“No coin,” Tony replied. “A wet nurse is something of a luxury, and I’m the impecunious youngest son. Then too, Gladys says children get attached to their wet nurses, and my lady wife is very particular about who gets attached to whom.”
No coin, perhaps this, rather than the parenting biases of the mercantile class from which both Esther and Gladys sprang, was why Esther had also eschewed a wet nurse.
The horses walked along for another furlong before Percival comprehended that Tony was referring to his wife’s opinion on mistresses. In Canada, he and his brother had spent hours on horseback like this, tramping through wilderness as yet ungraced with roads. The distances rather forced a man to parse his companion’s silences.
“She told you as much, did she? No other attachments for you?”
Tony stared at his horse’s mane, which lay on the left side of its neck—an oddity, that. “She said in so many words that he who goes a-Maying will come home to find his wife has gone a-straying.”
“My sister-in-law is a poetess. What happened to your gray gelding?”
“Sold him. A man can ride only one horse at time.”
The poetess was married to a philosopher, and this jaunt to London was looking to be a very long, cold trip indeed.
Percival stretched up in his stirrups then settled back into the saddle. “At least the roads are frozen. God help us if it warms up this afternoon.”
“More likely to snow or sleet,” Tony said, gaze on the sky. “Even so…” He swiveled a glance over his shoulder at the traveling coaches lumbering along behind them.
“Even so, God have mercy on anybody trapped in a coach with my children,” Percival finished the thought. And then, because he had no one else with whom to discuss the situation, and because, for all his impecunious-younger-son blather, Tony had always kept his confidences, Percival added, “There’s something amiss with my wife.”
Tony darted a glance at his brother then fiddled with his reins. “Esther Windham would no more go a-straying—”
Percival cut that nonsense off with a glower. “Your defense of the lady’s honor does you credit, of course, but not everybody is preoccupied with straying, Anthony.” Intriguing topic though it might be. “Did you notice, when the coaches were being loaded, that Gladys had to direct the footmen and nursery maids and so forth?”
“Gladys likes to direct. It’s one of her most endearing features, and has many interesting applications. She frequently directs me to disrobe in the middle of the day, for example, and ever her servant, I, with an alacrity that would astound—”
“Must you sound so besotted? Gladys is remaining at Morelands and had no cause to be involved in the packing. A woman normally likes to take charge of her own effects.”
This silenced the besotted philosopher for nearly a quarter mile. “The Windham ladies are friends, I think. Being daughters-in-law to a difficult duchess did that for them, and Peter and Arabella were lonely before we sold our commissions.”
“Arabella, certainly.”
With Peter, it was harder to say, since he was frequently to be found in the intellectual company of that pontifical nincompoop, Marcus Aurelius, or others of his antique and gloomy ilk.
“What do you think is wrong with Esther, Perce? She seems hale enough to me, if a bit harried.”
That was some encouragement. Tony noticed more than most gave him credit for—or he had prior to his marriage.
“She fainted on her last outing with the boys, before the weather changed.”
“She’s breeding?”
Percival wanted to shout at his brother for leaping to the obvious conclusion. Wanted to knock him off his damned horse and pound him flat. “Possibly.”
“For God’s sake, Perce, use a damned sheath. Better some sheep give up its life than you overtax your wife. The succession is assured four times over, and Gladys and I may yet bring up the rear with a few sons of our own.”
“Sheaths can break.” Did break, with alarming frequency.
“Bloody bad luck. Condolences then, or congratulations. Both I suppose.” Tony was studying the road ahead with diplomatic intensity. “Maybe you’ll get a girl this time. Girls are”—his expression turned besotted, again—“they’re magical. I can’t describe what it’s like when a daughter smiles up at her papa or takes his hand to drag him across the nursery.”
Sweet suffering Christ.
“Esther claims she just stood up too quickly, but I asked Thomas about it. Damned old blighter had to think first—said he was sworn to secrecy and would not betray her ladyship’s confidences.”
Comet made a casual attempt to nip Tony’s gelding, proof positive nobody was enjoying this journey.
Tony nudged his horse up onto the verge beside the wagon rut. “Good man, Thomas. When nobody else can reason with His Grace, Thomas can talk sense to him. Calls him Georgie, like they were mates.”
Anthony seemed intent on providing one irritating rejoinder after another. Percival forged onward despite his brother’s unhelpfulness.
“I told Thomas I knew Esther had fainted, and wanted him to confirm particulars only. It was a protracted exercise in yes-or-no questions. I swear I’m going to pension him come summer.”
“You’re not going to pension anybody, and neither is Peter. His Grace has the staff’s complete loyalty, and well you know it.”
“Anthony Tertullian Morehouse Windham, I am well aware of the strictures upon our household.” The plaguey bastard smiled, and as much to knock him figuratively off his horse as anything else, Percival got to the heart of the matter. “My wife lied to me.”
Tony grimaced. “Not good when the ladies dissemble, though in a small matter one can overlook it.”
He was asking, delicately, if the matter had been small.
“She said she’d fainted because she stood up too quickly. Thomas had it that she’d stumbled twice on the way to the stream and had been waiting for the footmen to spread the blanket—just standing there—when she collapsed.”
“That, Percy, is not good. Not the lying, not the collapsing, none of it. What did you do to provoke her into keeping such a thing from you? Are you having a spat, because if so, the best way to get past it is behind a closed door, fresh linens on the bed, and not a stitch of clothing between you.”
Just as Percival would have spurred his horse to the canter in lieu of backhanding his brother, a coaching inn came into view.
Of course, they would have to stop. The coachy would want to water the horses and give them a chance to blow, the footmen would cadge a pint, the nursery maids would need the foot-bricks reheated, and the older children would need a trip to the jakes.
And Esther… Esther who’d been trapped in the coach all morning with their children? Percival turned his horse for the coaching yard and wished to Almighty God he knew what his wife needed.
“Look! Look right there!”
Maggie’s head was forcibly shifted between her mother’s hands, so she had to stare out the window of the coach.
“That’s him! I knew it! That’s your father, Magdalene! He’s very handsome, isn’t he?”
“Yes, Mama.” Even at five years old, Maggie knew not to disagree with Mama. This so-called papa was all wrong though. He looked more serious than handsome. His horse was brown, not white. And he wasn’t wearing a handsome wig like Mama’s gentlemen friends did. Most telling of all, this papa fellow completely ignored his daughter when she was sitting in a closed carriage not ten yards away.
Her papa, her real papa, would never ignore her like this. He’d smile at her and have treats in his pocket for her and buy her a pony. He’d read stories to her and tell her she was pretty. He would not let Mama slap her so much—Mama was a great one for slapping. Mama slapped the maids, the potboy, her little dog.