Truce: The Historic Neighbor from Hell anfh-4

by R. L. Mathewson

  Once she was comfortable, he wrapped his arms around her, pleased when she laid her head against his shoulder so that he wouldn’t have to look at her when he told her what she wanted to hear.

  “You turned my life into a living hell,” he began hollowly, allowing himself to remember just how bad his life had been.

  “What?” she asked, moving to turn in his arms, but he tightened his hold on her just enough to stop her.

  “I can’t tell you this story, minx, if I have to look at you,” he explained, sighing in relief when she stopped trying to move.

  She settled back against him and whispered, “Okay.”

  “Did you know that my parents had originally refused to let me attend school?” he asked, deciding that the only way that he was going to survive this was to ease into it.

  “No, I didn’t know that,” she answered softly.

  He shifted against the bedframe, getting comfortable as he pressed a kiss to Elizabeth’s forehead, more for his benefit than hers. When she took one of his hands into hers and entwined their fingers, he knew that she understood.

  “They were afraid that I wouldn’t be able to control my problem and that the other boys would find out. They didn’t want me to be humiliated and thought it would be best if I were to work with a tutor until I outgrew my problem.”

  “What made them change their minds?” Elizabeth asked, shifting so that she could rest her head against his chest.

  “James,” he said with a smile, remembering how his older brother had fought for him. “He was always so damn protective of me.”

  “I remember,” Elizabeth murmured with what sounded like a smile.

  “He didn’t want me missing out or picked on for being coddled by our parents. He worked on my parents every chance he got until they finally had enough and agreed to allow me to go,” he said, dropping his head back against the frame and closing his eyes as he remembered the day that his parents told him that he could go. It had been one of the best days of his life.

  James had taken him fishing to celebrate. They hadn’t caught a damn thing, but it was one of the best fishing trips he’d ever had before or since. His brother had shared stories of all the mischief he’d pulled in school, given Robert tips on how to sneak out after hours and even on how to sneak in sweets so that he wouldn’t starve. When they came home his parents made sure that the cook had made all of his favorites and, for the first time in his life, they hadn’t said a word when he reached for more food. His father had ended the night by giving him his grandfather’s pocket watch, the same watch that was stolen only a few months later by a couple of boys who’d broken into his room to soak his clothes in vinegar.

  “Sometimes I wish that he hadn’t been such a good brother,” Robert admitted on a sigh.

  “No, you don’t,” Elizabeth said with a soft laugh that had him smiling despite his mood.

  “No, I don’t,” he admitted, because he wouldn’t change a damn thing about his brother.

  “After the incident in the park,” he said, deciding to just get it over with, “he refused to help me. I begged him to help me convince our parents to let me stay home, but he wouldn’t budge. He was convinced that if I let them push me around, that they would never stop. When I ran away he came after me and gave me the thrashing of a lifetime. It was the first and last time that he’d ever hit me.”

  “When my parents realized how miserable I was, they started to reconsider sending me, but James wouldn’t have it. He dragged me to school and made damn sure that I stayed. He told me that it would be okay, that things wouldn’t be that bad, but he was wrong.”

  “None of my friends wanted to have anything to do with me, which left me on my own. It wasn’t a good place to be in a school full of spoiled boys with nothing better to do then make each other miserable. Every day for about two years I was beat up, my books were stolen, my classwork trashed, my room ransacked and soaked in vinegar. They made a game of making my life a living hell.”

  “Robert, I’m-”

  But he didn’t give her a chance to apologize. That wasn’t the reason why he was telling her this story, he realized.

  “When I was fourteen, I’d had enough and started to fight back. I wasn’t much of a fighter, but I was angry, so goddamn angry all the time that my temper soon became unpredictable. One day they’d pushed me too far and I snapped, really snapped. I flipped out in the middle of class and threw a desk through a window.”

  “What happened next?”

  The headmaster had beaten him within an inch of his life, but he wasn’t going to tell his wife that. So instead he told her the only part that mattered to him. “I was given a choice by my instructor, fix the desk or pack my bags. I actually packed my bags and was ready to leave when I found the parting gift the other boys had placed in my bag.”

  “What was it?” Elizabeth asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “A lemon,” Robert simply said, remembering the rage that he’d damn near gave into the moment that he found the fruit stuffed in his bag.

  He’d wanted to tear the school apart, to beat the hell out of every boy that had taunted him, to make their lives a living hell the way they had made his, but he couldn’t do that if he let them win, he’d realized.

  “I decided not to let them win. I wasn’t going to let them push me out, because I’d realized that James was right. Every morning before class and every evening after class I walked down to the village and worked with John, who was the town carpenter, to fix the desk that I’d destroyed. When it became obvious that the desk was beyond repair, he taught me how to make one from scratch.”

  “I didn’t think that I’d enjoy it, but I did. I loved it. Long after the desk was done, I kept showing up and he never told me to leave. It kept me focused and probably kept me out of a lot of trouble. I still got into fights, but not as many and whenever John heard that I’d been in a fight he worked me until I could barely walk back to the school. He helped keep me in line and gave me something to look forward to each day.”

  “It sounds like he was a good man,” Elizabeth said around a small sniffle.

  “He was,” Robert agreed, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

  He held her in his arms for a long time. When the fire started to die out and she hadn’t said anything, he realized that she must have fallen asleep in his arms. Carefully, he adjusted her in his arms and picked her up. He carried her to the bed and gently lay her down. Before he could manage to stand up, she grabbed his hand and gave it a gentle tug.

  Not one to argue with his wife, he climbed in bed with her and curled up behind her when she shifted onto her side. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her tightly against him.

  “I’m sorry, Robert, for what I did to you,” she said, taking him by surprise as she said the words that he’d been waiting half his life to hear. But instead of yelling at her or rubbing her apology in her face like he’d always imagined he would at this moment, he pressed a kiss to the back of her neck and said the words that would set them both free.

  “I’m sorry too, minx.”

  Chapter 31

  Boston Harbor

  7 Weeks later……

  “Ah, Robert?”

  “Shhhh, not while I’m praying,” he said, momentarily losing his place before he started again, “thank you for letting us survive that trip from hell. Thank you for ignoring my prayers for a quick death when I didn’t think that I’d be able to survive another day of starvation,” he said, making her roll her eyes in annoyance.

  “You were given three full meals a day just like everyone else,” she pointed out, not bothering to mention the fact that, on most days, he’d received second helpings. She sat down on a bench near their luggage, wondering just how much longer he was going to keep this up.

  “I’m sorry for all the cursing that my wife forced me to do while I was on that boat,” he continued, ignoring her even as he amused her. “As you know, she’s been such a bad influence on me. Tha
nk you for pulling me from near death and somehow giving me the strength to survive.”

  “Near death?” she asked, frowning. “When were you near death?”

  “When was I near death?” he asked in stunned disbelief as he opened his eyes so that he could glare at her. “How could you forget all those times that I could barely move? When I struggled to find the will to live so that I wouldn’t leave you a young widow? Did my struggle for survival mean nothing to you?” he demanded in outrage, terrifying the people that were forced to walk past him to get to the docks and making her wrack her brain as she struggled to figure out what he was talking about.

  “Do you mean those few times when you had a touch of seasickness?” she asked, unable to think of anything else that he could be talking about since he’d been the picture of health during the majority of the trip.

  “A touch?” he repeated in disbelief. “I nearly died!”

  “Because you were forced to miss breakfast a few times?” she asked, trying her best not to laugh or smile, but he looked so adorable just then that she admittedly didn’t put up much of a struggle.

  “It was hell! Pure hell!” he snapped, shocking several of the women trying to rush past him.

  “Try having seasickness every morning and night,” she said dryly as she stood up and gestured for several dockworkers to help them with their luggage.

  “That makes my ordeal worse!” he said, coming to his feet so that he could offer her his arm. “I needed my strength so that I could tend to you and keep you alive.”

  “The peppermint tea did that,” she said with a shrug.

  His gasp of outrage was simply too adorable. “You ungrateful brat! After everything I did for you to ensure your survival and this is how you repay me? With your mockery?”

  She opened her mouth to tease him when the reminder that she hadn’t had a chance to have her peppermint tea this morning hit her with the force of a battering ram. “Robert?” was all she had to say.

  “Damn it!” he snapped, all humor leaving his face as he scooped her up in his arms and quickly carried her over to a stack of crates where she’d have some privacy.

  As soon as he stepped behind the crates, he put her down on her feet and helped her kneel at the edge of the dock. He held onto her hips so that she wouldn’t have to worry about falling into the water as she was sick for the first time in a week. When she was done, she sat back against Robert, who wrapped his arms around her and murmured sweet endearments as they waited for the nausea to pass.

  “I’m fine,” she said a few minutes later, panting slightly as she did her best to give him a reassuring smile when they both knew that she wasn’t.

  “The hell you are,” Robert practically snarled as he helped her to her feet. As soon as she was standing up, albeit a bit wobbly, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her back towards the dockworkers waiting by their luggage.

  “I can walk,” she said even though she wasn’t entirely sure that was true.

  “You’re not walking.”

  “People are staring,” she pointed out quietly, embarrassed by all the attention.

  “Then let them stare. You’re not walking!” he snapped, sounding angry, but she knew that he wasn’t mad at her.

  Robert was terrified that there was something seriously wrong with her. She’d been ill during most of the trip, sometimes too sick to leave the bed. When she wasn’t sick she was exhausted, sleeping away most of the morning and falling asleep at night before the sun even had a chance to set. The ship’s doctor hadn’t helped matters when he’d tried to restrict her to their room for most of the trip.

  The doctor had examined her multiple times at Robert’s request and each time he’d claimed different reasons for her illness. The last suggestion had Robert throwing the man out of their room and on his ass. He still wouldn’t tell her what the doctor said, but the way she caught him watching her sometimes let her know that it was bad.

  Whenever she asked him what the doctor said, he would smile and reassure her that it was nothing. Then he would do whatever it took to distract her. They’d walk the deck of the ship, play cards, read, and reminisce about the old days until it was time to go to bed. Then he would make love to her tenderly as though he was savoring their time together, which only frightened her more.

  “Take us to the finest hotel,” he demanded as soon as they were within speaking distance of the men waiting by their luggage.

  “I thought we were going straight home?” she asked, feeling slightly disappointed that she’d have to wait another day to see her new home even though the prospect of spending the next few hours in a coach didn’t really appeal to her.

  “Shhh, minx, it’s fine,” he said, shifting her in his arms so that he could hold her closer. “Everything will be fine.”

  * * *

  “Well? What’s wrong with her?” Robert demanded in a hushed whisper as he looked up from his sleeping wife to the elderly doctor that looked confused and somewhat amused.

  “You say that two different doctors have examined her in the past two months?” the doctor asked as he adjusted Elizabeth’s nightgown and pulled the covers up and tucked her in.

  “Yes,” Robert bit out, doing his damndest to keep a rein on his temper, but it was difficult right now when he was scared out of his mind that he was going to lose his minx.

  “Remind me what they diagnosed her with again,” the doctor said with a patient smile as he sat down on the edge of the bed by Elizabeth’s side.

  Praying that he could get through this without grabbing the elderly doctor by his shoulders and demanding that he fix his wife, Robert took a deep breath before he answered. “The first doctor said that she’d miscarried our child. The second doctor told me a combination of things. Sometimes he said that it was all in her head, that she was just doing it for attention. Then he would say that she had liver damage, the flu, migraines even though she never once complained of a headache and the last time,” he started to say when his voice broke, “the last time he said that she most likely had cancer.”

  “I see,” the doctor murmured, reaching up and pulling the covers back that he’d just adjusted. “How did he explain the weight gain?” he asked, placing his hand over the slight curve of Elizabeth’s stomach that was becoming more noticeable with each passing day.

  “He said it was from her overeating to compensate for her illness.”

  “I see,” the doctor said, his lips twitching as he gestured to Elizabeth’s chest. “And have you noticed a difference there?”

  God, yes…..

  Her breasts appeared to be bigger and a hell of a lot more sensitive. He’d actually made her come just from licking her nipples last week. It had turned him on so much that he’d-

  The doctor chuckled, bringing his focus back where it should be. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” he said as he pulled the covers back up.

  “Do you know what’s wrong with her?” he asked, desperate for an answer. He really didn’t know what he’d do without her. He didn’t want to live without her. He-

  “Your wife is pregnant.”

  -was going to be sick.

  “W-what?’ his asked, trying to make sense of what he’d just heard as his head began to spin and his legs stopped working.

  With a chuckle, the doctor helped him sit down in the chair next to the bed. Then without a word, he gave Robert’s shoulders a gentle push that had him bending forward as he struggled to take in his next breath.

  “If I had to guess, I would say that your wife is around four months along,” the doctor calmly explained.

  Robert shook his head as he struggled to grasp what was going on. “No,” he said, forcing himself to breathe, “that’s impossible. She lost the baby two months ago.”

  “I’ve been doing this for over fifty years, young man, and I can tell you without any doubt that your wife is indeed pregnant.”

  “She bled,” Robert said, moving to sit up, but a fresh wave of dizziness had him d
ropping his head right back where it was.

  “Mmmhmm, some women do that early on. It doesn’t mean that she lost the baby. Has she bled since?”

  “No,” he said numbly as he did his best to wrap his mind around what the doctor was saying.

  “What was the reason the doctor gave for the lack of bleeding?” the doctor asked, thankfully giving him something else to focus on.

  “He said that it took months for a woman’s natural rhythm to return.”

  The doctor released a snort of amusement. “That’s a first.”

  “I should bring her back to London,” he said numbly even as he realized that he couldn’t afford the passage back for both of them.

  Well, that wasn’t completely true. He could afford third class passenger tickets, but he didn’t like the idea of his wife being forced to share a room with strangers. He also didn’t like the idea of his wife being forced to rest on those hard cots that the third class accommodations were famous for. There was no way in hell that he was sending his pregnant wife back to London by herself.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the doctor said even though it hadn’t been a real possibility for them. “She’s obviously having a tough time with this pregnancy. I also wouldn’t recommend placing her on a ship where the passengers could carry God only knows what diseases. It’s not good for her or the baby.”

  “Oh my God,” he muttered as dread crawled up his spine when he realized that he’d done just that.

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about her being sick,” the doctor said, obviously reading his mind. “She looks very healthy to me, just tired. Make sure she gets plenty of rest.”

  “I will,” Robert promised, turning his head so that he could look at his minx. “I’ll take good care of her.”

  Chapter 32