Lady of Milkweed Manor (31 page)

Daniel Taylor alighted the horse drawn London-Brighton coach at The George, then began the walk down Crawley’s High Street. As he strolled, he pulled out the schedule pamphlet and doublechecked the return departure times. Looking up with the barest glance, he made the turn through Mrs. Dunweedy’s gate and nearly walked straight into Katherine Harris.

“Well, Dr. Taylor, imagine meeting you here.”

He dropped the schedule.

“Lady Katherine!” He gulped a deep breath. Then he bent over to pick up the pamphlet, and as he raised back up, took in her traveling clothes and just then saw the large carriage in the lane. He silently berated himself for his inattention. “I am surprised to find you here.”

“I imagine you are. And here I thought you said you had no idea where Charlotte was.”

“Well, I … I am not here to see Charlotte. I am here to see my-

“Dr. Taylor!” Mrs. Dunweedy interrupted with a great burst of voice and smile as she hurried from the cottage and took his arm. “How good you are to come all this way to see me. My poor back has been hurting dreadfully. So good of you to come.”

Katherine looked from Mrs. Dunweedy to Dr. Taylor, skeptical brow rising.

“You are here to see Mrs. Dunweedy?”

“Oh yes, Dr. Taylor has offered to come look in on me,” Margaret Dunweedy said. “He’s a good friend of my son. School chums, they were.”

“An awfully long way for a house call, is it not?” Katherine asked.

Dr. Taylor looked at the cottage and saw Charlotte in the window, her face pale and somber, eyes pleading.

“Not so great a distance,” he said. “I come this way now and again on business.”

Katherine Harris followed his gaze and no doubt caught a glimpse of Charlotte before she stepped away from the window. “What sort of business, I wonder.”

“Dr. Taylor, I should tell you,” Mrs. Dunweedy interjected, “I’ve taken a boarder since you were here last.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, her name is Charlotte Lamb, but I believe you knew her in hospital as Charlotte Smith. She has her daughter with her. Poor fatherless angel …”

Lady Katherine appeared incredulous. “You mean to tell me you are not here to deliver … to act on my behest of last autumn?”

“But of course I will,” Daniel said. “Now that I am here.”

As soon as Lady Katherine’s carriage disappeared down the road, Charlotte turned away from the window and faced him, her expression downcast.

“Dr. Taylor, please forgive me.” Charlotte all but pressed young Anne into his arms and took three long steps back. “I had no right to presume … to claim your child as my own. How awful that must have made you feel.”

“And you would know,” he said softly.

She glanced up at him quickly, as though fearing censure. He smiled grimly, hoping to put her at ease.

He looked down at Anne for a moment before saying, “I had no idea, until this moment, just what an awkward predicament I placed you in, asking you to do this.”

“It is not your fault.”

“Still, I am not sure if what I am about to tell you will be a relief or a greater trial.”

Her gaze flew to his face. “What is it?”

He chewed on his lower lip. “Lizette is better.”

“That is wonderful. You-” she began, but he cut her off soberly.

“She wants Anne home with her.”

Charlotte’s mouth opened, but for three full ticks of the clock no words followed.

Then she said quickly, “Of course. How wonderful. I am happy for you. And for your wife. And, Anne-Anne should be with her mother.”

“Thank you,” he said with a single nod, then studied the floor. “Considering … what just happened here-how difficult this is for you-and the fact that it will become, I’m supposing, only more difficult, I won’t ask you to come with us,” he said. “I will find another nurse and release you to find a more appropriate post … or to return home.”

“I shall not be returning home,” she said.

“What will you do, then?”

“I do not know. I imagined I would be occupied with Anne for the foreseeable future. I should have been better prepared.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She smiled admirably, then asked, `Are you returning to London?”

“Yes, for a time. Though I’ve been offered a seaside cottage for a few months and am considering taking it. I think a change of scenery might do Lizette good.”

“Where is the cottage?”

“Not far from Shoreham on the south coast. Nothing very fashionable, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t know a soul there …”

“Of course it is not that we do not wish you to come. If you wanted to continue on, we-“

“I would. I would like to continue on as Anne’s nurse.”

“Really? Well, wonderful.”

“I do not like to leave my great-aunt so suddenly, but I am sure she will understand.”

“Yes. She seems a loyal friend.” He smiled, thinking of the old woman’s enthusiastic falsehoods, as though she were playing a part in some Shakespearean farce.

“Now that Katherine knows I am here … well, should she return and find Anne gone, I would have to explain. I am not prepared to go through another false mourning. Although neither would be truly false.”

He nodded.

“And seeing Edmund like that,” she continued, “with her. I don’t know. It is both nourishment and deprivation. Pleasure and pain.”

He bit his lip. “But if you stay here … you would be more likely to see him now and again.”

“Yes. No doubt you are quite right. And yet, I know myself. I would both hope-and fear-that someone would see a resemblance, or some inexplicable quality in my manner of looking on him. I know I should give myself away. Give him away.” She expelled a puff of dry laughter. “Poor choice of words, that.”

“You hope still to amend your arrangement?”

“Only every other moment. Most of the time I remain convinced I have done the right thing.”

He ran his long hand over his face. “I feel so responsible-“

“Dr. Taylor,” she said almost sternly. “We have been through this before. You are not to blame. Not for any of it. Not even for this.” She nodded toward Anne as a new thought struck her. “Perhaps it is I who should be releasing you to go home without me, back to your former, trouble-free life. As long as you must see me you will always be reminded of how I came to be in your employ, will always feel responsible somehow.”

“A trouble free life.” It was his turn to laugh dryly. “I am afraid my former life is as far from me as yours is from you. Though there are days when I am tempted to hope. Like now, when Lizette seems almost herself.”

“Well, then, let us not tarry.” Charlotte smiled bravely. “Let us get this dear one back to her mama. One cannot help but be cheered by her sweet presence.”

“I quite agree. And I am pleased you will meet my wife now that she is recovered.” He hesitated, then continued awkwardly, “It might be better if we did not mention her … time … in the manor.

“Of course. I understand.”

Soon, farewells said and bags packed, Charlotte sat across from Daniel Taylor in the London-bound coach, Anne asleep in her arms. Two other passengers rode with them, an elderly couple with expressions as worn as their faded traveling clothes and drooping hats. The old woman smiled politely.

“How old is she?” she asked.

“Five-and-a-half months.”

The woman glanced at Dr. Taylor, who was already reading a medical journal. “She looks a great deal like your husband.”

Charlotte felt her cheeks warm. “We are not …”

But Dr. Taylor looked up from his book and interrupted her, saying kindly, “Thank you, madam. Though I dearly hope my daughter shall grow more handsome in time.”

He smiled at the woman, and she smiled in return, not seeming to notice anything amiss.

Later, when both the man and the woman had nodded off, Charlotte leaned across the aisle and asked quietly, “Do you think my cousin suspected anything … about your coming to my aunt’s as you did and, well, everything?”

“I cannot say,” Daniel whispered back. “I fear I am not the thespian your great-aunt is. It’s quite possible my expression gave something away. What do you think? You know her better than I.”

“I think the questions are even now parading through her mind.”

WANTED A NURSE with a good Breast of Milk, of a healthy Constitution and good Character, that is willing to go into a Gentleman’s Family.

-MARYLAND GAZETTE, 1750

CHAPTER 21

harles Harris attempted to read while his wife paced the length - ! of Fawnwell’s newly restored sitting room.

“Really, Charles. A journey of that length to pay a house call? On a widow who cannot have more than a hundred pounds a year?”

“What did the woman say?”

“Something about her son and Dr. Taylor having been at school together.”

“Well, then.” Charles flipped over his newspaper.

“I do not believe it. I cannot imagine the Dunweedys affording Oxford or Cambridge. Which did Taylor attend, do you know?”

“I do not.”

“I think I shall find out.”

“To what purpose?”

“Clearly something is amiss with the entire situation.”

Charles looked at her over his paper. “Of course there is. Did you not find your unmarried cousin with a child?”

“Yes, yes. I do not mean that. I mean with Taylor showing up there.”

“Did you not ask him to get the money to her?”

“Yes, but I had the distinct impression he was there as a course of habit.”

Charles shrugged, resuming his reading. “Even if he was there to check on Charlotte, a former patient, I don’t see that as so unusual.”

“Do you not?”

Keeping his tone casual and his eyes on his paper, Charles said, “You said Charlotte has a girl … a daughter?”

“Yes. Calls her Anne. Little thing. Not at all as robust as our Edmund.”

“And what did Charlotte have to say about Edmund?”

“The usual niceties, I suppose. Though without the enthusiasm I might have expected. She did agree he looks like you.”

Charles nodded but said no more.

“I also admit, I studied her child quite closely, thinking to see a resemblance to someone we both know quite well.”

He looked up at her, feeling suddenly anxious. Had Katherine suspected the child would resemble him? He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“Of course she admitted nothing about William. Still I wondered. But then this Taylor showed up, all the way from London. You don’t suppose … ?”

“Taylor is a married man.”

“We both know that is no guarantee of anything. He traveled alone.”

“Common enough. Besides, I heard his own wife was expecting a child. Taylor is likely a father already.”

“Indeed?”

“Indeed.”

Katherine shrugged, her pretty lips screwed up in thought. She seemed satisfied. For the time being.

The Taylors’ London townhouse was a tall narrow building sandwiched between a dozen others just like it. The medical offices were housed on street level, above the kitchen and beneath three floors of living quarters above. When they arrived, Daniel preceded Charlotte into his offices, where he dropped his medical case and picked up a few pieces of correspondence. He gave her a reassuring smile. “This way.”