Page 55 of Baron in Check
“You mean help him to protect you?”
“No, we don’t need his protection. He’ll see that one day, but it’s sweet that he considers himself our speaker in parliament. It’s been too long for him to play savior, he needs to save himself now.” Hannah gave Hermy a piercing glance. “Help him to help himself.”
CHAPTER 25
Hermy chuckled when she climbed into the carriage carrying a hat box. “So this is how it feels when your fiancé brings you home to meet his family?”
“There are so many of them,” Greg gave a wistful smile. “But, yes, they’re family.”
“Can you imagine the chaos when we have a baby?”
Greg’s mouth fell open, but Hermy didn’t seem to notice and babbled on. “I mean, just imagine Lizzie with her frilly dresses, Rachel with the lovely perfumes from Paris, and Hannah with all the rules of propriety and what children need and oh dear, what have I gotten into?” She beamed, oblivious to Greg’s shock.
“I see it before me: Hannah rolling the cradle to just the right spot of dim light at the window, Lizzie setting up layers and layers of lace to ensure the baby is lying on only the softest of silks, and Rachel brewing some tea to bring in the breast milk.”
“B-breast milk?” Greg couldn’t keep up with her family planning.
“She’s a big believer in nursing your own child. I’ve never thought about it, but it does make more sense than hiring a wet nurse. Hannah said it doesn’t hurt once you get used to the suckling.”
“She told you that?” Greg’s eyebrows rose so high he wasn’t sure he could lower them.
“Oh yes. But Rachel has some ointment from Switzerland with fat from sheep, lanolin with calendula. It’s alright if it stays on the nipple and the baby swallows some, but it helps the healing in between feedings.”
Words failed Greg.
“Anyhow, the seamstress will be there sometime tomorrow. Lizzie will send for her in the morning. She’s French, you know.”
“Who?” Monosyllabic words seemed the best language for grooms. Greg remembered Fave and Arnold, they were rather tight-lipped during wedding planning and after the wedding, they disappeared for a few weeks. Come to think of it, Fave only emerged from his and Rachel’s bedroom when she had morning sickness. Arnold and Hannah were in their cabin on the schooner during the entire passage to America and made the boat rock more than the waves of the Atlantic. He’d rather not think about Lizzie and Caleb, but he had a pretty good idea.
“Did you only talk about sex with the girls?”
“They already know about our past, Greg. None of them pretended that I was going to be a virgin bride.”
“Ehm…” She was so happy and bubbly that his heart filled with lightness, and he wanted to sweep her up and kiss her.
“They’re not so hypocritical as to feign coyness. They are wonderful,” Hermy said dreamily.
“You were skeptical at first.”
“Yes, I was wrong.”
“So…”
“I changed my mind.” She shrugged and he couldn’t help but smile.
“Just like that?”
“No!” She gave him a friendly slap on the arm. “We talked it through and came to a marvelous conclusion.”
His head was spinning with fears of what Lizzie, Rachel and—oh no!—Hannah “talked through” with his fiancée, and even worse, the conclusions they’d reached.
“Tell me.”
“We can finally have fun. I’ll seize the sword and make my voice heard.”
“You sound like a bluestocking.”
“Perhaps I am. If the Jews deserve a voice in parliament, perhaps women do, as well.” She lifted one shoulder and blinked at him as if she’d made the most seductive plans.
