“Is Eleanor’s child mine?”
The midwife looked at him steadily.
“I cannot determine a father’s identity from a face or a date alone.”
“But you can tell me what happened.”
“I can tell you what I witnessed.”
She explained that Eleanor had delivered a boy in a private chamber while only Hester and Doctor Avery attended.
Augusta had been ordered to examine the child afterward, but the physician kept him behind a curtain.
Through the cloth, Augusta heard a small cry and recognized the sound of a newborn struggling with a difficult first breath.
When she reached for the curtain, Avery blocked her.
“She was holding a locket,” Augusta said.
“Who?” Caleb asked.
“Eleanor.”
“She told the physician to make sure the child had the right name.”
Caleb’s heart thudded.
“Which name?”
“Whitmore.”
“And what did he answer?”
Augusta lowered her eyes.
“He said the colonel had already ordered something else.”
Chapter Fourteen: The Colonel’s Other Child
The colonel’s order was not written in Eleanor’s ledger.
It had been carried in a separate envelope to the physician, and Augusta saw only the bottom of the page before Avery folded it away.
She remembered a red ribbon tied around the document and the word “custody” beneath a line of formal language.
“They were preparing to take one child from the estate,” she told Caleb.
“But I could not tell which one.”
Miriam held Ada closer.
“I heard Avery say he needed the other mother kept quiet.”
“He could have meant me.”
Augusta nodded.
“Or he could have meant Eleanor.”
Sarah Mott opened a box and took out a sheet of paper covered with dates.
She had written down each known journey between Hawthorne, the rented birth room, and Old Orchard.
She placed the births on separate lines so that nobody could confuse the children or the people who had held them.
“The children must be counted separately,” she said.
“And their mothers must be able to speak without someone standing over them.”
Caleb studied the page.
“What does the colonel want?”
Augusta answered with reluctance.
“He wants an heir whose parentage cannot be questioned.”
“And Eleanor?”
“She wants to survive him.”
“She has enough money to leave.”
“Money does not protect a woman from every law or every powerful man,” Augusta said.
“But that does not excuse what she did to you.”
Caleb looked at her, surprised by the firmness of the last sentence.
He had expected her to explain Eleanor’s fear until his own suffering disappeared inside it.
