“Lady Augusta is of a higher rank than I,” she continued. “She’s a countess.”
“You’re both Fitzroys now,” Geoffrey said firmly. “That’s all that matters.”
He gave her hand an extra squeeze for reassurance as they climbed the marble steps to Harry’s house. Serena was stunningly beautiful this morning, he thought, as fresh as a spring flower with her light silk skirts fluttering in the breeze, and he could not have been more proud to introduce her as his wife to his family.
Yet her uneasiness was unmistakable, or at least it was to him. As soon as she’d stepped from the carriage, she composed her lovely features into the aloof, reserved distance with which she greeted the world. He’d recognized it immediately; he’d always thought of it as her “great lady” look. Weeks had passed since she’d shown him this face, making him realize how much she’d come to let her guard down with him, and how he’d become accustomed instead to the charming, open Serena.
While he wished she’d show that side of herself to his family as well, he understood why she didn’t. The horrors of her childhood had left their mark. He had to remember that Father and Harry and the rest were nearly strangers to her, and she needed time to learn to trust them, just as she’d come to trust him. He would be at her side to help ease the way, and protectively he placed his palm on the small of her back as they stepped through the doorway.
“Good day, Wilton,” he said to Harry’s longtime butler. “A happy day to welcome a new baby to the family. Are my brother and father still at breakfast?”
“Yes, Lord Geoffrey,” the butler said, bowing. “His Grace and his lordship are at present in the breakfast room, and request that you and Lady Geoffrey join—”
“So you’re here at last, Geoffrey!” Harry himself burst into the hallway, beaming with happiness. If he were disappointed by his new daughter, he certainly wasn’t showing it. “Gus will be delighted. You must meet little Lady Penelope, too. She’s another beauty, exactly like Lady Em. She’s an obliging little creature as well: she first began to make her impending arrival known shortly after dinner last evening, and by midnight she was here, with no fuss at all.”
“Congratulations, brother,” Geoffrey said, grinning in return as he clapped his brother on the back. How could he not, when Harry was so obviously overjoyed with his new daughter? “The world is always improved with another beauty. But I wonder if Gus would agree with your description of the child’s easy arrival?”
“You may ask her yourself,” Harry said. “She specifically requested that you be brought to her when you arrived. You, and your bride.”
Harry’s smile became more gallant as at last he turned toward Serena, bowing to her.
“Lady Geoffrey, good day,” he said. “In my enthusiasm, I’ve neglected to welcome you to my home. May I congratulate you once again upon your marriage to my brother?”
Serena curtseyed gracefully and nodded in acknowledgment, her smile perfectly measured yet guarded. “I am honored on both counts, Lord Hargreave. And may I congratulate you and Lady Hargreave on the birth of your daughter?”
Geoffrey saw how Harry’s brow flicked upward, taking note of Serena’s distance and not approving of it, either. Swiftly he took Serena’s hand, making his allegiance to her as clear as possible.
“Would you please give my wife leave to use your given name, Harry?” he said. “She—and you—shouldn’t be relying on titles at home, especially not on a day as joyful as this.”
Harry’s glance flicked down at Geoffrey’s and Serena’s joined hands, and he smiled. “Of course she may,” he said easily. “Serena, my dear, you must call me Harry and my wife Gus.”
“Thank you, Harry,” she murmured solemnly. “I’m honored.”
“No, what you are is part of our family,” Harry said expansively. “Now come, let me introduce you to my new daughter.”
“Are you certain Gus wants that?” Geoffrey asked warily. He had not seen Gus since that disastrous conversation over breakfast, and while Harry had excused her unfortunate humor on her pregnancy, Geoffrey wasn’t convinced that appearing again now, only a matter of hours removed from her giving birth, might not be exactly welcome. The last thing he wished for Serena was that she and Gus begin on the wrong foot—or feet. “Perhaps it would be better if we returned in a few days, after she’s had time to recover.”
“No, no, not at all,” Harry said, already heading toward the stairs. “Gus specifically wanted to see you both, and none of us wish to keep her waiting.”
“That we do not,” Geoffrey agreed. He glanced at Serena, who was smiling at him anxiously, and in turn he smiled with as much encouragement as he could as they followed Harry up the stairs. Their progress was slow, for Harry’s old injury made him take each step one by one, which gave Geoffrey time to ask the question they’d both been studiously avoiding.
“What is Father’s humor?”
Harry didn’t look back, but it was clear from the change in his voice his earlier smile was now gone. “Disappointed. Sardonic. Not pleasant company.”
None of this surprised Geoffrey. “Has he been able to keep his opinions to himself for Gus’s sake?”
“He hasn’t deigned either to visit Gus or to view the baby.”
“Is he still here?” Geoffrey asked.
“Oh, yes,” Harry said, his voice hardening. “He and Celia are lingering over breakfast in my back parlor. I believe Celia—who did come see the baby, bless her—is attempting to reason with him, with little success. Otherwise he is eating my eggs and toast and pretending as if everything is exactly as it should be. Which it isn’t.”
Geoffrey sighed. “Would you like me to go speak to him?”
“To what purpose?” Harry said, resigned. “No, I’d rather you came with me. You know, Penelope truly is a beautiful baby.”
“I’m sure she is,” Serena said softly, startling Geoffrey. Her eyes glowed with understanding, and her voice held all the warmth that had been missing ever since they’d entered the house. “Your daughter is loved by both her parents, which makes any child a thousand times more beautiful.”
Harry paused, and looked over his shoulder. “That is true, Serena,” he said thoughtfully, and his smile for her now was genuine. “Those are wise words, and appreciated.”
She blushed, and lowered her head. As Harry went ahead to make sure that Gus was awake and still amenable to visitors, Geoffrey bent and quickly kissed Serena, his pride incalculable.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ve no notion what inspired you to speak so to my brother, but those were the exact right words to say to him in his present humor.”
She gave a quick shrug to her shoulders. “I was once loved like that,” she said wistfully. “I only spoke the truth.”
Harry beckoned to them, and they joined him to walk through the countess’s parlor to her bedchamber. Having no experience with either pregnant ladies or childbirth, Geoffrey had been reluctant to venture into Gus’s presence, and leery of what unimaginable female mysteries he might be compelled to witness. To his relief, there were none: only Gus herself propped up against a mountain of pillows and crisp fresh linen, sipping chocolate from a tiny porcelain cup. She wore an exuberantly ruffled cap over her red-gold hair, and beneath it her eyes managed to be both utterly exhausted and utterly exhilarated at the same time. In addition to her lady’s maid standing guard near the bed, two nursery maids were also in attendance, plus the midwife besides. But the true centerpiece of all this activity was the tiny creature wriggling in an oversized cradle beside Gus’s bed, her wrinkled red face surrounded by a ruffled linen cap very much like her mother’s.
“You came, Geoffrey!” Gus exclaimed with delight, handing the chocolate cup to her maid. “And you brought your lady, too! Oh, how very glad I am finally to meet you, Serena. You can’t know how disappointed I was to not attend your wedding.”
She tried to sit up further to reach her hand out to Serena, and grimaced at the effort. The midwife hurried for
ward, guiding Gus back against the pillows.
“Please, my lady, do not vex yourself,” she said sternly. “You must be easy, or risk making yourself ill.”
“Oh, please take care, Lady Hargreave,” Serena said, joining the midwife at the side of the bed. “I’d never want to be the cause of any distress.”
“You won’t, I assure you.” Gus sighed, studying Serena. “I can see why Geoffrey so wished to marry you. You’re quite astonishingly beautiful. And you must call me Gus, since we’re now sisters after a fashion.”
“Exactly so,” Geoffrey said heartily, relieved and pleased that this was going so well.
Serena blushed. “Thank you, Gus,” she said shyly. “But I came here not to speak of myself, but to admire your new daughter.”
She leaned over the cradle, holding back the ribbons from her hat to keep them from trailing down. Dutifully Geoffrey went to stand beside her. To him Penelope looked much the same as all new babies, impossibly small and fragile and wizened.
“She is beautiful,” Serena breathed, and as if on cue, the baby made a loud squawking exclamation, her little arms flailing wildly. Everyone laughed but Serena, who stared down at the baby, completely enraptured. She tugged off her right glove, and pressed her pinky into the baby’s hand. At once Penelope’s fingers closed around it and held tight, and Serena smiled.
“How fortunate you are, Gus,” she said without looking up. “Such a sweet little girl!”
“She is,” said Gus softly, smiling down at the baby as well. “Would you like to hold her?”
Serena’s face lit in a way that Geoffrey would never have predicted. “Truly?”
Gus nodded. “Sit in the armchair, there. She can be wriggly, and it’s easiest that way. Mrs. Pratt will hand her to you.”
At once Serena sat, eagerly pulling off her left glove. The nursemaid carefully gathered up the baby and her blanket, and placed her in Serena’s arms. To Geoffrey’s amazement, she knew exactly how to hold Penelope, cradling her securely in the crook of her arm and rocking her gently, and crooning the kind of gentle gibberish that pleased all babies. Only Geoffrey—or so he guessed—realized the nonsense words came from Hindi, not English.
“Not a day old, but she already recognizes her favorite aunt,” Harry said proudly, and the others chuckled.
“And pray why not, when she is already my favorite niece?” asked Serena. Her earlier guard was gone entirely, her face wreathed with happiness that bordered on joy as she held the tiny baby. But as secure as Penelope felt in Serena’s arms, there was one comfort her aunt could not offer, and fretfully the baby began to whimper and root against the corseted front of Serena’s silk gown. With obvious reluctance Serena handed her to Gus, who unfastened the front of her gown and put the baby to her breast.
“Thank you, Gus,” Serena said, still unable to look away from the baby. “She is quite a perfect babe.”
“Not quite perfect, according to some,” Gus said, her sudden sorrow unmistakable as she held her baby a bit more closely. “All because she can never be a duke.”
“Now, now, don’t upset yourself, sweetheart,” Harry said quickly. “We agreed we’d not speak of that.”
“So this is where everyone has chosen to gather.” Without any fanfare, the duke entered the room, with Celia behind him.
The servants and midwife sank into curtseys to him, as they should. To Geoffrey’s dismay, Serena did as well. It wasn’t that it was improper, for it was, on the basis of rank. But he wanted his wife to be accepted by his family and not feel she must defer to any of them, especially not Father. Pointedly he went to stand beside her, taking her hand to lead her forward to greet his father.
“Good day, Celia, Father,” he said, keeping a steady hand on Serena’s arm so she wouldn’t curtsey again.
Father nodded, the most acknowledgment he usually made.
“I am glad to see you’ve finally emerged from your refuge des amoureux,” he said drily. “Is the honeymoon over, then?”
Instantly Geoffrey bristled, but before he could spit out words he’d later regret, Serena saved him.
“It’s not over, Your Grace,” said Serena with one of her most angelic smiles and a languid sweep of her thick dark lashes. She curled her fingers more closely into Geoffrey’s hand, leaning slightly against him to make their intimacy unmistakable. “Merely interrupted for this lovely occasion.”
“Indeed.” Father smiled indulgently. “And please, my dear, call me Brecon. No need for ceremony in the family.”
Geoffrey listened, stunned. Serena had just won a small victory for them both, and if it was possible, he loved her even more for it. For all that Father was a duke, he was also a mortal male, and very few could resist Serena when she smiled like that.
“I am honored, Brecon,” she said with a charming dip of her chin. “How wonderful to be included in this welcome for Lady Penelope’s arrival!”
“Ah, yes, Lady Penelope,” he repeated with a sigh at the reminder, and turned from Serena toward Gus’s bed. Although he was smiling still, his expression had become blandly, consciously dispassionate, as if making a cursory inspection of livestock rather than meeting a new grandchild. But at least he’d come, thought Geoffrey; when Penelope’s older sister, Emily, had been born, Father had taken nearly a week before he’d called.
“That’s a fine Homeric name with substance, at any rate,” Father continued, several feet from both Gus and the baby, and not coming closer. “Cousin to the beautiful Helen of Troy, faithful wife to the wandering Odysseus.”
“She’s named for Gus’s grandmother,” Harry said. “Besides, we thought that Lady Penelope Fitzroy had a pleasing sound to it.”
“I suppose it does,” Father said grudgingly, frowning as he watched the suckling baby. “Why haven’t you engaged a proper wet nurse for poor Augusta, Harry? It hardly seems appropriate for your countess to have to put her child to her teat like some common fishwife or washerwoman.”
“It is my choice, Brecon,” Gus said defensively. “I see no reason to deprive my child of the nourishment that nature has so generously provided for her, simply because she was born into this family and not another.”
But the duke had already spotted something else that concerned him.
“I see you’ve also chosen to ignore the standard advice regarding swaddling, Augusta,” he continued, insisting on using her full name as he always did, loathing the shortened version of it. “A most curious choice. How is the child to grow straight if her limbs are permitted to flop about like that?”
“Gus is following Dr. Cadogan’s practices, Father,” Harry said earnestly. “His studies have shown that children in the country who grow in simple freedom fare much better than aristocratic children who are constricted by swaddling and tight clothing, and fed an over-rich diet.”
“What rubbish!” Father declared soundly, appalled. “What does this Cadogan know? All of you boys were swaddled by your mother’s choice, and there aren’t three taller, stronger, more elegantly made gentlemen in London.”
Celia placed a hand on his arm. “Please, Brecon,” she said gently. “Dr. Cadogan is a physician of some renown in the management of children, and his book of advice is very popular with younger mothers. My daughters subscribe to his theories as well, and their children are thriving.”
The duke shook his head, unconvinced. “Infants have been swaddled since time immemorial. Even the Christ Child was swaddled. Why should all the wisdom of the past be tossed aside because this charlatan Cadogan presumes to say so?”
“He is no fool, Father,” Harry insisted. “He is a Fellow of the Royal Society. It’s said that even Her Majesty follows his word.”
“I do not believe it,” Father said sternly, “and you, sir, are the greater fool for doing so. It’s bad enough that you have presented me with another girl in place of the grandson I was expecting, but now you wish to put the child’s well-being into jeopardy as well.”
Gus made a strangled, gulping sound
as if she’d been wounded. She bowed her head protectively over her baby, and Harry immediately went to her.
It was more than Geoffrey could bear. “Father, don’t,” he said sharply. “Pray consider Gus.”
“There is nothing to consider,” Father said, his voice equally sharp. “I’ve only spoken the truth. I’ll grant that it’s no more Augusta’s fault than the child’s herself, but the fact remains that a son was required, and a daughter can only be considered a disappointment.”
Once again before Geoffrey could answer, Serena spoke.
“If it were my choosing, I’d have only daughters,” she said, her cheeks flushed and her words trembling with emotion. “My father had no sons, yet he still showered us with nothing but love.”
“And so it shall be for me,” Harry said firmly, bending down to kiss Gus’s forehead. “My ladies are my world, and I pray they know it.”
Father drew in his breath, his entire posture reflecting the sangfroid that served him so well at Court, if not at home.
“Harry. Geoffrey,” he said curtly. “I suggest that we leave the ladies, so that I might have a word or two with you alone.”
It was a conversation that none of them wanted, but also one that could no longer be avoided. Grim-faced, Harry led them to a small parlor at the opposite end of the hall from the women in Gus’s bedchamber.
“Father, you must listen to me,” he began as soon as he’d closed the door. “I cannot stand by and listen to you insult my wife.”
Father sat in the armchair facing the mantelpiece and crossed his legs, while both Harry and Geoffrey remained standing, too angry to sit. The arrangement gave Father all the power, reminding Geoffrey all too readily of once again being a schoolboy awaiting his father’s reprimand.
Not that Father himself seemed to feel that way.
“I have never insulted Augusta,” he said with infuriating calm. “If she believes that I have, then I shall be more than happy to offer her my apology. But can you deny that last night she bore a girl, not a boy?”
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