She pulled back with a shake of her head. “I don’t want it to burn.”
I nodded that I understood and turned my attention to the children who continued playing quietly with their little toys on the floor. Across the room, the baby let out a rasping cry, and Betsy hurried over to the cradle and gently picked the baby up.
“There, there, sweet baby John,” she soothed as she sat on a rocking chair and pulled down the neckline of her dress and lifted him to her breast.
My cheeks warmed. I’d never seen a woman feed her child—Mama didn’t have any more children after me, and even if she had, she likely would have employed a wet nurse.
Baby John cooed, and Betsy smiled down at him.
I suddenly felt as if I were intruding on something special, sacred even, and I looked away, catching Mrs. Turner’s gaze.
“Nothing to be ashamed of,” she said. “Perfectly natural, just as God intended it to be. Soon as this here babe is weaned, Betsy will work as a wet nurse.”
Wet nurses could make a tidy profit, and sometimes their wages were even greater than what a man could make harvesting the fields. But to work as a wet nurse, Betsy would have to leave her own children. The family would benefit monetarily, but to not see them every day seemed like a great sacrifice.
“She will make a wonderful wet nurse,” I finally said.
“Right you are.” Mrs. Turner nodded.
As if in agreeance, Baby John let out a full and contented sigh.
Betsy pulled the infant from her breast, and after swaddling him in his little blanket and laying him in his cradle, she returned to the fire to help Mrs. Turner with the stew.
I felt a tug on my skirt. A little boy, no more than five or six years old, with big brown eyes and a tangle of dark curls, stood at my side. “Well, hello there. What is your name?”
“Matthew,” the little boy said.
“It is very nice to meet you, Matthew.” My hands trembled without the nearness of the fire to warm them, so I tucked them into the folds of my skirt.
“Do you live in the big ’ouse?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No, but I am a guest there.”
“What’s it like?”
He likely wanted me to tell him about Summerhaven’s luxuries, the fine furnishings and the exotic foods, but how could I when he would likely never enjoy those things?
“The manor is lovely, but”—I leaned conspiratorially close and lowered my voice—“the east wing is haunted.”
Matthew gaped. “Really?”
“Well, I have never actually seen any ghosts, but that is what Lord Jennings told me when I was your age.”
Matthew’s face scrunched as if he were considering the truthfulness of my statement.
“The entirety of the east wing is not actually haunted.” Damon’s voice surprised me from behind, and he joined us at the fire. “Only the hall of portraits. You have never seen so many angry faces.” Damon narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips, imitating the paintings of his ancestors.
Matthew laughed at Damon’s antics, but I was too distracted by the rainwater dripping from the ends of his hair to be amused. I liked his hair this way, brushed across his forehead. A little looser, freer. I itched to run my hands through the inky strands. It reminded me of the boy I once knew, once liked.
I liked himnow. Perhaps more than I should.
Damon continued on about the hall of portraits, and I remembered a time we’d stood in that great hall together as children.
“Caught you!” Damon had tagged Ollie’s back. “Now it’s your turn to count, Ollie.”
“I hate this game.” Ollie dragged his feet back to the parlor, counting sullenly. “One. Two. Three . . .”
“Come on, Hannah.” Damon led me down the long corridor and into the portrait gallery. The black and white tiled floor looked like a chessboard, and the ceiling was painted blue to look like the sky. My gaze roamed over the paintings; some were large, others small, but they were all stone-faced and grim.
