His Defiant Wife, the Adventures of Linnett Wainwright, Book 2 by Vanessa Brooks

warmly and left him to sleep.
    By the time the
child woke, Linnett had made various preparations. She had made
porridge with oats for a meal. She had improvised for toys, putting
a few safe household items on a rug in the corner. She had put a
large pot of water on to boil so that she had warm water for the
child’s bath. The tiny boy sat up and blinked owlishly at her from
the bed.
    Linnett hurried
over to him, all the while crooning baby-talk to soothe him. He
watched her solemnly as she changed his makeshift napkin, which was
soaked through. Linnett dropped it into a pail and put the pail
outside the cabin door.
    Feeding the
baby was extremely hard work and Linnett got quite hot and
flustered. He would keep grabbing the spoon and the contents landed
on Linnett, the floor, or all down the front of the child.
Eventually, he seemed to have eaten his fill and Linnett deposited
him on the floor while she went to set up a bath for him.
    She had only
taken a couple of minutes to organise the tin bath and fill it with
the warm water. Yet when she turned her attentions back to the
baby, there was mess everywhere. He had found the basket of wet
washing that Linnett had dumped in the corner on her return from
the stream, pulled all the clothes out and crawled through them
with a very dirty napkin, which had failed to contain the contents
as well as Linnett had hoped it might.
    Linnett groaned
and went to pick up the unsavoury little character. His face split
into a huge grin as she bent down to him and he held up his chubby
little arms. Linnett’s heart missed a beat with the flood of
tenderness that welled up inside her, “Ohh you little darling!”
    Regardless of
his disgusting state, she hugged him and then stripped off the
offending garments, dropping them into the napkin pail on the door
step. “I shall be doing nothing but washing at this rate,” she told
him as she lowered him into the tub of warm water. The child loved
the warm bath and splashed and rolled about, chuckling with
glee.
    Linnett,
absolutely enchanted by his happiness, played with him for a while
and then reluctantly turned her attention to cleaning up the mess
he had left all over the cabin floor. The once clean washing from
the basket now joined the overflowing pail of dirty clothing
Linnett had placed outside the door. When the cabin was once again
reasonably straight, Linnett turned back to the tub and retrieved
the child.
    She dried him
in another of Sarah’s soft blankets and swaddled him in another
makeshift napkin.
    “What can I put
on your top half?” she asked his owlish little face. He grinned
again showing several small, even, pearly-white, teeth. “Ah, have
you got toothy -pegs then, you little poppet?” Linnett crooned.
“Auntie Linnett must give you something harder than porridge then
for your breakfast to keep those little teeth nice and strong.”
    “Tong,” the
child repeated happily.
    “Oh can you
talk?” Linnett said, startled.
    “Linnett” she
said slowly and then repeated her name over and over to the small
boy, but got no response.
    “Ah well, come
along, baby, let Linnett put you to bed.”
    She carried the
baby in his strange garb of ripped-up blankets and tucked him in on
John’s side of the bed. After a moment’s consideration she fetched
another, thicker blanket, folded it double and put it beneath the
child.
    “Net,” said the
baby suddenly.
    Linnett stopped
what she was doing and said, “That’s right, darling, my name is
Linnett.”
    “N-n-itt,” said
the babe, “an da ka ga gwa,” he crowed and reached out, his fat
little hands grabbing handfuls of Linnett’s hair.
    “What does that
mean, poppet? Hair, say hair, hair, hair.”
    “Ayah,”
repeated the child obediently, “ayah.”
    Linnett laughed
and bent to kiss his little golden cheek. “Go to sleep now, you
little rascal.” She tucked him firmly into the bed and he plugged a
small thumb into his mouth, his sooty lashes drooping