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sure don’t need another mouth to feed.”
    “How old are you, Becky?” Charlotte asked.
    “Fourteen.”
    “So young.”
    Becky shrugged. “About my mum’s age when she had me.”
    “And you, Sally,” Charlotte asked, “what will you do?”
    “I already had me boy two months ago now. I’m a wet nurse in the foundling ward. Didn’t you know?”
    “No, I…”
    “Guess I haven’t me figure back if you thought me still in my lying-in! I best lay off those jam tarts.”
    Bess and Mae laughed.
    “Forgive me, Sally.”
    “Never you mind, Miss Charlotte. I’ve been a big girl me whole life-I’m used to such.”
    “Your boy, is he … ?”
    “I’m blessed to have a sister who looks after my wee lamb. I’m nursing here until I find a better post.”
    “A post?”
    “Wet nurse, o’ course. Pays good, sleepin’ in the nice warm nursery of some fine house. Yes, that’s the life for me.”
     
    “But who nurses your own child?”
    “I told you. Me own sister. She’s always breeding and has a little ankle-biter right now what’s got her milk flowin’ but good. ‘Tis no bother to her to nurse another.”
    “You’re lucky,” Mae said. “My sister had to put her child out to take a wet nurse post. One of them baby farms, like, where the nurse had three or four others to feed. Poor thing near starved to death.”
    “Then why would she do it? Why leave her own child to nurse a stranger?”
    “A bit daft this one,” Bess murmured under her breath-but loud enough for all to hear.
    “The money, dearie,” Sally explained. “If she don’t work, she starves-and her own child with her.”
    “I’m sorry. I suppose I have never known that depth of want. I could never do that, leave my own to nurse someone else’s baby.”
    “Careful what you say, Charlotte,” Sally warned gently. “I’ll wager a year ago you never thought you’d find yourself in a place like this either.”
    “You are quite right.”
    “How … did … you end up here, Charlotte?”
    “Same way as everyone else I suppose.” But she could feel her face heat with a fierce blush.
    “Somehow I doubt that,” Mae said. “Who was the bloke? A baron, was it? Some scheming lord what promised you a wedding?”
    “Maybe she fell in love with the footman and her father forbade them marry,” Becky said wistfully.
    “Girls, don’t tease Charlotte so,” Sally urged. “You can see plain as anything she’s a lady.”
    Bess snorted. “Was a lady more like.”
    Sally put her hand over Charlotte’s. “Don’t listen to her, Charlotte. You’re still a lady in my eyes. All your handsome words and polite ways…
     
    “Handsome words and polite ways won’t get her very far ‘round here,” Mae said.
    “Won’t make a bit o’ difference when her time comes neither. I can just hear her now.” Bess began imitating an upper-crust accent. “I say, Dr. Preston, would you be so kind as to remove this melon from my middle?”
    Mae joined in. “Pardon me, but the pain is such that I fear I must yell my fool head off.”
    The others laughed good-naturedly, and Charlotte couldn’t take offense. She did continue to blush, however. And the first prickling of fear for the delivery itself began to work its way through her being.

    Charlotte was just about to blow out the bedside candle that night when the sound of a scream snaked beneath the door. Beside her, Mae groaned and young Becky slept on. Pulling her dressing gown around herself, Charlotte arose and stepped tentatively out into the passageway, holding the candle before her. She paused, listening. The draft in the old manor led the flame in an erratic, swaying dance. She heard no more screams, but she did hear footsteps approaching. She hesitated. Should she duck back into her room? How foolish! She was doing nothing wrong. No doubt some girl was in the pains of labour somewhere in the manor. Dr. Taylor appeared at the end of the passage his face drawn, rust-stubbled and