The Servant Duchess of Whitcomb

by Vicktor Alexander

  Anger flooded his being as he thought of Birtie, his new groom, or rather, former groom, who had disappeared from the Henby grounds right around the time of the accident. Orley would deal with the young man himself when the time came, especially if anything happened to Chester and their child; otherwise he would leave it to the constable and the magistrate.

  The carriage came to an abrupt halt in front of their home, and the door was thrown open. Orley nodded at Ben who helped him lift Chester from within the vehicle. Orley followed them out, and when his leg buckled beneath him, he cursed it.

  “Your Grace?” Ben called out, stopping in front of the steps.

  “O-Orley?” Chester whimpered.

  “Go!” Orley shouted. “Get Her Grace upstairs and to his bedchambers. I shall be along shortly.”

  Tears flooded Orley’s eyes at his own shortcomings, and he clenched his fists as he pushed himself up from the ground, waving away the servants who tried to help him. He limped inside, gritting his teeth as pain wrapped itself around his limb. As he made his way up the stairs, Chester’s screams and cries reached his ears. Each one was as a dagger, embedding itself deeper into the jagged pieces of Orley’s soul.

  He swallowed the tears that threatened, and tightened his hand on the staircase railing. Lowering his head, Orley steeled himself mentally, knowing he had to be strong when he stepped into the bedroom with his husband. It was difficult, however; fear caused nightmarish scenarios to flash back and forth across his mind, and Orley was overwhelmed by despair so deep he doubled over from it, gagging and choking on silent sobs.

  Wiping the tears from his face, knowing they would not help Chester nor their unborn child, Orley straightened his spine and continued up the stairs. Entering the bedroom, he took in the sight of his husband reclining on pillows, surrounded by servants, the sheets beneath him soaked in blood. Footsteps ran up the stairs behind him, and Orley turned to watch as the doctor and a midwife hurried into the room. The maids were ushered out, all except Missy, and Orley stepped in.

  “Your Grace, we have it from here,” the midwife told him, looking completely scandalized by his presence at Chester’s sholfting.

  Orley ignored her, hobbling over as quick as he could to where Chester lay sobbing in bed, and reached out for him. He did not give a whit how much it offended the delicate sensibilities of the midwife or even the doctor to have him in the room while Chester delivered, he would not leave his husband to face this alone. Orley climbed into bed behind Chester and pulled Chester back against his chest to cradle him close.

  “Your Grace!” the doctor said, his eyes wide.

  Orley growled. “I will not leave the side of my duchess, nor will I allow you to make me do so. So you can take your recriminations and shove them up your arse for all I bloody care, you hear? Now, do your job and bring my child into this world safely, but do not allow my husband to die.” Orley scowled at the two “intruders,” then focused back on Chester. Brushing back the hair on Chester’s forehead and cheeks, Orley pressed a gentle kiss on his temple and placed his hand on his husband’s stomach.

  “We don’t have the time for disagreement, Mrs. Cooper, so please stop your blathering and assist me in this delivery before we lose both the babe and Her Grace,” the doctor stated angrily. He snapped his fingers and pointed at Missy. Looking back at Orley, he nodded. “Let us begin.”

  Chester trembled as he felt fingers smoothing the sholfting liquid on his rectum. His own bum’s secretions were oozing from within painfully, making him scream, and he tightened his grip on Orley’s hand. Turning his head, he looked up into Orley’s darling face. He knew from the man’s expression that things were dire.

  I have only just accepted this babe’s existence, and now I must say good-bye? Is this because I reached beyond my station?

  A wave of agony rolled over him again, and Chester planted his feet on the bed once more as he shouted his throat raw.

  A wet linen was placed upon his head, and Chester felt tears rolling down his cheeks. He wanted his mother. His husband was fine, but he needed the comforting embrace of Wilhelmina in that moment.

  “Sshh,” Orley whispered. “I am here, Angel. I shall never leave your side, love.”

  Chester leaned back to stare up at Orley and pulled him close. “If it comes down to it, Orley. Choose the babe,” he panted.

  Orley shook his head.

  “Argue not with me, Whitcomb!” Chester stated furiously, sniffling. “Give me this last request.” He gritted his teeth as a band of torment wrapped itself around his middle, tightening unbearably. “You must choose the heir.”

  Orley nodded, and Chester’s heart clenched at the sight of his husband’s tears.

  “Your Grace, I see the head; I do believe it is time to push,” the doctor said.

  Chester bobbed his head and leaned forward to push. He held on to Orley’s hands, pulling from his strength as he did so. Chester screamed, his body feeling as if it were being ripped apart from the inside out.

  “Stop pushing, Your Grace,” the midwife called out, and Chester halted and leaned back, panting. He sobbed, his body shaking and trembling. The bedroom door opened, and Chester opened his eyes— when had he closed them?—to see his mother striding forward.

  “Mother!” he exclaimed. Though they had been expecting her to arrive, along with a few of his siblings, and perhaps his maldy if the underbutler was available and the Duke of Pompinshire was agreeable, Chester had not dared to hope for her to be there. He had assured himself Orley was enough, but his thoughts were false. In this moment, at this time, when he fought to bring his child alive into the world and struggled to survive, he needed his mother.

  “I am here, my baby,” Wilhelmina said. She rushed to him. She glanced at the bed and sat at the edge, taking hold of his and Orley’s hands. Chester wanted to throw himself into her arms, but knew he could not. Instead, he returned his focus to the doctor and midwife, who were telling him to push once more.

  “I cannot.” Chester shook his head.

  “Yes, you can,” Wilhelmina encouraged him.

  “Darling, you must.” Orley kissed the back of his head.

  Chester groaned and bore down, pushing with all of his might. Torture and burning, strain and convulsions of distress tore through his body before, with a rush, he felt a release. Chester collapsed back against Orley and listened for the baby’s cry.

  There was nothing.

  He lifted his hands to his face and sobbed.

  “Apologies, Your Grace. He is quite tiny. It is to be expected in one born so soon,” the doctor said. “We will just….”

  A tiny cry tore through the air, and Chester’s hands fell from his cheeks in surprise. He sat up.

  “Bloody hell,” Orley said behind him.

  “Heavens above,” Chester whispered.

  “It cannot be,” the doctor breathed. He stared down at the tiny, pale newborn. The infant waved his tiny fists in the air angrily and let out indignant whimpers.

  Wilhelmina looked at Chester with a smile. “Congratulations, son. You have given birth to the heir.”

  Orley stood at the Tfrench window in his study, looking out into the night, his mind playing over the day’s events. His body trembled as he realized exactly how close he’d come to losing everything he held dear. When there was a knock at the door, he called out absentmindedly and did not turn when it opened.

  “I thought I would find you here,” Stephen said, and Orley grunted in response.

  “What can I do for you, Savoy?”

  “Why are you here and not upstairs with your duchess and new son?” Stephen asked.

  Orley merely shrugged, his eyes moving over the shadows of the garden as he listened to Stephen pour himself a drink behind him.

  “Whitcomb? What are you hiding from?”

  “He almost died tonight.”

  Stephen didn’t answer, but Orley knew he was still there because he heard the man’s glass settle on the desk behind him. Orley did
n’t say anything for a long moment, feeling as though his response had been enough.

  “Yes, he did, but he is still alive. That does not explain why you are here, brooding like some opium-laced poet in a brothel writing about the monotony of life and vanity and all that rot.”

  Orley turned to face Stephen, his cravat hanging limply around his neck, shirt open carelessly at the collar and shirtsleeves pushed up to the elbow. He looked disheveled and haphazard, as if he had been through the wringer. Which he had.

  “I have not quite reached that point, though I may have taken a draught of laudanum,” Orley admitted with a grin.

  Stephen shook his head. “No one can fault you for that, old man.”

  Orley shrugged and walked over to the sideboard to pour himself a drink. Rolling the glass between his hands before taking a sip, Orley turned to spear Stephen with a glare, and sighed. “Why should I do it,

  Stephen?”

  Stephen frowned. “Why should you do what, Whitcomb?”

  “Why should I care? Why should I love him when he could die? Them? The both of them? Chester and the baby? I could lose them both. Like that.” He snapped his fingers. Walking over to his desk, he sat down in his chair and sighed. “I am opening myself up to the possibility of being hurt. A lifetime of emotional pain and agony when I do not have to. Love and caring are emotions and feelings best left to women. I can be married to him and have children with him and keep myself detached. Many men do it. So why must I love him?”

  Stephen laughed and shook his head. “I have never heard you say something so blasted stupid, man!”

  Orley glared at one of his oldest friends. “What do you mean?”

  “That you think love and caring are only things best left to women is bloody foolish. Not only that, if you think you could be married to that amazing woman and not fall more in love with him every day, or have children with him and not love them, then you do not deserve them. And I will take them off your hands.” Stephen crossed his arms across his chest.

  Orley felt red-hot fury streak across his mind at the thought of his friend touching Chester or being close to him in any capacity other than friendship, and he knew that Stephen had a point. Orley groaned and rolled his eyes when Stephen laughed.

  “So, any word on Birtie?” Stephen asked after a moment.

  Orley shook his head. The groom had disappeared, and it angered him. There was something going on there, some reason the young man had attempted to rile Gideon up so the horse would throw him. Orley wanted to find her so he could interrogate her, but without knowing where she was, there was no way of doing so.

  “Why do you think Gideon behaved that way? I’ve never known the horse to react so erratically. I know the horse is a mean bastard, but…,” Stephen said.

  “It was a setup,” Orley stated matter-of-factly.

  “How can you be sure?” Stephen asked.

  Orley glanced over at Stephen. “Birtie was told that Gideon was head shy. Gideon was tied in the middle of the aisle of Lord Henby’s stables by two lead ropes in the halter. He was trying to get free. He would have thrown anyone trying to ride him as soon as he was freed.” “Bloody hell,” Stephen breathed.

  Orley nodded.

  “So it was not Chester they were after.”

  Orley shook his head. “No. It was me.”

  Chester sat up with a gasp, then winced and fell back to the pillows as pain exploded from his rectum throughout his body. His mind tried to make sense of the hurt, and flashes of memories came back to him. Lord Henby’s insensitive statements, the stables, Gideon slamming him into the wall, his sholfting, the baby being born early….

  The baby.

  Chester felt the abnormal amount of rags and linens beneath his bum and wondered if he were still bleeding. He did not want to look for fear he would find out the answer was in the affirmative. Instead, he looked around the room, taking in the appearance of his mother sleeping on the window seat.

  “Mother?” he called out in a raspy voice.

  Wilhelmina’s eyes popped open, and she sat up quickly. Chester smiled as his mother hurried over to him, stumbling slightly as she got tangled up in the blankets she had been lying under. He sighed in relief and swallowed back the sob that arose when her gentle touch brushed back the hair on his forehead.

  When he returned his gaze to her face, he saw the tears that filled her eyes and his heart broke.

  “Mother? Where is the babe? Did h-he… is he…?” Chester shook his head as he raised his hand to his lips, unable to speak the words. When he had finally succumbed to the darkness so early that morning, his child had been alive. A tiny bundle, one that fit in Orley’s hand and just a bit over, but breathing and crying, nevertheless. And now? Had the Almighty taken his babe as he lay sleeping? Would he be so cruel as to allow Chester to slumber and then rip away the child from his life?

  Wilhelmina shook her head. “He lives still, Chester,” she told him.

  “Truly?” Chester gasped.

  Wilhelmina nodded. “I am not certain how it is so. Perhaps he is a miracle, or is destined to do wonderful things in history, but he yet breathes.”

  Chester glanced away. “Or he will die within hours.”

  Chester gasped at the harsh sting across his cheek. He grabbed his jaw and turned to stare at his mother with wide eyes. Wilhelmina glared at him, pointing at him, a thunderous expression on her face.

  “Your maldy and I did not raise you and your siblings to give up so easily. You were never told to believe that just because things look bleak they are hopeless. You have become a duchess, and suddenly you have forgotten all you were taught?” Wilhelmina shook her head.

  Chester’s shoulders shook as he tried to hold back his sobs. “No, I have not, Mother. I am merely besieged by agony, can’t you see? What would you have me do?”

  “I would have you pray! I would have you fight like you have always done.” Wilhelmina grabbed Chester’s chin and lifted it. Chester looked into his mother’s eyes and sniffled. “You fought for His Grace, for this marriage, and yet now? For your child, you give up? No. Now is when you don your armor and stand on the front lines to take on every enemy who would take him from you.”

  Chester wrapped his hands around his mother’s wrists. “How do I fight against death, Mother? I don’t know how to do that.”

  Wilhelmina smiled softly at him. “By not giving up. That’s how. Give that babe a name. Feed him, clothe him, treat him as if he were going to live to be an old man. You win against death by embracing life.”

  Chester nodded. A knock on the door sounded then, and Chester called out for the person to enter. He released Wilhelmina’s hands and smiled at the nursemaid when she entered with his son, the tiny bundle wrapped in swaddling. Chester’s eyes filled with tears as the newborn was handed over to him, his heart clenching. Hopelessness swamped him for just a moment, but as he stroked his index finger over the baby’s arm, elbow, and down to his tiny hand, the infant’s fingers spread and clutched his finger in a tight grip.

  Chester gasped and lifted a tear-filled gaze to his mother.

  “Look, Mother. What a grip he has on him! Why, I do believe he has the grasp of Samson, even at so young an age,” Chester chuckled wetly, tears rolling down his cheeks.

  “Yes, dear. I see him. He is quite a strapping lad, even at only a few hours old,” his mother agreed.

  Coming to a decision, Chester nodded. “Mother, will you go and find Orley for me? I think I have a name for our son.” He returned his gaze to his son, the babe’s eyes closed, his pink lips puckered, his beautiful tawny-colored skin glistened in the sunlight streaming in through the windows.

  He was beautiful.

  He was strong.

  He was Samson Orley Daniel Garrick, heir to the Dukedoms of Whitcomb and Nants.

  Orley lifted his head as Ben straightened his cravat around his neck. An uneasy feeling fluttered around in his gut, and he exhaled, clenching and then shaking out his fingers. The sound o
f a weak infant cry coming from the bedroom next door reached his ears, and Orley smiled.

  “He grows stronger by the day, Your Grace,” Ben stated.

  “Aye, he does, Ben,” Orley agreed.

  Over a month had passed since Samson’s birth, and though he was still a tiny thing, pale and sickly, daily his lungs grew stronger, his skin grew a healthier shade of light brown, and he kept down more food. Orley knew Chester worried over the babe’s well-being, and to be sure Orley did as well, but with each hour that passed, each day that ended and his son still lived, Orley breathed a sigh of relief.

  Orley knew the servants were shocked by his and Chester’s behavior, and by extension, so were their friends who came to visit, what with Samson sleeping in the bedroom with them rather than in the nursery that had been so painstakingly decorated, but how could he adequately explain it to them? How did he tell people, most of whom had never felt the fear of losing a child and a spouse, had never experienced the cold grip of terror wrap itself around their throat, that he needed to have his loved ones nearby so he would not miss a moment with them? He knew their actions were not common of members of the gentry, but Orley did not care. If Chester or Samson should take their last breath in the middle of the night, he could comfort himself with the knowledge that at least he had been in the same room. Near at hand.

  Though he was absolutely certain that would only serve to lessen the guilt and grief a fraction.

  “I think it is a right fine thing you are doing, Your Grace, having Samson baptized at St. George rather than here at the estate. It shows those with wagging tongues who still question the sincerity of your marriage to Her Grace that you are not ashamed of him nor any children that he will bear you,” Ben said respectfully, brushing his hands across the tops of Orley’s shoulders.

  Orley frowned. “What wagging tongues would that be, Ben?”

  Ben sighed. “There is talk, Your Grace, among some of the servants that certain members of the gentry see your marriage as a way for you to rebel against your father. Or just a new death-defying venture for you to undertake, much like your duels and racing along the Row.”