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safe with her mother in heaven. But he desperately wanted Camilla to live.
    Mrs. Valleau handed her baby to Mrs. Cameron, and then reached out her arms for his daughter.
    Erik hesitated. An unfamiliar paternal protective feeling made him reluctant to part with his child, but he forced himself to hand the baby to the woman.
    “So tiny,” she murmured softly, holding Camilla in one arm, while with the other hand, she unbuttoned a flap near her chest.
    He caught a glimpse of a full breast with a dark nipple, so different from Daisy’s small pink-tipped ones.
    The woman fastened the baby to her nipple.
    Erik turned away, embarrassed, waited a minute and thought it might be safe to peek from the corner of his eye. At first, Camilla didn’t attach, and he began to worry all over again.
    The woman gave him a reassuring smile. “It be takin’ a bit of gittin’ used to for one just birthed.” The words held a slight French accent. “This little one be catchin’ on, just you watch.” She persisted in coaxing the child to nurse.
    The baby’s mouth closed over the nipple. She began to suckle, making tiny smacking noises.
    Relief made Erik’s knees weak, and he stepped back, collapsing onto a chair against the wall and dropping his head in his hands to hide his emotion. Thank you, Lord. Thank you. Thank you!
    A hand dropped on his shoulder and squeezed. “You’ve had a hard time of it, Erik Muth,” said Dr. Cameron. “It’s early days, and I canna make promises. But the lassie is feedin’ well, and that’s a good sign. Mrs. Valleau seems to be an experienced mother, and her boys look healthy.”
    Erik wiped his arm across his face and lifted his head. “Thank you, Doctor.” He looked over at the woman who was giving his daughter sustenance from her body. “Thank you, Mrs. Valleau. I don’t have words to tell you how much this means to me.”
    She smiled. For a moment, the shadows in her eyes lightened. “Sounds like you just be doin’ so.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    S ince Jean-Claude’s death, Antonia had been unable to feel anything but the heaviness of her grief, as if all her other feelings had frozen. Yet, looking at the child in her arms, so much smaller than her boys had been at their births, she felt a wave of love, of possession, as strong as the feelings she’d had when Jean-Claude had first placed each of her sons at her breast after their birth. “ Ma ch é rie ,” she murmured so softly only she and the babe could hear.
    Don’t be gittin’ attached, Antonia told herself , glancing across the room at Erik, still sitting in the chair against the wall. She had no doubt the man loved his daughter. Camilla be not yours to keep, she reminded herself. You be givin’ her back.
    Henri came to lean against her, as was his habit. “ Maman , I’m hungry.”
    Mrs. Cameron jiggled Jacques on one hip and extended a hand to Henri. “Of course, you are. Why don’t you come with me? I’m sure you’d like a nice piece of bread with jam. We can give your brother a crust to gnaw on. Then I’ll prepare a meal for everyone, and you can help me.”
    Henri looked to Antonia for permission.
    She nodded. “Bread and jam be a treat. My young ’uns be not gittin’ such as that.”
    Henri straightened looking more animated than she’d seen him since his father had died, and took Mrs. Cameron’s hand.
    Antonia detached the infant from her breast and placed her on her shoulder, patting the baby’s back. “Camilla be a right purty name,” she said to Mr. Muth.
    The man stared at them, a strained look on his face. “My wife thought so, too.”
    “Sure be. No shortage of beauty in this’un, neither,” Antonia said, although her even tone belied a pang at how close Camilla sounded to Carmelina , which is what she and Jean-Claude planned to call the daughter they’d hoped to have. A child who’ll never be born. She strove to suppress the thought. She had more than she could bear with real losses. No sense mourning the