Outside of the nursery they may be the Duchess of Winshire and the Duchess of Haverford, but leaning over the ornate and much befrilled cot, Eleanor and her daughter-in-law were merely Grandmama and Mama.
“She is so beautiful, Cherry,” Eleanor exclaimed. “Look at the little darling.” Her voice slipped into the higher register that is natural to even the most dignified of ladies when speaking to a tiny infant. “Are you smiling? Are you smiling at your Grandmama? You are, Sally. Yes, you are.”
The baby, highly amused at the faces Eleanor was pulling, chortled.
“She is so precious,” Eleanor added.
The child’s mother was wearing a frown. “Anthony says that he does not mind that she is a girl,” she said.
“No more he should,” Eleanor replied, stoutly. The next words were cooed to the baby. “She is a little blessing, and he adores her from the tip of her sweet little toes to the dear little curls on her head.”
“He does.” Cherry sounded uncertain, and Eleanor dragged her attention from the dear little angel to focus on the mother.
“Cherry, he will has five nephews to be duke after him. He married you because he loves you, knowing the pair of you may never have children, and has never regretted his choice. He did not expect a child, and is over the moon with this one. Believe me. He is my son.He adores this little miracle, and would not change anything about her.”
Once, long ago, Eleanor had tried to talk Cherry out of accepting Haverford’s offer of marriage, knowing that Cherry had been told a disease had made her unlikely to carry to term, and being convinced her son would resent a barren wife.
She had been wrong. She had castigated herself many times for putting doubts in her beloved daughter-in-law’s mind, since they surfaced to torment Cherry every time a pregnancy failed.
“Come, darling,” she suggested, “let us send for a pot of tea and sit and talk. You shall tell me what is worrying you, and I shall rattle on about how happy we all are that Sally is a beautiful, healthy, little girl.”
She picked the baby up and cradled her in her arms. “You darling, darling child. You are going to be a heartbreaker, I can tell. Your father’s eyes and the curls your father cuts off lest anyone call him pretty! You shall be wooed by every nobleman in Great Britain. Yes, and Europe, too!”
That made Cherry laugh. “Her father swears that he will turn Catholic, just so that he can lock her up in a convent when she turns fifteen.”
Eleanor dropped a kiss on the little girl’s petal soft skin. “Do not you worry, Sally. Mama and Grandmama will make Papa behave.”
I meant to tell you that reading this brought me to tears. It’s absolutely beautiful, Jude. I can easily see my own mother fussing over our daughter in much the same way. To my sorrow, we lost our daughter last year, and one of the things I thought was that it was a blessing my Mom had died before her only grandchild. It would have devastated her in ways that would be hard to imagine, knowing how deeply I mourn her.
Oh Mary, I am so sorry for your loss. It is hard to lose a mother, but it is the way of nature. Losing a child seems just wrong.
I hope this is part of a new book!
My friend Mari Christie and I wrote a way too long rambling monster of a novel written and published one episode at a time on Wattpad. It took us a couple of years, but some time we plan to chop the 240,000 words down to 120,000, and then we’ll have the story of Sally Grenford, daughter of my rogue, and what happened after she was caught in bed with David Northope, son of Mari’s rogue. It is called Never Kiss a Toad