Her daughter’s enthusiasm chased the unfortunate fowl, who winged away with a chirp of avian dismay well before Charlotte could reach him.
“Gray,” she corrected gently, “and do try not to say it so loudly next time. You have chased the bird.”
Her daughter’s imperfect speech was adorable, as was her wild streak. Indeed, she reminded Pippa of herself when she had been a girl. Already, she spied the makings of a fellow hoyden. Charlotte was garrulous, confident, and unafraid. She made a habit of climbing everything in her vicinity, including the dining room table and the ladder in the shelf-lined library.
“Char-char chase bird,” Charlotte announced, turning back to Pippa with an expression that was all too familiar.
She was about to turn on the waterworks. Her lower lip trembled, and her bright-blue eyes—George’s eyes—filled with tears.
“Here now, my love,” Pippa said, bending down and opening her arms to her daughter.
It made her heart hurt whenever Charlotte wept. She had not wept when George had died, for Charlotte had not been of an age to understand. George had so oft been preoccupied with work after she had been born that he had scarcely seen her. Charlotte had never saidPapa, and although Pippa had shown their daughter pictures of her father in an effort to keep his memory alive, she knew Charlotte was too young to comprehend who the man in the pictures truly was.
Charlotte launched herself into Pippa’s arms, and Pippa lifted her darling girl, holding her small body against hers and burying her face in the familiar chestnut curls. When she had first been born, Charlotte had possessed a head of golden, silky hair, much like George’s. Now that her hair had grown, however, it was the same color as Pippa’s. She could not help but to mourn the loss of those tiny blonde wisps.
Charlotte’s arms wrapped tightly around Pippa’s neck, and she sniffled. “Char-char no wike, Mama. No want bird to fwy.”
At some point in her life, Charlotte was bound to learn that life rarely was what anyone wanted it to be. Disappointments would be myriad. Betrayals would be crushing. Loss, in its varying degrees, would prove agonizing.
But let it not be now, Pippa thought as she comforted her daughter.Not yet. Not for years.
“Do not cry, my darling,” she said, rubbing Charlotte’s back in soothing strokes. “Mama has you now. More birds shall come to visit us in the gardens. I promise.”
She was coddling Charlotte, and she knew it. But neither could she quell the instinct. Indeed, she refused to feel a hint of remorse for comforting her. Croydon, Charlotte’s nurse, was forever reminding Pippa of the necessity for Charlotte to learn how to be proper from an early age. To not allow her to be cossetted and spoiled.
She is a lady, and she will marry a gentleman one day who will expect her to behave as one, was Croydon’s oft-repeated mantra. As if Pippa needed reminding of who her daughter was and what might await her in the future. Sometimes she wondered if it was wrong of her to wish a different life for Charlotte. Or to at least wish for her daughter toenjoyherself before she had to conform to society, experience the bitterness of disappointment, and marry. To be a girl who could race through the parterre barefoot if she wished, to make as much noise as she liked. To learn how to climb trees in the country and race horses.
But there would be no country for Charlotte. Not unless they visited George’s family—unlikely as such a trip would be—or Pippa’s brother, Worthington. As relations between Pippa and Worthington had been strained for several years now, a visit to her brother was equally improbable. Mayhap her dearest friend Tilly if their relationship had not been hopelessly, horribly strained by those blasted letters from George. And from whatever George had done.
Her head ached at the reminder.
She’d had precious little sleep the night before.
“More birds?” Charlotte asked, sniffing as her tears subsided.
Her small head tipped back, her cobalt eyes bright, the lashes wet and spiky with tears, her cheeks wet.
“Of course.” She kissed Charlotte’s nose, then each of her cheeks. “There shall always be more birds, Char-char.”
And there was another Croydon edict she was breaking. The nurse strongly recommended they avoid allowing Charlotte to have a sobriquet for herself.
It shall only confuse her, had been Croydon’s argument.
Was it wrong for Pippa to adore the name? Char-char was what Charlotte called herself, and Char-char was what sheoughtto be called in Pippa’s estimation. However, Croydon had her opinions, and they were almost always in opposition to Pippa’s. Theirs was a constant battle. Often, Pippa felt as if she were losing.
Hopelessly adrift in a sea of flotsam and jetsam. Nothing to cling to save her daughter. For the last year, Charlotte and her friendship with Tilly had been the sole momentum which had kept Pippa moving forward.
But now…
Those blasted letters.
To distract herself and to cheer her daughter, Pippa spun them about in a circle until Charlotte giggled wildly. The both of them were laughing, even Pippa’s world performing a sideways quadrille as they stopped in the gardens, taking pleasure in this tiny measure of sunshine in the midst of so much darkness. Finding solace in each other.
Until a familiar figure intruded. Croydon hovered on the periphery, newly arrived and unmistakable in her somber bombazine.
“Mrs. Shaw.” She curtsied. “It is time for Miss Charlotte’s nap.”
Was it Pippa’s imagination, or was there censure lingering in the nurse’s words, hiding in her gaze? She did not think it was.
