Page 21 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #2)

It was good, of course, that she had had a boy.

Maud was glad that the succession was assured – or, at least, she would be when she had inspected the child and seen how likely it was to survive.

And so many things could happen between birth and maturity that it was imperative there should be a second son as soon as possible.

She hoped Kitty knew that. She must speak sharply to Giles about his duty – he was so vague and woolly in that area, there was no knowing if he had taken the realisation on board.

But, glad though she was about the birth of an heir, she couldn’t help knowing that it was one more thing pushing her off her throne.

Giles’s wife was just that – nothing more than his wife – until she had consolidated her position with a child.

Now Maud feared the power and prestige of the position would begin relentlessly to drift towards the younger woman, leaving her with nothing to look forward to but old age.

She was so deep in her resentful thoughts she almost bumped into her mother-in-law, who was coming along the passage in the other direction.

‘I thought I heard you arrive,’ Grandmère said. Maud tried to walk past, but the old lady blocked her passage. ‘Now, Maud,’ she said, with her most annoying smile, ‘I hope you are not going to cause trouble?’

Maud raised her eyebrows. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘Let the child enjoy her baby. Let the young parents have the joy of it.’

‘Sentimental rubbish!’ Maud exclaimed.

‘Ah, yes, I know how you English are. You love your dogs, but your children— pfui ! Ils sont considérés comme un atout agricole. ’

‘Please don’t speak nonsense,’ Maud snapped. ‘I won’t be lectured on your foolish French notions of “love”.’ And she walked past.

Grandmère smiled to herself and called after her teasingly. ‘Little boys sent away to school to learn not to cry. Girls shut up at the top of the house until they can be married. Tiens, la froideur des anglais est bien connue! ’

Nurse Belton hadn’t known how to deal with the old lady.

When she had tried to express outrage at the idea of the countess feeding the baby at her breast, the flood of rapid French, the bright fierce eyes and the fluttering fingers had driven her back like a flock of birds flying into her face.

She felt relieved when she heard the dowager had arrived, knowing a little of her reputation, but she missed her mark there, too.

Her murmurings about ‘the best houses’, ‘not done’ and ‘dear Lady Stavesacre’ slid off like water from a duck’s back.

Maud had been born a Forrest, and so high above everyone else in the land, she could barely have seen Lady Stavesacre through a telescope.

Snobbery did not apply to her. She was the yardstick by which everything was measured.

‘I will see the baby,’ she said, cutting through Nurse Belton’s narrative as if she hadn’t heard it – which she hadn’t.

She took up the child, handling it firmly as one accustomed, and assured herself that it looked healthy and whole, had all its limbs and digits, and a reasonable chance of beauty once the crushed redness of birth passed off.

It tried to open its eyes, and its starfish fingers tried to close over one of hers as she inspected it, and she did feel a tug of something frighteningly visceral at that moment, but she resisted it.

‘Satisfactory,’ she said sharply, pushing the bundle back at the nurse.

Nurse Belton couldn’t help being impressed by her ladyship’s grandeur.

Here was real power, she sensed. ‘He is a fine baby in every respect,’ she gushed.

‘Would your ladyship like to see the mother?’ She’d make the girl see sense, Nurse Belton thought.

Lady Stainton was one of the old school.

She much mistook if even Lord Stainton ever defied her.

But Maud turned away without answering. She had seen the baby.

She didn’t want to see the mother. Kitty would need rest and quiet, she explained to herself.

But the fact was that she didn’t want to see that – that suburban miss in her moment of triumph.

She would rather think of the heir in isolation, as if he had been dropped into the nursery by a beneficent angel.

Giles entered Kitty’s bedroom to find her sitting up in bed with the baby in her arms. ‘Was that Dr Arbogast I saw leaving?’ he asked. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘I was worried about the baby’s rash,’ Kitty said, not looking up from the adored face. ‘Nanny said it was only a milk rash, but I wanted to be sure.’

Nurse Belton’s three-day reign of terror was over.

Nanny Pawley and nursery-maid Jessie had been installed and now had care of the baby, while Miss Hatto had said she could take care of my lady’s needs.

Being only eighteen, Kitty had bounced back so quickly she’d have been up and about if the general female consensus hadn’t been appalled by the idea.

Even Rose, who had never had a baby, popped in to warn her that her insides would slip if she got up too early.

Her mother-in-law had returned, but so far she had been blessedly free of visits from her.

Instead, a message of congratulation had been sent via Miss Taylor, delivered to Miss Hatto and thence to Kitty.

It would have been possible, Kitty thought, to find an insult in there somewhere, but since she didn’t want to see the dowager she preferred to think it quite normal behaviour.

Nanny Pawley – who was round and comfortable – had said she mustn’t be upset or it would affect her milk.

‘And what did the doctor say?’ Giles was asking.

Now Kitty looked up. ‘That it was just a milk rash,’ she admitted.

Giles perched on the edge of the bed. ‘He seems pretty strong to me, and everyone who knows says he’s very healthy.’ Kitty hesitated, clearly on the verge of a confidence. ‘What’s wrong? Tell me.’

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Kitty said. And then it came out in a rush. ‘I had a brother once,’ she said. ‘I never told you. But he died, when he was only four. He was strong and healthy before that.’ She paused, then added in a low voice, ‘I loved him so much.’

Giles pressed her hand. There was nothing he could say to reassure her.

People died, children died, babies died, and there was nothing you could do about it.

But you couldn’t live your life in fear.

You could only proceed on the assumption that people would live.

Yes, but though he felt a powerful and terrible connection to this scrap of flesh, he was not a mother, and he couldn’t know what that felt like. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

Kitty thought how impossible it was to explain exactly what she felt.

Yes, she had loved her brother, had mourned him dreadfully when he died.

She had thought before the birth that she would feel the same about her own baby, but something had changed in her when she had begun to feed him at her breast. Now there was a love that was like a strong plant rooted deep in her stomach, so tough that if anything tried to pull it out, it would rip the insides out of her.

Loving her brother had, in comparison, been like loving a pet dog.

And with this love came a fierce determination to protect her baby at all costs from anything that might harm him.

The determination gave her courage. There was a steel deep inside her, that had only emerged once before – in the early days of their marriage, when she had felt herself slighted for another woman.

She thought of that almost wonderingly – that something so trivial could have moved her so much.

Her baby was of a completely different order of importance.

Her brother was a faded flower by comparison – even Giles seemed just then almost irrelevant.

Giles took the baby from her, and she let him go reluctantly, her arms greedy to have him back.

‘What was his name – your brother?’

‘Peter,’ she said.

Giles settled the baby in the crook of his arm, getting more used to holding him now. ‘Would you like to call our son Peter?’ he asked. He didn’t like it much as a name, and it was not a family name, and he was sure his mother would not approve, but he wanted to please her.

‘No,’ she said. ‘But thank you.’

Giles hid his relief. His mother had been suggesting names at the dinner table for the past three days – making up for her absence at the crucial moment, he thought, by taking charge of everything else she could.

Better to choose a name privately with Kitty and present Mama with a fait accompli and no room for argument.

‘We ought to decide on something,’ he said

‘Whatever you think best,’ Kitty said. For now, her baby was such an absolute to her, it seemed almost silly to think he needed a name. She and he lived inside a tight bubble that was the whole universe. But there were people outside who needed references.

‘What do you think about Louis?’ Giles said. ‘It was one of my father’s names – Grandmère’s father was a Louis. I don’t really see him as a William, and William, Henry and George are the family names.’

‘How did you get to be Giles?’ Kitty asked.

‘My father chose it – to annoy my mother, I think. But my second name’s William.’

‘Yes, I remember hearing it at our wedding. Giles William Henry Tallant,’ Kitty said. She remembered, wonderingly, the wedding and the days immediately afterwards, when she had learned about love. She had loved him so passionately. It all seemed so far away now.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I never liked any of my names. Perhaps people never do.’

‘I haven’t thought about it. I’ve always been Catherine, so it’s hard to imagine anything else.’

So their conversations always went, he thought. A philosophical idea set free by him, and nailed down to the here-and-now by her. If only . . . But he must not think disloyal thoughts, especially now.

Kitty was watching him, aware, as always, of so much going on inside his head that she would never be party to. And now she was the same, a universe of thought he could not access. ‘I like the sound of Louis,’ she said.

‘Then it shall be Louis,’ said Giles. ‘And what do you say to Sebastian? Uncle Sebastian would be so tickled.’

‘Oh yes. I love Uncle Sebastian,’ said Kitty. She added, ‘Actually, I quite like Henry.’

‘Henry’s not too bad,’ Giles agreed. ‘Well, then shall it be Louis Sebastian Henry Peter?’ He looked down at the absurdly small face. ‘He’s rather small for such a large name,’ he said.

‘Let me have him,’ Kitty demanded. Giles handed him back. ‘Thank you,’ she said profoundly.

He didn’t know whether the thanks were for the return of the baby, or the ‘Peter’ in his name.