The baby.
I had not paid it so much attention, at first; all of that was focussed on the young woman who walked in, her whole bearing one of conscious and hard-held courage.
I knew her face from the television broadcasts of course: Ensign Hoshi Sato, Enterprise's communications officer. She was both smaller and much prettier than the official Starfleet photographs had made her appear, and her manners were exquisite.
Malcolm was sitting in a chair in the furthest corner of the room. He didn't speak or move when she came in, though I was quite sure that it was an enormous effort of will for him to stay still and silent; even now I didn't know what on earth he would do if he moved, but he had promised me that if she agreed to come here, he wouldn't put any pressure on her to fall in with the rest of our plans. I didn't miss the quick glance she darted in his direction, but I could hardly blame her for that.
"I believe from Ensign Gomez here that you're Malcolm's aunt," she said a little hesitantly, holding out her hand for a formal handshake. "I'm pleased to meet you."
"And I you, my dear. I only hope Emilia has not scared you senseless on the way here, telling you what a terrible, silly old woman I am." She was so pale and worn-looking (that dreadful Expanse business, with a baby on top of everything else!); I patted her hand. "I want to take you and Malcolm home to my house, for a little break right away from everything, so both of you can rest and talk if and when you want to. It's right out in the country, nobody ever comes near us. You can both have your own rooms, and come and go just as you please.
"And rest assured, nobody is going to force you to do anything at all you don't want to. If you change your mind and decide you'd like to go to your mother after all, then Mr Hobbs in the village will drive you to the train station straight away. But I should mention that the weather forecast was looking very good, and we may even have sunshine for most of the week. Though I won't guarantee it will hold till the weekend," I added hastily, unwilling to perjure myself on behalf of the always-temperamental English climate.
"Now, does that sound appealing?"
There was a short silence. Then this was followed by the distinct sound of something like a stifled cough from the direction of the chair in the corner, and next second everyone in the room was laughing.
"Oh, dear, Eddie used to tell me I do rattle on occasionally!" I pinkened, realising the habit was still with me, though in fairness to myself it usually happened when I was over-anxious. But it did my heart so much good to see that even Malcolm was laughing aloud, and Emilia came over and gave me a hug and said that she would bring her mother to meet me one day, which I was not at all sure was relevant to the matter in hand but seemed to be meant as a compliment.
Even Ensign Sato was smiling. "How could I possibly refuse?" She looked down at the little well-wrapped bundle in the sling across her chest. "Your grand-nephew's waking up. Would you like to meet him?"
The baby. It would have been the height of ill-manners to push for a view before being asked, but I had been conscious from the very start of just the smallest glimpse of a tiny, curled, mittened fist among the folds of the shawl he was wrapped in.
I really am a silly old woman. I blinked away a few ridiculous tears as I finally gazed down at the infant, who did indeed seem to be just waking up from a sound sleep.
Facially he seemed to favour his mother, but his father's frown crumpled his little countenance as he yawned and stretched. His unfocused eyes were dark blue, as I believe those of most babies are.
I glanced across at Malcolm, who was still in the chair, as tense as though he was tied in it. "Oh, my dear. He's absolutely adorable. You must be so proud of him."
"I've never been prouder of anything in my life."
Even to me his reply was full of ambiguous shades. Hoshi, who had not looked at him again after that first assessing glance, now turned to him with a gentle smile. "Well, don't you want to hold your son?"
There was no doubt about that. He stood up at once, but his gaze flicked between her and the child, full of confusion and nervousness. My heart ached for him.
Major Hayes cleared his throat. "I guess this is as good a time as any to make us all a cup of coffee."
Emilia took the hint at once. "Excelente!" she beamed. "And Seňora St Clair and I will go out and buy some cake. They will have some in the shop, which will do sólo por hoy."
I was not at all sure what solo por hoy meant, and I abhor shop-bought cake in the general way, but I consoled myself that I am thought by the village bakers to make a very tolerable fruit scone, and there would be plenty of time to make amends for this one unavoidable misfortune.
Malcolm, poor boy, was now looking as though he was being abandoned to the lions. I pitied him more than ever, but he was going to have to draw on the courage of which he had never had less than enough. And that, I thought, might yet be his salvation; it was only when he was not being called on to be brave that he began to question his own courage.
Emilia, I think, felt the same way. She gave him this strange little moue, wrinkling up her nose, and then took my arm and led me out of the room. Major Hayes called warningly that we should not be too long about choosing which cake to buy, but he was not slow about taking himself into the little kitchen, where at a guess he would take a quite unconscionable length of time about finding the ingredients for a simple cup of coffee.
"Poor Patrón! Now he will have to do the thing he hates worst of all – talk!" She gurgled with laughter, but sobered quickly. "En verdad, Seňora, we owe you a great debt. But for your generosity, I do not know what we should have done."
"Nonsense!" I said robustly. "Where else should he go, I'd like to know? And Ensign Sato and the baby are more than welcome, for as long as she chooses to stay. Please make sure she understands that."
"I will tell her," she nodded, looking relieved. "Time is what they need – what both of them need. Time, and rest."
"They shall have both at my house. And Mrs Hobbs is the retired District Nurse, and has eight grandchildren of her own, so we shall ask her to keep an eye on Charles' health for the duration of his stay." Mentally I made a note to enlist Sarah Hobbs' redoubtable help to keep my visitors' identities a secret; the Reeds' place was still, I had heard, intermittently under surveillance in case their injured son came home. Not that I intended for a moment to forego the delight of showing off my grand-nephew around the village, but Sarah with her seemingly inexhaustible supply of cousins, nieces, nephews and godchildren was more than capable of 'discovering' a remote relation who just happened to be visiting with a baby the two of us were taking for an airing.
I could also rely on her to produce whatever might be needed for the infant's immediate welfare, such as the loan of a cot during his stay. Knowing her, the first suggestion of Charles' existence would have her materialising on the doorstep with whatever she thought we might stand in need of, and the prospect of keeping him hidden in plain view would appeal irresistibly to her occasionally reprehensible sense of humour.
The thought of the situation at home brought it to me sharply that I was, in fact, plotting to bring my nephew and his fellow-officer and their son to my house and keep them there in absolute secrecy, while his own parents mere miles away remained in ignorance. Normally I felt little warmer than contempt for my brother, while my feelings for his wife veered between mild scorn and pity as the occasion demanded, but even I realised that what I was planning was extremely serious. This did not worry me in the least on my own account – being perpetually expelled from Stuart's world if my perfidy was discovered was a state I would have welcomed with open arms – but whatever my brother might be, Mary would be cut to the quick by it if she found out. As spineless as I had often thought her, I could not justify that.
Was it possible to contrive some way to bring her in secrecy to see her grandson? I truly did not know. It was rare to see her in the village alone (especially since the business of the Expanse, Stuart had appointed himself her constant guard), but she had never been in the habit of paying social calls on me. It would take some ingenuity to devise a reason that would neither make that wretched husband of hers suspicious nor inspire him to accompany her.
The thought did occur to me that the sight of his grandson might actually shake my brother out of his stupidity, but he'd always made such a virtue out of his idiotic obstinacy that I could put no reliance on this idea. Best, at any rate, not to put it to the test if I could help it. It shamed me to admit it, even to myself, but the man was such a morass of ridiculous prejudices that he might even hold it as yet another cause of blame in his son that he'd fathered a child on a junior officer – and worse still (from his point of view), a woman of Asian origin.
In the meantime, we had reached the shop, presumably set up to cater for visitors. Prominently displayed on several shelves were items that were labelled 'cake', though as I inspected them I thought somewhat uncharitably that this was not among the terms that would have been applied to them at the village's annual baking competition.
A confection that was vilely self-aggrandising in calling itself a Victoria Sponge seemed to be the least of all the available evils, though it was not only oozing a disgraceful amount of buttercream on top of the jam filling, but had an even thicker layer of the same on top. Mrs Phillips, the President of the local WI, would have had the perpetrator of such a monstrosity burnt at the stake, though it had to be admitted that she was known for her extreme views on such delicate subjects.
Emilia grinned at the sight of my expression. "Malcolm will eat it, you will see, Seňora," she said blithely, entering her credit details into the self-service till. "When you are aboard a starship for three years, you get used to eating what is available."
"Life aboard Enterprise must have been even more gruelling than I had imagined," I replied drily as we carried the offending article back towards the wing of the main building that housed my nephew's room. "I had thought he was serving on a starship, not a prison ship."
"Demonios, it is not quite that bad!" She laughed, unoffended. "Actually, Chef is an excellent cook. He makes the most of what he has available. It is his misfortune that much on a starship has to be recycled – including what we eat."
"Please. Spare me the details."
She nodded, though her eyes twinkled. "Maybe we should not be in such a hurry to go back," she whispered conspiratorially. "Give them a little longer..."
"I think they have had quite long enough." I looked at her severely, which merely amused her further. "For a tactical officer, Ensign, you appear to have a very limited understanding of strategy and tactics."
This entertained her enormously. She was still chortling quite immoderately when we arrived back at our destination.
