Courting Susannah Read Free Page A

still like to know what you want.”
    She ached to hold the child. “I told you,” she said, speaking as forthrightly as he had. “I’m here to take care of Julia’s daughter. What is her name?”
    He looked down at the babe with a curious frown, as though expecting to be advised in the matter, then met Susannah’s gaze again. “I don’t believe she has one,” he replied, and Susannah would have sworn he had never so much as considered the oversight before that moment, though she had to admit he held his little girl with an ease that seemed to belie some of her preconceptions where his character was concerned.
    For a few moments, Susannah was rendered speechless. When at last she found her voice, she sputtered, “No name? But the poor little thing is four months old!”
    â€œYes,” Fairgrieve said, without apology. Then he heldthe infant out, like an offering. “Here. If you want her, take her. She’s hungry.”
    Trembling, Susannah accepted the precious child. How could an innocent baby be allowed to go
four months
without a proper name? The warmth of the babe brought tears springing to her eyes, and she blinked rapidly, in the hope that Fairgrieve wouldn’t see. She took a deep breath or two, in the effort to recover, all the while holding Julia’s baby close against her bosom.
    â€œTake her? Where?” she asked, bewildered, when she could trust herself to speak moderately.
    â€œWell, to the kitchen, of course. I believe she needs a bottle.”
    Susannah stared at him. “Then I can stay?”
    He answered briskly, already turning away, heading back toward the gaping doorway through which he had come. “For the time being,” he said in dismissal.
    Susannah stood there briefly, in the middle of the hallway, and then made for the stairs. She moved in cautious haste, lest Mr. Fairgrieve appear again, having changed his mind, and order her out of the house.
    She found the kitchen after some exploration and was impressed to discover that it boasted a real icebox with a crockery pitcher of cold, buttery milk inside, along with a plenitude of cheese, eggs, and other supplies.
    Ignoring her own ravenous hunger, Susannah laid the infant in a wicker bassinet set before a bay window, searched for and found a bottle and nipple in one of the cupboards, built up the fire in the cookstove, and put the baby’s meal on to heat.
    She was seated in a rocking chair, feeding the child, when Mr. Fairgrieve entered from a back stairway and stood watching for a long moment, his expression unreadable.
    â€œYou’ve had practice with babies,” he said at some length.
    She smiled. “Yes,” she said. “There were a lot of children born at St. Mary’s, and I helped to take care of them until they were adopted.”
    He frowned. “St. Mary’s?”
    Surely Julia had told him about the school, about the nuns and the troubled young girls who often took refuge with them, and yet he seemed genuinely puzzled. “Where your wife and I met,” she added, in an attempt at clarification.
    He drew up a chair and sat down facing her, their knees almost touching. “St. Mary’s,” he repeated, as though to extract some private and elusive understanding from the phrase.
    Susannah continued to rock gently back in the chair, the baby resting warm and solid and milk-fragrant in her arms, though something had quickened within her. Julia, in her eagerness to belong, had been known to tell the occasional small and generally innocuous lie, and she could be self-serving when it suited, but she certainly must have told Aubrey about her childhood. Hadn’t she? Before Susannah could think of a response, Mr. Fairgrieve spoke again.
    â€œTell me,” he said. “Exactly who was my wife?”
    Susannah was stunned. “I beg your pardon?”
    He folded his strong arms. “I’d like to hear a