Chapter Three
‘You little scamp! Come back here!’
Mrs Fenton picked up her lavender skirts and chased the shrieking child on to the pathway. She soon caught up with him and hoisted him off his feet in a cuddle. ‘You are far too nimble for me. You win again, Master Bernard.’ She placed a kiss on his soft cheek.
‘Oh, stop it, Bernie. You will tire poor Auntie Dawn out and she won’t come again to play with you,’ the Countess of Houndsmere said, issuing a warning to her giggling son.
‘Of course I will come. I love our games, don’t I, Bernie?’ Dawn put the wriggling child back on to the flagstones.
After his game of chase, Master Bernard still had plenty of energy; his godmother, however, was holding the stitch in her side and fanning herself with a hand. The boy immediately dashed off to throw a ball across the emerald lawn for two wolfhound puppies to squabble over. Dawn strolled over to sit with her friend in the shade and have a well-earned rest.
A table and chairs had been set up under the dipping broad boughs of a magnificent plane tree in the grounds of a mansion in Grosvenor Square. Upon the table was the finest rose-patterned porcelain and a tray upon which reposed silverware for making tea. Two maids hovered close by. They attended to refreshments and to tilt parasols this way and that to ensure the ladies were shielded from any rogue sunbeams infiltrating the whispering greenery.
Dawn sat down next to the Countess, who was cooling her pink cheeks with a fan of ivory and lace. Leaning closer to her friend, Dawn benefited from some wafted air.
‘You make me feel very old, Dawn. I wish I could still charge about like that,’ Emma complained, whipping the fan to and fro with increased vigour.
‘You can, my dear...just not while you are carrying a baby. And as I am the elder of us by two months, please never again mention our advancing years or I will feel quite miserable.’ Dawn sat back comfortably, then took her friend’s hand in hers, giving her a cheeky smile. ‘Come, we are neither of us yet in our dotage, Em, at the grand age of twenty-nine.’
‘I feel quite ancient sometimes, you know, when my back aches.’ Emma shifted on the seat as her unborn child made its presence known by giving her a kick.
‘When you are rocking your new babe you will forget you ever had these twinges.’ Dawn sighed. ‘I wish I could take my godson home with me. I love having Bernie’s company. You are so lucky to have such a handsome son and another little one on the way.’ She smoothed a hand over the small bump beneath her friend’s silk gown. ‘Girl or boy...what do you think?’
Emma cocked her head, a smile on her lips. ‘I really don’t mind as long as all fingers and toes are present.’ She felt guilty now for having moaned about feeling uncomfortable. Indeed, she was fortunate to have her family: Dawn had miscarried a child and then been denied the chance of another when her husband had died in an accident a short while later.
The tea was poured and distributed and young Bernard rushed up to enjoy a glass of cordial and some biscuits. He sat on the grass at his mother’s side, the faithful puppies stretched out at his feet.
‘Don’t feed them biscuits, dear,’ his mama gently cautioned. ‘Your papa will not like it if they get fat.’ She added an aside for Dawn’s hearing, ‘He doesn’t seem to mind me getting rounder, though.’
‘I hope you are not going to boast about your handsome husband chasing you around your bedchamber every night.’
‘Indeed, he does not,’ Emma returned with a wink. ‘I never run away...’
They chuckled and Dawn sipped her tea. The two women had known each other since childhood and had always shared their good and bad times with one another. A bit of unladylike chat was nothing new for them either. But wistfulness settled on Dawn whenever she dwelt on her friend’s blissful happiness. She loved Emma too much to feel jealous. Besides, Emma had suffered her share of misfortune before the Earl of Houndsmere fell in love with her and put everything right for Emma’s embattled family.
Dawn’s own marriage
