12 

He’s crying!

In the hall outside the nursery the next morning, Charlotte reminded herself that small children routinely cried, and while Henry was mild-mannered, he was still a baby not yet a year old. What perturbed her was that she heard no movement from within the room to tend to the cries. She had his midmorning warmed bottle on a small tray, which she balanced in one hand as she turned the knob and opened the nursery door.

“Sarah?” she called out.

The only response was increased wailing. Charlotte set the tray down on the nearest side table and moved into the small alcove where the crib was tucked. One of her baby’s legs protruded between the rails of the crib, wedging him in. The mottled red of his face made it clear he had been shrieking for some time.

“Sarah!” Charlotte called out, exasperated. She gently eased Henry’s leg between the rails, then picked him up and clutched him against her. Livid, she marched into the small room next door where Sarah slept, but it was empty. Henry had been left alone in the nursery suite, and there was no telling how long he had been screaming. Pounding blood echoed through Charlotte’s ears. Her instinct was to pull the baby’s quilt from the crib and swaddle him in it, but she did not see the quilt. What had Sarah done with her grandmother’s quilt?

Infuriated, Charlotte sat in an oak rocking chair and forced herself to calm down while she soothed her baby. Tucking his head under her chin as he always had, he seemed to settle. She stroked his reddened leg, assuring herself that no serious damage had been done. The gliding motion mollified them both.

Almost a year.

Almost a year since she had passed her twentieth birthday and a day later held her son in her arms for the first time.

Almost a year since she fled.

Almost a year since she arrived at the Banning house with her secret.

Almost a year since Lucy Banning secured a safe place for Charlotte to leave her son.

Almost a year, and what was going to happen now?

If she confessed that Henry was hers, even Lucy would not be able to manage events from an unknown location in France.

Maybe Archie was right about the long hours and low wages. Charlotte had little to show for almost a year of hard work in the Banning house—certainly not enough to look after Henry, and no place to take him where he would be safe. She had spent the year breathing her way through one day at a time, unable to think any further into the future. All that mattered was that Henry was safe for another day. And now her prospects were every bit as precarious as they had been a year ago. If she ended up in a workhouse as a consequence of neglecting to mention certain facts, she might never see Henry again.

But if she did not tell them Henry was hers, they would send him away.

Greenville. That was simply too close for comfort—she could not allow him to go to Greenville. Her own family was on a farm outside of town.

And him. He was there. No, Henry could not go to Greenville.

She had to find some way to keep him in Chicago.

And guard her secret.

She kissed his head. And then there was Miss Emmaline. She wanted him.

Emmaline laid the book down in her lap and leaned back in the chaise lounge in the anteroom to Lucy’s suite. She had been at the Bannings’ for two weeks, and so far she had been to two balls, five dinner parties, high tea at three different downtown restaurants, a symphony concert, an opera, and a private recital in the home of friends of Flora and Samuel.

She was weary. And she had yet to visit the world’s fair, ostensibly the reason for an extended stay in Chicago. Next week a widower acquainted with Violet was expecting to escort Miss Emmaline Brewster of New Hampshire to the World’s Columbian Exposition. She supposed there was no way to avoid going—it was the world’s fair, after all, and Violet would attend as well. The truth was, Emmaline did not want to go. Her yearnings had returned to the undulating landscape of her New Hampshire estate, and the vision of a giddy little boy tumbling in the grass and squealing at the sight of the new puppy. A little boy needed a puppy. Emmaline had decided that much already.

Emmaline knew just the room she would put him in. It faced the front of the house. Morning sun shimmered through the bank of windows and danced off the walls from spring to fall. She would have the walls covered in mint green wallpaper, and she would paint seascapes with her own brushes and hang them on the walls. Her father had left her plenty of money, removing the need to marry if she did not genuinely wish to. Now it would not matter if she ever married, because she would have him.

He would need a name.

She swung her feet to the floor, stood, and moved to the vanity table, where she tucked in stray hair and pinched some color into her cheeks. Nothing was stopping her from seeing him right now if she wanted to.

Charlotte looked up sharply when the nursery door creaked open.

“Sarah?”

“No, it’s me,” Lina the parlor maid answered. “Mr. Penard is looking for Sarah.”

Charlotte shrugged and gestured around the room with one arm. “As you can see, she’s not here. I came up with the baby’s bottle, and she was nowhere in sight.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know. The baby was screaming. Someone had to look after him, so I stayed.”

“Mr. Penard is going to be most displeased.”

“He should be.” Charlotte gently adjusted Henry in her arms. He was far from settled. “What can Sarah have been thinking?”

“That’s not the problem at the moment,” Lina said. “Miss Brewster is in the parlor, and she has asked to see the baby.”

Charlotte’s heart lurched to her throat. “But he’s upset and hungry . . . and Sarah is missing.”

Lina raised her eyebrows. “Someone will have to make him presentable. We can’t keep Miss Brewster waiting, can we?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Then I’ll tell Mr. Penard you’ll bring him down.” Lina turned toward the door. “But Miss Brewster is expecting a happy child.”

He was a happy child—when he was looked after properly. Charlotte gathered her wits. “I’ll need twenty minutes to feed him and find some fresh clothing. You make sure Mr. Penard understands that Sarah is the one who left her post!”

Twenty minutes later, Archie hung his uniform jacket on a hook in the servants’ hallway off the kitchen and went in search of the pot of strong tea he hoped was on the back of the stove. His day was already almost six hours old, and more hours than he wanted to calculate still stretched ahead of him. It seemed like a justifiable opportunity to demonstrate his conviction for reasonable working conditions.

Mr. Penard had other ideas. “Find Sarah,” the butler snapped.

Archie looked at him, his eyes seeking more information.

“She’s gone missing. If she is not standing in this kitchen in the next ten minutes, I will advise Mrs. Banning to send her back to St. Andrew’s.”

Frankly, Archie had no idea where the girl would be, and if she were sent back to the orphanage, he would feel no great loss.

“If you have to, take the market carriage out,” Mr. Penard said, “and circle the neighborhood.”

Once Mr. Penard turned his back, Archie sighed and reached for his jacket again, sliding his arms into the sleeves even as he stepped back into the hall. In the dimness of the hall, he did not see Charlotte step off the bottom step and nearly knocked her over.

“I’m sorry.” He reached out to catch the stumble he had caused. Her arms were full of the baby. Taking her elbow, he walked with her back to the kitchen. He had his instructions from the butler, but he was not inclined to save Sarah’s skin at the expense of Charlotte.

“What’s going on?” He placed a hand gently on the head of the child in her arms.

“I found him screaming in his crib. No one knows where Sarah is, and Miss Brewster has asked to see the child.”

“Why does she want to see him in the middle of the morning? Why does she want to see him so much at all?”

Charlotte shook her head. “I can’t stand here and try to sort it out. She’s waiting. I have to go.”

She pushed through the butler’s pantry and out of his sight.

Charlotte grew more pale each day, Archie believed. And the grip the child had on her was, well, curious. She was hiding something from him—he had known that for a long time—but Archie had not quite reasoned his way through why the child’s presence made her secret so urgent.