The Babe and the Baron

by Carola Dunn

  “Thank you, dear Aunt. You should not have waited up. Gareth will lend you his arm to your chamber now, will you not, Gareth?”

  “Certainly. Come, Aunt Antonia. I shall be right back, Laura.”

  “I sent your maid to sleep, Laura,” his aunt said, “so that she would be fresh when you need her. I believe I shall retire now. I am not as young as I used to be.”

  She leaned heavily on Gareth's arm, her pace painfully slow. She was usually so self-contained and competent, it was easy to forget she was an elderly lady, not up to a long night's watch. At her chamber door, he impulsively kissed her thin cheek, as he had not done since childhood.

  “Thank you, dear Aunt, for your care of her. Goodnight, or rather, good morning.”

  Pink-faced, she bade him goodnight and hurried into her room.

  He sped back to Laura's chamber. About to open the door, he hesitated, then knocked. Her abigail opened it, bare-footed, clad in a cotton wrap and nightcap, her hair in a long braid down her back. Gareth grinned as she curtsied.

  “I woke up, my lord,” she said with dignity, drawing her small frame up, “so to see how my lady does I came. You cannot come in now, it's nursing the babe she is.”

  If she was his wife, he could watch, he thought with a touch of wistfulness. But the child was not his, and he would never marry, never have the right to see that charming sight. Not that she was supposed to be suckling the babe herself, he recalled suddenly. He had hired a wet-nurse for that. Well, time enough to remind her in the morning.

  “Tell Dr. McAllister I'd like a word,” he said. “I'll wait in Lady Laura's sitting room.”

  The doctor came through a few minutes later, drying his hands on a towel. He looked tired, his fox-red hair standing on end. “The babbies ay arrive in the wee, sma' hours,” he said, “or so it seems. 'Tis not many confinements I attend, mind, just the difficult ones. Lady Laura's was smooth sailing a' the way.”

  “She is well?”

  “Aye, weary but happy. Nae mair bleeding than's usual, and there's little fear o' puerperal fever wi' the preecautions Mistress Owen and I tak as a matter o' course.”

  Puerperal fever? An alarmed question on the tip of his tongue, Gareth decided that too could wait until the morning—or more accurately later in the day. “What of the child?” he asked.

  “A bonny wee lassie.” McAllister's eyes twinkled. “Though I'll wager ye thought otherwise.”

  “At first,” Gareth conceded.

  “There's nae birth is easy for the babby, squeezed and pushed and thrust into the cauld, cauld worrld. Weel, if your lairdship will excuse me, I'll be off tae bed, for I've calls tae make in a few hours.”

  The porcelain clock on the mantelpiece showed five o'clock was past. Gareth went to the window and pulled aside the rose-patterned curtains. The sky was pale, and a pale mist wreathed across the park, curling between the trees. He was not at all sleepy—rather the reverse, bursting with energy and in a mood to celebrate.

  He went to wake his oblivious brothers.

  * * * *

  Laura swam up from the depths of sleep. She felt strange. Her hand went to her stomach—flat as a flounder! She had had the baby. She had a daughter, and her daughter was crying.

  Wide awake, she started to sit up.

  The sound cut off as the door to her sitting-room closed.

  “No need to disturb yourself, my lady.” The lying-in nurse appeared at the bedside. A sallow woman dressed in black, with her grey hair pulled back so tightly beneath her cap the sight of it was enough to make one's head ache, she went on, “Mrs. Barley, the nurse, is changing the child's napkin and I've sent for the wet-nurse. She'll be here in a moment to take it to the nursery and feed it.”

  “Fiddlesticks, I shall feed her. And she is not to be removed to the nursery.”

  The woman's mouth primmed in disapproval. “His lordship hired the wet-nurse for you, my lady.”

  “Then his lordship will just have to unhire her.” She should have spoken sooner, she knew, but she had put off the inevitable battle until it became unavoidable. It was inevitable. She had stayed at Llys because of Gareth's fears. Pride would not allow her to hang on his sleeve forever, as he seemed to assume. Soon she must leave, and she could not take the wet-nurse with her.

  Besides, as soon as she held her baby in her arms, she knew she had no intention whatsoever of letting a stranger suckle her.

  “Tell Mrs. Barley to bring her to me,” Laura ordered. She would have to learn to take care of her daughter herself, but at the moment, she realized, she was tired and sore and feeling rather frail.

  Time enough when she was up and about to sort matters out—and Gareth need not suppose she was going to lie abed for a month just because lying-in nurses were also known as monthly nurses. To have that disapproving witch frowning on her for four weeks was out of the question.

  Her stiff back a reproof, the witch stalked through to the sitting room. Laura heard a murmur of voices, then the baby began to cry again.

  Laura flung back the bedclothes, but as she swung her feet over the edge of the bed, a woman in blue bustled in with the child in her arms. Comfortably padded, Mrs. Barley had round, rosy cheeks, and her greying hair was not scraped back but pinned up in a loose knot.

  “You'll excuse me not wearing a cap, my lady,” she said, her soft voice countrified but not Welsh. “Somehow babies always end up grabbing the ribbons and untying them. Hark at her bawling, the sweet little mite.” She beamed down at her charge.

  “She must be hungry. I am.”

  “Not that hungry, my lady, she just wants to suck a bit. Your milk won't come in proper for a day or two, so babies aren't made to need it for a while. You let her suck, though, she'll get what she needs from you, not from any wet-nurse.”

  Laura smiled at her, relieved to have an ally. Mrs. Barley helped her arrange herself so that both she and her daughter were comfortable, then plumped herself down on a chair.

  “I were nurserymaid to his lordship and the Reverend,” she said, “and nurse to Master Rupert and Master Lance and Master Perry. A proper handful they was, I can tell you. Her late ladyship put each one to her breast, delicate as she was, poor dear, and couldn't manage it more than a month or two. Still, it gave them a good start in life. Mrs. Forbes, now, she sent hers out to a wet-nurse all three, or so I heard. She weren't here at Llys then. And when she came, she brought her own nurse. A good enough body, but without the gumption to stand up to madam's crotchets.”

  Laura let the flow of words wash over her, her entire being concentrated on the tug at her nipple, the warm weight of her child in her arms. All the humiliations of those few nights of Freddie's fumbling embraces were vindicated by the tiny head at her breast.

  Poor Freddie! His daughter had his fair hair, so fine her pink scalp showed through. She was not by any means so handsome as her father—despite Gareth's kind remark—but Myfanwy had warned Laura that the process of birth distorted a baby's features. In any case, Laura was by no means so certain as she had once been that she wanted her child to be beautiful.

  She herself had suffered through not being beautiful, but Maria was beautiful and yet far from contented, still less happy.

  For the first time, Laura wondered whether Ceci was happy with her heir to a dukedom. Their father had made it quite plain Laura was not to attempt to communicate with her sister, but Ceci was a married woman now, able to decide for herself. Though her husband might prevent a meeting, he could hardly control her correspondence. Perhaps Laura would write to notify her of the birth of her niece.

  “She's asleep, bless her heart,” Mrs. Barley's voice interrupted Laura's musing. “You'd best wake her, my lady, and let her have a go the other side to keep things even. She won't like it but she'll soon settle down again. Sleep's what she wants most now. Slept right through, good as gold, when his lordship brought his brothers to see her. Have you decided yet what she'll be christened?”

  “Priscilla,” Laura said at once, t
hough she had not considered the question. She had once had a dearly loved rag doll called Priscilla, which had been taken away when it grew shabby. The wax and porcelain replacements were too fragile to be hugged or slept with.

  Whatever else she lacked, her Priscilla should never lack for love and hugs and kisses.

  * * * *

  On the third day, when Gareth went up to see Priscilla after luncheon (his third visit of the day), he was startled to find Laura in her sitting room, on the chaise longue by the window. She wore a dressing-gown, lavishly trimmed with lace, in Maria's favourite shade of blue—doubtless a cast-off. She must have new gowns for her new figure, he realised; in half-mourning colours, he thought with distaste, but at least not black.

  The September sunlight gleamed on her dark head, bent over the babe in her arms, cooing. As he stopped on the threshold, she looked round and smiled.

  He spoke softly. “I'm sorry, I ought to have have knocked—I didn't want to wake her and I didn't know you were here. You should be in bed.”

  “Balderdash! Do come in, Gareth. I have finished feeding her and she is wide awake for once.”

  “The wet-nurse is supposed to feed her.” He crossed the room and looked down at Laura, frowning.

  She shook her head, and the child, gazing intently into her face, blinked. “Don't stand towering and glowering over me,” she said tartly. “Sit down, pray. I have been hoping for a chance to talk to you.”

  With a hollow feeling in his middle, Gareth pulled up a chair. Was she going to tell him she wanted to leave Llys? He suspected she had only stayed for his sake. Her cursed independent streak made it so difficult for her to accept what she saw as charity, though to him it was simply his duty.

  It had started out as simply his duty, he corrected himself. Unlike his duty to Maria, it had become a pleasure. He could no longer imagine Llys without Laura.

  “Now you are brooding.” There was a question in her voice.

  With a start, he realized he was still standing, his hand on the back of the chair. “I was just wondering,” he said hesitantly, “do you think I might hold her? Just for a minute? Barleysugar wouldn't let me.”

  “Barleysugar?” Laura chuckled. “Is that what you called her when you were children?”

  He grinned. “Barleycorn when she scolded. She doesn't believe in men handling infants, especially as I'm not Priscilla's papa, but may I?”

  “You will be careful?”

  “Of course!” Not through him would any harm come to the babe.

  “You have to support her head. That's it. Barleysugar says she is not half so fragile as she appears, and so does Myfanwy, but I own to being a trifle apprehensive.”

  So did Gareth. His hands felt huge and clumsy, but as he felt with the back of his knees for the chair and cautiously sat down, Priscilla did not burst into tears. Her great blue eyes stared up at him with a serious expression. She blew a bubble.

  He fell in love.

  Which was precisely what he ought to have made every effort to avoid. What a fool he was! She was not his daughter. He had no possible claim upon her. And he must never forget the row of tiny graves in the churchyard. To grow too attached to a newborn child was to court heartbreak.

  Chapter 15

  Laura knew the exact moment when Gareth lost his heart to Priscilla. The look on his face changed from solicitude to wonder to enchantment. His mouth curved in a slow smile, a beam of delight, and he said, apparently quite unconsciously, “Goo-goo, who's a pretty poppet, then?”

  She had not foreseen his abject surrender to her daughter's charms. Her father had never visited the nursery. Even when his children reached years of discretion, Lord Medway had shown no interest in the girls. Cecilia's betrothal pleased him because it brought a connexion to an ancient, wealthy, and influential family. Laura's elopement displeased him because it brought only scandal. For their feelings he cared naught.

  As for goo-gooing to a newborn baby, the very notion would have left the earl dumfounded.

  Gareth's response to Priscilla made Laura esteem him the more, but left her as much dismayed as gratified. When the time came to leave Llys, his affection for her daughter would make her feel a brute to part them. She noticed he looked disconsolate now, as though foreseeing that moment. She must not let him grow too close.

  “I shall take her now,” she said quickly.

  “Too late. She has my shirtfrill in an unbreakable grip and I believe she has dropped off to sleep. I should hate to disturb her.” Gazing down at Priscilla, nestled in the crook of his arm, he sounded part smug, part rueful.

  “She seems to like to hold onto something when she sleeps.”

  “Laura,” Gareth said in sudden alarm, “her skin looks awfully yellow to me. Is she ill? Tell me my eyes deceive me!”

  “She is a bit yellowish, but not ill. Dr. McAllister and Mrs. Barley and Myfanwy, who has dozens of brothers and sisters, all assure me it is a normal change soon after birth. It should clear up in a few days.”

  “Should?” he said with deep misgiving.

  “Will. Dr. McAllister also says I shall regain my strength far quicker if I don't lie abed. Mistress Owen agrees. Their poorer patients have no choice but to resume caring for their families, and they do none the worse for that. So the monthly nurses can go. Myfanwy is all the help I need.”

  “No.” His sharp tone made Priscilla jerk, losing her grip on his frill. Apologetically he touched her hand and she grasped his finger instead, calming. He lowered his voice. “No, Laura, the nurses must stay. McAllister swears they know what to do in case of puerperal fever, or I'd not have let him return home.”

  “He comes in every day,” Laura pointed out.

  “But the fever can grow worse very fast and it can be...very serious.”

  The word “fatal” hovered between them, and Laura knew she was going to give in. “I loathe having those women always about me,” she grumbled. “The witch is lurking in my chamber right now, listening at the door, no doubt.”

  “Oh, if that is all! They need not lurk about you, I daresay, as long as they are in the house, and you promise to call them the moment you feel the least bit unwell.”

  “Tyrant. Very well, I promise.”

  “And the wet-nurse—will you not let her take over that chore for you?”

  “Chore? It's a joy, not a chore, and better for Priscilla besides. But so that you do not think me horridly ungrateful, I will confess I am excessively glad to have Mrs. Barley to change her napkin and deal with her fussing in the middle of the night. All I have to do is feed her. I am truly grateful, Gareth, for all your care and...” Laura hesitated, her cheeks growing hot. Aunt Antonia had not failed to reiterate the shocking impropriety of allowing him into her chamber, especially at such a time. “...And for being with me when she was born.”

  “I still have the marks of your fingernails on my hand,” he said with a grin, “but I'd not have missed it for the world. Er, speaking of napkins, I believe my sleeve is growing damp. I'd better ring for Mrs. Barley.”

  “Heavens no.” She swung her feet off the chaise. “She is sleeping to make up for her disturbed nights. I shall change Pris.”

  “That's what I hired a nurse for.”

  Laura looked him in the eye and said determinedly, “I have to learn to take care of her myself.”

  His stricken expression told her he guessed her reason, and already dreaded being parted from the child. How could she convince him her self-respect gave her no choice but to return to Swaffham Bulbeck? For his sake, the sooner she left the better, but all her advisers—even Dr. McAllister who had no stake in the matter—agreed on the imprudence of a long journey with a small baby.

  “Definitely damp,” Gareth announced, apparently as willing as Laura to defer argument on that subject.

  Or perhaps she had completely misread his feelings, she thought as he handed over Priscilla, waking and beginning to whimper. Perhaps he had no desire to prevent their departure once she had regained
her strength and her daughter was sturdy enough to travel. No longer pregnant, she was no longer a focus for his fears, nor could he wish for the responsibility of another child not his own.

  Yet he had fetched her to Llys in ignorance of her pregnancy. His sense of duty to his family was powerful, and though Laura was not a blood relation, Priscilla was his own cousin's child. Of all the family, he had never utterly cast off poor Freddie. Gareth and Rupert, tolerant as they were generous, had lent Freddie money without any real expectation of being paid back.

  Even if Gareth had not succumbed to Priscilla, he would never let Freddie's widow leave Llys without protest. He was nobly postponing his arguments because of her weakness. How she loved him!

  Priscilla, her little bottom clean and dry and well powdered, fell asleep again before Laura finished tying the tapes. As Laura tucked her up in the beautifully carved cradle brought down from the nursery, someone knocked on the door. Gareth went to answer it.

  “It's my turn, Gareth.” Perry's hushed voice was indignant. “It's not fair, you'll be able to see Pris any time when I have to go back to school.”

  “She's asleep, and Cousin Laura is here.”

  “Come in, Perry,” said Laura. “You will not disturb her if you are quiet.”

  “May I rock the cradle, Cousin Laura?” Perry asked eagerly. “Barleysugar let me. Oh, I'm glad you're well enough to be up,” he added at a minatory glance from his eldest brother.

  She smiled at him. “Thank you. Yes, you may rock her.”

  “I'd better go,” said Gareth. “We have been taking turns to come and admire your daughter so as not to overwhelm her.”

  “Not to mention that you wish to change your coat,” Laura teased.

  “That too. Will you take exception if I suggest you return to the chaise?”

  “I should strongly object—but that I'm quite ready to sit down.”

  At the door, Gareth looked back. Perry was on his knees beside the cradle, his freckled face a mirror of awe and adoration. Gareth blenched as he recognized himself in the half-grown lad bending over the cradle which had sheltered Wyckham babes for centuries.