Free The Benedict Bastard (A Benedict Hall Novel) by Cate Campbell

remembering.
    She had been older, of course. Ten years old, and not as resilient as a one-year-old. Preston had pushed her, and she had careened down the stairs, banging her head, bruising both knees, wrenching her back. It wasn’t the first time her brother had hurt her, but she had been really frightened that day, trembling and crying. Blake had swept her up into his strong arms and carried her up to her bedroom. She saw, on his face, that he understood how dangerous it could have been. Blake was frightened, too, and deeply angry, but he was as powerless as Margot herself.
    Her younger brother had been a constant shadow over her childhood. In her adulthood, just the year before, he had tried and almost succeeded in killing her. For this offense he would spend his life in confinement.
    Little Louisa Benedict, with her pale hair and ice-blue eyes, looked so much like Preston had as a child that it made Margot’s heart ache with remembered misery.
    Louisa glanced up at that moment, and smiled at her aunt. It was such a comical expression, at odds with her puffy eyes and tearstained cheeks, that Margot laughed, and put out her hand to caress the child’s towhead. “Darling girl,” she murmured. “Auntie Margot loves you. And so does Uncle Frank.”
    “Fa!” the child proclaimed.
    “Yes, Fa,” Margot agreed. She pulled her skirt up over her knees so she could settle cross-legged onto the grass to savor the sunshine, the scent of roses, and the company of pure innocence. Her skirt would be wet, but she didn’t care. “What will you call me, I wonder, when you get around to it?”
    “Fa!” Louisa announced again.
    Margot rested her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her hands. It was lovely to be doing nothing but watch a child trying to dig a dandelion out of the lawn. “Louisa,” Margot said.
    The child looked up, her eyes as merry now as if nothing untoward had taken place. “Sa!” she agreed. She held up the wooden spoon. “Poon! Sa, poon!”
    Margot chuckled. “Close enough, darling. Before you know it you’ll be ordering us all about, I imagine, and we’ll yearn for the days when your vocabulary consisted of ten words.”
    She felt, rather than heard, Blake’s approach. He stood a short distance away, not speaking, until she said, without looking away from the child, “Has everything settled down in there?”
    “Yes, Dr. Margot, I think so,” he said, a smile in his voice. “But Nurse is terribly worried.”
    “For Louisa, or for her job?”
    “I feel confident it’s for the baby. In my observation, she seems devoted to the little one.”
    “That’s good. I gather the maids aren’t fond of Nurse.”
    “No, she’s not a friendly sort. She keeps mostly to the nursery, but that’s her job, isn’t it? And it’s why she’s so upset now.”
    “You can reassure her. Louisa’s in perfect health.” She sighed, and pushed herself up to stand. “As you can see!”
    Louisa, her face intent, had reversed the spoon to try working on the dandelion with its handle. Blake said, “Miss Louisa, the roses need weeding, if you’re in the mood.”
    The little girl looked up at him, and said, very seriously, “Bake.”
    “Yes, miss,” he answered gravely, only the twitch of his lips giving away his amusement. “Bake.” He bowed from the waist. “At your service.”
    She nodded, accepting this, and went back to her task. Blake said, “You used to call me Bake, Dr. Margot. Until you were about three, I think. Once you realized there was a missing letter, you never did that again.” He twinkled at her. “I miss that.”
    She smiled. “So now you have another child to fuss over.”
    “A great blessing,” he said. “But children always are.”
    “Oh, Blake,” Margot said, shaking her head. “I wish that were true.”
    “You’re thinking of the Ryther Home.”
    “All those orphans and abandoned children! It’s unthinkable.”
    “Mrs. Ryther is an astonishing woman.”
    “Yes, she is,”