Astounded, she realized he carried Joy— awkwardly, as if he feared he might drop the infant at any moment. “I will take her. Thank you.”
Little Gil raced after her, crying with excitement, “My baby! My baby!” No one knew if Gil and Joy were actually brother and sister, but the little boy had laid claim to the baby after being rescued.
Maris calmed him and the other children, who clustered around her and the viscount. She held out her arms and repeated, “I will take her, my lord.”
“May I...?” He glanced at the children and cleared his throat. “May I come in?”
Every instinct urged her to say no, but she really had no choice. She put space between them, herding the children away from the doorway. They wanted to greet Lord Trelawney with the same enthusiasm they showed everyone, but she doubted the cool, composed man would welcome their curious questions or their fingerprints on his pristine black coat. As he came into the room, she stepped around the small table where the children ate. It was not much of a shield, but it was all she had.
You are being silly, that soft voice whispered in her mind. Lord Trelawney is not Lord Litchfield. He has never been anything but polite when he passed you in an empty hallway. And he did save you from injury earlier.
Maybe so, but she would not take the chance of being hurt by another man and then abandoned by those she thought she could depend on.
“Will you...?” He motioned with his head toward the baby.
“Certainly.” She left her scanty sanctuary and scooped Joy into her arms, then wrinkled her nose. “She is rather pungent, isn’t she?”
He glanced down at his sleeve where a damp spot warned that the napkin had leaked. “Yes.”
“I shall see that she is changed and fed, my lord. Thank you.” The nursery seemed oddly cramped with him in it. Or maybe it was because the children gripped her skirt, making it impossible for her to edge away again. “I assumed Lady Caroline would bring Joy to the nursery.”
“Yes, my sister seldom is parted from this baby. I hope...” He did not finish.
He did not need to, because Maris understood. Lady Caroline would be bereft when the baby’s parents were found.
“You look well, Miss Oliver,” he added.
She was startled, then realized he must be referring to what had occurred in the stillroom. “Thanks to you.” She lowered her eyes. “I hope your injury was minor.”
“How did you know?”
“We were standing close, and I felt you flinch as the debris flew about.”
He smiled. “’Tis a scratch.” He paused for so long that she thought he was done; then he said, “I appreciate you asking.”
Laying the baby on the higher table, where a stack of fresh napkins waited, Maris began to change Joy. She was aware of Lord Trelawney behind her, even though he was silent. After sending the children to play, she looked at him.
“Is there something else you need me to do, my lord?” she asked.
“’Tis my sister. She thought it was time that I visited the nursery and learned more about the children living here.”
“She did?” What a peculiar suggestion! In an upper-class home such as Cothaire, the children’s lives seldom intersected with their elders’. “Of course, you are always welcome.”
“She suggested that... That is, she thought you might guide me in getting to know the children better.” He glanced at where the twins were chasing the boys. “Next month, I will be spending time with a widowed acquaintance who has two children of her own, and Carrie thought if I learned about these children, I would have an easier time with meeting Gwendolyn’s.”
Maris put a clean napkin on the baby and pinned it in place. It would seem that Lord Trelawney had made his choice of a bride. She had heard the household staff discussing whom he might choose and how his new wife might change Cothaire. No doubt the widow’s name was being discussed in whispers in the servants’ hall.
Lifting little Joy from the table, Maris cradled her close to her heart. The baby’s mouth tasted the air, a sign that she wanted to nurse. Maris watched Lord Trelawney gaze down at the child. He lightly touched her soft hair, his expression unguarded for a moment.
Biting her lower lip, Maris said nothing. If she expressed how endearing it was to see the oh-so-correct viscount reveal a tender vulnerability, she might embarrass him. She did not move as he looked from the baby to the other children, his thoughts bare on his face. He was perplexed by them, but fascinated, too. Few strong men would reveal that, nor would they be concerned about the well-being of a servant who had caused an accident in the stillroom.
As he gently brushed the baby’s head, he looked up. His gaze caught Maris’s, no longer cool, but filled with emotions she could not interpret. Standing with the baby between them, she noticed, as she had not before, that darker navy rings encircled the pale blue of his eyes. She never had seen any like them. Her fingers tingled, and she had to fight to keep them from rising to curve along his cheek as she told him how sweet she found him to be with the baby. Being so bold might suggest she was the easy type of woman Lord Litchfield considered her.
That thought compelled Maris back a half step. “Lord Trelawney, we can discuss how you can get to know the children better once I take Joy to the wet nurse. She is waiting in the kitchen.”
His hand hung in the air now that Joy’s head was no longer beneath it. He lowered it. “I should go. I need to—”
The other children shrieked as they raced from one side of the room to the other, giggling.
“I will be but a moment.” Maris pointed to each child and spoke his or her name, before adding, “Children, this is Lord Trelawney. He is Lady Susanna’s older brother. Just like Parson Raymond.”
They smiled at him, but uneasily, then looked at her. Had they sensed, as she did, that he wished he were somewhere else? With a sigh, she suggested they go to the window to see what else they might spot outside. They clambered onto the window bench. She hoped they would remain distracted and well behaved until she returned.
She lowered her voice as she turned to the viscount. “Watch so they don’t get hurt. I shall be right back.” She hurried to the stairs leading down to the kitchen, before she laughed out loud at Lord Trelawney’s expression.
He had looked unnerved at her suggestion that he stay alone with the children. Could he truly have no experience with little ones? Lady Susanna was more than a decade younger than he was, so he must remember her as an infant and toddler. Then Maris remembered that Belinda’s brother had been sent away to school by the time he was ten. Most likely, Lord Trelawney had been attending boarding school when Lady Susanna was born.
In the kitchen, Maris handed Joy to the young woman who came from the village several times each day to nurse the baby.
Mrs. Ford looked up from stirring a bowl. “Miss Oliver, I cannot believe you left those young ones on their own upstairs. That is not like you.”
“I didn’t leave them alone,” she said.
“Lady
