The Babe and the Baron

by Carola Dunn

  Stepping blindly out into the passage, he pulled the door to behind him and leaned against it, his eyes closed. When Mama died, he had found some comfort in his desolation in the infant she left behind. He had hovered over the cradle, begged to hold his baby sister, given his heart into her tiny hands, then watched as she sickened and grew pale and wan—and followed her mother to the graveyard.

  He could not let Perry suffer as he had suffered then. He had to warn him.

  Perry came to him in the library later. “Lance said you wanted to see me. Is it about Arabella tearing her new frock? Her nurse was mad as a wet hen, but Miss Coltart says it's good for her to run about with the boys. She'll have all the time in the world to worry about ladylike decorum when she grows up. I'll pay to replace the frock out of my allowance if it's really too badly ripped to mend.”

  “Lord, no, I hadn't even heard about the frock, though you might make sure she's not wearing a new one when you take her out with the boys.”

  “I will,” his brother promised with an ingenuous grin. “What is it, then?”

  “Sit down, Perry,” Gareth said soberly.

  Perry sat, obviously running through in his mind all his recent peccadilloes and wondering which had come to Gareth's ears, and which were worthy of a serious raking over the coals. Meanwhile Gareth ran through all the possible openings he had thought of, but there was no easy way to approach the subject.

  “You have been spending a lot of time with Priscilla,” he began.

  “I don't disturb her, truly. If she's asleep, I just rock her. When she's awake she...she seems to quite like me,” he said modestly.

  “And you like her.”

  “Oh yes, of course. That is, I like George and Henry and Arabella, but Pris is special. Maybe it's because she's so tiny and new, one can't help wanting to take care of her.”

  “Tiny and new and fragile.”

  “I know, you don't have to tell me. I'm always as gentle as can be with her. Why, I don't even scuffle with Arabella as I do with the boys.”

  “My dear chap, you are very good with the children and I have no doubt of your gentleness. What I mean is—and don't repeat this to Cousin Laura—small babies don't yet have a very firm grasp on life. The slightest indisposition can carry them off.”

  Perry's freckles stood out on his suddenly white face. “You mean Priscilla is going to die?”

  “Good Lord no! I wouldn't even go so far as to say she is likely to die. Certainly she will lack for nothing I can provide to prevent it,” Gareth declared, hating himself for bringing that stricken look to the boy's eyes. “Yet it's best to recognize that babies are fragile creatures, and not to let oneself grow too fond lest...lest they should be taken.”

  “I see.” Perry stared down at his hands, clenched in his lap, then raised his head and said simply, “But one cannot choose whom to love. Thank you for warning me, Gareth, only it doesn't make any difference, you see.”

  As Perry went off, subdued and still pale, Gareth hoped he had at least spared the lad a shock if not the pain should anything happen to Priscilla.

  If anything, Perry spent more time than ever with the child during the next ten days. Gareth sympathized, since he himself found it difficult to tear himself away from Priscilla, who appeared to flourish on all the attention. She went through her christening without a murmur.

  Nonetheless Gareth was glad when, the next day, his youngest brother returned to school where friends, lessons, and sports would turn his thoughts elsewhere. At the same time, Lance returned to Oxford and Rupert to his regiment. Tranquillity descended upon the manor—or dullness, depending on one's point of view of the moment.

  * * * *

  Actually, Gareth missed his brothers less than usual. With Maria beyond reach, unable to interfere, he took much more interest in his niece and nephews than had seemed wise before.

  The boys scarcely seemed to miss their mother. Arabella had at first, but she was fascinated by the baby. She sang songs to her, and drew dozens of pictures in coloured chalks for her, of which Laura pinned up the best on the walls of her sitting room, now transformed into a nursery. Gareth thought the little girl regarded Priscilla rather as a particularly marvellous doll. She was too young, he hoped, to be badly upset if the worst came to the worst.

  But Priscilla continued to thrive, as did Laura, and Gareth's fears began to calm.

  A period of heavy rains ended in what the Shropshire folk called St. Luke's little summer. Gareth rode out on Fickle every day to oversee the apple harvest and ploughing and planting of winter wheat. Coming home at midday he often found Laura strolling in the gardens with the babe in her arms, sometimes alone, sometimes with Aunt Antonia or Cornelius or the children. At first Gareth protested at her taking Priscilla outside—it was October, after all, however fine. However, she would no more allow him to wrap her daughter in cotton-wool than herself.

  One day Uncle Julius was with her in the rose garden, where a few late blooms lingered. Ever since St. Wigbert's Day the old man had been working on the mechanization of his tray-lifter, a slow business as each cogwheel had to be forged. Now, as he stood contemplating Laura with Priscilla in her arms, his eyes were bright behind the blurred spectacles. Not the charm of the scene, Gareth guessed, but a new inspiration.

  “What is it, Uncle?” he asked. “Thought lies heavy on your brow.”

  “No, no, nevvie,” said Uncle Julius, “it must be light, d'you see, or she'll have to have a footman along. Wicker? Wicker!” And he scampered off.

  “Is he reinventing the basket?” Gareth enquired of Laura, beaming at Priscilla as she smiled and gurgled at him.

  Laura's smile was effortful. “No, he is going to make a baby-barrow so that I can push Priscilla when she grows heavier. I hope it will work better than his tray-barrow.”

  “Lord, yes! We cannot risk her in whatever contrivance he comes up with. I shall dissuade him.”

  “Don't do that. He would be so disappointed not to be allowed to help, and we can always try it with one of Arabella's dolls or a sack of flour first.”

  “Then if not that, what is troubling you?”

  “Nothing. I am just a little tired, I suppose, and I have the headache. Not a bad one, truly.”

  “Are you eating enough? Getting enough sleep? I knew I should not have let the monthly nurses go. I'll send for McAllister.”

  “I don't need a doctor,” she snapped. “Do stop fussing, Gareth, and leave me alone.”

  “I'm sorry,” he said stiffly. “I didn't mean to vex you. I shall see you at luncheon.”

  Laura turned away. “I'm not hungry.”

  Chagrined, he went into the house. By the time he had washed his hands and joined his aunt in the breakfast room, worry had replaced chagrin.

  “Laura said she is not hungry, Aunt Antonia. She's not her usual cheerful self. She rapped my knuckles when I suggested sending for McAllister but perhaps I ought to anyway?”

  “Quite unnecessary,” his aunt assured him. “Many women go through a period of despondency soon after a child's birth, when they feel out of sorts and everything is wrong with the world. It rarely becomes a serious disturbance. What she needs is sympathy and comfort and reassurance.”

  “The devil!”

  “Gareth!” Aunt Antonia drew herself up ramrod straight, pursing her lips with a frown of censure.

  “I do beg your pardon, ma'am.” Pushing his chair away from the table he stood up, a sick sensation rapidly destroying his appetite. “Instead of comforting Laura, I took offence when she spoke sharply and I fear I've made her more unhappy, not less. I must go to her. Excuse me, if you please.”

  Laura was no longer in the rose garden. Gareth went up to her apartments, only to be told she had just lain down on her bed for a nap.

  Myfanwy gave him a shrewd look. “No cause to be all of a fidget, my lord. The megrims my lady has, that's all. There's better she'll feel after a rest.”

  “But she must eat to be able to feed Priscilla. I
shall send up a tray. Tell her I beg her to eat, for the babe's sake.”

  With his own hands he prepared a tray, buttering a roll, peeling and slicing an apple, cutting slivers of ham so thin they would be no trouble at all to eat. Adding a dish of her favourite junket flavoured with bramble jelly, he sent a footman up with it.

  He would have liked to stay at home until Laura emerged from her chamber, but he and his steward had an appointment with a drover to discuss the sale of fat lambs. The man was coming from Worcester to look over the flock and could not be put off. Gareth had to leave without even knowing whether Laura had eaten.

  Worse, as he swung up into Fickle's saddle, he suddenly wondered whether she would consider the carefully chosen tray of food as a peace offering or as another attempt to coerce her.

  * * * *

  When Myfanwy set down the tray on the bedside table and told Laura his lordship begged her to eat for the babe's sake, she burst into tears. How dreadfully selfish Gareth must consider her to risk depriving her daughter of proper nourishment! No doubt he thought she did not love Priscilla half as well as he did. She was an utterly incompetent mother; she should have left the baby's care to Mrs. Barley and the wet-nurse.

  Though she had no appetite whatsoever, she sat up in bed and let Myfanwy place the tray on her knees. She regarded the food with loathing.

  “His lordship prepared it himself, look you,” Myfanwy said encouragingly. “All cut up small, nice and easy to eat.”

  Laura cried the harder. He had forgiven her for snarling at him. He was the kindest man in the world and she was an ungrateful wretch for wanting not kindness but love. She simply could not bear to go on living at Llys. She had to go away, to leave Myfanwy and Aunt Antonia and dear, stuffy Cornelius and the children. She would never know how Uncle Julius's baby-barrow turned out. She would never see Rupert or Lance or Perry again. Gareth might visit her in Swaffham Bulbeck, and she'd have to face his hurt at her having removed Priscilla from his house.

  Or maybe he would not visit. Maybe he would be too hurt, too offended to want to see her, even for Priscilla's sake. She did not want to hurt him!

  The only thing worse than a bleak future without him was an agonizing future with him always nearby but never close enough. All life held for her was a struggle to do her inadequate best for the beloved child of an unloved and unloving father. Poor little girl, growing up with no papa and a useless mama.

  “Only one hankercher you have left, my lady, till I wash some. Do try to eat a morsel,” Myfanwy coaxed. “There's better you'll feel for a bite and a bit of a sleep.”

  “I'll try,” Laura sniffed, mopping her eyes.

  She forced herself to nibble a piece of the roll and to swallow a morsel of ham and a slice or two of apple. The junket went down easily, though somehow it did not taste as good as usual. Before she finished it, from the sitting room came Priscilla's preliminary whimper, followed by a full-throated bawl. Wearily Laura pushed aside the tray and turned back the bedcovers.

  “Stay there,” ordered her maid.

  “I told Mrs. Barley I'd take care of her all day.”

  “There's none the worse she'll be if I change her for once, my lady, so's you can stay in bed to nurse her afore you lie down to take your nap.”

  Laura listlessly agreed. Priscilla fussed over her feeding, confirming Laura's belief that she was an incompetent mother. She shed a few more tears, using up the last handkerchief, and then fell into an exhausted sleep.

  She awoke feeling mopish but not quite so desperate. If she stayed in bed glooming, which was her first instinct, Gareth would be certain she was ill. The ensuing commotion would only make her feel worse, so she rang for Myfanwy and dragged herself out of bed.

  The maid arrived with a pile of clean, pressed handkerchiefs. “Borrowed from Miss Burleigh,” she said, “just in case.”

  Laura's nose and eyes were still red from her earlier bout of crying. Looking so haggish, she could not face anyone, but now she was too restless to sit about in her rooms.

  “I shall walk in the shrubbery,” she decided, donning an aged black-dyed stuff gown. Priscilla was so sound asleep she hesitated to wake her, but Myfanwy offered to watch her. “If I don't have her to carry,” Laura said, “I believe I shall venture as far as Ash Hill.”

  “Likely exercise'll blow the cobwebs away, my lady, but wrap up warm. The sun's gone in, look you. Rain before morning there'll be.”

  As Laura tramped across the park, the gusty west wind did begin to blow away the cobwebs enveloping her mind. She took off her black bonnet to facilitate the process. She had always loved windy autumn days, with leaves swirling down from the trees.

  No wonder she had been down in the dumps, confined for so long to the house and its near environs when she was used to long country walks. Now she was fit again, she must take advantage of Mrs. Barley's presence to exercise properly. All too soon she would have to manage without that help.

  The thought cast her straight back into the dismals again. Trudging up Ash Hill, she tried to cheer herself by recalling and anticipating the glorious view from the top, but what came to mind was her confession to Gareth that she did not miss Freddie. Gareth had been as kind as ever, but he must have been disgusted by her unnatural lack of grieving.

  How could he ever love such a freakish, ramshackle female? What a dreadful mess she had made of her life!

  Chapter 16

  “Ash Hill!” Gareth exploded.

  “Yes, my lord.” Lloyd did not turn a hair. “Myfanwy did not attempt to dissuade her, being of the opinion that a good walk'd do her ladyship good. Were her ladyship not to return after a reasonable period, I should of course send out a groom.”

  “No need, I shall go,” said Gareth, calming down. After all, what did he know of female post-childbirth megrims? Less than the little abigail, certainly. And, though steep, Ash Hill was no precipice off which Laura might throw herself.

  Nonetheless, striding out to the stables he yelled for a groom to resaddle Fickle and he galloped across the park.

  He tied the bay gelding to the same elder bush—now leafless, its berries stripped by the birds—as last time he had found Laura here. No doubt his anxiety was equally futile today. At least he could carry Priscilla back for her, he thought. Perhaps Uncle Julius's baby-barrow idea was not so addlepated as he had assumed.

  Gazing up the hill, he could not see her. She must be sitting down. Exhausted? Or just sensibly recruiting her strength before the walk back to the house. As he started up the slope, he vowed to himself not to fret her with his concern. She needed sympathy and comfort, not remonstrance.

  She sat on the bench at the rear of the pavilion, shoulders slumped, staring with blank despondency at her hands in her lap. Her empty hands...

  Gareth glanced around. “Where is Priscilla? Did you not bring her? She is not ill, is she?”

  To his horror, Laura burst into tears. As he approached, cursing himself, she jumped up and moved away, to stand with her back to him. “I kn-now you think I'm an ut-utter failure as a mother,” she sobbed, “but even I am not so s-selfish as to leave my baby if she was i-i-ill.”

  “I think you a bad mother?” he said in astonishment. His hands on her shoulders, he turned her to face him, then enveloped her in his arms so that she was crying on his chest.

  “Y-you said—”

  “I spoke without thinking,” Gareth said ruefully, his cheek against her soft, fragrant hair. “Which I seem to do altogether too often to you, though I trust not to others. You are the most devoted, loving mother imaginable. Little Pris is thriving under your care. Why, Barleysugar says she has never known a happier baby—I and my brothers, I collect, were a fretful lot!”

  Laura raised her head and gave him a tremulous smile. He was shocked to discover he desperately wanted to kiss those quivering lips, and the tearstained eyes. She fitted quite perfectly into his arms, her supple slenderness intoxicating.

  He wanted her.

  Dismayed, a
fraid she might perceive his arousal, for she was no naïve girl, he released her and stepped back. His hand on her arm he led her back to the bench, trying hard to concentrate on what she was saying with such adorable earnestness.

  “But Priscilla has been fretful recently. She seems to know when I'm feeling crossgrained and out of spirits, and it makes her the same.”

  “Then the solution is obvious: we can cure her by curing you.” He sat down leaving a careful two feet between them, and fought down the temptation to hold her hand. “Even the best of mothers must wish for a change of company. Should you like a dinner party?”

  “Oh yes!”

  “That will not only serve as notice to our neighbours that you are ready to receive callers, it will be an excuse for a new gown. Indeed, I have been meaning for weeks to point out that you need a new wardrobe since...” He hastily turned his eyes away from her delectably full bosom and slim waist. “Since your shape has altered.”

  “My old gowns from last winter still fit well enough.”

  “But they are all black and it is past time you went into half-mourning. Come now, we have had this argument before. You must do me credit or you will ruin my reputation.”

  “Maria is no longer here to slander you,” she pointed out with a smile, a proper one. Why had he never noticed before what an enchanting smile she had, especially when she was teasing?

  “New gowns, no argument,” he said firmly. “I'm quite certain black is detrimental to babies. Since you cannot leave Priscilla for long enough to go into Ludlow, I shall send for the draper.” He glanced with disfavour at the black bonnet on the seat beside her. “And the milliner.”

  “That is new,” Laura objected. “I bought it last time you coerced me into accepting new clothes.”

  “I don't like it. Whoever heard of black roses?”

  She laughed. “Oh very well. But I should like to go to Ludlow, taking Priscilla along. It is not so far, after all, and your carriage is very comfortable. I daresay she would come to no harm on such a short journey. I shall ask Mrs. Barley.”