This is another excerpt post. The Duchess of Haverford has come to help Becky recover from the deep depression she fell into after the birth of her child. Find out more in A Baron for Becky.

Her Grace descended to the kitchen, and her visit inspired the cook to new heights in preparing small, tasty meals for a flagging appetite. Becky was served something tempting to eat every couple of hours. Hugh took her walking in the snow when the sun shone, and up and down the stairs and the halls when the weather closed in. And, on the advice of the duchess, he moved back into their bedchamber.

“She thinks you have moved out because you no longer want her,” Her Grace said bluntly. “And if you continue to treat her like a plaster saint, Overton, you are a great fool. She is a woman, and if her needs are blunted at the moment by her sadness, that will not last.”

So, Hugh slept spoon-fashion against his wife, but he continued wearing a nightshirt and made no attempt to make love to her.

Aldridge took over the work of the estate and the factories Hugh owned, so Hugh could spend most of his time with Becky, and Aldridge and Sarah reached an understanding to restore him to ‘Uncle’ status, a privilege Sarah’s sisters also deigned to confer.

These activities kept him mostly away from Becky, and he treated her with cautious courtesy when they could not avoid being in the same room, as if she might explode if he ventured any familiarity. “I do not understand, Overton,” he said once. “Was it so bad, being with me?”

Hugh could afford to be generous. “Not so bad. She said you were kind, Aldridge, and she will always be grateful.”

Aldridge shook his head as if emerging from water, his mouth twisted in disgust. “Grateful! I did not want her to be grateful!” He never mentioned it again, but his puzzled gaze followed Becky when she was not watching.

Twice a day, Hugh and Her Grace took Becky to spend time with the children, and once a day Mrs Goodfellow brought them to her. And not just to be in the same room. “She needs to do things with them,” the duchess insisted. “Read them a story, teach them a sewing stitch, or help them on the pianoforte.”

Becky resisted only the duchess’s last change.

“Did you intend to hire a wet nurse?” Her Grace asked.

Becky paused before she answered, as if she had to come a great distance to hear the question. “No,” Hugh answered for her. “She said she would feed our baby herself.”

The duchess narrowed her eyes, thinking, then nodded decisively. “It has been not quite two months, and you have fed before.”

Becky shook her head. The duchess said nothing more then, but must have spoken to Becky later. Hugh came back from signing correspondence to find the duchess watching benignly, and the wet nurse anxiously, as Belle suckled at Becky’s breast.

At first, Belle was as angry at the change as Becky, but the duchess persisted, and Belle was put to each of Becky’s breasts every two or three hours for four days.

“It is no use,” Becky said. “I have no milk.”

But that very afternoon, a delighted Belle came away too replete to suckle from her wet nurse, and an equally delighted duchess reported success.