy, he would pick her up, and let her fall asleep using his shoulder as a pillow—oftentimes with Calvin using the other shoulder.
No Unspoken Promises
Blake Warner is a man who has sworn he will never marry. Therefore, he doesn’t understand how he ended up standing in front of a preacher with the little hellion he met the night before. It was true that he had taken her to bed, but he thought she was already married. Blake may have been one of Chicago’s most notorious rakes, but he would never intentionally break the cardinal rule of rogues—never take a young woman’s innocence. He made sure she understood before he took her to bed that he was offering no unspoken promises.
Meredith Vande Linde knew she would die a spinster in her small Minnesota town after a scandal tarnished her reputation. So what harm could there be in letting Blake think she was married, and allowing the handsome stranger to take her innocence. He would leave the next day, and no one would know.
It never occurred to either of them they might get caught, until it happened.
An Officer but No Gentleman
After a fire burns down their home, motherless six-year-old, Charlie Sinclair, is taken aboard his father’s ship. Over the years, he works his way up to the rank of second mate. But Charlie has a secret. He’s not the captain’s son… she’s his daughter. She may be tough as nails, but she’s completely ignorant about life on land and longs for a life other than the one chosen for her. Her only hope for love aboard their ship comes when her best friend, Morty, discovers her secret. Unfortunately, the love she has for him is brotherly at best.
With a jagged scar slashing across his once handsome face, Privateer Capt. Jackson Bloodworthy, has given up all hope of finding love, when Charlie Sinclair is abandoned by her shipmates aboard his ship. He soon discovers her secret, and is amazed when she looks at him, she does not see his disfigurement. To announce to his crew that Charlie is under his protection, Jackson kisses her on deck making her knees weak and the world fade away. Society would have dictated that she slap him for taking such liberties. But Charlie knows nothing about land-rules—she only knows what her heart feels. She doesn’t understand that his restraint is not because he doesn’t love her, it’s because he doesn’t want to take advantage of her naivety.
Coming Soon
For the Love of Pete
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M. Donice Byrd lives in a small town near Lubbock, Texas, with her husband of 29 years and his three cats, Radar, Tux and Lucky.
They have one daughter, Bailey, and a grandson, Rhys.
[email protected]
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Miles Before I Sleep Page 31