“Jemina?”
“I’m well. I’m sane. Don’t touch her.”
He jerked back like I’d bit him. Maybe I had with my tone.
“Jemina?” Daniel stooped beside the rocking chair. “What’s wrong?”
How was I to say this and not be condemned? I couldn’t. I held Hope tighter. “I’m upset with myself for not hearing her cries. I’m selfish.”
An easier breath left him. “No, not at all. You’ve proven yourself so giving over and over.” Daniel kissed my cheek. “We’ll get you used to our routine. Then, we’ll find time to be selfish. Now, Lady Ashbrook go to bed. I’ll comfort my daughter.”
“No. No, you go rest. You have court tomorrow. I have her. You trust me with her, Daniel?”
He nodded, but those eyes of his seemed to assess me. Surely, he knew I stewed. How could I not?
What was the truth?
Had Daniel lost both Phoebe and her child with theMinerva? Had all his hopes been stolen by the hurricane that sunk that ship?
Or was I Phoebe? And he saved my baby.
I kissed my Hope’s head. “Go to sleep. When she falls to sleep, I’ll put her to bed.”
He brushed her curls but seemed hesitant to move.
“Go on, Daniel. I’m her mother, remember?”
My husband, keeper of secrets, stood at the door. The man looked truly lost, but the way Hope held on to me, I’d never put her down.
I’d just found what I’d been looking for. It merely came with a husband I could no longer completely trust.
CHAPTER 41
DANIEL—LADYASHBROOKWHO
Aweek of marriage had passed. Daniel wouldn’t exactly notice a difference from his old life, the one he had two years ago.
Alone, estranged from Jemina, he crouched low on the floor outside the nursery.
Well, this was different, sitting on the tapestry in the hall. Two years ago, he’d be in his study reading Phoebe’s letters before preparing for vingt-et-un with the fellows and waiting for the day theMinervasailed into Portsmouth.
How did marrying change everything?
His wife, his wife in name only, sang her lullaby. She made it loud over Hope’s cries until the child soothed. His daughter’s nightmares came every night, and Jemina was the only one to calm her.
He tried so hard and in so many ways to get Hope to again sleep through the night, even towing them all into his bed. If she wasn’t in Jemina’s arms with her head to her chest, the babe sobbed miserably.
Knocking his skull against the wall, he couldn’t fathom what had shifted, changed. Marriage was to make them a family.
How could wedding Jemina turn her from a friend to a nanny? Not even a naked one.
Something had broken. Finchely was broken, a broken home. And he was here after court, not out carousing or becoming a belligerent drunk.
Now, he felt like an outsider, and Jemina’s eyes held so much hurt that Daniel might as well have been his father.
“Your mother’s not leaving you, Hope. Know this.” Jemina’s voice was loud. Those were the words she’d said on their wedding night.
Maybe she didn’t know she was a good mother without wearing herself to tatters like torn fabric.
