The nurse approached and quietly suggested they move the baby to the sitting room, out of view of the missus. Daniel complied.
“The physician is going to examine the babe in the other room, missus,” the nurse soothed. “He’ll be back soon.”
Daniel carried the newborn to the sitting room and took a chair near the fire to keep the babe warm. He continued his attempts to rouse the child. There was little hope of success, but he had to try. For the devastated mother, for Harris even, and for himself. Daniel bitterly assumed the male midwife had disappeared, far from the wrath of father and misery of mother. He wondered if the man even had any hospital training. Accoucheurs were all the rage with the aristocracy, and Daniel, like most physicians, found them a threat—to their own practices, yes, but also to the medical hierarchy and standards of care.
The nurse paused in the doorway. “Shall I give her some laudanum, sir?”
Daniel paused momentarily in his task and sighed. “Please do. And do not be stingy.”
The nurse disappeared into the other room, and a short time later Lady Katherine’s heartrending shrieks quieted to pitiful sobs.
Harris joined him. “Well?”
Daniel shook his head. “Only the faintest of heartbeats. I am afraid we are losing him.”
Harris stared blindly at him. “Dear God, no.”
The accoucheur reappeared in the doorway, leather bag in hand. “Do not blame providence. I find women who live in affluence and luxury often endure prolonged suffering and more difficult births than the lower orders of women.”
“How dare you ...”
Harris lurched forward, raising his arm to strike the man, but Daniel called out, “Harris, don’t.”
Slowly, Harris lowered his fist and his voice. “Get out of my house this instant,” he growled.
The young man inclined his nose, turned on his heel, and left the room.
Daniel continued his ministrations on the child. “If we were at the lying-in hospital with my warming crib and stimulants, maybe, but in any case, there is so little I can do.”
“Go then, in my carriage. Or send my man for whatever you need. Spare no expense.”
When Daniel did not move, Harris exclaimed, “Good heavens, man, why do you sit there?”
The nurse reappeared. “Her ladyship will sleep ’til morning I’d wager. I gave her a hefty dose. Poor lamb.”
Charles Harris swung his gaze to Daniel, steely resolve and desperation flinting in the candlelight. “Take my son to that hospital of yours, Taylor. Take us both.”
After the copulation concludes, butterflies fly away
[to] areas with an abundance of milkweed....
—MORGANCOFFEY,CORONADOBUTTERFLYPRESERVE
CHAPTER13
Charlotte sat up in bed. She’d heard a sound, a moan. This was not the wail from the French woman above stairs; this was a male cry. The sound vibrated with anguish. It struck her deeply somehow, as though she’d heard the sound before. But how could that be? She didn’t think it was Dr. Taylor. And she barely knew the other men about the place.
She looked down at her little son, asleep beside her, a feather pillow keeping him close. She’d retrieved him from the little crib at the foot of her bed for his last feeding and they had fallen asleep together. She had awakened only long enough to secure the spare pillow on his other side to make sure he would not fall from bed. He slept peacefully still, undisturbed by the sound. She stroked his head lightly, needing to touch him but hoping not to wake him.
When the sound didn’t come again, she settled back against her pillow. What was it the cry had reminded her of?
Then she remembered. And that memory she had so often pushed away reasserted itself. Lying there, looking down at the profile of her newborn child in the moonlight, she let the memory come.
That night Charlotte had also awakened to a sudden sound. Someone had called out in pain, she was sure, and her mind quickly identified the familiar voice.Mr. Harris.Lightning flashed in her bedchamber, and for a moment she hesitated. Perhaps she had imagined it or it had only been the wind. She should stay in bed. Safe. But she couldn’t sleep, wondering if Mr. Harris was ill.
He had come to stay at the vicarage two weeks before, after the Christmas Eve fire at Fawnwell. What a night that had been. Fire brigades and people from all over Doddington had come to help. Charlotte herself had run over and was soon put to work hauling pitchers of tea and water for the volunteers. There was little they could do to stop the fire tearing at the south wing with fiery claws. In a matter of hours, the south wing was a black, smoking heap of rubble and skeletal ribs. At least they had managed to keep the fire from spreading to the north.
Still in her bed, Charlotte heard Mr. Harris moan once more. Rising, she quickly wrapped her white dressing gown over her nightdress, quietly opened her door, and stepped out. The upstairs rooms were arranged around a square court, open to the ground floor. She stepped to the balcony railing. A faint light from below drew her eye and compelled her toward the stairs.
