Chapter 4
Three days later, Amy waited at Erasmus’s study door, where she watched Theodosia conclude her Latin lesson.
“Farewell for now, Pater,” she said to Erasmus, giving him a kiss on the cheek before gliding out with a nod to Amy.
She was a funny little thing, sometimes a miniature adult and sometimes a child. Like her father, she had a lingering sadness in her eyes that Amy wished she could somehow magic away.
“Have you come to practice, young lady?” asked Erasmus from the other side of the door, suddenly appearing in front of her.
Today, he wore spectacles. She had a difficult time concentrating when he wore the wire-framed glasses. It must have been the glare from the metal.
“You’ve brought your sampler?” he asked.
She held up the book of reading exercises and allowed him to draw her in.
***
“You’ve done very well,” said Erasmus at the end of their lesson, taking off his spectacles and rubbing his eyes. He’d risen early to oversee the haymaking so he could return for lessons in the afternoon. Poor man, he was working so hard between caring for Phin and managing the farm.
He was sitting in the chair behind his grand desk, a fine thing made of oak, polished to a shine by the Abbey’s capable staff. Erasmus was a man in his element, relaxed and surrounded by books.
Amy was staring at his wrists when she realized he’d said something.
“You’ve become quite the reader, my girl,” he repeated when she stood to leave.
My girl. It was a tiny, throwaway expression, an endearment used by shopkeepers and even men of the cloth thoughtlessly, with no real meaning. But to one such as Amy Abel Mangevileyn, it sounded like a benediction.
She’d not been anyone’s girl in that loving way since losing her papa eight years before.
Eager to dispel any awkwardness caused by her woolgathering, she bustled behind her husband’s desk, planted a kiss on his cheek as she’d seen Thea do, and said, “Farewell for now, Daddy.”
She was only half a step away when Erasmus caught her by the hand and pinned her against the edge, his thighs spread to cage her in.
He seemed winded, his chest moving like bellows under his partially open waistcoat and shirtsleeves. He tugged at his neckcloth.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked roughly, in a tone he’d never taken with her before.
His eyes were sharp and hard. Something must have enraged him. But what?
“I…was being playful,” she said, searching the bookcase behind his chair. Anything to avoid looking at him. “You usually like it when I make little jokes. Girls and boys in my village would call their fathers that. I didn’t intend to upset you.”
“I like it,” he said. “Of that, have no doubt.”
She turned to go, and he gently caught her arm again.
“Have no doubt.”
Amy looked into her husband’s eyes at last. Always soft and a little sad, there was something new there that made her mouth feel dry.
He stood up from his chair, looming before her. Amy’s eyes landed on the exposed skin just below his neck. She smelled the remnants of sweat from this morning’s haymaking, mixed with soap and the sweet scent of freshly mowed grass. He seemed so warm and steady.
She felt his hand tentatively rest on her spine, prompting her to tilt her head back. His other hand found her waist and gave a small squeeze, reassuring her.
Amy knew how not to bolt under the ardent gaze of a man, so she didn’t pull away or cry like a gently bred lady might.
But her face must have betrayed her deep discomfort with the intimacy all the same.
And Erasmus, being Erasmus, didn’t let his own heated blood cause him to overlook the distress she’d somehow allowed to show.
“Amy,” he whispered. “You can tell me. Give your troubles to me.”
How did he know she was haunted by things in the past? Was she so transparent? But then, unmarried young women didn’t give birth to babies in Oxfordshire barns unless something had gone truly wrong.
She nodded no. One thousand times no. What would he think of the woman he slept beside if he knew? More devastatingly, would he hold Phineas so tenderly if he had any knowledge of his abominable origins?
“Amy, Amy,” he begged, bringing his fingertips to her cheeks and letting them feather to her ear. She’d seen him gentle Phin — and even animals on the home farm — this way, and she resolved not to crumble at the onslaught of sweetness. She wasn’t Venetia the Lamb or George the Crow!
Her skirts got trapped between his legs and the desk, and they were pushed back into the recess. It should have been too much, far too much pressure on her unquiet soul, but it felt like an embrace.
“Amy, my girl,” he said, his voice hoarse. “In this, let me take care of you.”
Her eyes connected with his just a moment before she burst into tears and sobbed against his chest, his waistcoat gathered in one hand to keep him close.
His hand tentatively stroked her hair, careful not to disarrange the snood that kept her rolled hair tidy.
He didn’t pull back or press her further, simply letting her take what she needed and stoically watching over her.
At last, she spoke. His shirt was wet where she’d sobbed against him, and he deserved an explanation for her hysterics. She didn’t want him to think she was unreasonable; she knew she wasn’t.
“Like so many people, I am an orphan,” she started. “My mother died some three years ago. My father five years before her.”
Erasmus hummed, giving her time to tell her story as she wished, and signaling that he heard her.
“I had no other living relatives. At least, not any known to me. I never trained in a trade. Thus, I was seventeen years old, and owned little more than the clothes on my back. I was admitted to the parish workhouse and told I must earn my keep as a laundress.”
Erasmus’s hand drifted over her hair, seeking to offer comfort while not interrupting her tale.
“No man asked about marrying me,” she said with a snort.
“Fools,” replied Erasmus, drawing her down with him to the chair behind his desk. Somehow, without awkwardness, he’d seated her on his lap, her head still tucked under his chin. He let her get used to their position.
“Yet you came to be with child,” he said, prompting her to continue.
“There was a workhouse master,” Amy said at last, her throat closing. “Each day he’d make his rounds and see that we were laundering properly. Soon, he came more frequently and seemed to watch me in particular.”
The words tumbled forth now.
“I was newly eighteen when it started. I suppose I could have said no, but I had nowhere to go. The workhouse is already the end of the line. I was desperate, you understand? I didn’t want—”
She was sobbing when Erasmus pressed her closer and rocked her gently, using his firm body to convey the depth of his understanding and sympathy.
“You did nothing wrong,” he said, his voice tight. “By God, Amy, you did nothing wrong.”
“I only ran when something terrible happened. When I saw something terrible.”
“What could be more—”
“When my belly grew large, I had to confess to him I was carrying,” she said, as the words came fast, in rapid succession. “I expected him to be enraged. Why wouldn’t the workhouse master be mad about this reflecting poorly on his management and our morals?”
She hiccoughed. “But he laughed! He laughed! Then he took me to an outbuilding, which I had assumed was abandoned. It had no windows. He unlocked the door, lit a lamp, and let me look inside. He’d been drinking, and I think he was careless. What I saw…”
Amy sat there, not drawing a breath as she recalled the interior of that building. The hole where a floor should have been. The…
She gagged. Erasmus was ready with a handkerchief, and she held that square of fabric that smelled like him over her mouth until she could press the memory down deeper so she might finish the story.
“He laughed and said that he had a way of taking care of my minor problem. He’d done it before, many times over. I ran that same night.”
Erasmus’s body grew rigid as if he were preparing for battle.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked in a small voice.
“No.”
Her heart stuttered. She was terrified of what he could say, how he could react, but she needed to know. Couldn’t live another day wondering if the truth would extinguish the little family they were becoming.
“And do you think you can still care for Phin?” she asked. “Knowing who his father is and how he came about?”
Erasmus’s shoulders bowed under the weight of her words, and his head dropped forward. He was quiet.
“Phineas came about when his brave mother delivered him in my barn. I am his father,” he said at last. His voice was harsh.
“But—”
He wrapped a hand about her jaw and ear, pressing his fingers into her hair and forcing her to look at him. He seemed stricken, on the verge of tears, and his lips trembled as he tried to speak.
“I am his father. I am your husband.”
Erasmus lowered his lips to the apple of her cheek, as if to pour his words closer to her unquiet mind so she might understand their truth.
“Nothing about what came before you entered my barn will have any bearing on how I feel about Phineas. Or you, my wife,” he continued. “The only thing this changes is the trajectory of this workhouse master’s life.” He chuckled darkly then. “Well, his ability to have one.”
Amy gasped. “You don’t mean to—”
“Oh, I won’t kill him with my own hand. Such a death would be too silent, far more than he deserves. I will publicize the infamy of his crimes. And that place — the whole of it — will be closed for good.”
“But where will the people go?” she cried. “There are children! Women with nothing! Old Sam, he can barely—”
Erasmus quieted her with a kiss. It was a peck, a little nothing, but her first all the same. She felt her hand come to her lips to study the effect, and he explained.
“I know a man. A powerful man in government. He’s been imagining something better than the parish workhouse scheme, and he may start his work here. In Oxfordshire.”
Her face must have expressed doubt at his words.
“I worked for him while abroad. We exchange letters a few times per year. He’ll end up prime minister one of these days. He’ll help me set this to rights.”
Set it to rights, mused Amy. How would it feel to straighten and correct things, akin to stacking blocks?
“And should the law not handle the case appropriately, I’ll settle it myself,” he said.
Amy gasped and was about to admonish him when there was a knock at the door of the study. She stood, not wanting to embarrass her husband or the servants with evidence of their embrace, but he tightened his hold on her.
“Let them see us,” he whispered just above her ear.
She was heated, her breasts heavy. It must be time for Phin to eat.
When Erasmus called out, the baby’s nurse entered the room and showed sufficient training by not reacting to the sight of husband and wife entangled on a desk chair at midday.
Amy’s cheeks grew hot as she thought of the staff gossiping about their marriage, and she kept her eyes downcast while Erasmus took possession of the baby.
And there he was, her son, their son, cradled in his father’s arms. He was less strange to her now. For months, she’d searched for some sign that he resembled that man, and found nothing. Now, she could see traces of her papa, and even imagined that she could see her husband’s smile on Phin’s face.
“He’s perfect,” said Erasmus, looking down at the baby in the crook of his arm.
He was right. The nurse had begun dressing Phineas in tiny sailor suits, with no swaddling. His limbs wiggled, flailing about so that he might someday grow as strong as his papa.
His papa. What a relief. This blameless child had the finest papa in all the land, and Amy couldn’t help but lower her head to his precious belly to feel the rise and fall of his breath. Her tears leaked onto his seersucker playsuit.
And then he yowled, demanding his afternoon tea.
Still sitting in her husband’s lap, Amy moved to take the baby from the room, but Erasmus stayed her yet again.
“Allow me,” he said, handing her the child and carefully undoing the buttons on the bodice of her day dress.
If her breasts had felt heavy before, that was nothing to the sensation now. Amy feared she might leak through her nursing corset.
When Erasmus parted the bodice, he moved aside to allow Amy to arrange herself and the baby so he could latch. At her sigh of relief at Phin’s first sucks, her husband held her closer.
“You’re beautiful like this,” he said, brushing a kiss on her forehead. “You’ve made something beautiful, and I’m so fortunate to be part of it.”
Amy wiped a tear away and buried her face in his waistcoat. “At this rate, I’ll run out of tears. You should say something to dry my eyes, husband.”
He stroked a hand up and down the curve of her waist.
“I can think of nothing quite like vengeance to stop tears,” he said. “I promise I will not speak of it again after this: what was that man’s name? The workhouse master?”
Amy’s eyes drifted to a painting on the wall of the study.
“His name is Mr. Felter,” she said.
“Felter. Thank you. He will be dead or infamous if I have anything to say about it. Preferably both. Depend on me to handle it.”
And she realized she did.
Sinking against her husband’s chest as their baby nursed, Amy loosened her grip on the secret that had forced her to run. And found that, in turn, it loosened its hold on her, just a little.