“Hand me that, will you?” Amaranthus shifted the child expertly from one shoulder to the other and nodded toward another wadded cloth that lay on the ground near her feet. William picked it up gingerly, but it proved to be clean—for the moment.
“Hasn’t he got a nurse?” he asked, handing the cloth over.
“He did have,” Amaranthus said, frowning slightly as she mopped the child’s face. “I sacked her.”
“Drunkenness?” he asked, recalling what Lord John had said about the cook.
“Among other things. Drunk on occasion—too many of them—and dirty in her ways.”
“Dirty as in filth, or … er … lacking fastidiousness in her relations with the opposite sex?”
She laughed, despite the subject.
“Both. Did I not already know you to be Lord John’s son, that question would have made it clear. Or, rather,” she amended, gathering the banyan more closely around her, “the phrasing of it, rather than the question itself. All of the Greys—all those I’ve met so far—talk like that.”
“I’m his lordship’s stepson,” he replied equably. “Any resemblance of speech must therefore be a matter of exposure, rather than inheritance.”
She made a small interested noise and looked at him, one fair brow raised. Her eyes were that changeable color between gray and blue, he saw. Just now, they matched the gray doves embroidered on her yellow banyan.
“That’s possible,” she said. “My father says that a kind of finch learns its songs from its parents; if you take an egg from one nest and put it into another some miles away, the nestling will learn the songs of the new parents, instead of the ones who laid the egg.”
Courteously repressing the desire to ask why anyone should be concerned with finches in any way, he merely nodded.
“Are you not cold, madam?” he asked. They were sitting in the sun, and the wooden bench was warm under his legs, but the breeze playing on the back of his neck was chilly, and he knew she wasn’t wearing anything but a shift under her banyan. The thought brought back a vivid recollection of his first sight of her, milky bosom and prominent nipples on display, and he looked away, trying to think instantly of something else.
“What is your father’s profession?” he asked at random.
“He’s a naturalist—when he can afford to be,” she replied. “And no, I’m not cold. It’s always much too hot in the house, and I don’t think the smoke from the hearth is good for Trevor; it makes him cough.”
“Perhaps the chimney isn’t drawing properly. You said, ‘when he can afford to be.’ What does your father do when he cannot afford to pursue his … er … particular interests?”
“He’s a bookseller,” she said, with a slight tone of defiance. “In Philadelphia. That’s where I met Benjamin,” she added, with a barely perceptible catch in her voice. “In my father’s shop.” She turned her head slightly, watching to see what he made of this. Would he disapprove of the connection, knowing her now for a tradesman’s daughter? Not likely, he thought wryly. Under the circumstances.
“You have my deepest sympathies on the loss of your husband, madam,” he said. He wondered what she knew—had been told, rather—about Benjamin’s death, but it seemed indelicate to ask. And he’d best find out just what Papa and Uncle Hal knew about it now, before he went trampling into unknown territory.
“Thank you.” She looked away, her eyes lowered, but he saw her mouth—rather a nice mouth—compress in a way suggesting that her teeth were clenched.
“Bloody Continentals!” she said, with sudden violence. She lifted her head, and he saw that, far from being filled with tears, her eyes were sparking with rage. “Damn them and their nitwit republican philosophy! Of all the obstinate, muddle-headed, treasonous twaddle … I—” She broke off suddenly, perceiving his startlement.
“I beg your pardon, my lord,” she said stiffly. “I … was overcome by my emotions.”
“Very … suitable,” he said awkwardly. “I mean—quite understandable, given the … um … circumstances.” He glanced sideways at the house, but there was no sound of doors opening or voices raised in farewell. “Do call me William, though—we are cousins, are we not?”
She smiled fully at that. She had a lovely smile.
“So we are. You must call me Cousin Amaranthus, then—it’s a plant,” she added, with the slightly resigned air of one frequently obliged to make this explanation. “Amaranthus retroflexus. Of the family Amaranthaceae. Commonly known as pigweed.”
Trevor, who to this point had been perched on his mother’s knee, goggling stupidly at William, now made an urgent noise and reached out toward him. Fearing lest the child escape his mother’s clutches and pitch face-first onto the brick pathway, William grabbed him round the midsection and hoisted him onto his own knee, where the little boy stood, wobbling and crowing, beaming into William’s face. Despite himself, William smiled back. The boy was handsome, when not screeching, with soft dark hair and the pale-blue eyes common to the Greys.
“Wotcha, then, Trev?” he said, lowering his head and pretending to butt the child, who giggled and clutched at his hair.
“He looks quite like Benjamin,” he said, extracting his ears from Trevor’s grip. “And my uncle. I hope I don’t give you pain by saying so?” he added, suddenly unsure. She shook her head, though, and her smile turned rueful.
“No. It’s as well that he does. Your uncle was somewhat suspicious of me, I think. We married rather in haste,” she explained, in answer to William’s inquiring look, “and while Benjamin did write to tell his father of the marriage, his letter apparently didn’t reach England before His Grace left for the colonies. So when I discovered that His Grace was in Philadelphia, and wrote to him myself …” She lifted one shoulder in a graceful shrug and glanced toward the house.
“Tell me about your friend,” she said. “Is he an Indian?”
William felt a sudden weight come back, one that he’d shed without noticing it over the last few minutes.
“Yes,” he said. “His mother was half Indian, half French, he says. Though I can’t say to what Indian nation she might have belonged. She died when he was an infant, and he was raised in a Catholic orphanage in Quebec.”
Amaranthus was interested. She leaned forward, looking toward the house.
“And his father?” she asked. “Or does he know anything of his father?”
William glanced involuntarily at the house again, but all was silent.
“As to that,” he said, groping for something to say that was not a lie, but still something short of the full truth, “it’s a long story—and it’s not my story to tell. All I can say is that his father was a British soldier.”
“I did notice his hair,” Amaranthus said, dimpling. “Most remarkable.” She glanced past him at the house, and reached to take the baby back. “Will you be staying with his lordship?”
“I don’t think so.” Still, the thought of being home—even if home was a place he’d never been before—swept through him with a sudden longing. Apparently Amaranthus perceived this, for she leaned toward him and put a gentle hand on his.