The First Snowdrop

by Mary Balogh

  She laughed in his face. "Poor Alexander," she said. "It is quite beyond your understanding, is it not, that any female could resist your charms. Have you ever crooked a beckoning finger before and been rejected? You are much like your cousin, Jack, you know. Earlier this evening he, too, was forced to admit that he had failed to add me to a string of conquests. It is ironic, is it not, Alexander? Poor ugly, mousy, fat Anne Parrish! Take me to London if you wish. I shall enjoy the experience enormously. But every time you come to my bed, my lord, know that I am merely using you for my pleasure. In my heart I shall hate you as I have since the morning after my wedding."

  Merrick's grip on her arm relaxed. "I had thought to show you some kindness," he said. "Perhaps the best kindness I can show you is to send you back to Redlands?"

  "Yes," she said, and her shoulders sagged suddenly. She could feel the fight draining out of her. "Let me go back home, Alexander. It is too late for kindness. Let us only not hate each other. If you force me to live with you, I shall truly grow to hate you, I fear."

  He stared at her for so long that she was afraid she would lose control and hurl herself at him. But finally he nodded. "I see," he said. "I am sorry, Anne. I did not fully understand until now. You shall go home tomorrow. I shall not burden you with my presence again."

  Silence stretched between them again, a silence during which they continued to stare at each other. And all the unexpressed feelings and the unspoken words were locked inside him and he had no way, no right to speak them. He had forfeited the right more than a year before when he had bedded her and so callously insulted her and left her the morning after. He had forfeited the right every day since, every day during which he had done nothing to show a husband's care for his wife. He had hoped that tonight he would be able to start making amends, but he had not had the chance to say any of the things he had planned. He had been stopped very effectively by her anger and bitterness, her utter rejection of him. And he could not fight back. He had no right. The only way he could show his love now was to leave her, to allow her freedom from his presence.

  Anne. He stared at her, at his wife, whom he loved, whom he had thought to have with him for the rest of his life. But this was it, the end. Instead of a lifetime with her, he had only a few more seconds. Very soon he must turn and walk away, and he must never force his presence on her again. He might never see her again. He could never tell her how much he had grown to love her, how much he wished to spend the rest of his life making up to her part of what he had taken away from her since he had stumbled in on her during that winter storm.

  "Good-bye, Anne," he said, holding out his hand to her, willing her to accept the handshake. Their final touch.

  She looked steadily back at him. "Good-bye, Alexander," she said, and she inhaled with deliberate slowness as she placed her hand in his. Probably the last time she would ever touch him. She held the inhaled breath and let it out with steady control as he raised her hand to his lips. A moment later, it seemed, he was gone, without another word and without a backward glance.

  The whole of the star-studded sky above Anne's head and the branches of the trees that ringed her wheeled with dizzying speed around her and she sank to her knees onto the gravel of the arbor path. Her face and hands were wet with her hot tears even before the first sob tore at her throat and chest.

  Anne did not return to either the supper room or the ballroom. She did not even consider the discourtesy she was showing to the gentlemen who had signed her dance card for the sets after supper. She went straight to her room, rang for Bella to tell her that she would not be needed again that night, undressed, and climbed into the four-poster bed. She lay diagonally across it for the remainder of the night, facedown, knowing that he would not come, yet taut with expectation through the long and sleepless hours after the music ceased and the sound of voices and laughter died away. She did not sleep at all.

  She was the first of the family to leave. The duke's best traveling carriage drew up outside the house just before noon, and everyone gathered either in the hall or on the cobbles outside to kiss her and wish her a safe journey. Even some of the guests who had stayed overnight after the ball were there. But Merrick was not.

  Anne saw it all through a fog of exhaustion and distress. She hardly knew that she smiled as she kissed and hugged everyone and had a personal word for each. She hardly realized that she gave an especially big hug to the children and to Freddie, whose eyes were bright with unshed tears. She did not notice that the duchess was unusually tight-lipped and quiet or that the duke, leaning on his cane, looked more thunderous than usual. She knew only that the coach was the haven that she must reach, that once she was inside with the curtains drawn and once it was in motion, she would be safe again and could let go this tension that threatened to tear her apart.

  She hardly realized, as she stood on the steps of the carriage, that she looked back at the people gathered in the courtyard and at the empty doorway and at all the windows along the front of the house. She did not look out again once she was inside. She did not wave to anyone.

  PART 3

  December 1816-February 1817

  Chapter 14

  Viscount Merrick huddled inside his many-caped greatcoat, trying to keep his neck warm. His beaver hat was drawn over his brow. The snow, fortunately, was not as bad as it had been in that storm a little more than two years before when he had first met Anne. Too wet to settle on the ground, it melted on impact. But it felt deuced uncomfortable against his cheeks and eyes, and was inclined to melt slowly down the back of his neck as soon as it came in contact with the warmth of his body. And it impeded visibility, so that his eyes were narrowed against the falling flakes, almost unable to see the road ahead.

  As on the previous occasion, he had had ample warning that the snow was on the way. Heavy snow clouds had lain over the city all of the previous day and had been even heavier and more gray that morning. He should not be on the road at all, he knew. He was fortunate that conditions were not a great deal worse than they were. But the truth was that it was the weather that was directly responsible for his being where he was at the moment. For a month he had been making up his mind to travel to Redlands. Christmas would perhaps be a good-enough excuse. But he had let Christmas pass. How could he burden her with his company for such a festival? Then he had thought that perhaps the beginning of a new year would be an appropriate time to pay a visit. But that occasion probably would have passed too if the apparent imminence of snow had not finally decided him the day before. It was the last week of December already. There was a distinct possibility that if snow fell, it would last for a long time and halt all travel between London and Redlands. Then, not only would he be unable to reach her in time, but no messenger would be able to reach him. Although there were all of ten days left, such events were unpredictable, he had heard. It was bad enough to think of not being with Anne for the birth of their child. It was quite intolerable to know that the child might be born and he have no way of knowing the fact perhaps for days afterward.

  So he had decided to come. She probably would not welcome his arrival. It might agitate her to know that he was in the house when she delivered the child. He certainly had little right to be there with her. He had treated her abominably during both of their encounters and had forced her into a pregnancy that was doubtless unwanted. But he could stay away no longer. He had ached to be with her from the moment he had opened the letter in which she had informed him that she was with child. He had worried constantly about the state of her health, had written to her several times to ask her how she did. But she had always answered briefly and courteously, had always told him that she was well.

  Finally he had resorted to writing to the village doctor who attended her-she had refused his offer to bring her to London so that she might be attended by a London physician. But the doctor, too, had merely assured him that his wife was in good health and was like to deliver a healthy infant at the end of her time.

  Merrick had w
anted almost desperately to be with her during the months of her pregnancy. Life had not been pleasurable for him since those weeks during the spring at Portland House. He had taken up his old life in London, attending as many parties, sporting events, and meetings as he normally would. But their power to bring him contentment had disappeared. He had ended his liaison with Eleanor within a few days of his return to town and had felt no great urge to begin a new one or even to indulge in casual beddings. There was only one woman he wanted, and she was beyond his reach. He could have forced himself upon her. He knew, in fact, that she was not totally averse to his person. He had the legal right to be with her. But he could not believe that he had the moral right. She did not like him and had demonstrated quite clearly that she wished to live apart from him. He punished himself by honoring her wishes.

  But he had to break his own self-imposed exile on this one occasion. He must be present when his child was born. He owed the infant that. And he was terrified for Anne's safety. Death in childbed was distressingly common, even with ladies of the upper class. How would he ever be able to live with himself if that should be Anne's fate? How he expected to stop such a disaster by his mere presence at Redlands he did not know, but he felt his nearness to her to be essential.

  Even through the snow, Merrick could see that landmarks were becoming more familiar. For the remaining few miles of his journey he hardly noticed the discomforts of the elements. His mind was totally absorbed with the scene that faced him. How would she react when he arrived in the middle of the evening like this, quite unannounced? Would she be angry, upset, cold? Even faintly glad to see him? How would he explain himself? He hoped that he would be able to establish a friendly relationship with her, at all events. He was very much afraid that in the embarrassment he would feel, his manner might be aloof or imperious. He had never been able to feel at ease with Anne. And how could he be so now? He had not seen her since that scene in the garden of his grandparents' home on the night of their ball. She would be very large with his child now.

  Merrick did not let go of the heavy knocker outside the oak doors of his home until he heard someone at the other side pulling back the bolts.

  "Never was I more glad to see the inside of a door," he said, pushing his way past an astonished butler into the light and comparative warmth of the spacious hallway.

  "My lord," Dodd said. "We little expected to see you on a night like this. Why, you might have been lost in the snow."

  Merrick was peeling the gloves from his hands and tossed them and his beaver onto an oaken chest that was close by. "Where is her ladyship?" he asked, pulling impatiently at the buttons of his damp greatcoat. "Is she in the drawing room?"

  The butler gaped. "You did not know, my lord?" he said. "But of course you could not. Her ladyship, my lord, is, ah…" He stopped to cough delicately. "Her pains are upon her, my lord. She is in her chamber. The doctor is with her, and Mrs. Rush."

  Merrick blanched and tossed his greatcoat toward the chest, not seeing the outstretched arm of Dodd. "My God," he said, and the butler turned to watch him take the stairs to the daytime apartments and then those leading to the private apartments three at a time.

  ************************************

  Anne had been amazed at first to discover that she was with child. Yet it had not taken her long to be equally amazed that she had never considered the possibility. During those two weeks when Alexander had been at Portland House, they had made love each night except the last, several times more than once. It had not taken her much longer to be thrilled by the knowledge. She had been wretchedly unhappy in the weeks following her return home, desperately trying not to contemplate the long and lonely years ahead.

  It had not helped to know that she had had the chance of a different life. She could have gone to London with Alexander. There were times when she almost wished that she had agree to go; surely an unsatisfactory marriage was better than no marriage at all. But during all her more rational moments she knew that it was better to be away from him than to be with him, knowing herself despised and probably disliked, capable of satisfying him in only one way. Had she not loved him so much, perhaps she could have borne it. She believed that she was not very different from many other wives. But she did love him and consequently she exiled herself from him.

  Yet now she would have part of him. The warmth of their intimacies would live with her for nine months, and afterward she would have his child to suckle and hold. She would have another person on whom to lavish all her love, and that person would be part of the man she loved most in all the world. She hoped that the child would be a boy. Alexander would at least respect her if she could produce an heir for him. More important, perhaps a boy would look like him, and she could delight in seeing the father in the child. A few times the possibility entered her head that Alexander might take the child away from her if it were male, but she ruthlessly suppressed the thought. He could not be so cruel.

  The months had been solitary ones for Anne. She had only the household staff for company most of the time. She had accepted a few invitations from neighbors until she felt her condition was becoming obvious, but afterward she had hardly gone beyond the confines of her husband's estate except to attend church on Sundays.

  The months had been solitary but not lonely ones. The ache of longing for Alexander that had driven her almost insane for several weeks had gradually dulled in the face of the symptoms of her condition: the unusual tiredness, the slight nausea, and finally-and gloriously-the first movements of the child within her womb. Her life had become more placidly contented than she could ever remember it being. She had spent countless hours dreaming of what it would be like to have a baby in the house, a child to bring noise and disorder and laughter into the ordered quiet of her life.

  Anne had not immediately written to inform her husband of her condition. She had not known quite how to broach the subject and had not known how he might react. It was only when she received an invitation to the wedding of Freddie and Miss Fitzgerald that was to take place in September that she realized that the truth must be told. She had wished to attend because she had grown very fond of Freddie during the two weeks of their acquaintance and because she had come to love the whole family. But she could not go. Alexander would be there, and she could not risk meeting him again. Her resolve might crumble. She would have to use her pregnancy as an excuse, to stay away. So finally she had written to Alexander two days before penning a refusal to attend the wedding.

  She had been surprised at his reaction. His reply must have been written the same day as he received her letter. It had been impossible to detect his feelings from the words he had written, but he had made lengthy and detailed inquiries into the state of her health, and he had seemed to realize the reason for her decision not to travel to Portland House for the wedding. He had urged her to go if she felt well enough to make the journey and had offered to stay away himself if she felt that his presence would be distressing to her. Anne had stayed firm on her decision, but she had been strangely touched by the offer. She did not normally associate sensitivity with Alexander.

  It had not been merely her pregnancy and her dreams that made the months tolerable for Anne. She had not been idle during this time. The grounds outside the house had been made attractive, so thai anyone approaching the house along the long and winding drive was given the impression that the owners lavished love and attention on their property. Now she had turned her attention to the interior of the house, determined to make it a place of taste and elegance as well as a bright and comfortable home.

  Heavy and faded draperies had been pulled down from windows, and old and threadbare carpets rolled up from the floors. New items had been ordered to replace them. Paintings and family portraits that had been crowded into an upper room that boasted neither size nor light had been moved to the upper gallery, where they immediately took on a new glory. Priceless seventeenth-century tapestries that had been removed from the dining room a few generations bef
ore in the belief they were old-fashioned had been replaced and immediately gave a new luster to the family silver and crystal. The Wedgwood china collection that had been partly hidden for years in a heavy wooden cabinet had been displayed openly around the living apartments. And old furniture that seemed to add only gloom to the rooms had been reupholstered and transformed. The list of improvements went on and on.

  By the time Anne was heavy with child, her love for Redlands had converted into a great pride. She could wander from room to room and stroll around the grounds, muffled up warmly against advancing winter, and feel that it was her home and surely the equal of almost any of the grand estates in England. It was a place fit for the son of a viscount, grandson of a duke. It was a place in which she could contemplate with peace of mind spending the rest of her days.

  Her time came upon her quite unexpectedly, ten days before she had expected to begin her labor. It was a gloomy morning when she came down to an early breakfast after a night in which she had slept little. It was so difficult to find a comfortable position in which to sleep, and turning over in bed was a major and exhausting undertaking. It looked as if it would snow before the day was out.

  Perhaps it was the threat of a storm that set her to thinking about Alexander. It was a day very similar to the one on which she had first met him. She could not shake off her thoughts of him, though she tried to keep herself busy as far as the advanced condition of her pregnancy would allow. She sat finally in the morning room putting the finishing touches to a gorgeously embroidered christening robe that she made for her child. He would come for the christening, of course. Perhaps duty would make him come as soon as she was able to send him the news that his heir had been born.