There were questions he might have asked, but Daniel realized that he wasn’t ready for the answers.

Chapter XVIII

Birdie, stuck in the house with her younger nieces and nephews, fretted. She wanted to go down to Lily, but her mother had decided that given the cold rain, it would be best to stay indoors this day.

“Martha went down to the village.” Birdie was careful to keep her tone even and respectful, as if she were opening a discussion. If you could hold on to your temper and sound like you were talking about this year’s crop of onions, you could say almost anything to Ma. “Is there some other reason I shouldn’t go sit with Lily?”

Her mother was looking at her with that thoughtful expression that did not bode well. She put down the book she had been reading.

“You have spent a great deal of time with Lily, and I’m glad of it. You are a good companion and a great help to her. She has told me these things, plainly spoken. The decision to keep you here for the day has to do with the weather and the fact that the little people need distraction, and they love no one so much as you when it comes to games. Curiosity and Jennet are with Lily this morning, so you needn’t worry that she’s alone or in need of help.”

The hot rush of tears to her eyes was something Birdie could not hide, but Ma was too clever and kind to say anything. It was up to Birdie to counter the arguments Ma had made. But there was nothing to counter; it was all logical and true.

“Ma,” she said, “Don’t you think that maybe, just sometimes it’s right to let feelings get the upper hand and leave reason fend for itself?”

A great smile broke over her mother’s face and she held her arms open so Birdie could come and put her nose to the soft spot between shoulder and breast where her mother’s scent was strongest.

“That is the most concise description of falling in love I have ever heard,” she said against Birdie’s hair.

Birdie sniffed a little, and Ma rocked her. And that was good, almost as good as being allowed to go down to Lily.

“The worst kind of weather,” Curiosity said, her brow furrowed. “The very worst. Every kind of wet there is, and cold? And a mean wind coming down off the mountain.” She looked up from her knitting to Jennet and Lily, who were winding yarn, Lily from her chaise longue and Jennet beside her in a chair.

If Lily closed her eyes she could imagine herself at eighteen or sixteen or ten, just like this. Talking to Curiosity about the weather, yawning in the warmth of the hearth and tending to knitting or sewing. How uncomplicated her life had been, and she had never noticed. And perhaps that was the very definition of childhood.

“Put some more wood on the fire, would you, Jennet?”

Lily almost jumped in her surprise. “Isn’t it warm enough in here? I could do without some of these.” Lily pushed a quilt away.

Curiosity reached over and put it right back. “Those covers staying right where they are.”

“But I am sweating like a … like a—”

“Pig?” Jennet suggested amiably. “Did you forget the art of plain speaking while you were away?”

“I can speak plain,” Lily said, her temper rising.

Curiosity was unmoved. “Sweating is good for you, get all the dark humors out. Good for the little one too.”

That was the one argument that Lily could not counter. She was some four months with child, and as of this day, she had seen no sign of bleeding. Hope was a luxury she wanted to deny herself, but oh, it was hard. Her body wanted her to hope; it gave her every reason, not least the swelling of her belly. Just a gentle curve for now, but she focused all her energy on it, willing the child to speak to her with that first quickening.

In the evenings Simon sat with her in the parlor and then when they both were yawning, he carried her to bed. To their chaste bed. When she raised the topic, he had shushed her.

“I can do without,” he said. “I won’t have you worrying about that.”

She loved that hour before they fell asleep, when they talked about everything and nothing at all. Simon made her laugh with his stories, and she brought him up to date with the gossip brought to her by Birdie and Mrs. Thicke.

They rarely talked about the thing they thought about most, but sometimes Lily found the words rising up, wanting to be spoken. She said, “Curiosity thinks the summer will be very hot this year. I’ll melt into a puddle.”

“Nonsense.” He turned on his side to look at her, and put his hand low on her belly. “By fall you’ll be as round and plump as a blueberry.”

She had laughed as he meant her to, but the image stuck in her mind like a burr and wouldn’t be shook off until she took up paper and began to draw. She drew blueberry bushes and a foraging bear, blueberries spilling over a bucket into the grass, single berries in excruciating detail. All in pencil, because she had got the idea that the sharp smells of her paints might be unhealthy for the child she had already started thinking of as Blueberry.

Maybe it was superstition to think that smells might make the difference, but it made Lily feel better, and wasn’t that the whole idea behind such beliefs? She would take whatever help she could find. Because once she had taken childbearing for granted, foolish girl she had been.

She glanced at Jennet’s rounded belly and caught her eye, as well.

Jennet said, “I’ve been waiting for ye to ask, Lily. Midsummer, by Curiosity’s reckoning. So you’ll have some practice with newborns before your own comes along.”