A Wicked Conceit, Anna Huber [best e book reader txt] 📗

the room, I could see that she’d somehow contrived to remove all the stains from it.

“Bree, you are a wonder,” I gasped softly, having written the dress off as not salvable with all the blood and dirt from our ordeal and Emma’s birth covering it.

“Had ye been wearing the jonquil one, I’m no’ sure I coulda saved it,” she admitted, hanging the gown in the wardrobe.

“Well, no matter. I’m still amazed.”

She twitched the drapes shut against the dark of night and then stepped closer to peer over my shoulder at Emma slumbering contentedly in my arms, the tiny hand she refused to keep swaddled tucked by her chin. A dribble of milk pooled in the corner of her mouth, and I lifted the corner of her blanket to dab it away.

“Do ye want me to lay her in her cradle for ye?” she asked eagerly, as enamored of the child as Gage and I already were.

“No, not yet,” I replied, wanting to hold her a bit longer.

Bree nodded in understanding. “Jeffers said ye may have found a nursemaid.”

“Maybe,” I replied tentatively. It had been difficult to find someone who not only was qualified and met with our approval, but was also willing to travel with us from place to place, for I had no desire to leave my child behind when we journeyed about the country. Though we owned homes in Edinburgh and London, and had talked of purchasing or leasing a small estate somewhere, thus far our circumstances since our marriage had been very transient. This type of existence required just the right sort of person for the position.

“She’ll turn up,” Bree declared encouragingly.

The door behind us opened, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Gage entering the room on cat’s feet. Through the gap in the dressing room door, I caught sight of Anderley. To my knowledge he hadn’t yet held Emma, but he seemed more curious about her than perhaps he would like to admit.

“If you’ve no more need o’ me, I’ll take my leave,” Bree said, backing away.

“Good night, Bree.”

She dipped a shallow curtsy and disappeared into the dressing room, saying something to Anderley that I couldn’t quite catch before she shut the door. She had confided in me that she had taken my advice to talk with him, and they had decided to return to being merely friends. However, I didn’t think that was necessarily the end of it, not when I saw the way they both looked at each other when they thought the other wasn’t looking.

My gaze lifted to Gage, who was bent over watching our daughter sleep with a look of such serene adoration I could only smile.

“Shall I lay her in the cradle for you?”

I chuckled at everyone’s keenness to hold Emma, even if for but a brief time. “Yes,” I relented, knowing she would never learn to sleep in her own bed if we always held her.

She protested with a soft grunt when he lifted her gently from my arms but then subsided. Moving ever so slowly, he placed her in the beautiful wooden cradle he had presented to me the day after her birth. He’d been waiting for the right moment to give it to me before the birth, but that had never come. No matter. I still cherished it because he’d made it with his own two hands.

I rose to my feet and crossed to stand next to him where he stood gazing down at our sleeping daughter. His arm wrapped around me, and I leaned into him, resting my head against his chest.

“I never knew I could be this happy,” he said softly, wondrously.

My heart flooded with so much love at his words that I thought it would burst. I clutched him tighter, wanting him to feel it, and I could tell by the way he held me in return that he did.

But then a sadness crept into his voice. “Do you think my father ever felt this way? About me? About Henry?”

I lifted my face to his, and seeing the pain etched across his brow, I urged him away from the cradle so that our voices wouldn’t wake Emma. He perched on the edge of the bed, and I stood between his legs so that I could see him more clearly, cradling his jaw in my hands. His bristles rubbed the skin of my palms.

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “In many ways, your father is an enigma to me. But . . . I do know that if he wasn’t joyful at your birth, or Henry’s for that matter, then that was his failing . . .” I shook my head “. . . and not yours.”

His pale blue eyes searched mine as if looking for answers I couldn’t give him, for I had no way of knowing them.

“Have you written to him?”

“No.” His hands lifted to rest lightly on my waist, his fingers brushing over the silk of my dressing gown. “I don’t know what to say.”

I draped my arms around his neck, combing my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. “How about the truth.” I smiled ruefully. “After all, at this point, you have nothing to lose.”

His gaze dipped to the hollow of my throat. “I suppose you’re right. I can’t continue as we have. And if he can’t be honest with me, then there’s really nothing more to say.”

“You need to inform him of his granddaughter’s birth anyway,” I said, thinking this might provide him the impetus to start.

He nodded woodenly. “He’ll be pleased we named her Emma.”

I suspected that was true, but I also couldn’t help wondering whether he would be displeased she hadn’t been a boy, another heir to his lineage and title. It was just the sort of thing Lord Gage would decide to take exception to, another tally point on his long list of my faults. Just because we’d seemed to turn a corner in our relationship when last we were with him did not mean he accepted or approved of me.

Gage’s