“Perhaps you should bring him up to see Arabel,” she suggested.
He raised his brows.“Perhaps when she has finished?”
Eleanor blushed.
He laid one gentle finger on her rosy cheek.Such a small contact to be so devastating.“I’ll go and tell him you have at least not shot me on sight.We’ll come up in a little while.”
When the door closed quietly behind him the baby stirred and seemed to look around.
“Yes, he’s gone.Are you already enthralled, little one?”Eleanor caressed the child and switched her to the other breast.The baby latched on strongly and Eleanor winced.“Be gentle with me.I’m new to this too.What am I to do?”
The baby just sucked.
Eleanor sighed.“Why am I pretending I have a choice?I won’t send him away, though he would go, you know.It would be unfair and a prime example of cutting off a nose to spite a face.And if he is to stay, my little blossom, it can hardly be in a state of war.”
The babe finished her small meal and slid off the nipple, bored by the discussion.In fact, she was nearly asleep.
Eleanor brought her up to her shoulder, as the midwife had showed her, and rubbed her back.
“You’re right.It’s a foregone conclusion.But I am not going to give in to him too easily, Arabel.I deserve, I think, that he should struggle just a little.”
Arabel burped and gave a little gurgle.
“I knew you’d agree.We women must stick together.”
Once the baby had dropped off to sleep Eleanor rang for Jenny to make the mother presentable for visitors.Jenny dressed her hair in a neat braid and took out a pretty jacket to wear over her nightgown.The baby just slept on in her arms.As her visitors approached, Eleanor was amused to hear that Miss Hurstman’s restraint toward Nicholas had not lasted.
“…have no manners or consideration.You have no idea of the delicate state of a lady after childbirth.”
“Respectfully, neither have you, Miss Hurstman,” said Nicholas as they entered the room.
“Oh, call me Aunt Arabella.I’m one of the family now.And as your aunt I’ll take leave to tell you you’re an impudent scoundrel.Did Eleanor tell you I’m to be the child’s godmother?”she challenged.
“Yes, and I think it an excellent idea.”
“Do you?”said Miss Hurstman in surprise.“Well, don’t think I’ll leave my money to her.It is all to go to the Society for the Emancipation of Women.”
“How wise,” said Eleanor.“She will benefit far more from that than from being hounded by fortune hunters.”
“A woman of sense,” approved the older lady.“Send her to me now and then and I’ll make sure she doesn’t turn into a milk and water miss.”
Nicholas burst out laughing.“No chance of that.We’ll probably have to send her to Aunt Christobel to have some decorum drilled into her.Enough of this.Francis, come and admire my daughter.”
Lord Middlethorpe looked at the baby and was appropriately impressed but obviously far less at ease with babies than Nicholas.Eleanor suspected that if she had offered the baby to him to hold he would have recoiled in horror.He looked searchingly at her and then gave her what she assumed was supposed to be a reassuring smile.
She suddenly realized the baby was wet.She smiled at the thought of Lord Middlethorpe holding not only a baby, but a dripping one.She rang the bell by the bed and the new nursery maid came to take away her charge for repairs.
This was signal for the visitors to leave but Eleanor caught Nicholas’s eye.He understood and stayed behind.
“I am going to be silly,” she said.“This all feels like a dream.Will you still be here if I go to sleep?”
“Of course.”He drew the curtains against the wintry sun, mended the fire, and then came to sit on the edge of the bed.“I won’t go unless you tell me to, Eleanor.I give you my word.I have never broken my word to you, have I?”
Eleanor thought about it.He had always been careful to promise her little.What he had promised, he had held to.“No.You have never broken your word.”
“Go to sleep then.We’ll talk when you’re ready.”
He stayed as she drifted into a dose.Before he left he brushed a feather-light kiss across her brow.
