Page 37 of Lady of Milkweed Manor

Just when Charlotte decided Katherine expected no response, that she had merely mentioned William idly, Katherine looked up at her, eyebrow raised in question.

Charlotte shrugged. “Nor I.”

Only belatedly did she remember that she had seen Mr. Bentley, though only in passing—and him very drunk on his way to a ball with another woman. But, considering, well, everything, she thought it not worth reporting.

Katherine looked back at the infant. “Yes, I see the resemblance,” she announced finally.

Charlotte’s stomach lurched. Was she really suggesting the child resembled William Bentley?

“Resemblance?” Charlotte asked weakly.

Katherine smiled at her. “She looks a great deal like her mother.”

Charlotte smiled stiffly, steeling herself as Katherine went on.

“You forget—and some days I should like to—that I had already seen my first season when you were born. She reminds me very much of you as a baby. The big eyes and something about the mouth ...” Katherine waved vaguely about the child’s face in a circular motion.

Charlotte swallowed. “Thank you.”

She could feel Sally’s eyes, wide and questioning, on her profile, but she kept her own gaze straight ahead.

Charlotte refilled teacups, although Katherine refused with another wave of her hand. When Charlotte had set the pot back down, Katherine handed Anne back to her.

“I went through no small ordeal to find you, Charlotte. I trust you do not mind the invasion?”

“Of course not,” Charlotte said halfheartedly, returning to her seat.

“I even asked after you at that lying-in hospital back before Christmas. But neither the matron there nor Edmund’s own physician would acknowledge you had been there, nor give me a clue to your whereabouts. All very private.”

Charlotte’s mind was whirling. Edmund’s own physician?

Suddenly Charlotte remembered, and her palms began to perspire and her breathing escalated. She had to get Katherine out of here!

“It was your own father who finally tipped me off,” Katherine continued. “And I had to all but threaten him with social ostracism before he would.”

Father knows where I am?

“Why?” Charlotte asked with a half smile and a broken laugh.

“Why indeed! To help you, of course.”

“Thank you, but ... how?”

“Well, for starters, I shall be sending over more tea.”

Anne began to fuss in earnest. Charlotte had put her off as long as she could, bouncing her and offering her little finger to suck on, but the child would have no more of that and was burrowing her face into Charlotte’s bosom in a most humiliating manner.

“Please excuse me. Anne needs to be fed.”

“Sally, do nurse Edmund as well. Then we really must be going.”

“Yes, m’lady.” Sally nodded.

“Why not join me in my room, Sally?” Charlotte offered. “That way these ladies may remain where they are.”

Sally nodded again and, when Katherine didn’t object, followed Charlotte to the guest room down the short passageway.

Both women busied themselves with their gowns and helping their charges latch on and begin nursing. When Anne was settled against her, Charlotte looked up. Sally, already nursing Edmund, was watching her, her eyes moving from Charlotte to the child and back again.

“Who is she?” Sally whispered.

Charlotte, sitting on the small chair near the door, cocked her head, listening, before responding.

Hearing Katherine’s voice as she regaled Margaret Dunweedy with an enthusiastic description of Edmund’s christening—“The finest London has seen in many a year, I can tell you”—Charlotte reached over and pulled the door nearly closed. “Sally ... I ...”

“Is she a foundling?”

“Well, in a manner—”

“Bless your heart, Charlotte, I guessed it! You’re motherin’ a wee one from the foundling ward in place of your own poor lad gone to heaven. What a saint you are.”

“I’m no saint, Sally. Far from it.”

“Well, I think you are.”

She opened her mouth to tell Sally the truth. But how could she admit she had lied to avoid the immense shame it would bring her family if it were known she was a wet nurse—Sally’s own chosen profession?

“Well, all I can say is that this little girl needed a mother’s care.

So I’m caring for her—at least for a time. But, please, Sally, don’t say a word to Katherine or anyone about my son. Please. I cannot tell you why, but it’s very important. Promise?”

“But if she knew, she could—”

“No, Sally. No one must know. Ever.”

Sally looked at her, eyes wide, searching. Finally she said, “Very well, Charlotte. If that’s what you want.”

“It is. It is what I need.”

Charlotte looked down at Anne, who had nursed for only a few minutes before falling into a deep sleep. “Oh, Anne ...” Charlotte mumbled, gently trying to rouse the baby.

“No use.” Charlotte sighed. “She’s hardly nursed all day. Too tired, I suppose.” Charlotte rose and laid the sleeping child in the cradle. “She didn’t sleep well last night. I think the poor thing had an earache.”

“Would you mind, then?” Sally looked at her, then away, almost too casually.

“Hmm?”

“Well, you’re needin’ to nurse and I’m needin’ a rest. This lad is never satisfied, and I want to have enough milk fer the long ride home.”

Charlotte was stunned. A warm ache of need pooled within her as she stared at Edmund. Sally pulled him gently from her breast and stood, child in arms. Charlotte sat down, speechless, and Sally handed him to her.

“Mind if I take a lie on your bed?”

“No, of course not,” Charlotte whispered, still staring down at Edmund.

Sally left her peripheral vision, but Charlotte didn’t pay attention.

Her mind barely registered the creak of the bed ropes as Sally reclined—her eyes were focused on her son.

She guided him to her breast and cuddled him close.

She felt his wet little mouth, the tug of his tongue, the sweet sting of milk coursing through her, the bittersweet flow of tears on her cheeks.

She glanced up and saw Sally lying on her side on the bed, watching her all too closely.

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 double-checked 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.”