But there were times when they were together, and they were on the whole surprisingly pleasant times. He visited the nursery more than once each day, and sometimes Anne was there too. He never touched the child when she was there, but once when she entered the room without warning, he was holding the baby in front of him, one hand cupped beneath her head, smiling into her open but unfocused eyes. The smile remained even when he turned to see Anne in the doorway.
"She has my hair," he said, "but she is going to have your heart-shaped face. Look at her pointed chin."
And Anne moved to his side and looked with him at the child. Their arms almost touched. Catherine herself broke the magic of that moment by suddenly flapping her little arms as if she thought she was about to be dropped and beginning to cry. Merrick handed her immediately to Anne, and after watching in silence for a minute or two while she rocked and soothed the baby against her shoulder, he left the room.
They always had dinner together, sitting a ridiculously long distance from each other at either end of the dining table. And they always made conversation somehow. They talked about the house and the grounds, about the baby, about his family. He told her about London, about the Prince Regent and the royal family, about the more entertaining tidbits of gossip. It was on these topics that the conversation sometimes died. It seemed that he suddenly remembered that he lived there apart from her, that he had fled there to escape her at the start of their marriage.
After almost a month of snow and cold weather that kept it on the ground, conditions finally changed and the snow began to melt. For more than a week longer the roads were even more difficult to travel than they had been while the cold spell remained. But eventually the ground started to dry, and then visitors began to come to pay their respects to the viscount, who was very rarely seen in the neighborhood, and to congratulate Anne on the birth of the child. Merrick never avoided these visitors, but seemed almost to enjoy their presence. He always treated Anne with the utmost courtesy and always rang himself to summon the nurse and the baby.
Anne was sorry to see the snow disappear- Now it would be possible for the family members to travel to the christening, and there would be no further cause for delay. Alexander, in fact, set the date one evening while they were at dinner, for a day in the second half of February. It was less than two weeks away. Once that was over, there would be nothing else to keep him there. He would return to his life in London and she might never see him again. She had made the choice the previous year to live apart from him, but now she sometimes wished that she could be given the choice again. It was true that they did not have anything like a close relationship, but the hostility seemed to have disappeared, and it was pleasant to know that she would see him perhaps several times in the course of a day and that they would dine together each night. It would be harder than ever now to be alone again after having spent these weeks with him.
In the meanwhile, there was the christening to prepare for and several guests to cater to. The duke and duchess were indeed coming, and Freddie and Ruby. Alexander had asked her if she would approve of asking the latter couple to be their daughter's godparents. Stanley and Celia were coming too, without their children. And Jack, inexplicably, had dashed off a brief acceptance of the invitation. Most surprising of all, Anne felt, was the fact that her brother and his wife were also coming. It would be the first time she had seen Bruce since her wedding day. It was an exciting time, but the pleasure was always offset by the knowledge that the sooner the event came, the sooner she would lose her husband.
Freddie and Ruby were the first to arrive, the day before they were expected.
"Frederick wished to set out two days ago," Ruby explained to Anne in her rather strident manner when the two were alone. "He was terrified that we would have an accident with the carriage or that the horses would become lame on a lonely country road or that we might have a spring snowstorm or that somehow Alexander had mistaken the date of the christening in the letter he sent us. I persuaded him to wait until today, but it would have been too distressing for him to have to wait until tomorrow. I hope we are not inconveniencing you dreadfully, but I guessed that Alexander at least would not be surprised to see us. I believe Frederick has a reputation for arriving early for important events."
"I am quite delighted to see you both," Anne said sincerely, "and, yes, Alexander has warned me that you might be early. He did think that perhaps your influence would have taken away some of Freddie's anxieties." She smiled.
"Oh, some, yes," Ruby agreed. "But I have no intention of taking over Frederick's life altogether, you know. I am aware that many people think that he is not too well-endowed with brains, and I am perfectly well aware that many people think I married him only because of his position and wealth, but I do not care. Frederick is a precious individual, for all people say, and I am quite willing to put up with his eccentricities and his abominable taste in dress in exchange for his great good nature and kindness." Ruby looked at Anne penetratingly, as if daring her to offer a contradictory opinion.
Anne clasped her hands against her breasts. She did consider hugging Ruby but had second thoughts. Somehow Freddie's wife did not seem quite the kind of woman one hugged impulsively. "Oh, I am so glad," she said. "I love Freddie very dearly and was afraid that he would not get what he deserves in life. I am so pleased that you married him, Ruby."
They found the subject of their conversation in the nursery with Merrick, dangling the baby in front of his face and giggling into her wide, toothless smile.
"She likes me," he said.
"The child is too young to smile. She has wind, Frederick," Ruby informed him bluntly.
"I think perhaps it is your waistcoat that is catching her eye," Merrick said, leaning against the mantel and viewing his cousin and his daughter with an amused eye. "Where did you find that particular shade of orange, Freddie? I'll wager it glows in the dark. Never tell me Weston made it for you."
"Frederick does not even patronize him anymore," Ruby said, advancing into the room and apparently doing a mental estimate of the baby's safety. "If the silly man does not want our custom, then we will take it elsewhere. And that is what we do, is it not, my love?"
Freddie lowered the baby and smiled fondly at his mate. "Ruby told me to set my own fashions if I wish," he said. "She has faith in me. Brains. Ruby has brains like you, Alex. I'm a lucky man to have her. Like you with Anne."
"Yes," Merrick said, his eyes straying to his wife.
Jack arrived before luncheon the following day. He had stayed overnight with friends who lived a mere twelve miles away, he explained. After luncheon he suggested that Anne take a stroll in the garden with him.
"I say," he said when she took him onto the graveled walks among the geometrically arranged box hedges, lawns, flower gardens, and fountain, "what has happened here? The last time I came the whole place looked hopelessly overgrown and dreary. Did you do this, Anne?"
"Yes, I did," she said. "Of course, you are not seeing it nearly at its best. The spring flowers should be blooming within the next few weeks. That is my favorite time."
"Ah," said Jack, leaning toward her and drawing her hand through his arm, "do I read an invitation in those words, Anne?"
She laughed. "Do you never give up, Jack? Would you even know how to talk to a woman without flirting with her, I wonder?"
"I have never felt the urge to flirt with Grandmamma," he said.
Anne laughed again. "I should love you to see the garden in the spring," she said. "If you also wish to do so, you must wangle an invitation from Alexander."