‘How?’
‘A knife to the heart. It was quick.’
If her grandmother was kind in her reply, she knew she would cry.
‘You may use the lavender suite. Your mother always liked those rooms the best.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Wilkins.’
The same man as before came again.
‘Take my granddaughter to the lavender suite and see that she gets some lunch.’
Then her eyes shut, the lashes thin and spindly on crepe-wrinkled cheeks. Celeste noticed the trace of a single tear leaking from the corner of her closed right eye and turned quickly.
Only a little while. Only until I can get on my feet again. Only if I am welcomed.
The ghost of her dead mother walked along beside her. She could smell the attar of violets she had always used quite distinctly.
Once she was alone, and food and drink had been brought from the kitchens on a tray, she unwrapped her cloak and smiled down at the small child in swaddling cloths, her breasts aching with the desire to feed him.
Loring was five months old and his fingers clutched at her, dark eyes watching as she unlaced her bodice.
‘We are safe for now, my love,’ she whispered and was glad both for the heavy lock on the door and the large size of the house. She had not told her grandmother of his existence because today she was exhausted and another fight was the very last thing that she wanted. Without Loring, she would never have come back to England. She would have kept the shifting rootlessness of her life on the road on the Continent. But a child changed things, made journeys infinitely harder, and she was willing to risk anything and everything to see him safe.
‘I love you,’ she whispered as he began to suck, this small scrap of baby taking her breath away with his beauty. He looked like Summer with his light wisps of hair and eyes that had changed from smoky blue at birth into a golden amber. He had the same fingers, too, long and slender.
‘I will tell her in the morning, darling, and it will all be fine. I promise you.’ She spoke softly in case anyone was outside and because saying the words, however improbable, gave her strength.
Here there was a large, comfortable bed and glass at the windows to keep out the weather. Here there was food and something to drink that would not make them sick. Here if she became ill, others might help her, might help her child. Here there was a measure of security that she had not felt since Nantes.
She knew Summerley Shayborne seldom came home and that he was well occupied in London with politics. She had made it her business to find that out as she had listened to local gossip on her way through the county. He had not remarried either, but that was something she had no right at all to feel relieved about, for she had given up any hope of him over a year ago when she had made her choice to stay in France.
If it was not for Loring, she would never have returned to Langley—she knew that to the very bottom of her heart.
When he finished feeding she changed her son and held him tight until he fell asleep. Then she tucked him in beside her, protected by a cradle of pillows, and covered him with a silky sheet and a fluffy blanket.
They were safe. Sitting back against the headboard, she breathed out, crying noiselessly so as not to wake him. She did not wipe at the tears that fell down her face or try to stop them. She let the sorrow come unbidden, soft against her skin until the fabric of her gown was soaked dark and wet.
For so very long she had not cried. For all the months of her pregnancy and for every month since she had bitten back emotion and carried on. Until now. Until there was no danger at her heels or sword across her head.
And finally, when the great emotion was past, she stood and looked out the window, over the fields and the gardens and the river that ran before the house, the sun showing up in patches as large clouds raced across before it.
Home. She had never felt it before but today she did, the safety of the place wrapped around her, her grandmother, the richness of the decor and the marches of history. Beside her, Loring breathed fast, the congestion he’d had crossing the Channel so much improved here. Yet another worry gone.
He looked so perfect, so very solid. The next generation. Summer’s child. Wrapping her arms about him, she lay back and closed her eyes.
* * *
The knocking was getting louder, more forceful, and as she regained wakefulness, she knew it to come from the door. With a start, she glanced at the day outside and thought she could not have been asleep for more than an hour. Loring was still asleep, though the noise had disturbed him. She laid a hand across his back and willed him back to sleep.
Then she answered the door.
The same servant as before stood there. ‘Your grandmother requires a word with you downstairs, Miss Celeste. If you would follow me.’
‘Just a moment.’
