George couldn’t say a thing. There was a lump in her throat, and tears blurred her eyes. She nodded. A baby, named after her...
“Now that’s enough,” Aunt Agatha said crisply. “Emmaline and the baby need to sleep. Off you go.” She started to shoo them all out like chickens, but Cal refused to budge.
“Thank you, Aunt Agatha,” he said firmly. “I shall see to my family now.”
“You surely aren’t—”
“Yes, thank you for your help, Aunt Agatha,” Emm said softly, “but I’d like to be alone now with my husband and our baby.”
“Come along, Aggie,” Aunt Dottie said to her sister. “There is champagne waiting downstairs. A new Ashendon heir has been born and we need to celebrate his safe arrival.”
Aunt Agatha blinked, hesitated, then nodded, and they all filed out of the room.
Chapter Thirteen
What one means one day, you know, one may not mean the next. Circumstances change, opinions alter.
—JANE AUSTEN,NORTHANGER ABBEY
The following morning, George and Cal went riding as usual. They didn’t talk much. They rarely did, but this time they were both lost in their own thoughts. Cal was probably still thinking about the baby, George thought, but she didn’t ask. They were both still a bit stunned—particularly Cal.
They rode hard and fast and she felt the better for releasing the tension and thought Cal probably did as well.
After breakfast, which Cal took upstairs with his wife and baby, he headed out on some business. Aunt Dottie was still asleep. George, feeling strangely restless, filled in some time by writing letters to Rose and Lily telling them only that Emm had safely been delivered of a healthy baby boy. She wondered when they would come to London—certainly for her wedding but perhaps sooner, to see the baby.
She missed them. Strange how after years of living by herself, with only Martha and Finn for company, she now missed having a family around her. She left the letters on the hall table for Cal to frank and a footman to post.
She hesitated, then went upstairs and knocked softly on Emm’s door—not loud enough to wake her, but if she was awake...
Emm’s maid, Milly, opened the door. “Hush, she’s asleep,” she whispered.
“I won’t wake her. I just want to see the baby,” George whispered back.
Milly nodded, and George tiptoed in. Emm was sleeping peacefully in the big bed she shared with Cal. Beside her stood a high cradle made of carved and turned rosewood. In it lay a small white bundle.
George peered in. She’d never had much to do with babies, never seen one so young as this close up.
Bertrand Calbourne George Rutherford, Lord Bertrand, heir to the Earl of Ashendon. Such a big name for a little creature. More of him was visible this time. He was as ugly as a new-hatched baby bird, bald, with a fluff of dark hair sticking up like a crest. His face was red, crumpled and squashed looking, his eyes a dark blue. They stared at her fuzzily, as if trying to focus, to make sense of the big, strange creature looking down at him.
“Hello, baby,” she whispered. “Baby Bertie. I’m your cousin, George.” A cousin. She’d never had a cousin before, and the idea caught at her throat. And he was named partly after her. This strange little baby bird was family.
A tiny pink fist emerged from the white wrappings and waved aimlessly around. George stared at it fascinated. Five miniature pink perfect fingernails. The baby opened his fist and waved a fat little starfish hand at her.
“You should stay tucked in,” she whispered, and with some vague idea that babies needed to be warmly wrapped all the time, she tucked his waving hand back in. Her hand looked so big against the tiny perfect hand.
“Ohh.” A soft little hand closed around a finger and held on tight.
She couldn’t move. She stood staring down at him, this tiny bundle of humanity, so new and fragile, clinging to her finger with such determination and strength. A swell ofemotion rose in her, and for a moment she thought she might cry.
A movement behind her caused her to look around. It was Emm, sleepily sitting up.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake—” George began.
“I was only dozing,” Emm assured her. She looked into the cradle and her face softened.
“He’s holding on to my finger,” George said, which was a stupid thing to say because it was obvious. “I went to tuck his little hand back in.”
Emm laughed softly. “I’ll have to learn to swaddle him better, because every time I do it, he always manages to wriggle at least one hand out.” The two of them gazed in silence at the little bundle of determination.
