Chapter 3
St Laurence’s Church, Warborough, Oxfordshire
“This way, dears.”
Erasmus led Amy and Theodosia through the churchyard, all while holding Phineas against his chest. The baby had been a perfect angel, aside from during a moment of prayer for the queen, at which point he’d yowled.
So young, and already carrying on the family tradition of being opposed to all forms of coercive power!
One could not find a truer Mangevileyn!!
Amy drew nearer and placed her gloved hand on his arm, which he’d held out to escort her.
She looked well in her new dresses and frills, though still tired from little Phin waking her at all hours to eat as he grew at a shocking pace. But then, Erasmus was right alongside Amy every night, so his own eyes must have borne the telltale shadows as well.
“Amy, do you enjoy picnics?” asked Theodosia from his other side.
The girl was still feeling out her stepmother, even now, after a few months in the same household.
Erasmus decided that he’d allow them to sniff each other like neighboring lambs and decide how to carry on.
He suspected they might come to be great friends — provided he didn’t force or rush them.
“I haven’t attended a picnic in some time,” she replied, casting her eyes over the village green before looking at the churchyard, littered with centuries of headstones.
“My mother isn’t there,” said Theodosia. “She’s in Vienna. That’s in Austria, where we used to live. Pater is going to bring her back after the harvest.”
Amy’s steps faltered, and she looked to Erasmus in bewilderment.
“We buried my first wife in Vienna,” he said, rushing to set her mind at ease that he was not committing bigamy with her. “She died abroad while I was in the foreign service. I promised Thea I would bring her home for a burial here.”
“She knew German and French and danced as though her slippers didn’t touch the floor,” said Theodosia, watching Amy’s reaction. “Everyone admired her so.”
Erasmus watched his daughter look longingly at the churchyard as though she hoped to find her mother, gone now for four years, waiting among the memorial stones.
He’d never found the words to tell Thea that they’d suffered a double loss that sad March day; Eleanor had been carrying a child, one yet too small to survive outside the womb.
Alone, he’d interred them in a vault at the Matzleinsdorf Protestant Cemetery, his greatcoat insufficient for the bitter day. He’d not been properly warm since.
Until he’d taken up young Phineas from the hay several months ago, that is. Now in the warmth of summer, the baby squirmed against his neck as if he felt his father’s desperate need to know he was yet breathing. Erasmus hoped that someday, in time, Amy would draw the same comfort from their son.
His wife was a quiet little thing, seemingly as bewildered by the twist of fate that had brought them together as he was. He’d not thought of how she’d fill her days, accustomed as he was to women of his own class with their teas and menus to prepare.
There was always the care and feeding of Phin, but when she’d looked rather gray after several weeks of confining herself to just a few rooms at the Abbey, he’d realized that his young wife might need help to understand her new role as a lady.
She’d thought of turning to laundering when he brought up how she might spend her time when Phin wasn’t making demands. He’d held in a chuckle and suggested that she take up watercolors instead.
Following an awkward negotiation, they’d agreed she would practice reading, a skill she had not been taught wherever she came from.
And that was a fact he still did not know: whence she had come. Erasmus was patient, but he feared that the longer her story remained unsaid, the harder it would be to tell.
They still shared Erasmus’s gigantic bed, the child safely in his basket between them, but they did not otherwise live like husband and wife.
There were no intimacies, or secrets, or tender words.
And why would there be? Pragmatism had launched them at each other.
It wasn’t something Erasmus regretted, not when he had Phin in his arms.
But Amy’s face when she gazed at her baby made something in Erasmus’s heart twist. It seemed she sought something in his face and was puzzled by his very existence.
Oh, she was a conscientious mother when feeding the boy, but he appeared to give her no joy, none of the lightness of spirit that illuminated the grief-shrouded avenues of Erasmus’s mind.
As he squired his little family to the green, his wife’s new skirts brushed against his leg and Erasmus walled up the burgeoning tenderness he felt towards her.
She wore fine attire like a lady born to the manor, though she seemed to chafe at her crinolines and bustles — while plucking at her gloves with satisfaction and using her new silver-backed brush and comb to coax her hair into a smooth mane rolled into a fashionable hairstyle with the help of a maid.
His wife looked well, and he was pleased that she looked after Thea as they crossed the street to the tent he’d had erected for their picnic.
“Do you see any friends you’d like to invite to join us?” Erasmus asked his daughter, casting his eyes around the green for children her age.
“I don’t think so, Papa,” she sniffed. “The other children do not know Greek. Not even Latin.”
“Thankfully, you know English,” he said, raising an eyebrow at his toplofty little miss.
“I’ll stay with Amy. She needs me. She’s new.”
Husband and wife exchanged amused glances at Thea’s solution to the awkwardness of a quarter-day picnic. His heart caught in his throat. It was the first time they’d done something so domestic and, well, marital. Erasmus would need to calm his hopes; one glance does not a marriage make.
“I am very thankful for your company, Theodosia. I haven’t made friends yet because I’ve been so busy with the baby. Maybe we could make the rounds to other families after lunch together.”
***
After eating and greetings were done, Erasmus had helped the servants pack their picnic things into a wagon from the farm and his family into the carriage.
He’d watched Amy study her gloves on the ride home and rub at a spot between her thumb and index finger. When Thea read a book, he pulled his wife into their bedroom.
“What’s this about?” she asked. He studied her reaction and found that she didn’t seem scared of him, simply curious about what he was up to. He could proceed.
“I’ve seen you regarding these gloves, and I wonder if the craftsmanship is poor,” he said, placing his hand over the buttons running down her wrist.
Amy snatched her hand away. “They’re the finest things I’ve ever owned,” she whispered hoarsely. “That you own.”
“They’re yours,” he said, taking her hand again, this time even more gently. He slid the buttons through their corded loops, allowing the movement to feel like a caress, hoping to gentle his spooked wife.
“You bought them,” she said, a pout in her voice as she looked down at where he slid a finger into the glove’s opening.
“I’ve forgotten something,” said Erasmus.
“What’s that?”
“To give you an allowance. So you might have money of your own for whatever you wish to buy for yourself,” he said, placing a finger below her chin so she’d look at him. “I’m sorry to have been remiss.”
“But you’ve given me everything I need,” she said, her eyes drifting down. Someone must have taught her never to hold a man’s gaze, even that of her husband.
Erasmus found the fingertips of her glove and pulled to whip it off.
“Oh,” she exhaled, her cheeks suddenly rosy. She balled her hand into a fist.
He caught her hand and simply held it. “Whatever you think you must hide from me, what might cause things in our family to change, those are false doubts.”
Erasmus coaxed her fingers open and saw rough patches and scars despite months as a lady at the Abbey. She must have worked with her hands for a living before stumbling into his barn.
“I’ve been so pleased to have gloves. To cover myself,” she whispered.
“You needn’t cover yourself with me,” he replied, stroking the calluses. “Stay here. I have something to make this feel better.”
When he returned, Amy was gazing out the window, her brow creased as she looked towards the trees in the distance. Of what was she afraid?
She startled at his return, and he was careful to approach her slowly. He stopped when moving closer would have pressed against her skirts.
“A salve for sore…well, sore cows,” he said, showing her the jar of udder balm prepared by his housekeeper.
“Is that what I am?” she asked. “A heifer?”
Erasmus sputtered until he realized she was struggling to contain a chuckle. What a world. His wife could laugh!
“Now, Amy Mangevileyn, we both know that’s not true,” he said, taking a dollop of the ointment and letting it melt on the back of her hand. “You’re more of a ewe.”
She dipped her head and giggled — actually giggled — as he rubbed the places her skin was still sore and scarred.
“I’m not a barnyard animal,” she said, trying to sound stern, but her voice belied her amusement. “But I was a laundress.”
“I knew you were a hard-working lass,” he said, massaging between her fingers. “But those days are over.”
“I’ve no problem working hard,” she said, suddenly serious.
“We’ll find something for you to do,” he said.
Her eyes met his, and he suspected his face had flushed because of the many ways to interpret those words.