Page 91 of The Mad Baron's Bride
“Everyone came?” Jack stared in disbelief as he watched the others assemble.
His Aunt Dinah had brought her friend, linking her arm with a lady her age with the same proprietary gentleness Susan’s husband showed her. He saw the families of his other three aunts, the daughters whose families had been skipped over after his great-uncle died, due to the crime of being female. He had not received cards from any of them when he took up residence in Holme Hall or married Anne-Marie. He had over the past year received cards from all of them, congratulating him on his marriage to Leda, but he’d thought that only a hint of thaw, not a capitulation. Yet here they were.
Jack turned to his great-aunt, who regarded the growing mass of plumed hats, embroidered skirts, and noisy people with a look of satisfaction, but a betraying sheen in her eye. “You did this,” he guessed.
“Did what? I wrote some letters. I might have suggested it is time the Burnhams show some solidarity, especially if they’d like to have some influence over the new government. It is certainly not your fault Seymour chose to never marry and cloud the family name with debt and disgrace.”
“I’m the black sheep,” Jack said. “The mad baron.”
“The brick baron, now,” Lady Plume said briskly, “and don’t think every one of them won’t be looking for a share of the profits, now that you are making a name for yourself. Give me the child so they must come to me to admire it.”
Leda gave her old friend the infant, but remained nearby for swift extraction should the need arise. Jack stood with her, taking the moment to compose himself before he met the family who had once shunned him.
“You are gracious,” Leda murmured to him. “You are the lord here, and this is your manor. You dispense favors to secure their loyalty. You are benevolent and wise.”
He didn’t feel wise, but he appreciated that she guessed his thoughts, as usual. He glanced down at her, letting his gaze linger on the soft curve of her neck where tiny curls fluttered. How he adored that firm curve of her jaw, those lips so often turned in a smile. Those changeable eyes that took in everything, and reflected adoration back at him.
As if he were worthy of all this. As if he deserved any shred of it.
“All this because I finally learned to make bricks?”
“The best bricks,” Leda confirmed. “I may have mentioned, in my letters, how very much in demand your bricks are. And not just Norwich and King’s Lynn. The Cathedral at Ely is using your bricks. Cambridge University is using your bricks. You have builders in London calling you up to build houses for dukes and seats for bishops.”
“Then Aunt Plume is no doubt right, and they’re hoping to rise by my seeming success. Surprising how growing profits can cover up the stink of trade.”
All he cared was that he could keep a roof over the heads of the people he loved and, now, support a growing family. But it did lend satisfaction to know he’d succeeded in the work he’d apprenticed to all those years ago, in another life. As soon as Jay could travel, Jack would take them to Norwich to show them where the family bricks were being used to build grand things. Monuments that would last as long as the ruins of St. Edmund’schapel, or the bridge over the Avon where he had once thought of kissing Leda Wroth on a spring day not so long ago.
“We must take the children to Norwich when your next niece or nephew is born,” Leda murmured, watching the crowds mill around Lady Plume, returning greetings with smiles and nods. “You can show us where you grew up. Where the brick baron had his beginnings.”
He smiled, no longer astonished that she practically read his thoughts. It was very efficient, especially when she could read a lascivious thought from across the parlor and excused herself early to bed. On those nights Grace would gather the girls, who sat with them evenings when they weren’t out or entertaining, and take them up to the nursery where her own little babe lay in cradle, unaware how his clever mother had procured much finer lodgings for him than an inn in Swindon, and much lighter work for herself.
The Burnham girls, finished with their bread and establishing hierarchies with the newcomers, drifted by with their new flocks of cousins.
“Is Nanette baptized?” Leda asked out of the blue.
Jack felt the old punch of alarm that had once attended him so often. Though much diminished, Anne-Marie was still haunting him, it seemed.
“I am very sorry to say I do not believe her birth is recorded. Anne-Marie did not want to pretend she was mine so simply decided to hide her upstairs.”
“And what about Ellinore?”
“I am not sure of that either.”
Leda called the girls over and had a quick discussion with them. She bent to put her face close to Nanette’s.
“Do you want to be baptized with Baby J? The vicar will put a dot of oil on your head, here,” Leda touched her. “It will tell everyone that you are God’s child, and he is watching over you.Then the priest will write your name in a book, along with those of your parents.”
“Me,” Nanette said somberly, nodding in agreement. She still declined to speak much, but Leda was studying ways to work with those of little hearing, and they were making progress.
“And you, Nora? Were you baptized, you suppose?”
Ellinore shrugged. “I might take a splash if he’s giving it out. If you are sure you want my parents known.” Her eyes sparkled at the thought of being the center of attention. Jack knew Leda could not bear to part with the girl quite yet, but she’d said the other day it was growing time to send Ellinore to school. Leda knew just the place, back in Bath, and Jack was content to trust her judgment.
“I am sure I could bear the weight of one more scandal,” Jack said. “It will be a ripple on the Wash compared to the tidal waves before.”
“But who will you put for Nanette’s parents?” Muriel asks anxiously.
Leda glanced at Jack. “The same, dear. Baptism is a sacrament. It is best, I think, to be truthful in the eyes of God.”
