With This Ring (22 page)

In the middle of her turmoil, she
was at least gratified to see his own discomfort. “Well, I thought
to do this a step at a time,” he admitted. “I will confess this
morning that such reasoning may have been a tad
arbitrary.”

“
I think I have leg-shackled myself
to a lunatic,” she said. Without thinking about it, she threw
herself down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. She could not
help herself; in another moment she was laughing. She laughed until
her stomach hurt, and she had to press her hand against her middle.
Tears streamed from her eyes and puddled on the pillow. “Oh, Lord,
spare me.” She wheezed as she wiped her eyes with the pillow case
and rose up on her elbow to look him in the eye. “Sam, are you
aware that you are certifiable? You’d feel right at home in Bedlam.
It would fit you like second skin!”

“
No. Blame …”

“… 
it on Sir Percy,” she
finished in unison with him. She lay down again and stared at the
ceiling. “Let me see: I reckon this baby of ours is thirteen months
old now. Oh, how auspicious!” She reached over to the chair where
he sat now, made a fist, and thumped his knee hard. “It appears
that you will have to commit infanticide. When we arrive in Laren,
you’ll have to tell your mama that dear little ….” She looked
at him.

“
Celia,” he said
promptly.

“
Oh, we had a daughter!” She flopped
back again and threw her hand across her eyes. “Sam, you will have
to tell your mama that Celia perished.”

“
I could never!” he declared, his
eyes wide. “Lydia, I am fond of children. We’ll have to come up
with something better than that.”

“
Sam! You are a blockhead!” She sat
up, swung her legs around, and faced him, knee to knee. “Celia
never existed! How hard can this be!”

“
My mother will be vastly
disappointed,” he said after a long pause. He looked her in the
eyes finally, and then started to laugh, too. “Lord, you are right,
my dear,” he said finally, his voice equal parts of contrition and
high humor. “I
am
a blockhead.” He took her hand then,
running his finger over her wedding ring. “Can’t we think of
something? Percy really outdid himself on Celia. She is a wonderful
little baby.”

“
Sam ….” she warned.

To her surprise, he raised her hand
to his lips and kissed it. “Didn’t the priest say something
yesterday about sickness and health, and a whole host of
qualifications? I disremember; I was mostly scared.”

“
You, too?” she murmured. “There was
no rider in our marriage vow about insanity, as I recall. If you’re
planning something, I think I will choose not to go along with
it.”

“
I do recall something specific
about ‘obey’ that you agreed to,” he said with a grin. “And yes, I
have an idea.”

“
Don’t try me, Sam!”

He only smiled at her in that
good-natured way of his that she was already familiar with.
Whistling softly to himself, he turned away and found his neck
cloth. He tried to stoop a little to see in the mirror, but all
that achieved was a groan he couldn’t hide.

Or didn’t try to, she thought as she
hurried to his side, turned him around, and took the neck cloth
from him. I must be an idiot, too, she thought. So good that we
found each other. “I’ll do that for you,” she said. “Hold
still.”

It was done in a moment, if a little
crooked. He took a look in the mirror. “It’ll do. I wish you would
put on some clothes, Lydia,” he said as he went to retrieve his
shoes.

“
I was only helping you!” she
reminded him. “You are a trial.”

“
Yes, ain’t I?” he agreed as he toed
his foot into one shoe without bending down.

She hurried into her dress and knelt
in front of him to put on the other shoe and buckle them. “You
can’t possibly bend over like that yet, so do not try,” she scolded
him. “Sam, I think I will like to murder you long before we get to
Northumberland. The urge is on me now.”

He nodded, his equanimity unruffled.
He allowed her to help him into his coat, then he sat down as she
continued to dress. She paused in front of the mirror, gratified to
see that the swelling had gone down in her cheek. She touched it,
and it felt no more than warm today.

“
Does it feel better, Lydia?” he
asked, his voice so gentle.

She nodded, and watched him in the
mirror. I think I could have a hard time staying angry with you,
Sam, she thought, but perhaps this is information I shall keep to
myself. She finished braiding her hair, and wound it neatly into
place with pins. She replaced the cameo at her throat.

“
Neat as wax,” he said. “Lydia, you
do turn out well, even on short notice.”

A hundred rebuttals rose to her
lips. Beyond the occasional kindness from Papa, no one had ever
complimented her before. My dress is wrinkled and worn from
yesterday, she thought. I know I would like to bathe and wash my
hair. My cheek is better, but I still look like an accident victim.
“Thank you,” she said simply. “Now, if it will not trouble you
overmuch, my dear husband, do tell me how we are going to acquire a
baby when we have been married only one day?”

“
Simple,” he said as he took her by
the arm and led her to the door. “Let us call this a gesture in
memory of Private Charles Banks and other men of my battery, who
had rocky starts in life. My dear wife. Mallow is a prosperous
community, and probably full of concerned Christian citizenry. We
are going to locate a foundling home.”

I
t was St.
Catherine’s Home, and located on a narrow street near the center of
town. A sign over the door informed them that Sisters of Charity
ran the place. The sister porter who opened the gate raised her
eyebrows at Major Reed’s request for a baby. “Usually people drop
them off,” she said. “This is singular.”

I think I shall not say anything,
Lydia told herself. It appears that I have married a master at
manipulation. She tightened her grip on her husband. I am certainly
along for a ride in this adventure that I will laughingly call
marriage.

“
Yes, Sister, we would like to adopt
a baby,” he was saying. He drew Lydia in close and brushed his lips
against her ear. “We’ve had a tragedy of our own, dear Sister, and
we are feeling a great void in our lives.”

You’ll feel an even greater void if
your aunt ever gets wind of what you are doing, she thought. The
picture of Sam trying to explain all this to his relations brought
the handkerchief to her mouth to stifle her laughter. She choked
and turned toward him. He obligingly held her close until her mirth
passed.

“
It is difficult,” he told the
porter.

“
Follow me, please.”

Was it possible for a man to charm
nuns?
She would not have thought so, but after a half hour
closeted with the convent’s mother superior, a stern, no-nonsense
woman, Lydia changed her mind. No one is safe from this man, she
thought. She watched the mother superior hunt in the depths of her
habit for a handkerchief, when he finished his artless narrative
about the loss of their little one, her own heart trouble that
precluded any other child of their own, and their great longing for
another one about the age of their dear little Nell, who went to
sleep with the angels one night.

This man doesn’t have a scrupulous
bone in his whole body, she thought as he turned away to stand by
the window, the picture of a grieving father. She stayed where she
was until the nun burst into tears, and gave her a little shove.
“Oh, go to him, my dear! See how he suffers!”

She did as she was bid, careful not
to make eye contact as she hugged him. “You ought to be kept away
from an unsuspecting public,” she whispered. “Really, Sam!” she
protested as he kissed her neck a little longer than she thought
necessary, considering their surroundings.

“
Thank you, my love, for your
blessed consolation,” he said as he turned back to the mother
superior with a real effort. “I think I can pull myself together
now,” he said, with just a quaver in his voice.

Mother Superior nodded, then looked
sympathetically at Lydia. “My dear, you seem to have suffered an
accident yourself.”

All right, Sam, you explain it, she
thought, looking at her husband. “My dear, I cannot talk about it.
You tell her,” she said.

Sam shook his head slowly, after a
look at her from under his eyelids that would have melted tile. He
stood close to the nun and lowered his voice. “It is a rare nervous
disorder.” He leaned closer. “It is worsened by her present trial,
I need not scruple to add. The doctor is certain that when there is
a little one in our house again, she will stop running into doors
and things.”

“
Dear me!” said the nun faintly. “We
shall have to see what we can do about this. Mr. and Mrs. Reed, you
are certain you wish a small child, and not an infant?”

Lydia nodded and dabbed at her
eyes.

“
Do follow me, then, and St.
Catherine’s will do what it can to assuage your grief.”

The major, took Lydia’s arm.
“ ’Doors and things.’ Really, Sam,” she scolded in a low
voice.

“
Well, you could help out a little
here and there,” he retorted as they followed the mother
superior.

“
And spoil your efforts?” she said.
“Years and years ago, the government should have sent you to
negotiate with Napoleon!”

The mother superior led them into a
well-lighted, clean room with baby beds lining one wall. Children
of various ages crawled or walked about, or sat at play. The room
was austere in the extreme, but there was nothing of squalor or
filth. She loosened her grip on the major’s arm as she watched the
young novitiate roll a ball to a little girl, who looked up when
they came in, her eyes bright with interest.

“
Oh, do let me,” she said as she
knelt beside the young sister. The woman smiled and moved away as
Lydia rolled the ball to the child in front of her.

Like the others, her dark hair was
cut quite short, but it was a riot of curls. Her eyes were brown
like Lydia’s. She was dressed in a simple, straight dress of
sacking that came to her ankles. Sam squatted on his heels beside
her and looked from her to the child and back. “She does look a bit
like you. Pretty enough,” he said. “Do let us look around, Lydia,
before we decide.” He reached out and touched the baby’s curls.
“She’s a pretty minx, though, isn’t she?”

Reluctantly, she allowed the major
to pull her to her feet, and she followed him dutifully about the
room. The little girl started to crawl after her, but her dress got
in the way. Her face wrinkled up, and she scrubbed her eyes with
her fists. “Oh, the poor dear,” Lydia said, left Sam’s side, and
picked up the child, who promptly nestled against her
shoulder.

The mother superior smiled. “Mrs.
Reed, it appears that
you
have been chosen.”

“
How old is she?” Lydia
asked.

“
We do not know. She was brought
here during the winter, when it was so cold, and none of the poor
could sustain themselves. We found her beside the road.” The nun
fingered the child’s curls. “There was no note. I do not suppose
that her mother or father could write one. She will be walking any
day, I am certain.”

“
Her name?”

“
We call her Maria, but you may
certainly name her anything you choose. Of course, there is another
room of babies.”

Lydia looked at her husband. “Sam, I
do not care if there are ten more rooms. I’m not going to put her
down.”

He looked at them both, a smile on
his face. “You’re the manipulators, my dears. Lydia, you and this
little minx are both looking at me with the biggest brownest eyes!
What am I to do?”

“
She is?” Lydia asked in delight.
“Sam, I doubt I will run into another door or thing ever again. Oh,
please!”

“
I’m certain of that,” he said.
“Very well, then. Sister, we do believe we will be quite happy with
Maria here. Do I sign some papers? Pay you anything?”

He did both while she held Maria,
who had not loosened her grip about her neck. One of the sisters
returned with a cloth bag of clothes and nappies. “She doesn’t have
any shoes, but it is summer,” the woman said, her tone apologetic.
“You are taking a great favorite,” she said simply.

Lydia smoothed back the little
girl’s curls. “Then, why has no one claimed her before us?” she
asked.

“
Perhaps because few are as generous
as you,” the woman said quietly.

Oh, ouch, Lydia thought. She took
the bag. “There is a towel doll inside,” the nun said. She kissed
the child quickly, then hurried silently down the corridor, not
looking back.

In another moment, Sam was through.
His face as serious as her own, he picked up the cloth bag. “Would
you like me to carry her?” he asked as the porter showed them out
and the gate closed behind them.

She shook her head. “She is light,
but I do not think you should be carrying anything, Sam, not with
your back the way it is.” She stopped in the road, unmindful of the
other people on the street. “Sam, we have just done something
awfully big!”