A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(87)

“I think they secretly miss this place, though they’d never let on,” Minerva said.

Susanna winced a little.

“What’s wrong?” Kate asked.

“Oh, nothing. I’m just a bit achy, that’s all. When the baby hasn’t nursed for a few hours, it’s uncomfortable.” She looked to the ceiling. “Perhaps I’ll just slip upstairs to the nursery.”

“Can we come with you?” Kate asked. “I’m dying to meet little Victoria myself, and . . . and I’d very much appreciate the chance to talk.”

“She’s so beautiful,” Kate whispered. “Her hair is just like yours.”

“This is the only time she’s quiet,” Susanna said, gazing down at her suckling babe. “Unless her father is holding her. Bram has some secret method of calming her that he refuses to share, the impossible man.”

“I’m so glad Colin’s happy to wait on the childbearing score,” Minerva said. “He’s recently taken control of his estate. I’ve so many scholarly works in progress. We’re not at all ready for parenthood.”

“But, Min, how . . .” Kate lowered her voice. “How can you be sure you won’t conceive?”

“Well, one can never be completely sure. But we take precautions. Colin’s had some experience on the male side of things. You see, when a man spends his seed—”

Susanna gave her friend a look. “Min,” she whispered, “perhaps we could save the specifics for another occasion.”

“Right,” Minerva said apologetically. “You know me, I speak of natural topics at all manner of inappropriate times. Anyhow, Kate—there are ways. Susanna’s given me some herbs. Those help, too.”

“How clever of you both,” Kate said.

She was glad for Samuel’s caution the other night. It wasn’t as though she disliked the idea of bearing his child. Nothing would make her happier, someday. Thinking of him as a father, cradling a tiny babe in the crook of his arm . . . it made her heart float. But with so much uncertainty now with the Gramercys, a pregnancy would be ill-timed.

Especially since the father of the child had disappeared.

“Kate, what’s wrong?” Susanna asked. “You look so troubled.”

Kate paused, biting her lip. And then she took a deep breath and told them everything. All about the Gramercys. All about Thorne. The portrait, the melon, the snakebite, the inheritance, her night with Samuel, and Evan’s proposal just now in the coach. Everything.

“My goodness, Kate,” said Minerva, adjusting her spectacles. “You’ve been busy.”

Kate laughed at the absurdity of the statement, and it felt so good. This was what she’d been needing—her best, closest friends to listen and help her see everything clear. Susanna and Minerva would not be on Thorne’s side, or the Gramercys’ side.

They were on her side, unequivocally.

“I always knew that someday you’d have your fairy tale,” Susanna said. She called in the nursemaid and handed her the now-sleeping babe. “I didn’t predict this, of course. But we all adored you so. I knew you couldn’t go unnoticed for long.”

“I never did go unnoticed,” she said. “Not really.”

Samuel had noticed her, even that very first day in the Bull and Blossom, when she pulled her India shawl tight around her shoulders and turned the other way. He’d always been looking out for her, asking nothing in return.

She cast a wistful glance at the darkened windowpane. Where was he now?

“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “Samuel has vanished. The Gramercys are depending on me to save them all. Evan wants to know whether he can introduce me as Lady Kate or his soon-to-be Lady Gramercy. Meanwhile, I feel like a maid who pilfered her mistress’s gown and stole into the ball. I don’t know how I’ll manage as a lady of any sort.”

“The same way we do,” Minerva said. “Look at Susanna and me. A year ago we were confirmed spinsters, never the belle of any ball. Now she is Lady Rycliff and I am Lady Payne. And we may be a bit awkward in the roles, but society will just have to struggle on despite it.”

“We’ll form our own club, Kate. The League of Unlikely Ladies.” Susanna came to sit beside her. “As for what you should do . . . I’m certain you already know, in your heart.”

Of course she did. She loved Samuel and wanted nothing more than to be his wife. But if at all possible, she must find some way to help the Gramercys, too. They were her family, and she couldn’t abandon them.

Minerva bent over and stared Kate in the bosom. “I’m admiring your pendant.”

“Do you know what sort of stone it is?” Kate asked eagerly. “I’ve been wondering, but I’d never seen its like.”

“This is an easy identification.” After peering for a moment through her spectacles, Minerva released the teardrop-shaped stone. “It’s called blue john. A form of fluorite. Quite a rare formation, only found in one small area of Derbyshire.”

Kate clutched the pendant. “It was my mother’s. She was from Derbyshire. She must have worn it always to remind herself of home.”

How strange, then, that Elinor would have left it behind at Ambervale. Perhaps she’d worried it would be lost during travel.