And yet…
She touched her fingers to her lips and stared out of the window as she steeled herself to feel what she knew she ought.
No! From now on she must ever be on her guard for the tricks any of her cousins might play in order to facilitate a closer union with Mr Grayling.
The carriage drew up at the chapel on Lady Umbrage’s estate where the naming ceremony was to be conducted but to Thea’s dismay it appeared they were late, for the churchyard was deserted.
Hastily Thea took Bertram’s extended hand and descended gracefully to the ground in the wake of her two cousins. Impatiently she waited for Aunt Minerva, who’d shuffled her bulk to the open door where Bertram was waiting to help her down, but when her aunt lost her footing on the top step, Bertram was nearly crushed as a result. Thea was fearful and horrified, expecting severe injuries, though Fanny and Antoinette looked as if they were about to explode with hilarity, even before they could be reassured that no one had come to any harm.
With Aunt Minerva declared unharmed with only her good humour dented, they all hurried into the chapel, whispering their apologies as they bustled up the aisle. Or rather, Antoinette, Fanny and Bertram trooped up through the assembled congregation while Thea slunk behind, ready to sink into the ground in the wake of her Aunt, who simply looked down her long nose at everyone else as if they were the interlopers.
Before Thea knew what was happening, she was wedged between Aunt Minerva and, oh dear God, Mr Grayling. Then the vicar was intoning something and out of nowhere, five babies, two of them squalling, wriggling bundles, were placed into the arms of Aunt Minerva, Lady Umbrage, Antoinette and another fierce-looking noblewoman whose allotted infant immediately began to wail.
It was soon joined by the infant Mr Grayling was holding with, it had to be said, commendable calm. Of all of them, Aunt Minerva seemed the most ill at ease. Thea saw the child had white-blonde hair and pale blue eyes. It was a beautiful baby, but it clearly wasn’t a happy one.
A few gulps of air did nothing to calm the child and after the third gasp, it promptly regurgitated the watery contents of its stomach all down Aunt Minerva’s puce velvet spencer.
With a cry of horror, her aunt nearly dropped the little creature who would have landed on the cold stone floor had Thea not leapt forward and arrested its fall. The feeling of the baby against her chest was nearly too much. She’d have liked to have held the little darling forever but dutifully she tucked its loosened swaddling cloths about its rigid little body and held it out to her aunt.
The reaction was not what Thea was expecting for Aunt Minerva stepped back, palms outwards as she hissed, “I don’t want it! You hold it!”
Thea was only too glad to oblige; and indeed, the moment the child was cradled against her chest it calmed instantly. It even began to coo. Thea grinned, turning her face to find herself looking directly into—her heart hitched—Mr Grayling’s beautiful eyes. His interested gaze completely robbed her of breath away and a strange curdling sensation in her lower belly was followed by an unnerving clutch between her legs—a feeling so alien to Thea, she feared that she herself might drop the poor little mite she now held. It smiled a toothless grin and gripped Thea’s finger with its tiny fist, and instantly Thea felt her whole being relax as she gazed down at the little foundling who soon would have her aunt’s name bestowed upon her.
Now that the infant had quietened, Aunt Minerva jabbed Thea’s shoulder and reached out for it. Reluctantly Thea relinquished the child.
Silence descended upon the congregation and the vicar had just begun to speak when his words were drowned out by a tremendous squalling from Aunt Minerva’s temporary charge. Clearly the cherubic creature had enormous objections to its chosen benefactress and a pair of lungs that would rival those of a bellowing bull—or Aunt Minerva when she had a bone to pick with Thea.
Thea sent a panicked look at her aunt who now jabbed Cousin Antoinette in the ribs in order to effect a hasty swap of her unsavoury charge with Antoinette’s placid, dark-haired child.
“Looks like a gypsy but at least it’s quiet,” she muttered as she carried out the trade.
Antoinette shrugged, smiling at Thea, who transferred her glance to Mr Grayling. His close proximity continued to send powerful tingles of awareness through her. Very strange, she thought, confused, when she’d convinced herself she never wanted to see him again.
The white-haired child in his arms was sleeping peacefully, and when Thea saw its tiny sixth finger, she nearly gasped out loud. It was the child of the woman they’d nearly run over on their way into Bath.
Shocked, she transferred her attention to the child held by the gentleman beside him, struck by its head covering of fiery copper down. Indeed, that was the child of the willowy, black-clad mother standing on top of the hill who’d apparently been determined that her child should occupy the foundling basket at the expense of the well-dressed child with the sixth finger.
Tears pricked at her eyelids. She’d seen these two children with their mothers at the moment of separation. She’d watched as the one broken-hearted mother, clearly from a good family, had been forced to part with her baby while the other mother had been prepared to use whatever aggression necessary to foster out her own.
No, Thea could never do that. Give up her infant. Oh, she understood a single mother had no chance of supporting a baby, though the shame of such a thing happening to her would be enough to kill her she was sure.
It went without saying that the procedure necessary to create a babe was bad enough but as a single young woman she was confident there was not the remotest possibility of anything like a child out of wedlock happening to her.
The naming ceremony was a hasty affair. Clearly the noble patrons were not expected to suffer the contaminated children for long, and after the event had been recorded in the ministerial book, the assembled party proceeded to the lawns outside Lady Umbrage’s Queen Anne style manor where several tables beneath the trees were laden with a selection of pies and tarts and fruit.
Aunt Minerva was overjoyed to be invited to converse with her ladyship while Fanny and Antoinette made themselves scarce, leaving Thea standing awkwardly beside a plate of strawberries.
Usually Aunt Minerva had her niece at her beck and call, so it was rare for Thea to enjoy a moment’s freedom. Bertram and Mr Grayling were deep in conversation and when she caught the latter gentleman’s eye, he looked away, as if he were remembering their last embarrassing encounter.
Prickles of self-consciousness stole up her bare arms and she rubbed her gloved hands together and turned to walk sedately along the gravel path towards a copse of trees nearby. She’d made a proper mull of things and she regretted everything that had happened—including her response—but, she told herself, it was best that he be under no illusion
s as to her character.
No, Thea was in fact glad that Mr Grayling knew she was not a young woman to trifle with. It was all very well for Antoinette and Fanny to say he was looking for a wife of passion after his first disappointing experience with matrimony, but Thea clearly wasn’t going to answer to his needs. She was simply not the passionate type.
And she was as poor as a church mouse. Mr Grayling had no reason to be interested in her at all.
She soon lost herself amongst the trees, the voices from the invited guests carried on the breeze. It was so pleasant to be alone like this. No Aunt Minerva with her demands. No Fanny or Antoinette or Bertram with their expectations.