Only belatedly did she remember that shehadseen 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 ...”
