Chapter 14
When Eleanor woke the next day she was in a different world, or so it seemed to her.
She no longer carried a child; she was a mother.
The waiting was over and she had a purpose for the rest of her life.
Immediately she thought of Nicholas. Would she ever see him again? It was as if she could think clearly about it for the first time.
It had been nearly five months. She trusted Lord Stainbridge’s instincts and did not believe her husband was dead. That left no easy explanation, however, for the fact he had not even tried to contact her.
She could only think that some new endeavor had caught his errant fancy and he had again decided his family could wait while he saved the world. Perhaps he had decided for some quixotic reason that it would be better she should believe him dead. Did he think she would marry again?
No, she would not do that. She resolved however, for her sanity’s sake, to behave from this day as if she was a widow.
She could not even clearly bring his face to mind any more, and here, where they had never been together, there was nothing to summon him for her.
She wished she had a portrait and yet suspected she was better off without.
When Miss Hurstman came in with the breakfast tray she was very pleased by her young friend’s spirit. “I feared at one point you might be the kind of simpleton who would slip from the world once you had done your duty by the child. What are you to name her? We need to call her something.”
Eleanor pushed down an instinct to call the babe Niccola and said, “Arabel.”
Miss Hurstman went pink. “That is extraordinarily kind, and you must let me stand godmother. I will see she grows up with spirit.”
“That would be wonderful. You are going to stay, aren’t you?”
If possible, Miss Hurstman went even pinker, and there was a hint of moistness in the wrinkles at the corner of her eyes. “Yes, if you can put up with me. But I will keep up my cottage in case you don’t need me anymore.”
In case Nicholas should return, she meant, and they both knew it. Eleanor merely gave a sad smile.
“Besides,” said the older lady briskly, “you’ll eventually want to take up your life in Society again, and I can’t abide that circus.”
It was clearly a directive. “Yes, ma’am,” said Eleanor meekly.
Miss Hurstman eyed her sternly. “Humph. I see you are a minx now you are yourself again. Did you show this face to your husband, I wonder?”
Eleanor felt wistful. “I hardly know. There was so little time, and I was so anxious about so many things.” She chuckled. “Probably as well. He would likely have beaten me.”
Miss Hurstman stiffened. “You would have given as good as you got were he so foolish, I’ll be bound.”
“Of course she would,” said Nicholas.
He was leaning against the door frame.
There was a smile on his lips that warmed his eyes, but there was also a great deal of watchfulness.
He made no move to come any closer.
Eleanor felt as if she might faint. She couldn’t seem to say a thing.
Miss Hurstman gave her a concerned look and opened her mouth to address the returning reprobate. Then she thought better of it and swept out of the room, pushing him into it and shutting the door as she went.
He grinned at this maneuver, but then the amusement died and he looked at his wife and child solemnly. “Eleanor?”
Eleanor swallowed. Her vocal chords seemed to have frozen. He looked the same, or the same as he had when she’d first met him.
Tanned again.
Tired, maybe.
She held out a hand.
He came over and took it. Real warm flesh, a little roughened, touched hers and convinced her he was real. He sat on the edge of the bed and waited for her to speak. His eyes moved from her face to the child in the cradle nearby.
“It’s a daughter,” she said eventually. It came out hoarsely and seemed an inadequate thing to say.
“Yes, I know. The servants were keen to congratulate me. Thank you for making up a covering story.”
Eleanor lowered her eyes and took up a study of their hands—his firm and brown, hers softer and pale. She remembered once thinking his was a hand to depend on. “I had to say something,” she murmured.
His thumb circled mesmerically against her skin.
“I’m sorry if I gave you a shock,” he said.
“It was obvious the staff expected me to bound upstairs to see you. It would have caused comment if I’d asked to be formally announced.
” The thumb circled three more times. “You have only to say and I’ll leave. ”
She looked up then. “No. This is your home.”
“This is your home, yours alone if you want it so. My home is where you are, if you will let it be so.”
They seemed to Eleanor to be talking in slow motion, with long gaps, but she could not alter it any more than she’d been able to alter the tempo of the birth. Perhaps this too must just be gone through.
“We are a family. But…”
“But I have a lot of explaining to do,” he completed. “You are generous, as always.” He studied her quizzically. “Do you not feel any temptation to throw a fit?”
“You know it’s not in my nature. Do men like to hold babies? You may if you wish.”
Without hesitation, and with a surprising amount of confidence, he lifted the tiny bundle from the cradle. Arabel yawned and opened her big dark eyes. She and Nicholas looked at one another intently.
“Do you think so?” he said at last, as if in response to a comment. “But if you had put off your arrival for a day or two I could have attended your birth properly. Beware, young lady. If you’re saucy, I’ll marry you off to a prosy old duke when you are but sixteen.”
Eleanor watched this with a small glow of happiness that swelled inside her until it was likely to light up the room.
She kept her tone casual, however, as she said, “Miss Hurstman would have something to say to that. She’s to be Arabel’s godmother and has pledged to bring her up in a spirit of independence.”
“Heaven help us all,” he commented with a wry smile.
The baby was trying to suck at his jacket buttons, so he handed her over.
Eleanor was too concerned with accomplishing the strange task of feeding her child to be self-conscious about his presence.
When Arabel was sucking happily and Eleanor had time to consider the matter she found she was not at all embarrassed.
It felt so right that Nicholas be watching.
“Are you well?” he asked after a while. “You look it.”
“Very. It was an easy birth and I was only woken once last night to feed her. I’m told that won’t last.” Now she felt able to speak. “Where have you come from?”
“London,” he said. He read the look in her eyes and smiled ruefully. “Don’t be angry. I’ll give you the whole tale, but this doesn’t seem the time. It’s rather complicated.”
She shook her head. “Have you ever done anything that isn’t?”
He was too wise to attempt an answer to that, and so they sat in silence, watching the child feed.
With a shiver of disquiet Eleanor knew he hadn’t lost any of his power over her.
At a word she would lay her heart at his feet without even hearing his story.
She was deeply grateful that he was making no particular attempt to charm her, making no demands upon her.
She needed to think and she needed to decide just what to do about their life together. The longer they were together like this, however, the harder it became.
“Do you not need some breakfast?” she said at last.
“Not particularly, but I suppose I should go and see to our guest.” At her look he explained, “I brought Francis with me for moral support.”
He still made no move to leave.
“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.”