Storming the Castle (3 page)

“Gabriel might have woken; he might be searching for us in the gallery,” Wick said, entirely forgetting that he generally referred to his brother as His Highness in public. Miss Damson was that sort of woman. She made a man lose his head.

“Why not send a footman to stand outside the prince’s bedchamber so as to inform him of our location when he wakes? Meanwhile, you’ll have to take the baby while I wash my hands,” she said, and slipped Jonas back into Wick’s arms with no more fuss than if she were transporting a pudding.

To Wick, Jonas looked worse than he had even an hour before. The skin around his eyes was the deep blue of a bruise. His little nose stood out from his face, as if the skin had receded around it. He was an extraordinarily unattractive baby, which did nothing to assuage the feeling of pure grief and panic Wick felt at seeing his nephew in this state.

“It’s not too late, is it?” he heard himself saying. Everyone in the kitchen froze.

Miss Damson had washed her hands, and was now wringing out the cloth and dipping it in the pot of boiled, cooled water. “Absolutely not,” she said firmly. “Sit down.”

Wick thought a bit dazedly about the fact that he never took orders except from his own brother, but he sat. She bent over and slipped the corner of the wet cloth into the baby’s mouth. He sucked reflexively, realized it wasn’t milk, and let out a pained cry. Quick as she could, she dipped the cloth again, returned it to his lips. Over and over and over.

It was a messy business. Within minutes the baby was wet, Wick was wet, and Miss Damson’s dress was splashed with water. But Jonas kept swallowing, and soon he was crying only between sucks.

“Do you know if he has had normal bowel movements?” Miss Damson asked.

Wick blinked. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

She turned to the housekeeper. “Mrs. Apple, could you perhaps help with my question?”

“Lily’s the one you want,” Mrs. Apple said. With a nod, she dispatched a footman to fetch the appropriate maid.

“You can’t mean that the baby merely needs water,” Wick said. “One of the nursemaids who was here last week said he had sciatic gout.”

“Gout? Most unlikely. I think it’s colic,” Miss Damson said. “Surely a doctor has seen the child?”

“Yes, but he didn’t hold out much hope. He said Jonas was too ill for colic. First, he thought the baby had an intestine stone, then he suggested a quartan ague. Yesterday, he tried an emetic to clean out his guts, but it made Jonas vomit, and after that the princess ordered the doctor out of the castle.”

“She was absolutely right,” Miss Damson observed. “The child needs more fluids, not less.”

“I sent off to Manchester for other doctors. Someone must have some medicine they can give him. The doctor planned to try Dalby Carmel next, something like that.”

“Dalby’s carminative,” Miss Damson said with obvious disdain. “And I suppose castor oil as well.”

“His mother would be able to say more precisely. I believe he also suggested opium, but Her Highness disagreed.”

“No medicine will work,” she announced, dipping the cloth back in the pot once more.

There was a collective gasp from the kitchen staff. “No medicine,” Wick repeated, his heart speeding up. “But you said—”

“It’s simple colic,” Miss Damson said. “I’ve seen it before. There’s something about his stomach that doesn’t like milk at the moment. But he won’t die of it, not unless he goes without water or milk too long.”

At that moment, the door to the kitchen burst open and a wild-eyed apparition surged through. “How could you, Wick?” Kate cried, running to Jonas.

Miss Damson plucked Jonas from Wick’s arms and turned to the princess, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. She put the baby straight into his mother’s arms. “Your son is going to be all right. You see? He’s not crying.”

Kate’s mouth was a tight line, and she glared as if this interloper were part of an invading army. “Just who are you?” she snapped.

“She’s your new nursemaid,” Wick intervened. He had already decided that Miss Damson’s calm command of the situation was just what they needed. “She gave Jonas water, Kate. And he drank it all up. I think he looks better already.”

“He’s
wet,
” Kate cried, horrified. “Now he’ll catch a cold. He’ll—he’ll—” Clutching her baby, she darted from the room without another word.

Miss Damson looked unsurprised. Rather than running after her new mistress, she turned to Madame Troisgros and, in French, thanked her for her help. Then she switched to English and thanked everyone else in the kitchen. And, finally, she had a detailed discussion with Lily, the maid in charge of the nursery, about exactly what sort of deposits Jonas had been making in his nappies.

“Are they green?” she was asking. “And how do they smell?”

She didn’t sound like someone who seemed barely old enough to have her first position. Wick couldn’t stop looking at her, though: at the rose color of her lips and the way her gown, where it was wet, clung to her bosom. It was a very nice bosom.

Very
nice.

Wick glanced around the room and discovered that the footmen—not to mention the gaping knife boy—had noticed the same fact. With a jerk of his head, he sent them scurrying out of the kitchen.

Miss Damson, meanwhile, was giving Lily instructions about taking boiled water to the nursery three times a day. She didn’t sound like any nursemaid Wick had ever seen, not that he’d seen many.

Maybe that was what housekeepers sounded like when they were young. But that idea didn’t fit either.

She was a lady, Wick thought suddenly. Quality. He was amazed he hadn’t seen it immediately, but he knew why: because he wasn’t English. He’d bet everything he owned that she had a lady’s voice except that he wasn’t quite good enough with the language to tell the difference.

But then he listened closely and he realized he
could
tell the difference. After all, he and Gabriel had gone to Oxford back when they were striplings, before Gabriel took over this castle. Wick recognized the sound of her voice, the way it sounded at once sweet and a little sassy . . . that was a lady’s voice, not a nursemaid’s voice.

He had a cuckoo in his kitchen.

In her agitated state, Kate hadn’t noticed anything untoward, obviously. And Madame Troisgros had been far too glad to find someone who spoke French to consider the nursemaid’s origins. With Lily dismissed, the cook was now regaling Miss Damson with tales of the execrable vegetables she was forced to cook with, monstrous tubers fit only for pigs, or
cochons.
And Miss Damson was nodding and sympathizing . . .

Like a lady. A lady who spoke French, who had undoubtedly been brought up to a good marriage.

Wick became aware that water was running down the inside of his calf into his shoes. There was something about Miss Damson that made even a man with wet breeches hungry. Lustful. Those emotions that good servants could have only for each other—and never, ever, for the ladies they attended. Wick certainly never allowed himself that sort of inconvenient desire.

Just like that, he decided not to say a thing to Miss Damson about the question of her birth. If she was a lady who was merely presenting herself as a nursemaid for some obscure reason—well, then she wasn’t for him, not for the bastard brother of a prince.

But perhaps, if he was wrong, and she wasn’t a lady . . .

Not that he was looking for a wife, of course. But during the last year he had noticed the way Gabriel liked to hold Kate’s hand, the way he swept his wife into his arms, the way he kissed her when he thought no one was looking.

Back in Marburg, the king would have paired Wick off by now, given him to a third or fourth daughter of a gentleman, a woman grateful to be connected in any way to the royal family, a woman whose father would willingly overlook Wick’s ignoble birth. But here in England, he had volunteered to become his brother’s majordomo. He had chosen to run the castle, and he was damned good at it.

He’d known perfectly well what that choice meant for his future. As a servant, he was a servant, no matter how high in the hierarchy of service. He would never marry a gentleman’s daughter. And he’d accepted that, content with an occasional trip to London to meet cheerful women who were neither ladies nor servants but happy to share a bed for a time.

Content, at least, until his brother fell in love.

One night, before the baby was born, he was making his nightly rounds and recognized Gabriel’s laughter coming from the study. Thinking to find out the joke, he had his hand on the door when he heard his sister-in-law gasp in such a husky, pleading way that, disconcertingly, he realized his brother’s laughter was aroused by something rather different than a mere jest.

Needless to say, he didn’t go in.

Even so, he kept trying to tell himself that he had no use for a wife, given that his wife must necessarily be a servant. Kate, after all, was the granddaughter of an earl. She was a perfect person to marry a prince. Gabriel was extraordinarily lucky to have met her.

There were few Kates in the world, and none who ended up paired with bastards.

But still . . . as he followed Miss Damson’s admittedly delicious figure from the kitchen, he thought, for the first time in his life, that perhaps he
could
marry a servant after all.

If the servant was a lady.

Chapter Three

P
hilippa was feeling wildly self-conscious as she walked out of the kitchen ahead of the devilishly handsome Mr. Berwick. In fact, her skin prickled all over at the idea that he was just behind her.

Which was ridiculous. Absurd.

He was a majordomo, for goodness’ sake. A
butler.
Her mother would turn in her grave at the very idea that she was noticing a butler’s profile, let alone his voice.

True, he was the most handsome butler she’d ever seen. He didn’t bundle his hair into a little bag the way their family butler, Quirbles, did. Instead, it was pulled back from his face in a way that emphasized his brow. His eyebrows formed peaks over his eyes.

And those eyes . . . they were fierce and proud, like an eagle. Not like a butler. Nothing like a butler.

It wasn’t just she who saw it either. Back in the kitchen, they had all instinctively acted as if he were a gentleman rather than a butler. Fascinating.

Her mind returned to the baby. She was almost certain that Jonas merely had a very bad case of colic. She’d seen as much several times while accompanying her uncle on his rounds, and once in Little Ha’penny itself. But the worrisome question was whether the baby might have something called intussusception, if she remembered the name right. That was when the bowels were all going the wrong way, and no matter what anyone did, the baby died.

She started walking a little faster. There was no point in mentioning this possibility to the princess since it would terrify her for no good reason. If it was intussusception, there was nothing to be done. But she was fairly sure that her uncle had told her that intussusception was always accompanied by a very slow pulse. Jonas’s pulse had seemed quite normal, and in any case, Lily had not reported seeing any blood in his stool—another telltale sign.

She started ticking off in her mind all the things she had to do: reassure Jonas’s mother, first of all. Then give Jonas a warm bath, with a little massage of his tummy. She had some balsam in her bag that she could rub on it.

Her uncle had believed that massage did no good, but at least it didn’t hurt, not the way that spirits did, or copious amounts of castor oil. Her uncle always said that some baby’s bowels just weren’t ready to digest properly.

“Nothing to do but wait,” she said aloud, remembering her uncle’s brusque advice to new mothers.

“What did you say?” Mr. Berwick said from behind her.

Even his voice was bewitching, with its smoky foreign tone.

She didn’t turn around but just kept marching up the stairs. “I trust I am going in the right direction for the nursery?”

“It’s just above the portrait gallery where I was walking Jonas, so we have another flight to go.”

Philippa’s legs were starting to ache. Becoming a nursemaid at Pomeroy Castle would definitely make her stronger.

“How did you learn French?” came that voice from behind her.

Her foot hesitated on the step, then she said quickly, “My aunt was French.” That wasn’t true, and Philippa quite disliked telling lies. She was from thoroughly English stock, whose only claim to exoticism was the red hair that cropped up now and again.

“Your aunt was French?”

“Yes,” she said firmly.

“But your mother wasn’t French?”

Philippa felt panic, but managed to keep her invention aloft. “My aunt is on my father’s side, that is, she was raised in a French convent, then joined him in England sometime later.”

“How unusual,” Mr. Berwick said after a short pause. “I was under the impression that convents generally raised young ladies. Not that I mean to imply that your family has come down in the world, Miss Damson.”

“Oh, we have,” Philippa said madly. “Terribly far down. I have to find a position, you see. Because we’ve—because we’re so far down.”

“How far?” Mr. Berwick asked, with interest.

She stopped, as much to catch her breath as to glare at him. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, you do sound a bit like a heroine in a melodrama,” he pointed out, stepping in front of her to push open the door.

“You shouldn’t mock our hardship. It’s been heartbreaking for my family!” she snapped, feeling a surge of virtuous anger before remembering that the family in question didn’t exist.

He looked down at her, and she saw something in his eyes that made her blink. “You must feel neither fish nor fowl.”

Philippa swallowed. What she felt was something no young lady should be feeling. “Precisely,” she said. “Fowl, fish, who knows what I am?”

“You are Jonas’s nursemaid,” he said, with a lightning smile as he held open the door.

She walked through, thinking about what he had just said: she had secured a position in the castle.

And now she had a position, she wasn’t a lady anymore. It felt rather peculiar. Her father never employed many servants, but of course there were some. She had grown up with Quirbles and a footman to answer the door, the kitchen staff, the upstairs maid and the downstairs maid, and a boy to do all the rest. And now she had joined their ranks. She was one of them, rather than a lady.

When they reached the nursery door, she instinctively waited for Mr. Berwick to open it for her, but instead he pushed it open and preceded her. She blinked at his broad back for a moment before realizing that the butler always preceded a nursemaid.

“Kate,” he was saying, “the new nursemaid is very sensible. She knew that Jonas needed water, and she boiled it before giving it to him.”

Philippa stepped out from behind him. Jonas’s mother sat in a chair, the baby clasped in her arms. The princess had the same battered, terrified expression that Philippa had seen on other mothers’ faces when her uncle paid his visits. Instinctively, she went over to her and knelt next to the chair. “Jonas will live,” she said as forcefully as she could. “He will not die.”

“Of course he will not,” Her Highness said. But her eyes were haunted.

“This is Miss Damson,” Mr. Berwick said. “Jonas’s new nursemaid.”

The princess seemed not to hear him. She looked up, and asked, “Wick, who is this person, and where did she come from?”

“This is your new nursemaid, from Manchester,” Mr. Berwick said, without a second’s hesitation, though he’d never asked Philippa where she lived. “Miss Damson came with the highest references from esteemed doctors. I know she looks young, but her charges have been special cases, not ordinary infants.”

The princess looked sideways at Philippa, still kneeling by her chair. “Sick babies,” she breathed. “You deal with sick babies.” A tear ran down her cheek. “Do you know what’s the matter with my son?”

“He has colic,” Philippa said. “I’m almost certain that it’s just colic. I can’t give him a miracle medicine, because there isn’t any. And my—that is, the esteemed doctors with whom I worked in Manchester—feel strongly that colic is simply something that a baby must outgrow.”

The princess looked down at her son. “Are you sure? The doctor who was here said that Jonas was too hot to have colic. He does seem to get a fever now and then. And then he screams so much after nursing that it seems he can hardly breathe. If you even touch his belly after he drinks, he cries and cries.”

“He has a bad case. But it’s still just colic. He will outgrow it.”

“And doctors are on their way from Manchester who will confirm everything she says,” Mr. Berwick stated.

Philippa felt a tingle of alarm. Her uncle was rather unorthodox in his ideas, and she had the impression that Manchester doctors were likely to be far more interested in doling out medicines. Her uncle was of the firm conviction that medicines did more harm than good, no matter what the disease might be.

“But my
milk,
” the princess said. Then she blinked and looked at Mr. Berwick. “Shoo.” He disappeared through the door in a flash.

It was all a bit odd. Philippa was very fond of their family butler, as was her father. But she would never say
shoo
to Quirbles. It simply wouldn’t be appropriate, and she might offend him.

“I’m poisoning Jonas, aren’t I?” the princess said. “It’s my milk that’s the problem. I’m killing my own baby.” Another tear rolled down her cheek.

Philippa got up; her knees had started to hurt. “No, you are not poisoning your child. He needs your milk, and in fact, you are doing an excellent thing by nursing him yourself. You have a flair for the dramatic, Your Highness.”

“Actually, I don’t,” the princess said wearily, tipping her head to rest it against the back of her chair. “I’m very sensible, in my normal state. But it’s just been so awful since he was born. Not that I mean
he
is awful,” she added.

Philippa bent over and took the baby from her. “This child needs you to rest. Your milk will give out if you don’t sleep.”

“My milk . . . Whenever I feed him, he screams so it breaks my heart. The sound goes through the whole castle. Moments like this, when he’s just sleeping and not crying, are so precious. Besides, I’m afraid that I’ll come back and—”

“As long as we give him enough water, he will not die,” Philippa said firmly. “He’ll be thin, but he’ll survive. And it will get better.”

At that very moment, Jonas’s eyes popped open. He looked at her blurrily, and then let out a bellow. Despite herself, Philippa flinched.

“Is that the first time you’ve heard it?” the princess asked wearily, rising from her chair and holding out her arms.

“He has a fine voice,” Philippa said. “No, you sit down. You feed him, then I’ll show you how to massage his tummy afterwards, which might help with his pain.”

Two hours later, Jonas’s tummy was tight as a drum, he’d been given the gentlest of massages, he’d screamed until he was blue and breathless . . . and finally, exhausted, he had fallen asleep.

Philippa carefully put him down in his cradle, humming the last few bars of the song with which she’d sung him to sleep.

“Do you still believe he will be all right?” his mother asked, bending over to tuck the blanket just under the baby’s chin.

“You saw his nappy. It was perfectly normal, with no blood. He’ll be fine. He’s a fighter. It hurts so much, and yet he kept on trying to tell us, so we can make the pain stop. He hasn’t given up.”

“That’s true,” the princess said, brightening a little despite her fatigue. Then she added, “I don’t think I’ve ever been this worn-out in my life.”

“You must go to bed,” Philippa said. “Jonas will sleep for a few hours. And if he wakes up, I’ll give him some water. He still needs more water.”

There was a moment of silence. Then: “What was that you sang to him?” the princess asked.

“It’s an Italian song,” Philippa said. “Something about sunshine and courting and all that nonsense. Mother made me—” She stopped.

“You’re no nursemaid,” the princess stated. “You’re a lady. You sing in Italian, your mother prepared you for a debut, and your dress is quite nice—even though I think that shade of green isn’t quite right with your hair, which is beautiful, by the way.”

“I
am
a nursemaid,” Philippa said, feeling a pulse of desperation. “My family’s come down in the world, that’s all.”

“If that’s the case, why are you wearing a pearl pendant?”

“It was a gift from my mother,” Philippa said firmly. Her voice didn’t wobble because
that,
at least, was the truth.

“It must be a very recent family downfall. Because your shoes are lovely and not in the least worn-out. I have some just like them, and they’re made of Italian leather.”

Philippa looked down at her slippers. It hadn’t occurred to her that she might be betrayed by the condition of her footwear.

She looked back up to find the princess grinning at her. “You’ve run away, likely from a loathsome marriage. Or no—you’re too young for that. A loathsome suitor. And, of course, you ran away to the castle. I’m sorry to say that the prince is already married to me, because otherwise you could have married him yourself, which would have been rather romantic.”

“Yes, it would have been,” Philippa said uncertainly. Then she added: “You should take a good rest now, Your Highness.”

“I suppose I could return to the south tower. I left my husband sleeping.” She bent over the cradle again. “Do you really believe that Jonas will get better? How on earth did you gain all this knowledge about babies? Has your family truly come down in the world?”

“I’d—well—”

“Whatever you tell me, I won’t be in the least shocked,” the princess said, with such a sweet smile that Philippa swallowed hard. “After my father died, my stepmother treated me abominably, so I gained all sorts of knowledge that I mightn’t otherwise have.”

“My uncle is a doctor,” Philippa found herself explaining. “I used to visit him and my aunt for a month at a time, and I always begged him to take me along on his rounds.”

“If you were a man, you’d be a doctor,” she said, nodding. “Sometimes I feel that, as women, we have the short end of the stick.”

“Exactly,” Philippa agreed. “If I were a man, I’d be a doctor, and no one could tell me what to do. I would choose—” She broke off.