Chapter 5 #2
“I have not been around many,” Sir Franklin admitted.
“My sisters have children, and I have kept them company upon occasion, though they are usually with their governesses. But I find children utterly charming, and I would not be averse to having some of my own.” He raised his hands hastily. “If the lady is willing, of course.”
“Of course,” Helena said. She turned to Gideon with a look that she hoped conveyed, clearly and firmly, that enough was enough. “Your Grace, I am sure Sir Franklin has a few questions for me as well. We are, after all, here to become acquainted.”
“But of course.” Gideon leaned back and gestured magnanimously for Sir Franklin to proceed.
Sir Franklin drummed his fingers on the table. His eyes moved about the room. Whatever questions he might have had prepared, it was quite evident they had evacuated his mind under the pressure of the preceding conversation.
“What is your favourite color?” he asked.
Beside her, she sensed rather than saw Gideon’s eyebrows rise.
“Yellow, I suppose,” she said pleasantly. “It is cheerful. It reminds me of the sun. And yours?”
He paused, as though she had posed a question of considerable philosophical complexity.
“Blue,” he said at last. “It is... pretty. Like the sky.”
“Indeed it is.”
From somewhere at the back of the house, Lavinia began to squeal. Helena moved to rise but felt Gideon’s hand close briefly around her wrist beneath the table, pressing her back into her seat. She did not appreciate the liberty but held her tongue.
“Excuse me a moment.” Gideon rose and disappeared down the hall.
“How old is your child?” Sir Franklin asked.
“Just under a year,” Helena said.
“And does she always cry?”
“She does sometimes, as all children do. Generally not for long. She simply wishes to be attended to.”
Lavinia, however, showed no signs of stopping.
She continued with great determination and considerable volume.
Helena attempted to rise twice more, and twice more found Gideon, who had returned and resumed his seat, informing her quietly that Mary was tending to her, and that Lavinia appeared to have an upset stomach.
Something that could happen on occasion.
Helena did not believe a word of it, as Lavinia had been in perfectly fine spirits all morning.
Sir Franklin had by this point broken into a proper sweat.
He stirred his tea with great speed and no apparent intention of drinking it.
His eyes moved increasingly toward the door.
Gideon, unperturbed, continued to question him about everything from his views on land management to his preferred method of correspondence.
Relief arrived some fifteen minutes later when Sir Franklin consulted his pocket watch and announced with barely concealed urgency that he had another engagement.
Helena walked him to the door, with Gideon at her side, and bid him farewell.
No arrangements for a further meeting were made, though Gideon assured him warmly that he would call on him.
The moment the door was shut, Helena turned and went directly upstairs.
Mary was standing beside the crib, wringing her hands, while Lavinia sat up inside it screaming at full pitch, her face the color of a ripe tomato. Helena reached in and scooped her up and turned to Mary.
“Why did you not pick her up?”
“I was going to, but he told me not to. He said it was imperative.”
Helena rounded on Gideon, who had appeared in the doorway looking entirely unrepentant.
“What has my child ever done to you,” she said, “that you would deny her comfort?”
“Nothing whatsoever,” he said. “I was using her as a tool.”
“She is a child, not a tool.” She pressed Lavinia against her shoulder and rubbed her back in small circles. “What exactly were you hoping to accomplish?”
To his credit, he looked genuinely upset, as though he had not considered what the effect might be on Lavinia.
“I…I do beg your pardon. I should not have used the child. I did not think. I am not used to children. I will not make such a mistake again.”
She softened at once. He was immature when it came to children, that was clear. But he appeared willing to learn.
“As for what I hoped to accomplish, I wanted to see if he was suitable to be around children. And I think we have established that Sir Franklin is entirely unsuitable to be around children. He was sweating at the mere sound of her.”
“And what sort of reaction were you looking for?”
He shrugged. “Someone who insists you go and see to the child. Or better still, someone who offers to go himself.”
“To go and tend to somebody else’s child?” She stared at him. “And in the meantime, he would think me the worst mother in England for sitting in my drawing room while my daughter screamed herself into a fit.”
Gideon’s expression flickered slightly. “I hadn’t considered that particular aspect,” he admitted. “We shall have to think of something else for next time. I thought on the whole it went rather well.”
“Rather well?” Helena said. “He all but ran out of the door. We shall never see him again.”
“Well, if you liked him and wished to see him again, I could always…”
“No,” she said. “But I do think that what we require are some rules. About what each of us expects from these meetings. Because if they continue as today’s did, we shall only be wasting one another’s time.
By the end of it I shall remain quite alone, and you will be friendless, having exhausted every acquaintance you possess in this ridiculous scheme.
Not another meeting until we have spoken properly. ”
He stared at her, lips just slightly parted. Then he gave a single nod.
Good, Helena thought, settling Lavinia more firmly against her shoulder as the little girl’s cries finally began to subside. It appeared that the gentlemen Gideon intended to parade before her were not the only ones she needed to worry about.
It seemed the greatest obstacle standing between her and a new husband was going to be her matchmaker.