“You propose to be his nurse? Should I permit you access to your own bed?” she asked.
At that, he caught her teasing tone and cast her a gentle smile. “We’ve plenty of other beds.”
“But none so fine as this,” she said, taking in the warm blankets, woven canopy, and fine sheets.
“I’d not inconvenience you, even if the other beds were hopping with lice,” he said.
“Don’t say that,” she said, crossing herself quickly, remembering the endless days of cleaning after infestations.
“Well, I suppose I might insist on taking up a sliver of my bed, should bedbugs visit the abbey.”
Amy crossed herself again, shuddering at the recollection of what had happened the last time bedbugs got out of hand at the workhouse.
Erasmus traced the baby’s exposed little arm and then tucked a blanket around it. “I don’t mean to keep you from admiring your son. Don’t you wish to touch him?”
Amy looked at the little boy. She had expected to hate him, to see something in him she despised. Part of her feared what she might do in the wake of the baby’s birth, but now that he was here, she was relieved to discover that she simply felt detached.
She nodded no, her eyes filling with tears.
“I’ll see to everything. In time, things might be different,” he said.
Midsummer Day
Chapter 3
Midsummer Day, 24 June1883
St Laurence’s Church, Warborough, Oxfordshire
“This way, dears.”
Erasmus led Amy and Theodosia through the churchyard, all while holding Phineas against his chest. The baby had been a perfect angel, aside from during a moment of prayer for the queen, at which point he’d yowled. So young, and already carrying on the family tradition of being opposed to all forms of coercive power! One could not find a truer Mangevileyn!!
Amy drew nearer and placed her gloved hand on his arm, which he’d held out to escort her.
She looked well in her new dresses and frills, though still tired from little Phin waking her at all hours to eat as he grew at a shocking pace. But then, Erasmus was right alongside Amy every night, so his own eyes must have borne the telltale shadows as well.
“Amy, do you enjoy picnics?” asked Theodosia from his other side. The girl was still feeling out her stepmother, even now, after a few months in the same household. Erasmus decided that he’d allow them to sniff each other like neighboring lambs and decide how to carry on. He suspected they might come to be great friends — provided he didn’t force or rush them.
“I haven’t attended a picnic in some time,” she replied, casting her eyes over the village green before looking at the churchyard, littered with centuries of headstones.
“My mother isn’t there,” said Theodosia. “She’s in Vienna. That’s in Austria, where we used to live. Pater is going to bring her back after the harvest.”
Amy’s steps faltered, and she looked to Erasmus in bewilderment.
“We buried my first wife in Vienna,” he said, rushing to set her mind at ease that he was not committing bigamy with her. “She died abroad while I was in the foreign service. I promised Thea I would bring her home for a burial here.”
“She knew German and French and danced as though her slippers didn’t touch the floor,” said Theodosia, watching Amy’s reaction. “Everyone admired her so.”
Erasmus watched his daughter look longingly at the churchyard as though she hoped to find her mother, gone now for four years, waiting among the memorial stones. He’d never found the words to tell Thea that they’d suffered a double loss that sad March day; Eleanor had been carrying a child, one yet too small to survive outside the womb.
Alone, he’d interred them in a vault at the Matzleinsdorf Protestant Cemetery, his greatcoat insufficient for the bitter day. He’d not been properly warm since.
Until he’d taken up young Phineas from the hay several months ago, that is. Now in the warmth of summer, the baby squirmed against his neck as if he felt his father’s desperate need to know he was yet breathing. Erasmus hoped that someday, in time, Amy would draw the same comfort from their son.
His wife was a quiet little thing, seemingly as bewildered by the twist of fate that had brought them together as he was. He’d not thought of how she’d fill her days, accustomed as he was to women of his own class with their teas and menus to prepare.
There was always the care and feeding of Phin, but when she’d looked rather gray after several weeks of confining herself to just a few rooms at the Abbey, he’d realized that his young wife might need help to understand her new role as a lady.
