Page 24 of Lady of Milkweed Manor

Harris was evidently avoiding the issue—that is, the baby—a mere arm’s length from his nose. Waiting, most likely, for Charlotte to bring him into the conversation.

“Quite well, actually. Everyone here has been very kind to me, and my son and I are in good health.”

“Your son, yes. Taylor mentioned him.”

She looked up sharply at Daniel, eyebrows high. “Did he?”

“Well, I asked him about you. How you were ... and everything. He deduced the rest himself.”

“I see.”

“And your son. What do you call him?”

“Dr. Taylor and I were just discussing that very topic. I have decided to call him Edmund, after my grandfather.”

“That was my father’s name as well.”

She looked away from both men’s gazes. “Yes,” she murmured. Charles Harris smiled through fresh tears. “You honor me.”

Charlotte’s gaze shifted to her sleeping son. “It was not my intention.”

“May I ... see him?” he asked.

She looked at Harris, clearly confused by his attention, but she complied, shifting the little bundle to her other side. Harris laid out both forearms on the bed to receive him. In the lamplight, Harris studied the small face, the tiny hands, and a new wave of sorrow stole over his features.

“He is beautiful ... perfect ...” He forced words over his tears. “Like his mother.”

Charlotte’s eyes filled with tears of her own at the man’s obvious awe layered over raw grief.

She smiled, causing a tear to run down each of her cheeks. She whispered, “Actually, he looks a great deal like you.”

Charles nodded, tears coursing down his face too.

Daniel stood there feeling the worst of interlopers and had just decided to leave the sad pair to themselves when Charles changed tactics.

“I cannot help wondering ... how will the two of you get along? I would help you if I could, but you know I haven’t any money of my own at present. Perhaps in time, but for now ... how will you live?”

“I do not know exactly, but we will manage.”

“Will you? Charlotte, forgive me, but I must ask. You are young, you might yet marry and have more children. Katherine, as you know, is much older. The pregnancy was very difficult for her and she has vowed never to bear another child should anything happen to this one.”

Charlotte stared at him. “What are you saying?”

“Charlotte ... think about it before answering.”

“Before answering what?” Her voice rose.

“Charlotte. Think. You could go back to your old life. Reenter society. I would raise him as my own.”

“He is your own! And that has never tempted you to any duty before now.”

“I do not deny I have treated you ill. But I would treat Edmund very well. You know I would be a good father to him. And Katherine ... You would be saving your cousin from a broken heart, from the brink of insanity.”

“It is you who is insane. Do you think I would just give my child to you? How dare you ask such a thing? He is my son!”

“He is mine as well.”

“He is yours no longer. You gave him up when you married my cousin.” She gathered her infant back into her arms and held him close.

“I had no choice.”

“You had a choice. And you made it. Now leave us alone. Leave, this instant.”

Daniel took a step forward, ready to escort Harris from the room, feeling none of the satisfaction he had anticipated now that Charlotte had refused him. There was no happy ending for such a situation as this.

Harris rose to his feet, clearly shaken and chagrined. “I am sorry, Charlotte. I had no right to ask.”

She shook her head, wonderingly, despairingly.

“Again you would choose your own happiness—and Katherine’s—over mine.

A gain. ” Her voice shook as she spoke. “You would have me take on Katherine’s heartbreak, to suffer in her stead.

I cannot have her place in your life, but I can have her intolerable grief? ”

Mr. Harris looked at the floor. “You are right, Charlotte,” he said quietly. “It is too much. Forgive my asking.”

Harris turned toward the door, Daniel a few paces behind him. He opened it and gestured Daniel through. As Harris was about to shut the door behind him, Charlotte called out, “Wait.”

Charlotte swallowed as Mr. Harris stepped cautiously back into the room.

Dr. Taylor stood near the door, searching her face. “I shall wait just outside the door,” he said. “If you need me, you need only call.”

Charlotte nodded mutely, and Dr. Taylor closed the door behind him. Mr. Harris took a tentative step back toward the bed, arms behind his back, head bowed.

Charlotte looked away from him, away from her son. She stared toward the window, its shutters folded back. From across the room, the light of the moon outside drew her gaze. She was silent for several minutes. Unable to think. Only to feel.

“You know I want what is best for him,” she began, her throat tight and burning. “But this ... this is too much, too sudden.”

From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed his nod, but he said nothing. She turned from the moonlight to look at him.

“Do you have any idea what you are asking of me? He is my son—my heart! I love him more than my own life. Have you ever felt that way about anyone? Or do you love only yourself ... and that estate of yours?”

“That might have been true once. But no longer.”

“You really do love her, then—Katherine?”

“Yes. Not at first, perhaps. But now ...”

“And would she ... love my son?” Sobs racked her entire body.

He did not answer immediately. When he did, it wasn’t the answer she expected. “Charlotte, you know my wife. Katherine is very loving, but she is also very proud, very jealous, and very possessive.”

“Yes, I know her well.”

“If we act now, and give Edmund to her, she will believe him her own and he will grow up with every advantage, free from scandal, with both a father’s and a mother’s love.

But if she knows he is not her own flesh and blood, I fear she will reject him, or at best be bitter toward him—and me—all his life.

While Katherine has her failings, she is capable of great love, great loyalty and devotion, and I can promise you Edmund will have all these things from her. ”

“She will not mistreat him?”

“Of course not. He is my own son! And she will believe him hers as well.”

“ If I were to consent to this, would you be willing to promise me something?”

He nodded cautiously.

“If she does realize Edmund is not her own, if she cannot love him utterly, I beg you please, return him to me. Promise me you would not let him suffer.”

“I give you my word.”

“Would you give me some time to think about it?”

“We haven’t much time, Charlotte. If I take Edmund home now, or at the very least in the next few hours, when Katherine is just waking from the sedatives, I can easily persuade her that this little boy is her own, home safe and well from his trip to the hospital.

If we wait and she suspects, not only is her devotion in question, but my ability to bequeath my land and holdings to him as my legal heir would also be at risk.

If we are to do this, it must be now. Tonight. ”

“But how ...?”

“Taylor!” He startled her by shouting.

Dr. Taylor opened the door, behind which he had been standing at the ready as promised.

“Come in, man, and close the door.”

When Dr. Taylor had complied, Mr. Harris said in a low, conspiratorial voice, “Is there any reason—should Miss Lamb agree, of course—if I left here tonight with this child, that anyone would know he is not my own? The one I arrived bearing?”

Daniel Taylor’s face looked ashen and angry behind his grim mask.

“For that to work, Miss Lamb would need to falsely claim your, pardon me, deceased son, as her own. And I should also have to lie to verify that somehow a perfectly healthy infant in my care has died during the night. The death certificate would need to be forged and the birth certificate falsified. And then there is the problem of the accoucheur and the monthly nurse who witnessed your son’s struggle.

But beyond these minor inconveniences”—his tone was acid—“I see no reason whatever.”

Mr. Harris ignored his sarcasm. “The accoucheur will be so relieved his patient has a living child—that his own reputation will not suffer—he will raise no alarm. And I am quite certain he completed neither birth nor death certificate. Remember, my poor child was still alive, though just barely, when we left the house.”

“And why would I lie for you and risk my own reputation and career?”

“You would not for me,” Mr. Harris said, “but you would for Charlotte. You’d do anything you could to help her.”

Dr. Taylor paused but did not deny the man’s words. “If it was what she truly wanted.” He looked at her, and the panic and nausea that rose in her while they discussed details of an act that would surely kill her now made her whole body tremble.

“How can I? How can I part with him?”

Mr. Harris searched her face earnestly. “I shall appeal to you only once more, Charlotte, and then torment you no further. But think on this. You do not know how you would provide for Edmund, though I’ve no doubt you would try admirably.

With Katherine’s wealth and, God willing, a return to prosperity for Fawnwell, Edmund will have the best of everything—the best doctors, the best tutors, the best schools.

When Katherine and I die he will be our heir.

He will know no want and want for nothing. ”

“And he will never know me.”

“A terrible loss to be sure, but he will not know what he is missing.”

“But I shall know what I am missing.”

“Yes, dear Charlotte. You will know.”

They stayed as they were for several moments, none of them speaking.

Charlotte thought not so much on Mr. Harris’s promises of abundance for her child but rather on the alternatives.

What flashed before her mind were not idyllic images of Edmund romping about the croquet lawn in a fine suit of clothes, but rather the things she had seen at this place.

She saw the perfect brown-haired boy she had fed die for no apparent reason.

She saw the desperate young woman who put her infant on the turn beg for a wet-nursing post hoping to be reunited with her baby—only to find her heel-marked daughter dead by morning.

She thought of women like Becky’s mother, who couldn’t afford to feed her children, of Becky herself, who would likely have to give up her baby and go back to work or starve.

But surely she had more options. Wouldn’t Aunt Tilney help her?

She’d already offered her a place to live, and she could nurse Edmund herself for at least a year, if her milk held out.

But what then? How would she buy him food, let alone all the other things he’d need?

Would her uncle allow her aunt to help further against her father’s directives?

Not likely. What sort of post could she get with an infant to nurse every few hours?

The words she had so na?vely spoken to Mae echoed back at her, “I would never give my child to someone else to feed ... ” And here she was, considering doing just that. I must be insane. She shuddered.

Dr. Taylor cleared his throat. “Perhaps, Miss Lamb, there might be something I can do. I haven’t a large income, but I am sure I could find a way to help you out of this predicament.”

Dr. Taylor clearly had no idea how inappropriate his offer was, but she knew he offered with the best intentions.

“I thank you anyway, Dr. Taylor, but you have a wife and your own child to think of.”

Charlotte looked down at Edmund’s small face, which had instantly become so precious to her. Sobs overtook her again. “Must I decide right now? I cannot. I cannot.”

She held her tiny son close and glared up at the men. “Can you both please excuse me? I need a few moments alone. I cannot think with the two of you staring at me.”

Charles looked at his pocket watch. “But—”

“Of course,” Daniel overrode him, leading the other man from the room. “We shall return directly.”

When the door closed behind them, Charlotte got up, one hand on Edmund to keep him safe, and fell to her knees beside the bed.

Tears dripped from her face onto the blanket she’d embroidered as she looked down at her bundled son.

I cannot do it, Lord, I cannot. When I prayed for you to provide a way for him, this is not what I meant!

This is too hard. Too cruel. Is it truly the right course?

Your way out of this muddle? If so, you will have to help me. I cannot do this alone. ...

Her prayers turned to thoughts of her son, and she whispered through her tears, “Oh, my little one, you will never remember me. But I will always remember you. Always love you. Never think I did not love you ... or want you. Oh, God, it is too hard... .”

Charlotte Lamb laid her head down on the bed beside her son and cried, knowing she must somehow do an impossible thing.