“Maria!”
Maria crossed her arms and speared Daphne with a stare. “You know the truth, Your Grace. You just don’t want to admit it.”
Daphne opened her mouth to speak, but she had nothing to say. She knew Maria was right.
“If the baby hadn’t taken,” Maria said, a bit more gently, “you wouldn’t be feeling so sickly. My mum had eight babies after me, and four losses early on. She never was sick, not even once, with the ones that didn’t take.”
Daphne sighed and then nodded, conceding the point. “I’m still going to wait, though,” she said. “Just a bit longer.” She wasn’t sure why she wanted to keep this to herself for a few more days, but she did. And as she was the one whose body was currently trying to turn itself inside out, she rather thought it was her decision to make.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Maria said. “We received word from your brother. He’s coming to town next week.”
“Colin?” Daphne asked.
Maria nodded. “With his family.”
“They must stay with us,” Daphne said. Colin and Penelope did not own a home in town, and to economize they tended to stay with either Daphne or their oldest brother, Anthony, who had inherited the title and all that went with it. “Please ask Belinda to pen a letter on my behalf, insisting that they come to Hastings House.”
Maria gave a nod and departed.
Daphne moaned and went to sleep.
By the time Colin and Penelope arrived, with their four darling children in tow, Daphne was throwing up several times a day. Simon still didn’t know about her condition; he’d been delayed in the country—something about a flooded field—and now he wasn’t due back until the end of the week.
But Daphne wasn’t going to let a queasy belly get in the way of greeting her favorite brother. “Colin!” she exclaimed, her smile growing positively giddy at the familiar sight of his sparkling green eyes. “It has been much too long.”
“I fully agree,” he said, giving her a quick hug while Penelope attempted to shoo their children into the house.
“No, you may not chase that pigeon!” she said sternly. “So sorry, Daphne, but—” She dashed back out onto the front steps, neatly nabbing seven-year-old Thomas by the collar.
“Be grateful your urchins are grown,” Colin said with a chuckle as he took a step back. “We can’t keep— Good God, Daff, what’s wrong with you?”
Trust a brother to dispense with tact.
“You look awful,” he said, as if he hadn’t made that clear with his first statement.
“Just a bit under the weather,” she mumbled. “I think it was the fish.”
“Uncle Colin!”
Colin’s attention was thankfully distracted by Belinda and Caroline, who were racing down the stairs with a decided lack of ladylike grace.
“You!” he said with a grin, pulling one into a hug. “And you!” He looked up. “Where’s the other you?”
“Amelia’s off shopping,” Belinda said, before turning her attention to her little cousins. Agatha had just turned nine, Thomas was seven, and Jane was six. Little Georgie would be three the following month.
“You’re getting so big!” Belinda said to Jane, beaming down at her.
“I grew two inches in the last month!” she announced.
“In the last year,” Penelope corrected gently. She couldn’t quite reach Daphne for a hug, so she leaned over and squeezed her hand. “I know your girls were quite grown up last time I saw them, but I swear, I am still surprised by it every time.”
“So am I,” Daphne admitted. She still woke some mornings half expecting her girls to be in pinafores. The fact that they were ladies, fully grown . . .
It was baffling.
“Well, you know what they say about motherhood,” Penelope said.
“ ‘They’?” Daphne murmured.
Penelope paused just long enough to shoot her a wry grin. “The years fly by, and the days are endless.”
“That’s impossible,” Thomas announced.
Agatha let out an aggrieved sigh. “He’s so literal.”
Daphne reached out to ruffle Agatha’s light brown hair. “Are you really only nine?” She adored Agatha, always had. There was something about that little girl, so serious and determined, that had always touched her heart.
Agatha, being Agatha, immediately recognized the question as rhetorical and popped up to her tiptoes to give her aunt a kiss.
Daphne returned the gesture with a peck on the cheek, then turned to the young family’s nurse, standing near the doorway holding little Georgie. “And how are you, you darling thing?” she cooed, reaching out to take the boy into her arms. He was plump and blond with pink cheeks and a heavenly baby smell despite the fact that he wasn’t really a baby any longer. “You look scrumptious,” she said, pretending to take a nibble of his neck. She tested the weight of him, rocking slightly back and forth in that instinctive motherly way.
“You don’t need to be rocked anymore, do you?” she murmured, kissing him again. His skin was so soft, and it took her back to her days as a young mother. She’d had nurses and nannies, of course, but she couldn’t even count the number of times she’d crept into the children’s rooms to sneak a kiss on the cheek and watch them sleep.
Ah well. She was sentimental. This was nothing new.
“How old are you now, Georgie?” she asked, thinking that maybe she could do this again. Not that she had much choice, but still, she felt reassured, standing here with this little boy in her arms.
Agatha tugged on her sleeve and whispered, “He doesn’t talk.”
Daphne blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
Agatha glanced over at her parents, as if she wasn’t sure she should be saying anything. They were busy chatting with Belinda and Caroline and took no notice. “He doesn’t talk,” she said again. “Not a word.”
Daphne pulled back slightly so that she could look at Georgie’s face again. He smiled at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners exactly the same way Colin’s did.
Daphne looked back at Agatha. “Does he understand what people say?”
Agatha nodded. “Every word. I’m sure of it.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I think my mother and father are concerned.”
A child nearing his third birthday without a word? Daphne was sure they were concerned. Suddenly the reason for Colin and Penelope’s unexpected trip to town became clear. They were looking for guidance. Simon had been just the same way as child. He hadn’t spoken a word until he was four. And then he’d suffered a debilitating stutter for years. Even now, when he was particularly upset about something, it would creep back over him, and she’d hear it in his voice. A strange pause, a repeated sound, a halting catch. He was still self-conscious about it, although not nearly so much as he had been when they’d first met.
But she could see it in his eyes. A flash of pain. Or maybe anger. At himself, at his own weakness. Daphne supposed that there were some things people never got past, not completely.
Reluctantly, Daphne handed Georgie back to his nurse and urged Agatha toward the stairs. “Come along, darling,” she said. “The nursery is waiting. We took out all of the girls’ old toys.”
She watched with pride as Belinda took Agatha by the hand. “You may play with my favorite doll,” Belinda said with great gravity.
Agatha looked up at her cousin with an expression that could only be described as reverence and then followed her up the stairs.
Daphne waited until all the children were gone and then turned back to her brother and his wife. “Tea?” she asked. “Or do you wish to change out of your traveling clothes?”
“Tea,” Penelope said with the sigh of an exhausted mother. “Please.”
Colin nodded his agreement, and together they went into the drawing room. Once they were seated Daphne decided there was no point in being anything but direct. This was her brother, after all, and he knew he could talk to her about anything.
“You’re worried about Geo
rgie,” she said. It was a statement, not a question.
“He hasn’t said a word,” Penelope said quietly. Her voice was even, but her throat caught in an uncomfortable swallow.
“He understands us,” Colin said. “I’m sure of it. Just the other day I asked him to pick up his toys, and he did so. Immediately.”
“Simon was the same way,” Daphne said. She looked from Colin to Penelope and back. “I assume that is why you came? To speak with Simon?”
“We hoped he might offer some insight,” Penelope said.
Daphne nodded slowly. “I’m sure he will. He was detained in the country, I’m afraid, but he is expected back before the week’s end.”
“There is no rush,” Colin said.
Out of the corner of her eye, Daphne saw Penelope’s shoulders slump. It was a tiny motion but one any mother would recognize. Penelope knew there was no rush. They had waited nearly three years for Georgie to talk; a few more days wouldn’t make a difference. And yet she wanted so desperately to do something. To take an action, to make her child whole.
To have come this far only to find that Simon was gone . . . It had to be discouraging.
“I think it is a very good sign that he understands you,” Daphne said. “I would be much more concerned if he did not.”
“Everything else about him is completely normal,” Penelope said passionately. “He runs, he jumps, he eats. He even reads, I think.”
Colin turned to her in surprise. “He does?”
“I believe so,” Penelope said. “I saw him with William’s primer last week.”
“He was probably just looking at the illustrations,” Colin said gently.
“That’s what I thought, but then I watched his eyes! They were moving back and forth, following the words.”
They both turned to Daphne, as if she might have all the answers.
“I suppose he might be reading,” Daphne said, feeling rather inadequate. She wanted to have all the answers. She wanted to say something to them other than I suppose or Perhaps. “He’s rather young, but there’s no reason he couldn’t be reading.”
“He’s very bright,” Penelope said.
Colin gave a look that was mostly indulgent. “Darling . . .”
“He is! And William read when he was four. Agatha, too.”
“Actually,” Colin admitted thoughtfully, “Agatha did start to read at three. Nothing terribly involved, but I know she was reading short words. I remember it quite well.”
“Georgie is reading,” Penelope said firmly. “I am sure of it.”
“Well, then, that means we have even less to be concerned about,” Daphne said with determined good cheer. “Any child who is reading before his third birthday will have no trouble speaking when he is ready to do so.”
She had no idea if this was actually the case. But she rather thought it ought to be. And it seemed reasonable. And if Georgie turned out to have a stutter, just like Simon, his family would still love him and adore him and give him all the support he needed to grow into the wonderful person she knew he would be.
He’d have everything Simon hadn’t had as a child.
“It will be all right,” Daphne said, leaning forward to take Penelope’s hand in hers. “You’ll see.”
Penelope’s lips pressed together, and Daphne saw her throat tighten. She turned away, wanting to give her sister-in-law a moment to compose herself. Colin was munching on his third biscuit and reaching for a cup of tea, so Daphne decided to direct her next question to him.
“Is everything well with the rest of the children?” she asked.
He swallowed his tea. “Quite well. And yours?”
“David has got into a bit of mischief at school, but he seems to be settling down.”
He picked up another biscuit. “And the girls aren’t giving you fits?”
Daphne blinked with surprise. “No, of course not. Why do you ask?”
“You look terrible,” he said.
“Colin!” Penelope interjected.
He shrugged. “She does. I asked about it when we first arrived.”
“But still,” his wife admonished, “you shouldn’t—”
“If I can’t say something to her, who can?” he said plainly. “Or more to the point, who will?”
Penelope dropped her voice to an urgent whisper. “It’s not the sort of thing one talks about.”
He stared at her for a moment. Then he looked at Daphne. Then he turned back to his wife. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.
Penelope’s lips parted, and her cheeks went a bit pink. She looked over at Daphne, as if to say, Well?
Daphne just sighed. Was her condition that obvious?
Penelope gave Colin an impatient look. “She’s—” She turned back to Daphne. “You are, aren’t you?”
Daphne gave a tiny nod of confirmation.
Penelope looked at her husband with a certain degree of smugness. “She’s pregnant.”
Colin froze for about one half a second before continuing on in his usual unflappable manner. “No, she’s not.”
“She is,” Penelope replied.
Daphne decided not to speak. She was feeling queasy, anyway.
“Her youngest is seventeen,” Colin pointed out. He glanced over at Daphne. “He is, isn’t he?”
“Sixteen,” Daphne murmured.
“Sixteen,” he repeated, directing this at Penelope. “Still.”
“Still?”
“Still.”
Daphne yawned. She couldn’t help it. She was just exhausted these days.
“Colin,” Penelope said, in that patient yet vaguely condescending tone that Daphne loved to hear directed at her brother, “David’s age hardly has anything to do with—”
“I realize that,” he cut in, giving her a vaguely annoyed look. “But don’t you think, if she were going to . . .” He waved a hand in Daphne’s general direction, leaving her to wonder if he could not bring himself to utter the word pregnant in relation to his own sister.
He cleared his throat. “Well, there wouldn’t have been a sixteen-year gap.”
Daphne closed her eyes for a moment, then let her head settle against the back of the sofa. She really should feel embarrassed. This was her brother. And even if he was using rather vague terms, he was talking about the most intimate aspects of her marriage.
She let out a tired little noise, something between a sigh and a hum. She was too sleepy to be embarrassed. And maybe too old, too. Women ought to be able to dispense with maidenly fits of modesty when they passed forty.
Besides, Colin and Penelope were bickering, and that was a good thing. It took their minds off Georgie.
Daphne found it rather entertaining, really. It was lovely to watch any of her brothers stuck in a stalemate with his wife.
Forty-one definitely wasn’t too old to feel just a little bit of pleasure at the discomfort of one’s brothers. Although—she yawned again—it would be more entertaining if she were a bit more alert to enjoy it. Still . . .
“Did she fall asleep?”
Colin stared at his sister in disbelief.
“I think she did,” Penelope replied.
He stretched toward her, craning his neck for a better view. “There are so many things I could do to her right now,” he mused. “Frogs, locusts, rivers turning to blood.”
“Colin!”
“It’s so tempting.”
“It’s also proof,” Penelope said with a hint of a smirk.
“Proof ?”
“She’s pregnant! Just like I said.” When he did not agree with her quickly enough, she added, “Have you ever known her to fall asleep in the middle of a conversation?”
“Not since—” He cut himself off.
Penelope’s smirk grew significantly less subtle. “Exactly.”
“I hate when you’re right,” he grumbled.
“I know. Pity for you I so often am.”
He glanced back over at Daphne, who was starting t
o snore. “I suppose we should stay with her,” he said, somewhat reluctantly.
“I’ll ring for her maid,” Penelope said.
“Do you think Simon knows?”
Penelope glanced over her shoulder once she reached the bellpull. “I have no idea.”
Colin just shook his head. “Poor bloke is in for the surprise of his life.”
When Simon finally returned to London, fully one week delayed, he was exhausted. He had always been a more involved landowner than most of his peers—even as he found himself approaching the age of fifty. And so when several of his fields flooded, including one that provided the sole income for a tenant family, he rolled up his sleeves and got to work alongside his men.
Figuratively, of course. All sleeves had most definitely been down. It had been bloody cold in Sussex. Worse when one was wet. Which of course they all had been, what with the flood and all.
So he was tired, and he was still cold—he wasn’t sure his fingers would ever regain their previous temperature—and he missed his family. He would have asked them to join him in the country, but the girls were preparing for the season, and Daphne had looked a bit peaked when he left.
He hoped she wasn’t coming down with a cold. When she got sick, the entire household felt it.
She thought she was a stoic. He had once tried to point out that a true stoic wouldn’t go about the house repeatedly saying, “No, no, I’m fine,” as she sagged into a chair.
Actually, he had tried to point this out twice. The first time he said something she had not responded. At the time, he’d thought she hadn’t heard him. In retrospect, however, it was far more likely that she had chosen not to hear him, because the second time he said something about the true nature of a stoic, her response had been such that . . .
Well, let it be said that when it came to his wife and the common cold, his lips would never again form words other than “You poor, poor dear” and “May I fetch you some tea?”
There were some things a man learned after two decades of marriage.
When he stepped into the front hall, the butler was waiting, his face in its usual mode—that is to say, completely devoid of expression.
“Thank you, Jeffries,” Simon murmured, handing him his hat.