“Probably not,” Wendy agreed cheerfully. “Still, since I’m not one of Mr. Mack’s lady-friends, it hardly matters to me what any of them do.” She slid out of bed.
“Yes, miss.” The maid sounded a bit doubtful. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Not a thing, thank you.”
Wendy waited till the maid was gone, then started her bath running and began to look for her clothes. She found them in the wardrobe, neatly pressed and looking better than new. She put her hair up in a braid once more – she really needed to get it trimmed, but there hadn’t been time – and did the best she could with the tiny makeup kit she carried in her handbag. The results were passable, if not exactly impressive. And at least she wasn’t keeping Elinor Burgess waiting; it was just thirty minutes after the note had arrived when she tapped on the arched door of the woman’s sitting room.
The wheelchair was pulled up to a desk in the corner of the room, and there was no nurse in sight. As Wendy came in, Elinor turned her chair toward the door and looked up in surprise. “My dear girl, I didn’t intend for you to rush. You should have taken your time, and gotten your rest. The maid didn’t misunderstand me and wake you, did she?” She gestured toward a chair.
At least that didn’t sound as if she were being told to leave, Wendy thought. “No, I was already awake. And I had a very restful night.” As social lies went, that wasn’t such a bad one, she thought.
Elinor folded her hands together in her lap. “Mack tells me I hurt your feelings last night.”
Wendy blinked in surprise. And maybe Mack should mind his own business, she thought. What had he been trying to accomplish?
“He says I told you, in effect, that I didn’t want you to see or help care for Aurora.”
“Well... I understand, of course. It’s a difficult—”
“In fact, what I meant was that I did not want you to feel obligated for her care. I want you to enjoy your visit, and my nurses have time to spare. My doctor says I must have them close at hand, but in fact the more I can do on my own the more slowly my disease progresses. So they will be happy to take care of the baby for a few days. Once Christmas is past, there will be plenty of time to think of hiring a baby nurse.”
And that leaves me still squarely in the middle, Wendy thought. Unnecessary, and very much in the way if I try to take a hand with the baby at all. “It’s not an obligation, Mrs. Burgess,” she said softly. “It’s a joy to look after Rory.”
“Aurora has been very fortunate to have you.”
The nurse tapped on the door and came in. In one arm she held Rory, wearing a tiny ruffled blue dress that Wendy had never seen before; in her other hand was a blanket.
The baby caught sight of Wendy and started to squirm, madly waving her arms and legs as if she was trying to propel herself across the room. She babbled and giggled and cooed and smiled.
How I wish I understood what she’s telling me, Wendy thought. The wave of pure love which swept over her was too strong to deny. She didn’t care whether Elinor Burgess understood or not. Wendy could not turn away from a little girl who simply wanted to be held.
Rory’s compact little body fitted as neatly against her own as if they had never been separated, and Wendy closed her eyes for a moment and buried her face in the child’s neck, breathing in the simple smells of shampoo and baby powder and – was it peaches she’d had for her breakfast?
“She’s a sweetheart,” the nurse said. She stooped and spread the blanket on the thick carpet. “She fussed just a little at bedtime, but then she settled right down and slept all night.”
Rory drew back a few inches and gave a tiny, dry cough. Then she smiled expectantly at Wendy.
“What was that?” Elinor Burgess demanded.
Wendy imitated the cough, and Rory giggled and coughed again. “She laughs when I make silly noises, and she’s discovered that I smile at her when she does the same thing – so she starts coughing now and then just to get the game going.”
Elinor frowned. “Have you had her pediatrician check her over to be sure it’s not something serious?”
“Of course I haven’t. It’s only a social cough. Lots of babies do that sort of thing.” Surely Elinor ought to know that, she thought. It had scared Wendy to death at first – as had a thousand other things in Rory’s short life – until she’d found the explanation in the baby book. It was no surprise Wendy hadn’t known about social coughs; she was learning about babies on the job, as it were. But surely at least one of Elinor’s four would have done the same thing. Why was she so startled by the phenomenon? Or had Mack and Mitch and John spent their childhood days with nurses, too?
She put Rory down on the blanket and knelt beside her to play pat-a-cake. It was the first gentle exercise in the simple routine she tried to do every day, to encourage the baby to stretch her muscles.
Elinor looked dubious, but she didn’t push the matter. She watched them thoughtfully for a few moments. “I have a favor to ask of you, Wendy.”
Wendy’s stomach did a flip. She didn’t even look up from Rory’s sunny face as she said the only thing she could. “I’ll be happy to oblige.”
“Since I can’t go to the stores myself, I’d like you to take care of buying winter things for the baby,” Elinor went on. “And I’m sure you’ll want some as well.”
“Oh, I won’t be staying long enough to need much,” Wendy said hastily. She wasn’t going to admit that she couldn’t afford a winter wardrobe, and she wasn’t going to put herself in debt to buy clothes she’d wear for only a few days.
That reminded her that she had never asked Mack about her return ticket. The invitation had been to spend Christmas with the Burgesses – but had he ever been more specific than that? She couldn’t remember. Was she expected to leave as soon as the holiday was over, or stay on for a day or two? She hadn’t even seen her airline ticket; Mack had kept it with his own.
It was dumb not to ask, she told herself. She just hoped Mack had been polite enough to keep his mother informed. If Elinor asked Wendy how long she intended to stay, she wouldn’t even be able to answer. If she tried to give a date for her departure, she was certain to be wrong, and then she’d look like a fool.
But Elinor wouldn’t ask that sort of tactless question. At least, Wendy fervently hoped she wouldn’t. She took hold of Rory’s tiny feet and began a gentle bicycling motion with the baby’s legs.
“Of course you’ll need things,” Elinor said flatly. “You simply can’t do without proper clothing in Chicago in the winter. Mack asked me to give you a message, by the way. He wants you to keep this afternoon free for him.”
Wendy blinked in surprise, wondering if Elinor realized how much her choice of words made it sound as if she was arranging a date. Of course not, Wendy told herself. The idea wouldn’t have crossed Elinor’s mind. And why it had occurred to Wendy was beyond her understanding, too.
She pushed the question aside and began the next bit of Rory’s stretching routine. “Is he around the house somewhere now?”
“No, he went to work for a few hours. He had some loose ends to tie up before the holiday, he said. That’s why he wanted to be sure you didn’t make plans for the afternoon, so he can take you shopping.”
Now it made sense. Elinor might even have suggested the expedition.
Elinor picked up a sheet of paper from her desk. “I’ve made a list of the stores I think you’ll find useful, and the kinds of things Rory will need for cold weather.”
Wendy glanced at the list, neatly typed on Elinor’s monogrammed stationery. To her, it looked more like the inventory of a children’s store than a shopping list for one small baby. But she didn’t comment; it was none of her business any more. She folded the list and tucked it in the pocket of her slacks.
Elinor’s brow was furrowed a little. Wendy wondered what she was thinking. Did she find Wendy a bit ridiculous, kneeling on the blanket with the baby? Or was she looking for a polite way to dismiss her, now that her purpose had been ac
complished?
Elinor wouldn’t have to think about that, Wendy concluded. She’d have the right words on the tip of her tongue.
But unless she was dismissed, she decided, she was going to stay right where she was – with Rory. When Elinor said her name, Wendy looked up reluctantly. The lines on Elinor’s forehead had grown deeper, as if they’d been chiseled.
“Mack said you’d told him Marissa didn’t want you to bring the baby home to us.”
Wendy felt slightly dizzy, as if she were wavering on the edge of a chasm which hadn’t been there a moment before. But there could be no answer but the truth. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “But that’s right.”
Elinor sighed, and her face seemed to sag a little. “I wish I understood.” There was a note in her voice which clutched at Wendy’s heart, a tone somewhere between tenderness and pain. “She was such a beautiful little girl. Willful, of course, and perhaps more spoiled than the boys. Everyone felt sorry for her, I think, and felt she’d been cheated, because I was... not well.”
It was a deliberate understatement, Wendy thought, intended to avoid creating sympathy. But as she watched the twisted hands move in Elinor’s lap, Wendy could picture just how ill the woman had been in those years.
“Then – it seemed to happen overnight – she turned away from us. Everything we said or did or believed in or stood for – she took the opposite approach. And she left home the moment she could.” Elinor closed her eyes for a moment. “We must have seemed uncaring – not even to try to stay in touch with her. But, you see, Wendy, we thought if we could just give her the time and the distance she demanded, that when she was ready she would come back to us. Only there wasn’t enough time.” Elinor bit her lip, and said once more, “I wish I understood.”
And I wish I had an explanation, Wendy thought. Or any words at all which might bring her comfort. But she could think of nothing which might ease this sort of pain.
In the moments when Wendy’s attention was focused on Elinor, the baby had managed to scoot off her blanket onto the hardwood floor. Rory gave a little crow of surprised annoyance as her hands brushed the cool wood, and Elinor looked down, laughing at the baby’s expression while she tried to discreetly brush a tear away.
“She’s going to crawl early, I think,” she said, and the moment of confidence was past.
They spent the rest of the morning almost companionably, chatting and playing with the baby. When Elinor announced it was time for lunch, Wendy couldn’t believe the time had passed so quickly. Unable to find an excuse to keep Rory with her any longer, she handed the baby over to one of the nurses to be fed and put down for a nap, and obediently followed Elinor’s wheelchair down the hall to the elevator.
Lunch was an almost formal meal, served in the big dining room with both Elinor and Samuel Burgess present. Mack did not appear, and neither did Mitchell, and the conversation reverted to more formal topics – as if, Wendy thought, Elinor was unwilling to risk letting the subject of Marissa come up again.
After lunch Elinor retreated to her room for a rest, Samuel returned to his library, and Wendy sat down by the fire in the drawing room, where she could keep an eye on the front door, to flip through a magazine and enjoy the sharp pine scent of the big tree in the bay window. By the time Mack appeared, looking a bit windblown and carrying a big box, she was at such loose ends that she jumped up from her chair and said, “Gracious, I’m glad to see you!”
His eyebrows went up a bit. “Enthusiasm like that sends my pulse rate into orbit, Wendy.”
The soft note of laughter in his voice did the same thing to her. The reaction took Wendy by surprise, and she had to make a conscious effort to give him a level look and say, “Don’t get too excited. It’s nothing personal.”
Mack grinned and flicked a fingertip across her cheek.
Instinctively, she wanted to draw away from the contact, but at the last moment, she stayed still. The spot where his fingers brushed tingled as if she’d gotten a jolt of static electricity.
“Thanks for putting my mind at rest,” Mack said. “It’s a great relief. I’m late because I picked up our bags at O’Hare.”
“So the plane made it? Then we could have waited and flown in this morning.”
“But just think of what you’d have missed.”
She reconsidered the events of the past day and couldn’t think of anything she’d have regretting missing – even though, on the whole, it hadn’t been nearly as much of an ordeal as she’d expected. “Well, you missed lunch,” she said practically. “Or are you expecting special service again today?”
“I had a hamburger sent in before I left the office.”
It didn’t sound like much, compared to what he had missed. The chicken salad had been tasty and attractive. The china plates it was served on were so delicate they probably belonged in a museum. The Irish linen napkins were ironed so smoothly they were almost slick.
Wendy would have traded it – without even a moment’s thought – to have a hamburger with Mack.
There was no reason why she should be surprised at that abrupt realization, of course. At least with Mack she knew where she stood. She didn’t have to try to be anything but herself. She wasn’t attempting to impress him, and so she was comfortable in his company. That was all, she told herself, and wondered why – if all that was so – she should be feeling a little breathless, and so terribly aware that he was watching her.
“Ready for our shopping trip?” Mack asked.
She eyed the box he had brought in, grateful for the distraction. “It looks as if you’ve already been.”
“I just picked this up for Mother.” He set the box on the hall table and lifted the lid.
Wendy said hastily, “I wasn’t trying to be nosy, Mack. What your mother buys is none of my business.”
He went straight on. “It’s an early Christmas gift from her to you.” Tissue paper drifted to the polished floor as he lifted out a dark green wool coat, long and sleek. A scarf in a muted plaid was already tucked under the collar. It was beautiful, and just Wendy’s color – she could almost see the way the dark green would set off the red highlights in her hair.
“I can’t take something like that,” she said.
“I guarantee you’ll freeze without it. And as long as you’re going to be running errands for Mother, why shouldn’t she make it easier for you? I don’t hear you complaining about her sending me along to chauffeur and carry boxes.”
“That’s different.” She said it automatically, and then caught her breath, hoping he wouldn’t ask her to explain exactly where the difference lay. Of course she couldn’t easily shop by herself in an unfamiliar city – but she was uneasily aware that wasn’t quite the real reason.
“Explain it in the car, or we’ll never get finished before the stores close.” He held the coat for her, and after only an instant’s hesitation Wendy slipped into it. There wasn’t any point in being a martyr; she hadn’t forgotten how the blasts of wind had cut through her thin coat and threatened to whip her breath away.
The car at the front door was not the one Mack had bought the day before. Instead, it was a low-slung sports model, the kind that Wendy would have hesitated to drive at all, much less take out on streets which might still be icy. He helped her into the car and walked around it to slide behind the wheel. “Where do we start?”
Wendy consulted Elinor’s list and named a store, and Mack nodded. Though he negotiated the streets with relative ease, Wendy was glad she wasn’t the one behind the wheel. And as they went from store to store, and the pile of boxes and bags in the back of the car grew higher, she was even more glad that Mack was with her. “The bills for this expedition are going to be so high even your mother will turn pale,” she muttered finally.
Mack shrugged. “We’re only buying what’s on her list.”
That was true, but the fact made Wendy very thoughtful. She put down the dainty ribbon-trimmed dress she’d been holding and turned away abruptly.
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“What’s the matter? You don’t really think Mother will complain about the bottom line, do you?”
She bit her lip and shook her head. “No, of course not. That’s the point, you know. This is all wonderfully generous – the coat for me and all the things for Rory. Did you know her new crib is draped in antique lace? But it’s not enough, Mack.”
“Wendy, please.”
“She’s doing it again. She’s substituting material things for what she can’t give. That must be what Marissa meant, you know.”
“Marissa was–”
“Immature and selfish and spoiled rotten. I’ll take your word for it. Nevertheless, she had a reason for what she said, Mack, and no matter how inadequate you think it is, she had a point. I like your mother very much, but you have to face facts. Elinor is too physically restricted to take care of a baby. She can’t give Rory the real care she should have. For one thing, she doesn’t even understand what a baby needs.”
“What are you talking about? After four kids of her own...”
“Maybe she’s just forgotten, but...” Wendy groped for an example. “Rory coughed this morning, and your mother wanted to call the doctor.”
“What about it? She didn’t catch cold yesterday, did she?”
“Of course not. She was just teasing me – it’s a little trick she learned – but your mother didn’t know the difference. She doesn’t know the baby.”
“As you do, I suppose you mean,” Mack said.
Wendy nodded miserably. “The nurses will handle all her physical care, but being clean and well-fed isn’t the only thing that matters. It’s not the same as having one person who loves that baby who’s tending to all her needs, emotional as well as physical. If you’re honest, Mack, you’ll admit it. You know your parents can’t take proper care of her.”
“And your answer to the problem is...?”
She said softly, “I want to take her back to Arizona.”
“You know that’s impossible.”
Wendy nodded miserably. “I wish I’d never called you.”
When he finally spoke, his voice, normally so rich and soft, sounded almost flat. “I know, Wendy. Believe me, I know.”
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