by Martha Keyes
The bell at the front door rang, and Lydia sighed. They hadn’t had visitors in quite some time, but now that the weather was beginning to get a bit warmer, they could expect more.
A knock soon sounded on the door to Diana’s room, and the three women shared curious glances. Diana went to open the door, revealing a footman was standing in the corridor.
His eyes searched the room, finding Lydia. “My lady, the dowager baroness has arrived and wishes to speak with you.”
Chapter 25
Lydia stared at the footman until his eyes began to shift uncomfortably.
“Very good,” Diana chimed in, seeming to understand she could not count on Lydia to respond. “You may tell her we will be with her directly.”
The footman bowed and left, and Diana shut the door, turning to Lydia.
“I cannot face her,” Lydia said with a shake of the head. “I shall say something terrible; I just know it.”
Diana shrugged. “Perhaps you should.”
Lydia shot her an unamused look and continued to wring her hands.
“Well, not something awful,” Diana continued, “but she should know that you are unhappy with what she did. Come, you may stay here a minute and gather your courage while Mary and I go see her.”
Mary rubbed Lydia’s back with a hand and rose. “You don’t have to speak to her about it if you don’t wish, you know.”
“What? And just pretend nothing has happened?” Lydia shook her head. “Go ahead. I will be down shortly.”
The door closed behind them, and Lydia sucked in a long, deep breath. What would she say to her mother-in-law? Had she really not thought that Lydia and Miles would discover what she had done with Thomas? Or had she known it would be too late by the time they had found out? What if Lydia had insisted upon knowing beforehand? Would the dowager have lied?
Perhaps Diana was right. Perhaps it was time for Lydia to have a more direct talk with her mother-in-law. She was turning over a new leaf with Miles, after all. It might be a good time for a bit of forthrightness.
Just the thought made her hands tremble. But she couldn’t bear to continue as things were, with the dowager baroness inserting herself into their private matters, expecting an heir when it was clear there wouldn’t be one. All this time, Lydia had been humiliated at what her mother-in-law would think of her when she finally realized Lydia couldn’t give Miles an heir. She didn’t want to live under that dread anymore. Better she know now and accustom herself to the fact.
Lydia rose from the bed, lifting her chin determinedly and making her way downstairs.
She checked at the door to the drawing room as the sound of the front door opening met her ears. She heard Miles’s voice, and her heart raced. All thought of her mother-in-law fled, and Lydia hurried toward the entry hall just as Miles emerged from it into the corridor, Thomas in his arms.
Lydia’s hand flew to her mouth, and Miles put out his free arm to welcome her into his embrace.
“When he saw me, he smiled so wide, I thought it would reach his ears,” Miles said, and he handed off Thomas to her.
She pulled him into her arms and kissed his head. “I am so sorry, my love,” she whispered. “So sorry.”
He let out a loud squawk in reply and tugged on her hair, eliciting a laugh from both her and Miles.
“Did you have any trouble?” Lydia asked.
Miles shook his head. “Mr. Moss was understanding, and he was more than happy for me to take Thomas when I reassured him that the donation was theirs to keep.”
A door opened down the corridor, and soon Diana, Mary, and the dowager baroness all appeared. Diana stopped, and Mary stumbled into her. All three of them stared with wide eyes for a moment, then Diana came rushing over.
“But…but…”
“Miles?” The dowager baroness’s questioning voice broke through Diana’s stuttering confusion. “What is this?”
“Or who is this?” Diana laughed as Thomas grasped her pointer finger and brought it to his mouth.
“Perhaps we could discuss this in the drawing room,” Miles said.
His mother nodded with a hint of stiffness, and Diana and Mary launched into their excuses, pleading that they needed to begin packing their things for the journey home in two days.
Lydia felt her heart begin to patter against her chest, but Miles kept his arm around her and Thomas as they led the dowager baroness to the drawing room, and she knew a bit of comfort. Even if she couldn’t rely upon Miles to put his mother in her place, she was glad to have him by her side while she did it.
Miles conveyed Lydia to the sofa and returned to shut the door behind his mother. Thomas reached for his favorite tasseled pillow, and Lydia obliged him by setting it on his lap. She wanted dearly to play with him, but there would be enough time for that after the encounter with her mother-in-law.
“I admit,” said the dowager, “that I am at a loss to understand.” She directed her gaze at Thomas, as though anyone was in any doubt of what she meant.
Miles came to sit beside Lydia. “I went to retrieve him. It is not the situation we wanted for him. I think you know that, Mother.”
She inclined her head in acknowledgment. “I suspected as much, but—”
“But you saw fit to ignore our feelings on the matter,” Lydia said, and she could feel her hands tremble as they held Thomas in place. She didn’t have to look at Miles to know that he would be showing signs of surprise. She had never countered her mother-in-law in anything.
The dowager blinked, eyes on Lydia. “I…I…I merely thought I was doing what was best. Surely you see that, to find a family who would take in the baby had its own risks. What if they found that they could not take care of him, after all? These are hard times, and I have known more than one instance where a well-meaning family overestimated their resources. If that happened, the baby would have been back on the streets. At least the Foundling Hospital would have avoided such a risk. These are difficult times, and the hospital would have given him the most certain opportunities.”
“Then you should have discussed that with us,” Miles said. “Instead, you concealed it.”
“I had reason for doing so,” she said. “It is difficult to see things clearly when one is so closely involved, as you both are. I have the advantage of a bit of distance.” She looked at them with a sympathetic frown. “You cannot afford distraction.”
“Distraction?” Lydia said.
The dowager baroness hesitated. “Well, yes. It seems to me that the two of you have been distracted by him. For you, my dear”—she nodded at Lydia—“I have wondered at times if you were not forgetting that he was not yours.”
Lydia felt the blood pulsing through her veins, and when she spoke, it was with dangerous calm. “You believe Thomas is distracting me from what truly matters: producing an heir.”
The dowager baroness said nothing, but the confirmation of Lydia’s words was in her face—and her silence.
Hoping it might settle her temper, Lydia looked at Thomas, who was blissfully unaware of the discussion happening around him. She would not yell in front of him again. But she needed to make a few things clear.
“No doubt you mean well,” Lydia said. It was true. The dowager did mean well in what she did. Diana’s earlier words had not been lost upon Lydia. The dowager’s primary interest was what she believed to be best for Miles, and she viewed Thomas as an impediment to that.
“But meaning well is not enough, my lady. You want Miles to find success in every arena of his life. I assume it is that desire which leads you to involve yourself in our affairs—to seek treatments that might help us to have children.” She looked down at Thomas, who was chewing on a tassel, his hands covered in slobber. She swallowed and forced herself to sit up straight and meet her mother-in-law’s gaze. “But the truth—unwelcome as it might be—is that there is unlikely to be an heir born to Miles and me.”
Miles wrapped his arm about her and shifted closer, and the gesture reassured and s
trengthened her.
“I am nearly certain that I am unable to conceive,” she said.
The dowager baroness stared at her, blinking slowly. “But…”
“I know it is difficult to hear,” Lydia said. “Believe me, for it is even more difficult to live. But it is time that all of us faced up to the reality, I think.”
Miles nodded. “I am at peace with it, Mother. And in time, you will be, too.”
Lydia grasped at Miles’s hand, her eyes flooding with tears. She had been craving those words for she knew not how long. Had he truly accepted it?
The dowager baroness sat forward on her seat, eyes flitting between them. “This resignation seems premature. Surely, there are other things that could be tried. Another doctor or—”
“No, Mother,” Miles said flatly. “We do not wish to live our lives or burden our marriage with such things any longer. And we hope you will respect that—that you will leave these matters to us.” He looked down at Lydia, and she nodded, holding his eyes, feeling her heart swell with love for him.
Miles’s eyes roved over to Thomas. “That includes leaving Thomas’s future in our hands. I believe I have already found another situation for him.”
Lydia tensed, and her stomach dropped, but she tried to conceal it. What had she thought would happen? Miles had gone to retrieve Thomas so they could find him another home. She had merely thought she would have more time with him before having to say goodbye again.
Pushing down such thoughts, she looked at her mother-in-law. She thought she could see the hurt in her eyes, and, much as Lydia had longed to put the woman in her place for the last few years, the sight of her pain brought Lydia no joy.
She handed Thomas to Miles and went over to her mother-in-law, crouching in front of her. “I imagine you are feeling a number of things right now, my lady. I can understand many of those emotions myself, for I have sat with them these many years. They are very familiar to me. Whatever discouragement you feel at the knowledge that I cannot bear children, I have felt it ten-fold. Whatever regret you feel at Miles having chosen to marry me, I have anguished over both your regret and his ten-fold. But I want you to know that I intend to bring as much joy to Miles as I can manage. I may not be able to bear any children, but I will fight for him and his happiness, just as I know he will fight for me and mine. I want you to understand that I have his best interests at heart, just as you do. We have the same goal, and I hope you can find it in your heart to believe that, even if you cannot fully embrace me as a daughter-in-law.”
The dowager shook her head and reached for Lydia’s hand. “I do not regret that Miles married you, my dear. I admit it was not what I had wanted at the time.” She smiled wryly. “Mothers always think they know better than anyone else, I think. But he chose you, and no one knows better than I how capable Miles is of making his own decisions. I am sorry if, in my determination to see him succeed, I have said or done things that led to unhappiness in you. That was never my intention. I know your happiness is integral to his. Please forgive me, my dear.”
She stood and offered her hands to Lydia, pulling her up and into an embrace. In Lydia’s ear, she whispered, “I would rather see Miles happy with a wife he loves and no heir than unhappy but with all the success in the world.” She pulled away with a sigh and turned toward Miles.
Lydia hurried to take Thomas from him so that he and his mother could embrace properly.
“If you do find,” she said as they walked her to the door, “that this situation you speak of will not serve, you need only say the word—”
“Mother,” Miles said with a look that effectively shut her mouth.
She waved a hand as the footman opened the door. “Never mind that. You will manage quite well, I have no doubt.”
“I rather think we will,” Miles said, kissing Lydia on the head.
When the door had shut, they made their way out of the entry hall and toward the stairs, Thomas emitting loud squawks that filled the entire house, it seemed.
“They weren’t gone for long,” Miles said, “but I did miss those noises in his absence.”
Lydia smiled, but she felt a bit of sadness. They would be gone again soon. She looked at Miles as they went up the stairs, his hand supporting the small of her back. “Miles, what situation did you find?”
They reached the top of the stairs, and he turned toward her, his brows furrowing. She could hardly stand to look at him, so nervous was she to hear his answer. She still wasn’t certain she wanted to know.
“Well,” he said, “that is something I wanted to discuss with you first. I am not sure you will like the idea.”
She swallowed, waiting.
“I hoped,” Miles said slowly, “that perhaps we might be his situation.”
Lydia’s eyelids flickered as she stared at him, and his mouth pulled into a tentative smile.
She blinked, heart thudding against her chest. “You are serious?”
He nodded. “I told you, my love. I missed his crowing and cooing.”
She gave a shaky laugh then swallowed. “But, you are not doing this for me? I don’t wish you to do it for me. I want to decide our future together.”
He looked at her intently. “I do want this, my love. I am doing it for both of us.”
Lydia looked at Thomas, who had availed himself of the corner of her dress and was sucking on it determinedly. “Do you hear that, Thomas? You are going to stay here. With us.”
He gave no sign that he even heard her, and she looked back to her husband, unsure how to express what she was feeling. He seemed to understand and brought her into his arms.
It wasn’t long, though, before he pulled away and looked censoriously at the baby. “You are very much in the way of things at the moment, little chap.” He pulled him from Lydia’s arms and set him on the floor, well away from the stairs. “We will be with you in a moment. I am sure I can count on your understanding.” He stepped back to Lydia with a smile.
She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “You said you weren’t sure I would like the idea. You delight in torturing me, don’t you?”
He lifted a shoulder and donned an expression of faux-innocence. “Well, you did leave him with my mother to be taken to the Foundling Hospital without telling me. What else was I to surmise but that you wished to be rid of him?”
She smacked him playfully on the arm. “And you didn’t tell your mother your plans.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I thought we would save that revelation for tomorrow, once she’s had a bit of time to process things. She’s had quite a day, you know, between both of us being angry at her.”
“I wasn’t too unkind, was I?” Lydia asked nervously.
He shook his head. “Not at all. I nearly cheered when you said all of it. She will respect you the better for it having come directly from you.”
She nodded, hoping he was right. “Are you absolutely certain, though, that you truly wish to have Thomas? I do love him, Miles, and I am exquisitely happy to think of him being ours, but”—she searched his eyes—“even more than that, more than anything, I want you. I want us to be together. You are my priority.”
Miles took her face in both hands. “And you are mine. And that is what will make us good parents for Thomas.”
Thomas suddenly yelled, and the sound echoed in the corridor. He stilled, eyes wide as the sound faded. He yelled again, and Miles and Lydia laughed.
He pressed his lips to hers, both of them smiling behind the kiss as Thomas emitted more of the same yells, increasing in volume.
“What a wonderful gift you have given me,” Lydia said, her hands clasped behind Miles’s neck.
“And a loud one,” Miles said dryly with a sidelong glance at Thomas.
“I don’t just mean Thomas,” she said. “I have longed for a child. But having Thomas has made me realize that, even more, I was longing for us.”
He closed his eyes, as though letting her words sin
k in, and his throat bobbed.
She rested her head against his chest, listening to the reassuring sound of his heartbeat. “I have missed you terribly, Miles,” she said softly.
“And I you,” he replied, pressing a kiss upon her hair. “I have wanted you from almost the moment I met you, Lydia. I have never stopped, and I never will. I promise you that. I will always love you, as long as I live.”
“And I you,” she said, and she rose up on her tiptoes. Miles met her lips eagerly, and they shared a kiss unlike one Lydia had ever experienced, meant to make up for every kiss they had missed.
A door opened down the corridor. “What is all the racket out here?” Diana checked when she saw Miles and Lydia lip-locked. “Oh.”
They didn’t pull apart right away, rather finishing the kiss slowly and gently. Reluctantly.
“A kiss like that may be worth an entire kissing bough of berries,” Diana said with a mischievous smile. “It is just as well, for I have certainly not had any opportunity to take any berries, and it would be a shame for them to go to waste.” She approached Thomas, crouching down and picking him up. “Have you been forgotten by these two lovebirds, my dear? How very cruel they are.”
“He is staying, Di,” Lydia said, holding Miles’s hand tightly in hers and standing beside him.
“Of course he is,” Diana said, rubbing her nose against Thomas’s. “Where else would he go? He belongs here.” With Thomas in her arms, she made her way back toward her room.
“Di!” Lydia called with a baffled smile. “What are you doing?”
“Taking him with me,” she called over her shoulder. “I rather think you two have a few more berries-worth of kiss left in you.”
Lydia looked up at Miles, who chuckled as the door to Diana’s room closed with a thunk, cutting short Thomas’s unintelligible talking.
“And I”—Lydia led Miles toward his bedchamber and opened the door—“rather think she is right.”
