Lady of Milkweed Manor (17 page)

“The child is … I did my best to revive him, but I fear he is not long for this world.”

“No.” Harris bolted past the accoucheur, through the sitting room and into the lying-in room. Daniel followed. A monthly nurse was trying to keep a wild-faced Lady Katherine from leaping from her delivery cot.

“Where is my baby? Give me my baby! Charles! Oh, thank God you are here. They have taken our baby, Charles. They have taken our baby!”

Harris rushed to his wife’s side, and Daniel looked around the room. The nurse nodded toward a table near the door. Daniel jogged over and laid his ear on the chest of the swaddled babe. The skin was warm but he could hear no heartbeat. He struck the soles of the infant’s feet to stimulate crying, to no avail. He began blowing small puffs of air into the tiny mouth and lungs. Laying his long hand on the child’s abdomen, he applied gentle pressure at regular intervals to mimic exhalation.

“What is he doing? Is that my baby? What is he doing to him?”

“Hush, Katherine. Lie back. That is Dr. Taylor. He’s an excellent physician. Everything is going to be fine.”

Daniel doubted the words.

The nurse approached and quietly suggested they move the baby to the sitting room, out of view of the missus. Daniel complied.

“The physician is going to examine the babe in the other room, missus,” the nurse soothed. “He’ll be back soon.”

Daniel carried the newborn to the sitting room and took a chair near the fire to keep the babe warm. He continued his attempts to rouse the child. There was little hope of success, but he had to try. For the devastated mother, for Harris even, and for himself. Daniel bitterly assumed the male midwife had disappeared, far from the wrath of father and misery of mother. He wondered if the man even had any hospital training. Accoucheurs were all the rage with the aristocracy, and Daniel, like most physicians, found them a threat-to their own practices, yes, but also to the medical hierarchy and standards of care.

The nurse paused in the doorway. “Shall I give her some laudanum, sir?”

Daniel paused momentarily in his task and sighed. “Please do. And do not be stingy.”

The nurse disappeared into the other room, and a short time later Lady Katherine’s heartrending shrieks quieted to pitiful sobs.

Harris joined him. “Well?”

Daniel shook his head. “Only the faintest of heartbeats. I am afraid we are losing him.”

Harris stared blindly at him. “Dear God, no.”

The accoucheur reappeared in the doorway, leather bag in hand. “Do not blame providence. I find women who live in affluence and luxury often endure prolonged suffering and more difficult births than the lower orders of women.”

“How dare you …”

Harris lurched forward, raising his arm to strike the man, but Daniel called out, “Harris, don’t.”

Slowly, Harris lowered his fist and his voice. “Get out of my house this instant,” he growled.

The young man inclined his nose, turned on his heel, and left the room.

Daniel continued his ministrations on the child. “If we were at the lying-in hospital with my warming crib and stimulants, maybe, but in any case, there is so little I can do.”

“Go then, in my carriage. Or send my man for whatever you need. Spare no expense.”

When Daniel did not move, Harris exclaimed, “Good heavens, man, why do you sit there?”

The nurse reappeared. “Her ladyship will sleep ‘til morning I’d wager. I gave her a hefty dose. Poor lamb.”

Charles Harris swung his gaze to Daniel, steely resolve and desperation flinting in the candlelight. “Take my son to that hospital of yours, Taylor. Take us both.”

After the copulation concludes, butterflies fly away [to] areas with an abundance of milkweed….

MORGAN COFFEY, CORONADO BUTTERFLY PRESERVE

CHAPTER 13

harlotte sat up in bed. She’d heard a sound, a moan. This was not the wail from the French woman above stairs; this was a male cry. The sound vibrated with anguish. It struck her deeply somehow, as though she’d heard the sound before. But how could that be? She didn’t think it was Dr. Taylor. And she barely knew the other men about the place.

She looked down at her little son, asleep beside her, a feather pillow keeping him close. She’d retrieved him from the little crib at the foot of her bed for his last feeding and they had fallen asleep together. She had awakened only long enough to secure the spare pillow on his other side to make sure he would not fall from bed. He slept peacefully still, undisturbed by the sound. She stroked his head lightly, needing to touch him but hoping not to wake him.

When the sound didn’t come again, she settled back against her pillow. What was it the cry had reminded her of?

Then she remembered. And that memory she had so often pushed away reasserted itself. Lying there, looking down at the profile of her newborn child in the moonlight, she let the memory come.

That night Charlotte had also awakened to a sudden sound. Someone had called out in pain, she was sure, and her mind quickly identified the familiar voice. Mr. Harris. Lightning flashed in her bedchamber, and for a moment she hesitated. Perhaps she had imagined it or it had only been the wind. She should stay in bed. Safe. But she couldn’t sleep, wondering if Mr. Harris was ill.

He had come to stay at the vicarage two weeks before, after the Christmas Eve fire at Fawnwell. What a night that had been. Fire brigades and people from all over Doddington had come to help. Charlotte herself had run over and was soon put to work hauling pitchers of tea and water for the volunteers. There was little they could do to stop the fire tearing at the south wing with fiery claws. In a matter of hours, the south wing was a black, smoking heap of rubble and skeletal ribs. At least they had managed to keep the fire from spreading to the north.

Still in her bed, Charlotte heard Mr. Harris moan once more. Rising, she quickly wrapped her white dressing gown over her nightdress, quietly opened her door, and stepped out. The upstairs rooms were arranged around a square court, open to the ground floor. She stepped to the balcony railing. A faint light from below drew her eye and compelled her toward the stairs.

She found him slumped in a chair before a dying fire in the drawing room, staring at a sheet of paper.

“Mr. Harris?” she whispered.

But at that moment, a loud clap of thunder shook the vicarage and he didn’t hear her. He crumpled the letter in his hand, dropped the tumbler he’d been holding in his other, and held his face instead.

“Mr. Harris!” She flew to his side, kneeling before his chair, reaching for the spilled glass and turning it aright on the floor. Her hands were tentative on his knee, entreating him to notice her presence. “Are you ill?”

He looked at her with strange wonderment. “Charlotte? Did I wake you? Pray forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive. Has something else happened? Mr. Harris, you look very ill. Should I send Buxley for Dr. Webb?”

“No. There is nothing he can do for me.”

“What, then?” She spied the crumpled letter. “Have you received bad news?”

“Yes. Bitter news.”

“Your mother?”

“No. Mother is fine-still staying with friends in Newnham. Doing as well as can be expected for a woman forced from her home.” He rubbed both hands over his face, clearly distressed.

“Is there nothing I can do? Is there something you might take for your present comfort?”

“If you mean brandy, I have had plenty … with little relief to show for it.”

“Shall I call Father?”

“No. Let him sleep.”

“Shall I leave you alone, then?”

“Stay, Charlotte, if you will.”

“Of course.”

“You are a comfort to me,” he said idly, still staring at the embers in the grate. “Always have been.”

Lightning flashed, filling the room with light, then leaving it more shadowed than before. Wind howled, holding the curtains aloft on the breath of its wail.

“You must be freezing!” She rose and rushed to the window, wondering why on earth it had been opened on such a cold January night.

“I had not noticed ..

She closed the window firmly, pausing to look out at the swaying tree limbs and swirling snow. “Thunder and lightning in January.” She shook her head in wonder. “This is going to be an incredible storm.”

She walked to the hearth and tossed a few scoops of coal onto the fire, then turned to him. Seeing him shiver, she pulled her father’s wool lap robe from the back of the chair and laid it across his shoulders.

“Is it Fawnwell?” she asked, straightening the robe over his arms.

He didn’t answer, so she continued. “You shall rebuild-“

“In time.” He straightened in his chair. “Though it is not Fawnwell alone which weighs on my mind this night.”

She again knelt before him. “It is not the wind, is it?” She attempted a mild tease. “I have never known you afraid of a coming storm.”

But his answer was contemplative, serious. “Afraid? Why be afraid when there is nothing I can do. This I know, but still-I detest my utter helplessness to stay its hand. I dread its power over me. I dread the … damage … it will certainly havoc.”

She squeezed his hand and he looked down at her, as if suddenly realizing she was there.

“Good heavens, you look beautiful like that.”

“Like … what?”

“Your hair down around you, the firelight …’

His eyes fell from her face to her neck, and Charlotte for the first time was aware of her own state of dress. But rather than the rush of embarrassment she would have expected, a strange feeling of power filled her instead. She had come into this room a little girl, to comfort her dear Mr. Harris, with no care for her dress or decorum, only to soothe the man she loved most in the world. It was as if, as she knelt there before him, she grew from little girl to desirable woman in a space of a few aching heartbeats. And, if she was reading his expression rightly, he was witnessing the same startling transformation as well. But perhaps it was only her view of herself that had changed, because she had indeed seen that look in his eyes before-that admiration, that desire-but had been blind to its meaning.

He leaned nearer, inspecting her closely. He lifted his hand to touch her face, tenderly outlining her jaw, her chin, with his fingers.

“I always knew you would be beautiful, Charlotte. But you always were to me. Promise me you will forget all my foolishness in the morning-chalk it up to lightning and brandy-but now I feel I must say what I very soon will no longer be able to speak of.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but she feared whatever she might say would break this pleasurable spell. He ran a thumb over her silent, parted lips and her heart throbbed within her.

“I have loved you since you were a little girl, Charlotte-I suppose you know that-and I love you still. To me, you are the dearest creature God ever made. You have always been so kind, so affectionate to me-more than I deserved. When I see myself in your eyes, I am the best man on earth. Or at least in Kent.”

His mouth lifted in the crooked half grin she’d always admired, and in thoughtless response to his warm words, she leaned close and placed a quick kiss on his mouth, and instantly his grin fell away.

He stood suddenly, awkwardly, and since her hand was still clutching his, pulled her to her feet with him. He looked down at her, then away. “You had better go back to bed.”

He stood rock still, but made no move to turn from her nor to turn her out. She stood before him, wishing she might kiss him again, to wipe that bleak look from his face, to see him smile once more. But he was too tall for her to reach, her head reaching only to his shoulders.

“Go on,” he repeated in a rough whisper, and for a moment she wasn’t sure if he wanted her to leave or to continue with her unspoken desire. Rather than feeling dismissed or rejected, she felt instead emboldened, sure at last of his attachment to her and feeling the pleasure, the intoxicating sweetness of it. How could she not, after a lifetime of thinking him the most handsome and cleverest of men? After endless years of loving him, of dreaming of him, of believing him out of reach, here he was, right here now, loving her.