My Last Duchess, стр. 51
“What sort of experience is the right experience?” he asked.
But she had bent near again and was studying the baby’s face. “I don’t like the look of him,” she said, pursing her lips.They were rose-colored, those lips.
Wick looked past her lips to Jonas. “At least he’s sleeping,” he said. “He cried all night.”
“That’s because of the pain,” she said. “You’d better give him to me. We have to get some water in him, first thing, thenwe’ll deal with the milk.”
Before he knew what was happening, she slipped her hands around the baby and lifted him deftly out of Wick’s arms. “Here!You can’t do that,” he said, alarmed at the very thought of Gabriel or, God forbid, Kate knowing that he’d allowed a strangerto take the baby.
But the girl—
“What did you say your name was?” he asked.
She finished tucking the fold of the blanket under Jonas’s face before she looked at him. “I didn’t,” she said. “I am PhilippaDamson.”
“Like the jam?” Wick asked. She was sweet as jam, and that part of her name suited her. He’d like to lick—
He wrenched his mind away.
“Exactly like the jam,” she said, turning toward the door. “Now come along, Mr. Berwick. This baby needs water immediately.”
Wick stared after her for a moment.
At the door, she looked over her shoulder. “You have to show me to the kitchen.”
“Kitchen?” he echoed, trying to figure out how to get Jonas from her arms without waking him. Gabriel would never forgivehim. He didn’t even want to think about how Kate would react. “Look, you must give the baby back to me. I promised His Highnessthat I, and I alone, would hold Jonas—that is, the young princeling.”
“He needs water,” Miss Damson said. “Or he will die.” She looked down again. “I think there’s a chance he won’t live throughthe night, actually. Babies die awfully quickly if they don’t drink enough.”
Wick walked forward and pushed the door open before her. “Straight to the end of the corridor and down two flights.”
When they reached the kitchen, nine or ten heads swiveled almost in unison. The castle’s kitchen was a vast space with a stonefloor. Worktables were arrayed around the room, scrubbed to a fare-thee-well, and covered with copper pans of all sizes andshapes. It was full of people, as always: the cook, three kitchen maids, a dairymaid, and a couple of scullery maids workingat the sink to one side.
They all snapped upright at the sight of Wick, except for Madame Troisgros the cook, who considered herself his equal, ifnot his better. The already complex hierarchy of castle staff was further complicated by Wick’s relationship to the prince.Even had Gabriel (who showed no such inclination) wished to keep their fraternity a secret, one of his elderly aunts regularlytook pleasure in shocking polite company by announcing that she preferred Wick to his brother Gabriel.
By rights, a young nursemaid would find herself quite far below the cook, though certainly above the dairymaid. And yet PhilippaDamson walked into that kitchen like the lady of the house. She unerringly put her eye on the cook, a lady twice as broadand four times as fierce as anyone else in the room.
“Qu’est-ce que c’est que ça?” snapped Madame Troisgros.
Without pausing for breath, Miss Damson broke into charming, if urgent, French. As all could see, she had the little princein her arms. He needed water, but it must be special water, water boiled, then cooled. And she also needed a cloth, a cleanlinen cloth, to be boiled in a different pot of water, then cooled.
Madame Troisgros had the eyes, Wick thought, of a rabid French weasel, if such a thing existed—small and rather crazed-looking.As she opened her mouth, undoubtedly to refuse, Miss Damson walked across the kitchen to her.
“Regardez,” she said, drawing back the cover that protected the prince’s face.
Confronted by that tiny, exhausted face, Madame Troisgros flinched and pointed with her ladle to a chair. Miss Damson obedientlysat down. A few minutes later, an immaculate piece of linen was shown to Miss Damson for her approval, then carefully placedin a pot of boiling water.
Even more servants began drifting into the kitchen, although the room remained as silent as a church as everyone strove tokeep Jonas asleep. The housekeeper appeared and hovered in the background; two or three footmen had apparently deserted theirposts in the front hall as they now stood quietly against the walls. The knife boy had stopped sharpening his wares and wassitting on a three-legged stool, his mouth open.
“Stop hovering!” Miss Damson ordered Wick in a low voice. “Babies don’t like nervous influences.”
“Gabriel might have woken; he might be searching for us in the gallery,” Wick said, entirely forgetting that he generallyreferred to his brother as His Highness in public. Miss Damson was that sort of woman. She made a man lose his head.
“Why not send a footman to stand outside the prince’s bedchamber so as to inform him of our location when he wakes? Meanwhile,you’ll have to take the baby while I wash my hands,” she said, and slipped Jonas back into Wick’s arms with no more fuss thanif she were transporting a pudding.
To Wick, Jonas looked worse than he had even an hour before. The skin around his eyes was the deep blue of a bruise. His littlenose stood out from his face, as if the skin had receded around it. He was an extraordinarily unattractive baby, which didnothing to assuage the feeling of pure grief and panic Wick felt at seeing his nephew in this state.
“It’s not too late, is it?” he heard himself saying. Everyone in the kitchen froze.
Miss Damson had washed her hands, and was now wringing out the cloth and dipping it in the pot of boiled, cooled water. “Absolutelynot,” she said firmly. “Sit down.”
Wick thought a bit dazedly about the fact that he never took orders except from