Page 45 of Never Love a Lord
“Pah-pah-nah,” Lucy explained.
“That doesn’t matter in the least,” Sybilla argued in a whisper. “Ladies don’t do such a thing. Aren’t you embarrassed?”
“Nah-nah-nah.”
“Of course you aren’t,” Sybilla said grimly, pulling the gown at last over the child’s head with not a little effort and tossing it across the room with a grimace. Then she looked into Lucy’s eyes. “You’re a baby, I understand. But you must try to do better, all right?”
Lucy began blowing little bubbles.
Sybilla’s eyes narrowed, even though she was quite charmed. “Cheeky one, aren’t you?” She surveyed the ties holding the baby’s swaddle round her backside, and tried to undo it whilst touching it as little as possible. The soaking wet nappy went the way of the gown in short order, and then Sybilla pulled the sides of her own quilted wrapper around the child and picked her back up, this time holding her against her chest as she had seen Julian and the nurse, Murrin, do.
“Well then,” she said against the tiny cup of Lucy’s ear. “What are we to do now?”
To her surprise, Lucy reached out a chubby arm back toward the bed.
“Bah-bah.”
Sybilla felt her mouth pull down in a frown. “I don’t know about all that,” she said. “I’m only just now getting used to sharing it with him.”
And then Lucy laid her head down on Sybilla’s shoulder, tucking her stubby little appendage back inside the robe. “Bah-bah,” she repeated, this time around a yawn.
Sybilla brought her hand hesitantly to the baby’s back and stood at the side of the bed for a long time. She watched Julian sleeping; she felt the warming weight of his daughter in her arms, here in the odd place of the tower room.
Then she carefully drew up her knee, gaining the mattress awkwardly. She laid the thick cocoon of silk and wool and baby on her pillow near Julian’s shoulder and then she stretched out alongside Lucy, drawing the covers over the three of them.
Lucy’s eyelids were drooping even as the baby stared at Sybilla, and Sybilla folded her arm beneath her head, as there were no more pillows, and stared back at the child as Lucy surrendered fully to sleep once more.
There was an uncomfortable, catching sensation in her stomach as Sybilla, too, closed her eyes and slept.
Chapter 16
Julian decided that he would have to have a serious discussion with Sybilla Foxe, addressing her reluctance to wake in the same bed with him.
He’d slept later than usual, and when he finally roused himself, it was to encounter an empty chamber—not even Lucy was present, although evidence of a very wet night for the baby was obvious from the gown and nappy crumpled up on the floor near the crib, as if they’d been hurled there in a heap. The nursemaid Sybilla had appointed was obviously well versed in such duties, as to have retrieved Lucy so quietly and efficiently.
Oddly enough, there was a wet spot in the center of Julian’s mattress as well, near his elbow, and Julian chuckled darkly to himself at the idea of asking Sybilla Foxe if she was of the habit of drooling in her sleep.
She’d come to him again last night, of her own volition, not driven there by the phantasm of her mother’s memory. Even with Lucy in the room, with whom Sybilla was decidedly still uncomfortable, she had stayed.
I’m beginning to think that I might be able to tolerate you elsewhere, if need be.
He would tell her today. He must. They needed time to address how they would both approach the king, and how they were to present the evidence Julian held, in the best possible light. And Sybilla must understand that if she possessed information that would aid their plight in any way, she must release it. She could not continue this mad and pointless loyalty to a woman who had used her so. Her mother’s memory could not harm her. Julian would not allow it.
But right then, he wanted a draught and to see his daughter, and so he dressed and once again trod quickly and lightly down the spiral stairs that he was actually becoming quite fond of.
Right away he saw the nurse Sybilla had secured for him, carrying a stack of linens and little white gowns through the corridor. “Good morn, milord,” the woman smiled, with a little curtsy in her stride. “Madam’s in the hall.”
“Thank you, Nurse,” Julian said. “But where is Lady Lucy?”
The woman frowned in a perplexed manner and then gave him a little smile. “Why, she’s with Madam, of course, milord. Where else would she be if not at your side?”
Julian turned in a half circle but then froze, his head tilted to the side as he experienced a moment of befuddlement. “I’m sorry, but you’re saying my daughter is with Lady Foxe?”
The nursemaid’s eyebrows rose and she regarded Julian with an air of suspicion. “Yes, milord. That is what I’m saying, precisely.”
“Voluntarily?” Julian pressed.
Now the nursemaid’s eyebrows drew downward with growing disapproval. “Lady Lucy was insistent that Madam not leave her, but I do believe the arrangement is quite mutual, if that’s what you’re asking after.” The nursemaid sniffed. “Since it was her ladyship who came to breakfast with the girl, I assumed you were quite aware of the situation and approved.”
