They made a production of it: the baby in a bonnet of outrageous yellow, Rose in a walking dress that looked like a cloud, and Felix himself togged out in the least offensive color in his wardrobe: midnight blue, with a white cravat so stiff it could have been carved.
The morning had scrubbed London clean. By the time they reached the park, sunlight glinted off the pond, and every shrub and tree trembled with new green. St. James’s was alive with women in their bright silks, men in starched suits with walking canes, and children in miniature versions of their parents’ finery.
Felix kept a steady hand at Rose’s back as they strolled, not because she needed it, but because the sight of her in this element made something inside him lurch and then settle. She held Lizzie on her hip until the child began to twist and yowl for a better view. Felix obliged, scooping her into his arms, giving her a higher vantage.
“You look like the very picture of fatherhood,” Rose said, unable to disguise her amusement.
“I feel like an advertisement for horse liniment.” Still, he let Lizzie sway and squeal as they made their way to the aviary.
The new structure stood near the water, a marvel of glass and wrought iron, more cathedral than cage. Inside, the air shimmered with the sounds of birds, from whistles to caws, to even the low chuckle of some unseen creature. The crowd was thickest around the center, where a flock of parrots flapped from perch to perch.
Felix pointed, murmuring the names to Lizzie as if she would retain them for the family archives. “Hyacinth macaw,” he said. “Lesser sulfur-crested cockatoo. And that, if I’m not mistaken, is an ambassador from Siam.”
Lizzie babbled, apparently seized by the need to add her own voice to the ruckus. When Felix lifted her higher, she gave a victorious shriek that startled several onlookers. Rose trailed behind, stopping now and then to sketch the scene in a small notebook. Felix watched her as she worked, the fine lines of her wrist, the curve of her neck as she bent over the page.
She looked up and caught him staring. “Are you bored already?” she asked, eyebrow arched.
“Not at all,” he replied. “I am making a study of the lesser-spotted Rose in her native habitat.”
She smirked, but he could see the pleasure it gave her.
They made a slow circuit of the aviary. Lizzie clapped whenever a bird landed close, her excitement undimmed by anything so trivial as fatigue. Several matrons in the vicinity tittered into their gloves, no doubt adding the spectacle of the Carden family outing to the morning’s gossip. Felix did not mind. He had never cared for being invisible.
When they left the aviary, Rose tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, her fingers warm against his sleeve. “Thank you,” she said. “For indulging us.”
Felix squeezed her hand. “You are impossible to deny.”
She looked at him, her eyes bright and beautiful. “We should take her everywhere,” she said. “Show her the whole world.”
He considered this. “Let’s start with tea,” he said. “If I don’t get you inside soon, you’ll melt.”
She laughed, the sound bright and clear, and he thought perhaps it was not such a terrible idea. They made their way back through the park, Lizzie dozing against Felix’s chest, Rose at his side.
They did not return directly home. Instead, Rose insisted on a detour.
“A reward for Lizzie’s excellent behavior,” she claimed, though Felix suspected the true recipient was herself.
The walk to Green Park took only minutes. Rose led them to a copse of cherry trees, where a few early blossoms had survived the night’s chill, meaning the ground beneath was littered with pale petals. Rose spread a tartan blanket on the grass and set Lizzie down, arranging the baby’s dress to keep her above the damp. The child blinked in the bright air, then promptly rolled herself onto her back, arms flung wide as if claiming the whole of London for her own.
He lay down beside them, folding his hands behind his head. The branches overhead formed a patchwork of sun and shadow. For a long time, none of them spoke. Lizzie burbled to herself, the sound merging with the distant calls of the birds, the faraway bells of a passing hansom.
At last, Rose broke the silence. “Do you know Tennyson?” she asked.
“Intimately,” Felix replied, knowing this to be a slight exaggeration. “The old man once lost fifty pounds to me in a card game.”
“He did not.”
“He did,” Felix insisted and relished in Rose’s laugh. “But in my defense, it was over a bet regarding the proper way to use a semicolon. I believe he’s still in arrears.”
Rose smiled, retrieving a slim book from her basket. She thumbed through the pages, then began to read aloud, her voicesoft but certain: “If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever.”
Felix was not sentimental by nature, but the words, combined with the sunlight, the gentle breathing of the baby, and the rhythm of Rose’s voice, made his chest ache in a way he found both unsettling and thrilling.
He watched her as she read, the wind catching her hair, the flush of her cheek as she recited each line with careful attention. He reached out and brushed a petal from her sleeve. She glanced down at his hand, then up at his face, and for a moment neither of them looked away.
Lizzie, as if sensing the need for interruption, let out a squawk of protest and rolled onto her side. She immediately found a fallen petal and tried to cram it into her mouth. Rose lunged to rescue her, scooping the child up and kissing her forehead in a flurry of relief and laughter.
“She will eat us out of house and home,” Rose said.
