"Goodness, Sam! I beg your pardon, I only meant, how well you look, positively blooming," Christopher Foyle exclaimed.
He was a man of experience, years of restraint and the ability to school his expression to a bland imperturbability, but it had all flown, as if all those myriad moments were dandelion fluff to be blown away with the faintest breath; it had all gone when he'd entered the anteroom of the church and found Sam holding her new baby, Michael Edmund, wearing the most preposterous, elaborate and overdone hat he'd ever seen. It had a broad brim that must have been reinforced with steel girders to help support the number of silk flowers, feathers, ribbons…and was that a small bird, nestled between the peonies? A goldfinch? He was astonished she could balance it all as well as the baby with his christening gown trailing slightly yellowed lace down to the hem of her full skirt; there was the faintest scent of camphor and he suspected Sam herself had once worn the gown before it was carefully folded away, layered with tissue, in a box that had rested in her mother's closet for many years.
"Oh! I know, isn't it awful? I think I must have gone a bit mad when I bought it, but it was the first time I'd gone out since Michael was born and I, well, I suppose I went a bit wild. I also bought six jars of capers and Adam made me return the tie I'd picked out for him, which was rather a wise idea if he ever wants to stand for re-election," Sam said laughingly.
It was good to hear, good to know that she'd come through it all, still herself and even more, for she'd been gently stroking the baby's cheek while she spoke and hadn't been able to help gazing down at her son when she said his name. It had been a few weeks since he'd been by to visit, since he'd come to see her in hospital; there'd been an uneasy echo of when she'd been so ill with anthrax and had come so close, too close, to dying, but she'd only been tired and a little shy at being seen with her hair in two tails, a bed-jacket awkwardly draped round her shoulders and had glowed with pride showing him the swaddled baby when the nurse brought him by. He'd recognized the look in her eyes, remembered it in Rosalind's dark eyes, the new mother, besotted and bewildered in equal measure.
"Suppose we'll not have any trouble spotting you, at least," he said dryly, meaning to go on when he was interrupted with a very nasal "Halloo, darling Samantha!" called across the courtyard. Sam sighed, a familiar, long-suffering sigh, and murmured "Aunt Jocasta, down from Aberdeen. May the Lord have mercy on our souls."
"Seems you're in demand then," he offered.
Sam was an only child but had a large family composed of the most extensive repertoire of aunts and uncles and cousins, largely High Church and as eccentric as could be; Uncle Aubrey's greengage liqueur had proven to be quite dull after he'd had a longer acquaintance with the Stewart clan. He'd always wanted to ask Adam what he made of them, but there hadn't been an opportunity yet.
"She will go on and on, you must flee, Christopher, save yourself," she said, dramatically, like every heroine in the comics ever declaimed.
"Surely it's not so bad as that," he said.
"Of course not, but unless you have a burning desire to learn about her local gymkhana or her speculations about the use of woad by the Taexali, you may want to remove yourself post-haste but with your famous subtlety. Once she scents a fresh listener, it's devilishly hard to escape her clutches," she said, then paused, hitching the baby up in her arms a bit. "Or, better yet, I could create a diversion with her and you could sort of scuttle away," she said, clearly even more enthused by this prospect. He'd had to rein in this aspect of her when she was his driver, but as her friend, he could simply enjoy it. Her cheeks were pink with excitement and then she drooped, just a little, but noticeably, at least to someone who'd learned to pay attention to her.
"Blast! I can't quite create a very effective diversion with Michael here—would you take him, go find Adam perhaps, and I'll head Aunt Jocasta off at the pass?" she asked, putting his godchild into his arms without even waiting for him to agree.
She spun on the teetering heel of her court shoes, which made her taller than he was used to, or that was perhaps the absurd hat, and whirled off, flagging down her aunt while he got his bearings with Michael. It had been a long time since he'd held a baby, especially one this young, but it was comfortable and his hands remembered without any thought how to support the baby's fragile neck, to cup his diapered bottom. He shifted Michael in his arms, pressed him closer and looked down at his very small, pink face, unable to make out anything that resembled Sam or Adam very much, until he saw the baby's mouth move in his sleep as if he suckled, and then he saw Sam's bliss at satisfying an appetite, her full lower lip. He didn't feel he needed to run off in search of Adam, not right away, and let himself stand in the half-light with the child in his arms, sleeping as busily as his mother did, well, anything. He couldn't make out much of Sam's conversation with her aunt, though their voices carried, only a little—"my friend, Christopher, Christopher Foyle, Michael's godfather," said with pleasure, an explanation and a context, more than he expected, though her hat should have reminded him of her preference, how much more she was capable of than nearly anybody, how she could pull off the extraordinary and be quite obviously pleased with herself and humble, all at once.