Wicked, My Love by Susanna Ives Page A

infant, maybe a little older than three, looking up at them with large, vacuous eyes. He jammed a tiny finger in his nose and plucked out a nice gift for them.
    Nurse, clearly unaware of Isabella and Randall standing on the doorstep, lumbered forward with squirming dirt-eater still trapped beneath her arm and a wet, dripping washcloth in her hand. “Close that door. You’re… Oh heavens, callers,” she exclaimed with the same enthusiasm that one has for tax collectors.
    Dirt-eater was more hospitable. He emitted a happy shriek and clapped his hands as his nurse set him down.
    Randall yanked off his hat, placed it over his heart, and grabbed Isabella’s elbow. “Pardon me, ma’am. I’m Mr. Randy. A respectable, ’ardworking fellow I am. And this is me sister Izzy May. I’m requesting an audience with the ’onorable Mr. Busby.” He lowered his voice, leaned in, and raised a brow. “Regarding an extremely serious personal matter.”
    The way the nurse looked at him, her eyes weary and battle-hardened, made Randall think that the only matters that swayed her were of the magnitude of houses burning, children falling in wells, and being down to her last drop of elderberry wine. Before the put-upon woman could speak, a loud, high-pitched voice pierced the hall. “Why, she’s increasing!”
    Around the hefty nurse stepped a pretty brunette just a few years older than Isabella and Randall. She wore an expansive, bell-like skirt layered in ruffles, and her corset was laced so tightly that it pushed up her ample breasts, forming a shelf of flesh below her neck. In her arms she held a fat, gurgling baby, whose chubby red face looked as if it would burst out of its lace cap. “I just love babies. Yes, I dosy-wosy,” she told the infant. “I just adore the little-wittle things. Ouch! Don’t pull Mama’s hair! Stop!” She ripped one of her spiral curls from the baby’s grasp. “So how much longer?” She gazed at Isabella with bright, happy eyes, unfettered by intelligence or self-awareness.
    â€œLonger?” Isabella’s brows curved in confusion.
    â€œUntil you have the baby-waby, dearie.”
    Isabella’s lips quivered. She looked up at Randall, uncertainty in her eyes. He saw the gaping flaw in his brilliant scheme—neither he nor Isabella knew a thing about infants. Well, aside from how they were made. After all, she had explained the process to him years before, and he had done a great deal of practicing since then—that is, in the act of making babies, but never actually creating one.
    â€œFive months?” Isabella ventured as she scratched her gown above the bulge.
    â€œJust five?” the woman in the mountainous skirts exclaimed. “This must not be your first little darling-warling. I was an absolute house at just the third month of my second dearsy. A house, I tell you. And what an active baby she was. I couldn’t sleep for her kicking me. And mind you, that sweet little hunny-bunny decided to turn around just before she was born.”
    â€œTurn around?” Isabella echoed.
    â€œHer little broadside first,” the woman explained, and turned her bundle of lace and joy to illustrate. “Sixteen hours I labored before the midwife got the forceps and—”
    â€œMrs. Busby,” the nurse cut in, “remember what your husband said about sharing too many unnec essary details.”
    But it was too late. Isabella’s mouth had dropped in horror. She began to edge to the door, but Randall held her tight. No, love, we are in this folly together.
    â€œOh, don’t you fret now,” Mrs. Busby assured Isabella. “It was nothing compared to the first, as you well know.”
    The woman waited for a response. Isabella had none to give but a high, nervous squeak as a bead of perspiration rolled down the side of her face.
    â€œWell,” Mrs. Busby continued, “ I