Page 48

THE BABY, DULY FED and changed—again—fell asleep in his father’s arms. Piers reluctantly laid him in his cradle and turned back to April.

He wore a dressing gown and seemed to glow still from his warm bath. Her anxious eyes could find no obvious signs of deprivation or any other ill-effects of his recent imprisonment, except that he hesitated before he perched beside her on the edge of the bed.

“What?” she asked sleepily, for the events of the day—of all the days since Mrs. Park had shut him out of this room—had finally caught up with her.

“Would I disturb you if I stayed?”

Her eyes flew open. “Disturb me? He will do that. You’d get more sleep in your own room.”

“No, I wouldn’t. I would just like to lie beside you.”

She swallowed, for his absence had been a gaping, frightening hole. “I would like that too.”

He could not quite hide his relief, though he stood quickly and walked around to the other side of the bed. Her heart ached as he climbed in and lay on his back beside her. She pulled at a pillow and lay down on her side facing him.

He said, “Would you mind very much if I held you? Just for a little?”

Forever. Hold me forever. She put her arm across his shoulders, and his came around her waist and she knew the warmth she had missed, everything she had missed.

“He does not look like a prune,” Piers said. “He looks like an apple. Like a William.”

She smiled, catching the connection. “William Tell. Will.”

“Will,” Piers agreed.

She closed her exhausted eyes. They slept.

***

THE HONOURABLE WILLIAM Withan kicked his little legs and regarded his worshippers with a wide, apparently fascinated gaze.

For April, the morning had been perfect—like the one after Will’s birth should have been. With Piers beside her, sharing her relief, her happiness, her hopes, she had even napped again after the baby’s breakfast feed.

Piers had said little about his imprisonment. But from her own captivity of fear and ignorance, she understood a little. But he would not let such feelings spoil these first days with his son, and neither would she.

She had told him about Ruby’s part in his abduction. “It must have been Cauldwell who got to her. But I don’t believe she was the woman you heard in the cottage.”

“No. Stagger told Jimmy Knott that was his wife. According to the common law at least.”

“I don’t really know what to do about Ruby,” April admitted.

“I think you do,” Piers said unexpectedly. “You left Will with her, even after she confessed. And to be fair, Cauldwell is a plausible b—rogue.”

“She did confess, even knowing I would dismiss her without a character. I do think it was a one-off foolishness that taught her a lesson for life. But can we absolutely trust that? Trust her, with him? For months and years to come?”

He had lifted his gaze from Will’s contented face to hers. “We would have to trust whoever we employed in the role. Admittedly this has been something of a baptism of fire for Ruby, but it seems to me we already know the best and the worst about her.”

“Then we keep her?”

“She is one of many devoted to this little man.”

She dropped her head on his shoulder. “And to you.”

“To us.”

So that was decided.

In the afternoon, Aunt Hortensia, Gussie, and Haggs were announced and William was duly adored.