The Hero and the Hellion: A Steamy Regency Historical Romance (The Somerton Scandals Book 3)

by Ava Devlin

  "He loves you," Heloise said miserably. "His loyalty to me shouldn't compromise that. And now both you and Rose must keep my secret from your husbands, for they must not know."

  "You told Rose?"

  "She guessed, on the night I gave birth. I was too spent to attempt a deception." She pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut against the swell of panic that had begun to subside. "You know, many midwives will demand the name of the father from an unattached mother at the moment of birth. It is said that during such pain, a woman has no will to lie."

  Gloriana shuddered. "I have been meaning to speak to you about that."

  "About what?" Hel said, dropping her hand and turning to her new sister. "You've not yet been married a week."

  "Well, exactly," Gloriana said, delicately reaching for a cloth napkin and handing it to Hel, who had rather soiled her skirt with her dropped sandwich. "I am wondering if there is a way to ... to postpone conception, just until I am ready to be a mother, you understand."

  Heloise raised her eyebrows. It was not the first time she had been asked such a question, but it was the first time it had been posed by a woman who was as yet childless. The fact that Gloriana would trust her with such an inquiry was a shock. It would be quite scandalous if anyone were to catch wind that she was not eager to have as many babies as possible. In fact, it was shocking enough to strip her of any of her concern over the revelation of Callie's paternity.

  "I imagine you learned of such things after falling victim to pregnancy yourself," Gloriana continued, her voice taking on an anxious quality. “So that it would not happen again?”

  "The most effective way is simply to avoid the marital bed," Heloise said. "That is the advice most midwives would give you."

  Gloriana winced, averting her eyes. "No."

  Heloise found herself giggling. She never giggled, but such a flat refusal to give up the pleasures of the boudoir struck her on such a relatable level that she had to turn her head to stifle her laughter. Perhaps it was a touch of hysteria, an outlet of the multiple shocks she'd had over the last hour.

  The realization that she had already compromised herself again and could at this very moment be once again with child out of wedlock was deeply amusing to her for some reason, combined with the content of this conversation. Luckily, Gloriana simply looked bashful, as though the amusement had come completely from her own admission of wantonness.

  She calmed herself, dabbing at the corners of her eyes, and breathed out a steadying gust of breath. "There are a few tricks that work for some women, but nothing is guaranteed. A rinse of oil prior to ... erm, the act," she said, stifling another hiccup of laughter, "is the one I've heard is most effective. Some women use a bit of sponge on a string as a barrier, and of course there is the technique that brothels employ."

  "Brothels?" Gloriana breathed, fluttering her lashes. "What do you know of brothels?"

  "Plenty," Heloise laughed. "Those women are in need of my services perhaps more than any family in town. It is not as scandalously fun as it sounds, I assure you."

  "And what do these women do?" she asked, scooting closer, her pale blue eyes wide with curiosity.

  She sighed, glancing over her shoulder to ensure the children could not hear them.

  This was not a conversation she thought she would be having with Gloriana Blakely, now or ever. Even so, it was her duty to give advice such as this to those who asked, free of judgement or admonishment. "It is mostly to prevent disease," she explained, "which you need not concern yourself with. What they do is employ a length of cured intestine, usually from a sheep, to make a sort of sheath. The man wears it, inflated first and then secured with a ribbon over his ... his organ, protecting each partner from the risks of the other."

  Glory blinked and then sat back, a dazed look on her face.

  "I will show you how to track your fertility by your monthly cycle, so that you may avoid the riskiest days of each month," Heloise said, "though again, I must emphasize that nothing is a certain prevention."

  "What if ..." Glory swallowed, turning her eyes up to the ceiling, her voice growing thin. "What if he spills his seed elsewhere?"

  Heloise coughed, wishing this conversation were about any man other than her brother, but did her best to retain the cool professionalism she'd learned to maintain in even the most dire of circumstances. If she could manage the blood and pain of the childbed, she could certainly have a civilized conversation about its mechanics. "It will reduce your chances of conception, certainly, but ... erm, traces of a man's seed are present throughout the act, from the beginning."

  The two sat in silence for a moment after that, each opting to turn their heads and stare forward at the opposite wall rather than to look at one another or speak. A beat of silence was just the thing to ease the awkwardness in the room.

  "I simply wish to enjoy being a newlywed first," Glory finally whispered, embarrassment clear in her voice. "I do not feel prepared to be a mother. Perhaps I never will."

  "If you do have a child," Heloise said, turning back and reaching across the couch to touch her hand, "you will not be alone and you will not be adrift. And, once you've conceived, so long as you produce mother's milk, you will remain infertile, so if you wish to stop at one, that is a way to do so."

  Gloriana gave a skeptical look down at her modest bosom.

  "Hopefully we don't have to get that far, for I would be a paltry wet nurse indeed," she sighed, gripping Heloise's hand back. "Thank you. I know I do not deserve such kindness after the ways I've misused you."

  Heloise laughed again, that bubble of hysteria reappearing, buoyant in her chest. "Glory, I dyed your teeth purple. Your occasional cutting comments over tea hardly compare. Between us, consider yourself to have the moral high ground."

  Gloriana giggled, raising a hand to cover her mouth, as though her teeth still had the ink imprinted upon them. "You did, didn't you?"

  For the remainder of the afternoon, as they worked their way through inventories and costs, neither woman had much success at stifling the little bursts of laughter, inspired by the conversation they'd just endured.

  15

  The coop and kennel were nearly finished.

  As it happened, animal homes were much easier to rebuild than those occupied by man. The only thing slowing them down was how quickly the cold seeped into one's bones out in the Yorkshire chill, and how easy it was for a man to be oblivious to his body slowly being taken by the icy fingers of winter.

  Callum had instituted a rotation, pulling the men in to warm up in shifts so that the work would progress but no one would lose fingers to frostbite. He wished he could avoid his own time in the church, allowing the stinging prickles of warmth to permeate his clammy skin and reawaken the nerves and blood within, but of course he couldn't undermine his own orders.

  It wasn't the physical discomfort. It was a thousand irritants within the crush of bodies in the church and a disappointing lack of Heloise Somers to brighten the interlude. She had been much at work within the manor for the last week, writing letters, meeting with laborers, drafting estimates, and such.

  Some supplies had arrived from Leeds and York, but they were incomplete and the members of the family who had gone to get them had been waylaid by inclement travel conditions, which left it to Heloise to decide their next steps. To her credit, she didn't falter once she'd made a decision.

  Callum had no head for numbers, but apparently both Hel and the new Somers bride had been trained in exacting detail of how to squeeze every pence to its last drop of copper.

  He had always known she was remarkable, but she continued to surprise him by the day. He had been sending her notes, scribbled in his unrefined hand, with stories of the times he thought of her during the war and what a pleasure it was to see her now in truth. He would describe the way the sunlight had caught her hair or the way her voice gave him pause.

  He knew where a few wildflowers still grew in the dead of winter. Sturdy blooms of purp
le and yellow and pink that sprung from the snow in the hidden corners of the moor. He plucked them when he could and folded at least one into each of his letters. Each letter and flower had one more element—his coup de grâce—one of the four-year-old notes she'd written him, from that summer they'd had together, tucked into the center.

  He'd kept them all, of course, pressed between pages of the books he carried. He'd read the short, often single-sentence messages over and over, especially in the darkest of times. He told her he was only returning them to her because she had lent him her spirit, and now that he was able to see her again, he was no longer in need of the favor.

  It amused him how obviously uncomfortable she was with formal courting. He loved the way her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed when he insisted on being perfectly genteel, kissing her hand and nothing more, even when they could not possibly have been observed. When he suggested they attend a ball together in the spring, she had actually thrown up her hands and stalked away from him, muttering to herself.

  Perhaps his attempts at formal wooing were not particularly up to par with a practiced man of the gentry, but he knew Heloise hated everything about being a member of the peerage anyhow. The point wasn't to irritate her, of course, it was to show her that she was worth waiting for. He hoped she understood that, even if he had begun to take a little bit of enjoyment out of her ongoing befuddlement.

  He hoped she knew that beneath all his propriety, there was still a great deal of heat. Did she suspect how difficult it was for him to sleep when he remembered her astride him in that ruin? Did she gather how much restraint it took not to whisk her off into the nearest nook when she looked at him with heat in her eyes, fingering one of the flowers he'd given her as she gazed at him from across a room? It was the only thing keeping his blood hot in this frigid climate.

  It wasn't ideal that the only time of day he was guaranteed to see her was when she came into the church to perform her midwife duties. Aside from being an inappropriate time for flirtation on principle, Abby Collins went moon-eyed every time he came into the building. He didn't want to encourage it, but he knew he'd be an awful person if he pretended not to see or hear her calling out to him when he was near.

  There was something strange about having eyelashes batted at you by a woman whose belly was full of someone else's baby. He couldn't decide if it was flattering or upsetting. She had been a fun and carefree young woman when last he'd seen her, but they'd never shared any true intimacy beyond the physical, no emotional connection that might account for the way she clung to him like a long-lost kindred spirit.

  Heloise had never commented upon it, and he had not been able to read her face when the three of them happened to collide. He suspected she had a variety of thoughts on the matter that he would not particularly enjoy.

  In any event, Heloise's presence was a rarity in the church when she was not midwifing, and their chance encounters in the village were not much more frequent.

  When he had his breaks from rebuilding, forced into the church to return warmth to his bones, he often paced the perimeters, uncertain what to do with himself. It had been a distressingly frequent frame of mind since his return to Britain.

  Everyone he knew by name was thoroughly occupied if they were in the sanctuary when he was. The reverend was always busy with something, often managing stacks of cycled clothing, cleaning, and dispensing to the masses, or otherwise enclosed in his office, frantically attempting to revise and index the town records.

  Callum found that much like the dowager viscountess, Reverend Halliwell looked as though he hadn't aged in all of Callum's life, but instead existed in a perpetual suspension of elderhood. It was comforting, he decided, to find some things unchanged.

  The innkeeper had badly burned the lower half of one of his legs on the night of the fire and did occasionally indulge Callum in some casual conversation, when he was up to it. Today he seemed to be dozing off, his damaged leg freshly wrapped in a red-tinted set of bandages. Callum hesitated to approach him only because the town physician, the man he was certain was sniffing after Heloise, was currently inspecting the dressings on the innkeeper's leg.

  The doctor caught his eye before he could feign intent in a different direction and gave a pleasant nod and smile of acknowledgement. He gestured to the dressing, encouraging Callum to come nearer, and said, "It is quite something, is it not? An ingenious method of numbing the pain. My only concern is that keeping the area moist might delay healing."

  Callum nodded, remembering the triage tents he'd seen on the coast and the makeshift comforts far from trained medics. He could almost smell the sizzle of flesh and the clouds of gunpowder escaping from the memory.

  "I have seen burns treated both ways, in the field," the doctor continued. "Some insist on drying it out and allowing a scab to do the work, while others insist that moisture saps away the damage. I can't say I have any concrete conclusions on the matter."

  "We kept them covered, on the Continent," Callum replied, for lack of anything else to say. "But our resources were scarce."

  "Yes, and I imagine there was nothing much to assist with the pain. It is fascinating. I have never used laudanum topically," the doctor mused, tapping his chin thoughtfully and glancing up at Callum as though he might have some opinion on the matter, simply on merit of him standing nearby. "It is shocking sometimes how tidbits of genius emerge from midwifery. It would shock the average man to his bones!"

  "Of course. It is an ancient and respected practice," Callum said, though the doctor appeared not to realize such a basic fact. Callum cleared his throat, not wishing to offend the man, and attempted to shift the subject. "I notice that you leave the care of Miss Collins entirely to Lady Heloise. You must respect her skill a great deal to allow her to shoulder the full care of a vulnerable woman that way."

  The doctor gave a tight little smile at the mention of Heloise.

  He knows I'm a threat, Callum realized. He still wants her.

  "Male midwives are a perverse thing, Lieutenant. Very much fringe medicine and highly suspect in educated circles," the doctor informed him with a sniff and an aversion of his eyes, as though this were distasteful to even mention. "A true gentleman of learning would distance himself far from interference in that particular domain, and as such, matters of the female condition are not my rightful occupation. I rather think Miss Collins would do well to avoid being alone with men for a while anyway, wouldn't you say?"

  Callum blinked in surprise. "I'm certain no one would consider consultation with a physician amiss. Do you not monitor the health of expecting mothers in the township?"

  "Best not to risk it," the doctor said, shrugging, "especially with a chit like that. Even after she has the babe, it will be well known that she is open for compromise. Best to avoid any possibility of scandal or entrapment."

  "Entrapment?" Callum repeated, but Dr. Garber was already patting him on the shoulder and moving on to his next patient.

  "Lovely to talk to you, Lieutenant. Let's share a drink sometime soon. I must finish my rounds."

  He watched him go with his brow still furrowed. Did he think that giving medical attention to an unwed mother would somehow snare him into being forced to step in and marry the poor woman? Surely that was not the case. He was certain the old physician had attended to women alongside their midwives.

  Callum glanced over at Abigail with a frown. He realized that she never had anyone attending her other than her mother and Heloise. The townspeople drifted past her as though they could not see her at all. He stood for a moment, as though to confirm he wasn't imagining things. It took no time at all to witness the phenomenon directly. He watched it happen, noted the way people deliberately turned away from her, as though even looking at her might taint them.

  Abby didn't seem to notice, tucked into the novels Heloise had lent her. Or perhaps she knew very well what was happening and had decided it was better overall simply to ignore it, just like they ignored her. He suddenly felt a swell of
guilt for begrudging her his company. They had once been a sort of friends, after all, even if it had been shallow.

  He remained unsullied, he realized, despite his youthful indiscretions.

  Even back then, he supposed, she'd had a reputation. She often told him with a sigh and a shrug that her mother had told her so many times that she would never marry that it was bound to come true. He had been a fool then, young and full of distracting thoughts about girls and their many, many temptations, so rather than respond or ask after her well-being, he had simply wished to return to whatever dabbling in physicality they had been most recently engaged in.

  The summer that Heloise had come home, he had stopped visiting the township. He had no use for village girls when Lady Heloise had deemed him worthy of her touch. His sudden disappearance must have been hurtful, he realized, if Abigail thought him a true friend or a caring one.

  He straightened his shoulders and took a determined stride over to her cot. He allowed the whispering townspeople to make way for him instead of bothering to be concerned with where they chose to stand. He arrived with purpose, cutting a path through the whisperers, and plopped himself down on the bed at her feet.

  "Lieutenant," she said in surprise, clapping her book shut and straightening herself. "Are you looking for Lady Heloise?"

  "No," Callum said, that pang of guilt ringing again in his chest. "I am simply warming my bones for an hour before resuming the building. I was hoping you might lend me the pleasure of your conversation while I thaw."

  The swell of whispers and glances in their direction was ostensible. It turned that pang of guilt into a little flame of anger. After all, if the stars had aligned differently, it might have been he who put her in this situation, just as guilty as she. Would he have been hiding in that crowd, joining in the whispers? Would he have married her? He did not know.

  Her pretty face blossomed into the most brilliant smile. She set the book aside, tucking her short hair behind her ears. "I would love to," she replied. "I have very much missed simple conversation."