Free Twelfth Night by Deanna Raybourn Page B

exchanging bank notes as wagers were settled. My own butler, Aquinas, was on hand to serve Father during troubles with his household, and I gave him a significant look and flicked a glance to Portia. He nodded. Our money would always be on her.
    But Father was in no mood to indulge sibling warfare. He lifted the shining helm in his arms, high over his head, and the gesture silenced the family as effectively as any shout might have done. He lowered it again and said in a stern whisper, “The child sleeps, and I’ll not have you lot waking it up. Now, Portia, your child is the youngest, and you’re the only one with a nanny in tow. You take charge of it. Brisbane, a word.”
    He thrust the helm at Portia before she could demur, and I saw the quick rage flare in her cheeks. She swept off and I hesitated, torn between supporting my sister and hearing the tasty titbits for myself. But Brisbane would relate all to me, I reminded myself, and I hurried after Portia.
    I caught up with her on the staircase, and she was muttering so loudly to herself she didn’t see me until she was on the second landing.
    “Careful, dearest. You don’t want the baby’s first words to be of the coarse variety,” I told her.
    She whirled on me. “You find this amusing? I have my hands quite full enough with my own child, thank you.”
    She swept on, and I attempted to make amends. “Darling, it is practical, you must admit. Jane the Younger is not even a year. She has a nanny and milk and nappies and whatever else babies need. You are the best equipped to care for it.”
    She turned again, her eyes suddenly bright. “I am the least equipped to care for anything. You know Jane. She’s a monster.”
    “She isn’t a monster,” I chided. “She’s high-spirited.” I tried not to remember how many times she had attempted to wrench the earrings from my lobes.
    “She is incorrigible. Do you know she opens her night bottle and pours the milk into her bed every night? And when Nanny warns her not to, she laughs.”
    “She is ten months old! She doesn’t know what she’s doing. It’s a game to her,” I protested.
    “It’s making Nanny cross. Very cross ,” she said meaningfully. “She might leave us. I can’t bear to think what might happen if she did. I would go mad.”
    “You would not. I don’t want to be stern with you, but you’re being very silly, Portia. Other women raise babies all the time, and they’re quite normal.”
    “Other women were brought up to do it,” she pointed out acidly. “We were brought up to be decorative and stylishly eccentric. Not useful.”
    She did have me there. She carried on, her voice fretful. “I mean it, Julia. I am only keeping Nanny by a carefully constructed series of bribes and concessions. If I thrust an extra child at her, she will leave us.”
    I thought for a second. “The maids are all young and unspeakably stupid, but Morag might do.”
    “What does your lady’s maid know about babies?”
    I shrugged. “She was one of seven. She must have learnt something.”
    “There were ten of us, and you and I know precisely nothing,” she said darkly.
    “Do not remind me.”

Chapter Three
    Young in limbs , in judgment old .
    — The Merchant of Venice , II, vii, 71
    It took a long while to smooth Nanny’s ruffled feathers, but the promise of a girl from the village, as soon as a suitable one could be found, went a long way to calming her—as did Portia’s promise of an extra ten pounds.
    “That’s extortionate,” I whispered to Portia as Nanny bore off the infant to inspect it.
    “You don’t know nannies,” she returned fiercely.
    Nanny pronounced the child fit and healthy—and a boy. “Born this last week, I would say. His little knot of cord has not yet fallen.”
    She wanted to show us, but I pleaded the Revels and scurried away, pausing only to inform Morag that she was wanted in the nursery.
    “What bloody for?” she demanded.
    I shrugged, and before she could argue