Page 70 of Marry in Scarlet
“Well, what do you think of my son?” Emm said at last.
George looked down at the ugly little baby bird so firmly attached to her finger and nodded. “He’s beautiful,” she said. And she meant it.
The little face screwed up and grew redder. A wail came from him, then another a little louder.
“What did I do?” George said anxiously. He was still gripping her finger.
Emm laughed softly. “Nothing. He’s just hungry, that’s all. Pass him over, will you, George.” She sat up in bed, and Milly hastened to arrange pillows behind her.
George stared at the baby. “What, me? What if I...” What if she dropped him?
Emm, smiling, just held out her hands. George took a deep breath and lifted the angry little bundle from the cradle. He was so tiny and light, but the noise that he could produce—he was yelling by now. She passed him to Emm, who had opened the front of her nightdress.
George blinked, not quite sure where to look. “You’re going to feed him?”
Emm smiled and held the baby to her breast. The sudden silence was shocking, broken only by the sound of vigorous sucking.
“I thought...”
“You thought I’d have a wet nurse?”
“Yes. Aunt Agatha said...” Aunt Agatha had been very firm about it.
“It’s not at all fashionable, I know, but I asked the midwife and she said she thought it was better for both mother and baby if I feed him, at least for a while. She said if I don’t want to continue, she’d find me a good and reliable wet nurse. But”—Emm gazed tenderly down at her infant son so energetically suckling—“for most of my adult life I never imagined I’d even have a baby, and now I do, I don’t want to miss out on anything. I won’t hand Bertie here over for some other woman to feed, not at the beginning, anyway.”
George had fed orphaned baby lambs, and a litter of kits once, but had never given any thought to the feeding of babies. It seemed very... personal. “What does it feel like?”
“The sensation is... indescribable,” Emm said after a while. “A little strange but very, very right.” After a while she gently lifted the baby off her nipple, and just as he began to wail, she swapped him to the other breast and he was abruptly silent, except for contented little feeding noises.
Emm looked so serene, so happy, so... right.
As both Emm and the baby grew sleepier, George left them to it. Deep in thought she closed the door quietly behind her. Finn, who Milly had kept firmly excluded from the baby’s room, padded up behind George and gave her a pointed nudge.
“All right, boy, we’ll go for a walk.” She grabbed a lead and headed for the front door.
The bell jangled as she was bounding down the last few steps. Burton opened the door, glanced back at George and said, “Yes, your grace, Lady Georgiana is at home.”
George skidded to a halt. The duke. She’d forgotten all about him.
***
Hart had passed a restless night. Lady Georgiana’s accusation, that he was as bad, as scheming and contrivingas his mother, had cut deep. He’d been angry at first, and his initial reaction had been to reject it totally—she was talking nonsense; he was an honorable man.
All his adult life he’d prided himself on not being like his mother, on being so much better than she. He’d always seen himself as an honorable man, too honorable to stoop to her low stratagems.
But Georgiana Rutherford had seen right through him and put her finger squarely on the truth: he was not so different from his mother as he thought.
The realization flayed him. Shamed him.
A line from a speech he’d once been made to memorize kept echoing in his mind.For Brutus is an honorable man.
Now he stood on her doorstep, waiting to see whether she’d reject him or not. He deserved to be rejected, he knew, but...
All night he’d tossed and turned, self-disgust, shame and uncertainty warring within him—none of which he’d ever experienced in his life. It was deeply unsettling.
But through the confusion, through the turmoil of his thoughts, one thought grew stronger and clearer: he wanted Lady Georgiana.
Logic told him he could find women more beautiful than she, more assured, more sophisticated, more tractable, more suited to be a duchess—and a damned lot less trouble.
