Chapter 5 Sunday Off
Ivy had practiced the sentence for two days
Mrs. Vanderbilt, may I have Sunday off? but standing in the sun-drenched conservatory, it vanished.
Cordelia Vanderbilt didn't look up from her newspaper. "You've been hovering outside my door for five minutes, Miss Sinclair."
"Four, ma'am," Ivy blurted.
Cold eyes rose over the page. "Four. Speak."
"I'd like Sunday afternoon off. For family. I'll be back by six."
"Sit," Cordelia said, folding her paper with one precise crease. She poured a second cup of tea with a deliberate clink. "If you want favors, you answer questions first. Where are you from? Your parents? Your references?" Each question was a neat little cut. "Do you have any intentions toward my son?"
The blade slipped in. "None," Ivy said, holding her gaze. "I'm here for the baby."
"Every girl on my steps said that."
"Then I'm the only one who meant it."
Before Cordelia could answer, Milo - hot and teething on Ivy's hip - decided he'd had enough. He went red, then loud, his wail shattering the quiet glass room.
Cordelia stiffened. "Perhaps you should-"
Ivy was already swaying, palm flat between his shoulder blades, humming that low wavering note she knew by heart. "I know. It hurts, doesn't it? I've got you, little bean." In under a minute, he sighed and melted against her neck.
Cordelia stared. The queen was gone. For a second she was just an old woman in a sunny room.
"He does not settle for strangers," she said quietly. "Not even for me." She reached for her tea, her hand not quite steady. "You may have your Sunday. Until six. And take a coat. The wind has teeth."
Ivy fled with shaking knees, Milo asleep on her shoulder, and didn't see Cordelia watching her go, her teacup untouched.
The bus to the east took forty minutes. Ivy spent all of them with her forehead against the glass, clutching a white envelope thick with her first wages.
The little yellow house on Alder smelled of lavender soap and cinnamon tea, just like she remembered. Only her mother didn't. Mrs. Sinclair was smaller now, swallowed by her own cardigan, her hair thin at the temples.
"There she is! You're thin. Are you eating?" she fussed, pulling her into a hug before a deep, rattling cough cut her off. She waved it away. "Dust. Don't mind it."
Ivy did mind. She saw the stack under the fruit bowl - FINAL NOTICE in red - and without a word, set her envelope on the table.
Her mother stared at it. "Ivy. Where did you get this much? You said you're just a nanny."
"It's mine to give, Mama. Take it. Please."
Mrs. Sinclair didn't touch it. She just looked at her daughter's face—too thin, too tight—and softened. "You've got that look. The one you had when you were small and hiding something in your pocket. Is there a man? Is he... kind to you?"
"No. Mama, no," Ivy said too quickly, and looked down at her tea so her mother wouldn't see the rest.
"Okay," her mother whispered, patting her hand, her smile trusting and unbearable. "Whatever it is, you can tell me when you're ready. I've got time."
The cough came again and stayed longer this time. And Ivy thought, " I don't know how much time you have," and tucked the thought deep where it couldn't hurt yet.
At that very hour, in the grand drawing room of the Vanderbilt estate, Vanessa Hartwell was learning how heavy a baby could be.
"Hold him properly," Alexander said from the sofa. "You'll drop him."
"I am holding him properly."
She was not. Her arms were stiff, her elbows locked, and she held Milo out in front of her like a package that might ring. He was a warm, wriggling, unreasonably solid weight, and every time he moved she flinched. Her hands, she noticed with growing horror, were trembling.
It was ridiculous. It was a baby. She had faced boardrooms, her father's lawyers, the most exacting women in society. She had never once been afraid of a human being under two feet tall.
But this one was looking at her. Not with fear, or confusion. With open, patient, appalled judgment.
He knows, she thought wildly, and then, Don't be stupid. He's a baby. He can't know anything.
"Why don't you sit?" Alexander suggested. He had put down his papers. He was watching her, very still, with those cool gray eyes. "Spend the afternoon with him. Miss Sinclair is out. He's your son."
"Of course. I'd love to."
She lowered herself onto the chaise, arranged Milo on her lap, and tried to smile.
Milo screamed.
It was a thin, outraged howl. He pushed against her chest with both fists. His face crumpled and went crimson, and he flailed, and somewhere in the flailing one small, determined hand closed over the delicate silk strap of her dress.
"Milo, darling, don't"
He pulled.
There was a soft snap. Then a second.
The straps of Vanessa's four-hundred-dollar designer dress parted like thread, and the bodice slid forward. She grabbed it with both hands, mortified, her cheeks flaming.
"You little"
The words were out before she could stop them, hot and furious and not at all the voice of a loving mother.
She froze.
Alexander had risen from the sofa.
He was not looking at the dress. He was looking at her face. His expression was perfectly calm, and perfectly cold, and Vanessa felt every drop of color drain out of her.
Smile, she thought. Smile. Now.
"Oh, darling," she said, and laughed, a high, bright, brittle sound. "He's so strong! Just like his father."
Alexander did not smile back.
"Vanessa." His voice was very quiet. "You are Milo's own mother. And yet the nanny is a better mother to him than you are."
The words hung in the drawing room like smoke.
Vanessa's hands tightened on the ruined silk. For a moment, the mask slipped. Fury, naked and bright, burned in her eyes before she wrestled it down.
"That is a terrible thing to say," she said, her voice trembling very slightly. "I've had a long week. The wedding, the planning, the pressure. I'm exhausted, Alexander, and he's teething, and I" She stopped. Pressed a hand to her forehead. "Perhaps I'm just not used to it yet. It's all so new."
"Is it?" Alexander said.
She had no answer to that.
Mrs. Hale appeared in the doorway as if summoned, which, Vanessa thought savagely, she probably had been. The old woman crossed the room without a word, took the screaming baby gently from Vanessa's lap, and tucked him against her shoulder. He quieted almost at once.
"I'll take him up, sir," Mrs. Hale said calmly. "He's due for his nap."
She left. The silence she left behind was thick.
Vanessa rose, clutching her dress, her pulse hammering in her ears. She summoned a brittle, perfect smile and did not look at Alexander's face.
"I need to change," she said. "Excuse me."
She walked out of the drawing room with her head high. She walked down the corridor with her head high. She walked up the stairs, past a maid who ducked her eyes, and into her bedroom, where she shut the door and leaned against it and shook with rage.
That girl.
It was Ivy Sinclair's fault. Somehow, in some way she could not yet explain, it was all that girl's fault. The calm baby. The soft looks. The way Alexander had said a better mother than you.
She tore her phone out of her bag and found the number.
It rang twice.
"Miss Hartwell?" Ivy's voice, cautious and faintly out of breath.
"Miss Sinclair." Vanessa's tone was so sweet it could have curdled milk. "I'm afraid your little holiday is over. You are to return to the estate immediately."
"But Mrs. Vanderbilt said I could"
"Mrs. Vanderbilt is not the one who pays you." A pause, soft and deadly. "Paid workers are not supposed to go on vacation."
