“You shouldn’t say things like that. Babies are more perceptive than you realize,” she said. Victor wore a skeptical look. “You should have left word that you were leaving. You can’t function as though you bear no responsibility for John. Let us not forget that he was wearing your crest.”
“As you keep reminding me, but that is an incidental detail. Whoever left him clearly chose a convenient item that was at hand. It does not mean anything more than that. And if you must know, I returned to London in the hope that my presence might expedite the search. I thought that I might be able to bring the mother back with me. However, I failed.”
“She must be making herself difficult to be found. I wonder why she left him,” Lydia said, her features becoming etched with concern.
“Perhaps it is best not to think of that. Clearly, she has… troubles.”
“You believe her to be of low character?”
“Don’t you? She left a child after all.”
“And you have made it clear you do not want anything to do with him. Does that make you low of character as well?” She arched an eyebrow.
“That is irrelevant. She abandoned her child, and you would have pity for her?”
“I believe there must be a reason. I cannot imagine a mother would abandon her children without good reason,” Lydia said. The eyebrow fell, and her voice cracked, losing its strength for a moment. She tilted her head forward, and a shadow fell across her eyes although Victor did not quite pick up on any deeper meaning of her visage.
“I’m sure she justified it to herself. Either way, she interrupted the stability of my life and?—”
“Is that all you care about?Yourlife? What about John? He never asked to be abandoned, and he certainly didn’t ask to be treated with such disdain,” she said acidly.
Victor was about to retort when the baby started crying. The wailing screech was loud, immediate, and demanding. It pierced Victor’s mind, and he winced, wondering how on earth anyone could stand such a terrible noise.
“Look what you’ve done now,” Lydia said although her words were barely audible over the baby’s cries. She carried John past him. Victor pursued her, unable to let this matter go because it did not seem fair at all that he should be tarred with this brush, as though this was his responsibility. He wasn’t the one who had brought John into his chamber after all.
If anyone was at fault, other than the mother, then it was Lydia.
Chapter Thirteen
“Shhh, there now; there’s a good boy,” Lydia said, trying to comfort John. She couldn’t help but feel like a failure every time he cried.
There was something wrong, but he was unable to express it verbally, so it was up to her to decipher the meaning, and she did not always succeed. It was a reminder that John was not truly hers and might never be, and any care she could give him would be inadequate compared to that which might have been given by his mother.
Mary and Charlotte had both spoken of mother’s intuition. They seemed to know what was wrong with their children innately, and Lydia assumed this was something that developed through the bond of carrying the child. If the mother was here, then she might well know what to do better than Lydia did.
And of course, Victor wasn’t any help whatsoever. She wouldn’t have been surprised had John picked up on the tension between them, and that’s what caused his strife.
They returned to the nursery, and Lydia continued to soothe him.
“I should remind you that it is your fault we are in this mess. If you had not been snooping in places you didn’t belong, then we would never have been caught together. There would have been no scandal for us to deal with, and I could have dealt with the baby myself. He would be in an orphanage by now,” Victor said.
Lydia looked shocked and cradled John a little more tightly.
“How can you say such a thing? You would just discard him?” She pulled her head to the side, trying to put as much distance between her ear and John’s ear as possible.
“I would try to find him the best care possible,” Victor retorted. “Can you not do anything to quiet him?”
Lydia glared.
“I’m trying,” she said through gritted teeth.
At that moment Georgia came into the room, smiling.
“Perhaps he needs a feeding. He is a hungry one,” she said. Lydia handed John over to Geogia, who settled down and held him at her bosom. However, John writhed and squirmed. He did not seek food at all. If anything, he tried to push himself away. Geogia looked dismayed and shook her head.
“I’m sorry, but it must be something else.”
Lydia opened her arms and took John back. She started pacing back and forth from one side of the room to the other, swinging, and swaying John in her arms, remembering what Charlotte used to do with Matthew. She continued to make comforting noises although she wondered if John could even hear her whispers over his loud cries.
