What a Widow Wants

by Jenna Jaxon

  She sat back down and the trap opened. The middle-aged coachman bundled up in coat, hat, and gloves against the cold peered down at her. “Yes, my lady?”

  “Have we missed the stage coach station? I wouldn’t think it so far from the city’s center.”

  “No, my lady. You’re not wrong about that; however, his lordship instructed me to take you to Copsale myself rather than put you and the child on the coach. Chancy things are stage coaches. Our first change is at the Duke of Welling Inn in Mickleham, about two hours now.” With a nod of his head, he lowered the trap door and Fanny sat back, pleased and surprised by Theale’s unexpected largesse.

  Perhaps he’d had a softening of his heart, although she’d rather lay odds that Lavinia had talked him into this kindness. Surprising, considered their stormy skirmishes throughout the years. Of course, it likely stemmed from the marchioness’s fondness for Ella rather than any sympathetic feelings for her. Whatever the circumstance, Fanny thanked her sister-in-law with all her heart. She drew Ella back to her and pulled the blanket over them both, relaxing enough to allow her utter fatigue to claim her at last.

  * * *

  Spreading marmalade on a piece of toast, Matthew contemplated the half-eaten plate of food before him with loathing. The smoked herring had been too salty, the sausages burned, the cold veal pie a congealed mess, and now he feared the toast would be stale. Nothing tasted right this morning. Nothing had been right ever since he had broken with Fanny.

  He’d fled Lyttlefield Park at first light, still incensed by Fanny’s high-handed manner. The carriage had made excellent time, due to a lucky decision to give the Three Pigeons his custom. They had been able to change the horses immediately, thus continuing without any significant loss of time. Once they’d arrived at Hunt House mid-afternoon, he’d called around to his club, but it was deadly dull. Most chaps had already left Town for their country estates for Christmas, which it was high time he did as well.

  Although he had planned to leave for Hunter’s Cross this morning after breakfast, he found himself dragging his feet. Thinking about Fanny and their latest quarrel. Perhaps he’d been wrong to have waited to see her. It must look to her as though he’d abandoned her and Ella, but that wasn’t true. He’d simply needed time to wrap his head around the notion that Ella was his actual daughter, an amazing notion when he stopped to think about it. Even if he had missed much of her babyhood, he could still be a part of her life forever, if he only could make peace with her mother.

  Even after his ire over the situation had cooled, his desire for Fanny certainly hadn’t. Seeing her in Kent had answered that question once and for all, for he’d been uncomfortably aroused during the wedding ceremony, thinking that if it had been their ceremony he’d have forsworn the wedding breakfast and spirited her away to ravish his bride without a thought for propriety. Their argument had cooled his ardor, but only for as long as it had taken him to arrive back at his empty town house. He wanted to be married to Fanny, and no other.

  Tossing his napkin over his ill-fated breakfast, Matthew rose, determined to make an end to his misery. Had Fanny left yesterday as most of the guests had planned to do? If his luck was in, she might be breakfasting at Theale House this very moment. He’d send a note, asking to call. Striding out of the room, in search of his writing materials, Matthew halted in the corridor. Plague take it, he wanted more action than writing a damned note. He stepped back into the breakfast room and rang the bell.

  Upton appeared precisely a minute later. “Yes, my lord?”

  “Have my horse brought round the front. I need to go out this morning after all.”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  Matthew raced up the stairs to his suite to change into riding boots. A short ride would tell him if Fanny were home or not. If so, he would insist on seeing her and would not leave until they had reached an accord. If she had not arrived yet, he’d continue to Hyde Park and work off his excess energy there on Spartan. Whistling a bawdy drinking tune, he blew into his empty chamber. It might be empty now, but by God it wasn’t going to be for much longer.

  * * *

  The slowing carriage woke Fanny, who stretched and sat up. They were pulling into a coaching inn to change the horses. She’d ask to go in for a few minutes, to get some tea and bread and butter for her and Ella. She rubbed the child’s back. “Wake up, sleepy head.”

  With an amazing yawn, Ella sat up. “Where are we, Mama?”

  “At a place called the Duke of Wellington Inn, my love. Do you see the sign?” She pointed at the placard hanging over the door with the duke’s coat of arms painted on it. “We are here to change the horses and stretch our legs. Want to come with me to find something to eat?”

  The child nodded happily, and Fanny pulled her coat around her, then helped her from the carriage. “We will be back shortly, Davies,” she called as they trudged across the cold courtyard.

  Presently she and Ella were sipping tea and chatting over a plum tart, although Fanny could only nibble hers. The swaying motion of the carriage had made her stomach queasy, likely because of the child. Another child for her and Matthew. It scarcely seemed possible. She must pray very hard that he forgive her folly and come to her in Copsale. The alternative, to bear this child without benefit of a husband, she refused to think of.

  They finished quickly, then stood for a moment, stretching their legs before returning to the carriage. The sun was not quite directly overhead as they swept out of the inn yard. Still many hours of travel ahead of them. Perhaps she could take her mind off of Matthew and her queasy stomach. “Shall we sing songs for a while, Ella?”

  “Oh, yes, Mama.” The girl sat up straight, blue eyes sparkling. “What shall we sing? Do you know ‘London Bridge’?”

  “Yes, lovey. Why don’t you start it?”

  They whiled away the hours singing and playing clapping games until Ella fell asleep again, leaving Fanny to drowse against the carriage door until she roused when they stopped at another inn, the Chequers in Southwater. Again she and Ella went in although this time Fanny requested a room for an hour so she and Ella could use the necessary, wash up, and have a real meal.

  All too soon they were back in the carriage, now a bit more uncomfortable than before from the weariness of travel, and on their way on the last leg of the journey. By Fanny’s estimation, they should arrive at her cousin’s home in Copsale in time for tea. Nothing would be more welcome than to cease moving and truly rest. She did hope Cousin Harriet had received her note. Otherwise she and Ella would be quite the surprise.

  Fanny must have dozed off again, for the slowing of the carriage made her eyes flutter open. She sat up, moving Ella who slept with her head in her mother’s lap.

  “Are we here?” She spoke aloud, easing her daughter onto the seat beside her. Expecting a row of houses, she peered out of the window. To her surprise, all she saw were trees in the afternoon sunlight. Peering and squinting to see in front of the carriage, she could discover no reason why they should have stopped. Had the horse thrown a shoe? The carriage seemed level, so they likely hadn’t broken a wheel. She knocked on the trap. “Davies! What seems to be the matter?”

  The carriage door nearest her opened and the coachman peered in.

  “Why have we stopped?”

  “You need to get out, my lady.” He shot his hand forward and grabbed her wrist.

  “What? No! Let me go!” Fanny pulled against him, outraged. Had the man gone stark staring mad? “What are you doing?”

  Releasing her arm, he threw her back against the seat and grabbed Ella instead, who shrieked and tried to scoot backward.

  “No!” Fanny lunged at him, striking him on his shoulder.

  He flung her off, slid his arms around Ella, and hoisted her into the air. She kicked out wildly, her heels striking him in his chest. Still nothing deterred him and he dragged the child out of the carriage and dumped her onto the grass.

  “Lord Theale will have your guts for garters when I t
ell him what you have done.” Fanny scrambled out the door and swooped down, putting her arms around her weeping child. “He has never brooked such disrespect from his servants.”

  “Little you know about it, my lady.” The man sneered and dragged her small trunk from the back of the carriage. “His lordship was the one told me to do this.”

  “What? He never would have ordered such a thing.” A trickle of fear slid down her spine, however. Theale had been incensed by her infidelity to Stephen. Would he have gotten his revenge in such a horrible fashion?

  “Seems he did.” Davies dropped the trunk in front of her. The lock popped open and some of her clothing fell onto the grass. “He said when I left you to tell you this was with his compliments and a fitting end for a disloyal wife.” With those words, the coachman leaped back up onto the box, gathered the ribbons, and started the horses. They turned neatly in the field—Fanny shielded Ella as the carriage careened on the uneven grass behind them—then steered back onto the road and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

  “Mama, where’s he going? Why is he going without us?” Ella’s tearstained face stared up into her own.

  “Someone has played a very nasty trick on us, lovey. Here, let’s get up from the cold ground.” Fanny helped Ella to her feet, then stuffed her clothing back into the trunk. Once it shut, she sat down on the lid, all the strength running out of her legs. She stared down the road at the vanishing carriage, hatred for her brother-in-law raging forth as she called every evil curse she could think of down on his head. How could Theale do something like this to her? To her child? The old scoundrel must be deranged.

  “What are we going to do, Mama?”

  Their prospects were bleak at best. The road was empty and though the sun still shone, night would come all too soon. Still, she must put on a good face for Ella. She didn’t want her daughter to be afraid. “Let Mama catch her breath, my love. I’ll think of something.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Having handed his horse to a groom, Matthew ran lightly up the steps of the portico, raised the shiny brass lion’s head knocker, and let it fall with a series of loud booms on the plate beneath. Theale House sat on the far end of Hanover Square in Mayfair, an imposing three-story structure of whitewashed brick that had stood since the square had been created almost a hundred years before. A more prestigious address would be hard to find.

  The door opened on an impeccably attired butler. The marquess had the reputation of being a stickler, insisting everything be perfectly correct, from his servants’ livery, to his house’s door knocker, to his pedigreed wife, to his own flawless dress.

  “Good morning, my lord.” The man bowed, a precise movement that he must practice in his spare time.

  “Good morning. I am Lord Lathbury. Might I inquire if Lady Stephen is at home?” Matthew stood poised to continue into the house.

  The little man’s mouth tightened. “I am sorry, my lord, but I have been instructed to give no information about the lady.”

  What the devil? Frowning, Matthew stepped back. “You cannot tell me if she is here? I believed she would have arrived yesterday.”

  “I am sorry, but I cannot say.” The butler refused to meet Matthew’s eyes.

  This was all deucedly odd. What had happened to Fanny? Cocking his head, Matthew stepped toward the somewhat flustered butler. “Who has given you this instruction? Your master?”

  “That is correct, my lord.” Fear shown in the man’s wide eyes, almost completely white with only a dot of brown in the centers. So Theale was behind whatever had happened to Fanny.

  “You refuse to tell me where she is.” Matthew pushed inside the doorway, the butler giving ground immediately.

  “I am sure I don’t know where she is, my lord.” The small man put up a hand as though to ward off a blow.

  “Then who would know?” Taking shameless advantage of his height and size, Matthew loomed menacingly over the man now cowering before him.

  “His lordship.” The whimper was almost too low to hear.

  Something was terribly wrong. A pit opened up in Matthew’s stomach. “Take me to him.”

  The butler closed the door and scurried away, all his former aplomb dashed to bits. He led Matthew down the corridor, finally stopping in front of what looked like a library or study from the glimpse he got of shelves of books. Trying to shake off his unease, the man straightened his coat, raised his chin, and marched into the chamber. “Lord Lathbury.”

  Striding in, Matthew assumed an air of disregard, as though he had no care in the world. He’d made the acquaintance of the marquess many years ago, though they had not met for some time now. A much older-looking Theale, cheeks jowly with deep lines about the mouth, sat behind a long desk at one end of the cramped room, in an overly large chair that seemed to diminish him further. A fire crackled in the grate behind him, framing him in flames. He bowed. “Lord Theale.”

  Narrowed eyes met him over a mouth that snarled. “You are bold as brass to come here, Lathbury. Did you think that strumpet who married my brother didn’t tell me of her perfidy with you?”

  Hair bristling on his neck, Matthew clenched his hands, lest his temper get the better of him. For sixpence he’d drive his fist through the marquess’s sneering face. “I will thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, my lord.”

  “You dare preach to me? Defiler of wives. Seducer of happily married women.” Theale seemed about to warm to his subject.

  Matthew cut him short. “I don’t give a tinker’s damn what you say about me. You’re more than likely right, although I’d not say that Fanny was ever a happily married woman.” He held up a hand to stay Theale’s protest. “But she is a sweet, loving, and kind lady and you will not abuse her either behind her back or to her face. Not while I am within earshot of you.” He grinned. “My lord.”

  Theale beat upon the arm of the chair. “Do you deny you cuckolded my brother?”

  “Why bother to deny what you already know?” Matthew shrugged. “I comforted Fanny when her husband had hurt her most grievously. He had a treasure that he threw away with both hands. Do not blame me if I saw its worth and picked it up for my own.” Pray God he had not thrown the treasure away as well. “And why blame Fanny? Your brother was certainly no saint. His infidelities were legendary, both in scope and number. All the ton knew what he was. It’s only a pity Fanny did not until it was too late.”

  “You will not disparage Stephen in this house! I will not hear it.” Rising from his chair, the marquess shook with anger.

  “Then I suggest you stop your ears, because I intend to enlighten you about your precious brother, although I suspect you already know about his escapades.” If the marquess didn’t know the extent of the merry hell his brother had fashioned for Fanny, by Jove he shortly would.

  Theale held up a hand. “Spare me your sputterings. Of course I knew about Stephen’s indiscretions. Some from him directly, some from rumors in the ton. He was a man. A man has needs beyond the marriage bed.”

  “Not all men.” Matthew cocked an eyebrow. “Or do you speak from experience, my lord? I’ve never heard your name bandied about in the on-dits of ton-nish circles, but perhaps you’ve been very discreet as well.”

  “By God, you are impertinent, sir!” Red splotches appeared on Theale’s face as his eyes seemed ready to pop from his head.

  Much as he despised the man for ignoring Fanny’s pain, he didn’t want the marquess to have an apoplexy—at least not until he’d told him of Fanny’s whereabouts. “I have done with you, my lord, if you will kindly tell me where Fanny is, I will remove myself before my impertinence grows.”

  The marquess’s lips cracked open in a mirthless laugh. “You can go to the devil, and that harlot with you, if you can find her. I have no idea where she is at the moment. Running from you, perhaps?”

  A qualm of doubt flickered across Matthew’s mind, then he brushed it away. Fanny would not have done such a thing and left Ella behind in this house. If Ella was here.
There was one way to find out. “Doubtless running from you, I suspect. Did she take our daughter with her?”

  Theale leaped up as though the chair had catapulted him. “Do not mention that bastard spawn to me. I rejoice in one thing alone—that Stephen did not live to hear that his daughter was your by-blow.”

  Though cringing at the word, Matthew made himself affect a more casual attitude. “As I intend to acknowledge her as my child, I would like to see her now, if I may.”

  “No.” The clipped word spoke volumes.

  “She is my daughter.”

  “Not under the law.”

  “I would think you’d like to rid yourself of her,” now to deal the most punishing blow, “since she’s no part of Stephen at all. In almost ten years of marriage he couldn’t quite pass muster in the getting of children, could he?”

  “You filthy cur. How dare you—”

  “Tell me where Fanny and Ella are and I will be happy to leave.” Matthew placed his hands on the desk and leaned forward.

  “You’ll do as I tell you, happy or not,” the marquess snapped. He opened a desk drawer and withdrew two letters.

  Recognizing Fanny’s handwriting, Matthew’s heart skipped a beat.

  “The strumpet gave these letters to a maid to be delivered this morning. Good thing the girl knows who holds the purse strings in this house and gave them directly to me. One”—Theale waved the folded letter as though it were a flag—“is of little importance to anyone.” He tossed it over his shoulder and it landed in the fire.

  Matthew raised up, trying to make out the direction, but it had fallen facedown and all he glimpsed was the blob of red sealing wax, already beginning to bubble in the intense heat.