The Virtuous Widow

by Anne Gracie

  “Oh, Ellie, my sweet, lovely Ellie.” He groaned and held her tighter, “How can I bear to leave you?”

  “You must, Daniel. You have a wife. There is no choice for either of us.”

  “Ready, Capt’n?” called the sergeant from downstairs. “Need a hand with anything?”

  “Blast him,” muttered Daniel. He clung to her, burying his face in her hair, inhaling the scent of her, the scent of life, of love. He wished they had celebrated their love physically, for it would add a dimension he thought she was unaware of. But she was right; even without that consummation, they had already created so much love.

  He desperately hoped it was enough to survive the return of his memories.

  Finally, reluctantly, they pulled apart and went downstairs. Ellie felt the sergeant’s shrewd gaze run over her, and knew that she looked like a woman who had just kissed and been well kissed in return. She raised her chin. She did not care what he thought of her.

  The sergeant had brought two horses. They were saddled. Ready. Waiting.

  “What about the squire?” said Daniel in a rough under-voice. “I canno—”

  Ellie put her hands over his lips. “Hush. Don’t worry about it. I’ve been dealing with him for months. Nothing has changed.” His mouth twisted under her fingers. He touched them with his tongue and she pulled them away, unable to take much more.

  “Mr. Bruin, Mr. Bruin, you’re not goin’, are you?”

  Daniel picked up the distressed little girl and hugged her. “I have to, Princess. Now, be a good girl and look after your mother for me, won’t you?” He kissed her goodbye.

  Amy wept and clung to his neck. “No, no, Mr. Bruin, you have to stay. The wishing candle brought you…”

  His face rigid with the effort of staying in control, Daniel unhooked the small, desperate hands and passed Amy over to her mother.

  “I will sort something out, I promise you,” he said in a low, ragged voice.

  “Don’t make promises you cannot keep.”

  “I always keep my promises. Always.” His eyes were damp. They clung to her, but he didn’t kiss or touch Ellie again. She was relieved. Neither of them could have borne it.

  The best way to perform drastic surgery was fast. He turned and strode to the horses, mounting his in one fluid movement. He turned in the saddle, looked across the clearing at Ellie and her daughter with burning blue eyes and said, “Always.” And he galloped away.

  Always, thought Ellie miserably. Did he mean he always kept his promises? Or that he would always love her? Whichever it was, it didn’t matter. He was gone. She had the rest of the day to get through somehow, a sunset to await, a daughter to feed and tuck into bed and watch over until she fell asleep. Only then could she seek her own bed and find the release she needed.

  The release she needed. Tears and sleep. Not the release she craved…

  She carried Amy into the cottage. Making a drink for them both, she found the small pouch of money the sergeant had offered her hidden away behind the milk jug. She looked inside it. Twenty pounds. A fortune, enough to keep her and Amy fed for a long time yet.

  Capt’n Ambrose always pays his shot. The sergeant had prevailed yet again.

  Somehow, she got through the rest of the day.

  When it came time to go up to bed, Amy trotted ahead of her mother, up the stairs.

  “Mama.” Amy turned, her freshly washed little face lit up. “Look what I found on my bed.” She held up a tiny wooden doll, carved, a little clumsily, out of birchwood. “It’s got blue eyes, just like me. An’ Mr. Bruin, too.” Amy’s eyes shone.

  A thick lump formed in Ellie’s throat. Daniel’s whittling. She’d thought he’d been simply killing time, making wood shavings, but he’d made her daughter a doll.

  “It’s lovely, darling. I’ll make her some clothes tomorrow.”

  “Not her. This is a boy doll,” said Amy firmly. “I’ll call him Daniel, after Mr. Bruin.”

  “L…lovely.” Ellie managed a smile, though she feared it wobbled a bit.

  * * *

  Later, when Amy was asleep, and the cold descended around her so that she could delay the moment no more, Ellie stepped reluctantly into her own room. Her eyes were drawn inevitably to the sleeping alcove, to the bed.

  And then, finally, the tears came, for of course there was nothing there. Not even a small wooden doll. There was never going to be a Daniel there for her again.

  He was gone.

  Chapter Four

  “No, darling, I cannot make you a new dolls’ house yet. Not until we find a new house of our own. Houses for people come before houses for dolls.”

  Amy nodded. “The squire doesn’t like us any more, does he, Mama?”

  “No, darling he doesn’t. Now help Mama pack by bringing all your clothes down here. I’m going to bundle them all up in a sheet, so we can put them on Ned’s cart.”

  “Don’t worry, Mama. If the squire comes back again, Daniel will hit him for us again, won’t you Daniel?” Amy gestured fiercely with her small wooden Daniel.

  “Nobody is hitting anybody,” snapped Ellie. “Now fetch your things down here at once.”

  Ellie bit her lip as, chastened, Amy did her bidding. She had no idea where they were going to live. The vicar had offered them a room in the vicarage until after Christmas, but then his pupils would return for their lessons and there would be no room. But she was sure she would find something soon.

  She had to.

  Rat-tat-tat!

  She froze. The squire had been back twice already since Daniel had left. Ellie remembered her daughter’s words and her temper suddenly flared. She didn’t need a Daniel to protect her; a wooden Daniel would do no good and the real Daniel…well, the real Daniel was back where he belonged, with his loving wife who was expecting their child. Daniel would be there to protect that woman and that child, not the woman and child he had stumbled across in a storm, brought by the light of a gypsy candle.

  His memory would no doubt have returned by now. He probably didn’t even remember Ellie. Whereas, she…she remembered everything. Too much, in fact. She couldn’t forget a thing. He was there, in her mind and her heart, every time she slipped into a cold and empty bed. And she woke with the thought of Daniel every morning, missing his warm caresses, the low rumble of his voice… Bitter regret choked her as she recalled how she had fended him off. If only they had made love…just once.

  It wasn’t only in bed that he haunted her. He was there, in every corner of her cottage, in the stories her daughter prattled, in the doll he’d made for her. Ellie stoked the fire, morning, noon and night, with wood that Daniel had chopped, and her mouth still dried as she remembered the way his shoulder muscles bunched and flowed with each fall of the axe.

  He was there each time it rained and her roof didn’t leak. Her heart still caught in her throat when she recalled the way he’d come down off the roof in such a rush, giving her such a fright. The moment she realised she loved him…

  It had rained most days since Daniel had left.

  The knocker banged again. Ellie forced the bitter lump from her throat. She lifted the poker, strode to the door and flng it open, weapon brandished belligerently.

  There was no one there. The rain had stopped and a heavy mist had fallen. It swirled and ebbed, making the cottage surroundings eerily fluid. Poker held high, Ellie stepped out on to the wet ground.

  “Hello, Ellie.” The deep voice seeped into her frozen bones like heat.

  She whirled around, stared, could say nothing. The fog eddied around a tall silhouette, wrapped in a dark cloak, but the cloak was no disguise to Ellie. She knew every plane of that body, had been living with it in her mind and her heart for weeks.

  “What are you doing here, Daniel?” she managed to croak.

  He moved towards her. “I’ve come for you, Ellie. I want you with me.”

  Pain streaked through Ellie. The words she had so wanted, but now it was all wrong. She held up the poker, as if to war
d him off, and shook her head. “No, Daniel. I can’t. I won’t. I have Amy to think of.”

  He stood stock-still, shocked, his brow furrowed. “But of course I want Amy as well.”

  Ellie shook her head, more frantically. “No, I can’t do that. I won’t. Go back home, Daniel. No matter what my feelings for you are, I won’t come with you. I won’t ruin Amy’s life that way.”

  There was a long silence. Behind her Ellie could hear the slow plop, plop of water dripping off the roof…the roof he had fixed for her.

  “And what are your feelings for me?”

  Ellie’s face crumpled with anguish. “You know what they are,” she whispered.

  He shook his head. His eyes blazed with intensity. “No, I thought I did, but now…I’m only sure of my own feelings.” He took a deep breath and said in a voice vibrating with emotion, “I love you, Ellie. I have my memory back and I know I have never loved anyone and will never love anyone again as much as I love you. You are my heart, Ellie.”

  Tears blurred Ellie’s vision at his words. All she’d ever dreamed of was in those few words… You are my heart, Ellie. But it was too late.

  “Go back to your wife, Daniel,” she said miserably and turned away.

  There was a short, fraught silence. Then Daniel swore. Then he laughed. “I’d forgotten that.”

  Ellie turned. “Forgotten your wife?” she said, shocked.

  Daniel’s blue eyes blazed into her. “I don’t have a wife. I’ve never had a wife. It was all a stupid misunderstanding.” He laid his hand over his heart and declared, “I am a single man, in possession of all my wits and I’m able to support a wife in relative comfort. I love you most desperately, Mrs. Ellie Carmichael, and I’ve come to ask you to be my wife.”

  There was a long silence. Ellie just stared. The raised poker wavered. A strong masculine hand took it gently out of her slackened grasp.

  “Well, Ellie-love, aren’t you going to answer me?”

  Ellie couldn’t see him for tears, but she could feel him and she flung herself into his arms and kissed him fiercely. “Oh, Daniel, Daniel, yes, of course I’ll marry you! I love you so much it hurts!”

  * * *

  “The sergeant lied,” Daniel explained some time later, an arm around both Ellie and Amy. “The silly clunch thought he was rescuing me from a designing hussy. He’d started to wonder if he’d made a mistake—apparently you just about gave him frostbite when he offered you money—but he thought it would be better to get me out of your clutches and recover my memory before I made any decisions.”

  He grinned and kissed Ellie again. “So, having regained my memory, I’ve brought myself straight back to your clutches. And what very nice clutches they are, too, my dear,” he leered in a growly voice and both Ellie and Amy giggled.

  “So you remember everything, now?”

  “Indeed I do. The moment I arrived back at Rothbury, it all came back to me. Most peculiar how the mind works—or doesn’t, as the case may be. Rothbury is a house as well as a village,” he explained. “I was born there.”

  “And, er, what do you do there?” Ellie enquired delicately.

  “I oversee the farm. I’ve found a position for you, too. You will be in charge of the house. After we’re married, of course.” He looked at her. “You’re sure, Ellie? Knowing nothing about me, you’ll marry me and come and keep house with me?”

  She smiled mistily and nodded happily. “Oh, yes, please. I could think of nothing more wonderful. I would be a good housekeeper, I think. In fact, I did try to find a position like that after Hart died and we found there was no money left, but having no references…and also a daughter…” She hesitated. “You know I bring nothing to this marriage.”

  He looked affronted. “You bring yourself, don’t you? You’re all I want, love. Just you. Oh, and a small bonus called Princess Amy.”

  “Oh, Daniel…” She kissed him again. It was that or weep all over him.

  He had brought a special licence. “I’ve arranged everything, my love. The vicar has agreed to marry us this afternoon—no need to wait for the banns to be called. Then Tommy—Sergeant Tomkins to you—will take Amy to stay the night at the vicarage.”

  “But why—”

  He looked at her and his blue eyes were suddenly burning with intensity. “We have a wedding night ahead of us, love…and this is a small cottage. Amy is better off at the vicarage. Don’t worry, she already has Tommy eating out of her hand. He loves a bossy woman! And the vicar is delighted, too. He loves Christmas weddings.”

  Christmas. They were only a few days away from Christmas. She’d been trying to forget about it, expecting this to be her orst Christmas ever. But now…

  Daniel continued, “We’ll stay one night here and then I’ll take you home to Rothbury. I thought it would be nice if we celebrated Christmas there, with my poor old mother.”

  Ellie smiled. “Oh, yes, that would be lovely. But…a wedding, today…I have noth—” She glanced down at the shabby dress she wore. “I don’t suppose my old blue dress—”

  “You look beautiful in anything, my love, but I brought you a dress…and some other things.” He gestured to a portmanteau, which the sergeant had carried in earlier.

  Hesitantly Ellie opened the lid. Inside, wrapped in tissue, was a beautiful heavy cream satin dress. She lifted it out and held it against herself. The dress was exquisite, long-sleeved and high-waisted, embroidered over the bodice and around the hem in the most delicate and lovely green-and-gold silk embroidery. It was utterly beautiful… Totally unsuitable for a housekeeper, of course, but did she care?

  “Is it all right?”

  She turned, clutching the dress to her breasts and whispered, “It’s beautiful, Daniel.”

  “The colour is all right, is it?”

  She smiled. “It’s lovely, though I’m not exactly a maiden, Daniel.”

  “You are to me,” he said. “Anyway, that wasn’t why I chose it. It reminded me of when I first saw you—you were dressed in that white night-thingummy.”

  Ellie thought of her much-patched, thick flannel nightgown and laughed. “Only a man could see any similarity between my shapeless old nightgown and this beautiful thing.” She laid the dress carefully over the chair and flew across the room to hug and kiss him.

  “A man in love,” he corrected her. “And that nightgown did have shape—your shape, and a delectable shape it is too.” He ran his hands over her lovingly and kissed her deeply. Ellie kissed him back, shivering with pleasurable anticipation.

  “Enough of that, my love. We’ll be churched before long. We can wait until tonight.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” she whispered.

  He laughed, lifted her in his arms and swung her around exuberantly, then kissed her again and pushed her towards the table. “There’s more stuff in the portmanteau.”

  She looked and drew out a lovely green merino pelisse, trimmed with white fur at the collar and cuffs and a pair of pretty white boots which even looked to be the right size. Beneath it was a miniature pelisse identical to the first, but in blue. With it was a dainty little blue dress with a charming lace collar. And the sweetest pair of tiny fur-lined red kid boots, perfect winter wear for a little girl. Ellie’s eyes misted. He’d brought a wedding outfit for Amy, too. And of the finest quality. She wondered how he could afford it, but it didn’t matter.

  She smiled a wobbsmile and hugged him. How did she ever deserve such a dear, kind thoughtful man? “Thank you, Daniel. I don’t know how—”

  “Come on, love, let’s get you to that church, or we’ll be anticipating our vows. The sergeant shall escort you and Amy. I shall meet you there, as is proper.” He pulled out a fob-watch and consulted it. “Shall we say one hour?”

  “One hour!” gasped Ellie. “Two, at least. Amy and I need to wash our hair and—”

  “Very well, two hours it is,” he said briskly and kissed her mouth, a swift, hard, possessive promise of a kiss. “And not a moment longer, mind! I hav
e waited long enough!”

  Freshly prepared for Christmas, the church looked beautiful. Small and built of sombre grey stone, it glowed inside as the soft winter sunshine pierced the stained-glass windows, flooding the inside with rainbows of delicate colour and making the brass and silver gleam. It smelt of beeswax and fresh-cut pinewood. Greenery decorated the softly shining oak pews and the two huge brass urns on either side of the altar were laden with branches of holly and ivy and pine. Braziers had been lit, taking the chill from the air, throwing out a cosy glow.

  Ellie and Amy, dressed in their new finery, stood at the door. The sergeant, looking smart and neat in what Ellie guessed was a new coat, had gone to inform Daniel and the vicar of their arrival. Ellie, suddenly nervous, clutched Amy’s hand. Was she doing the right thing? She had only known Daniel a matter of days, after all.

  She loved him. But she had loved once before…and had been badly mistaken. She had never felt for Hart half the feelings she had for Daniel. Did that mean she had made the right choice this time…or double the mistake? She shivered, feeling suddenly cold. Amy’s little hand was warm in hers. A tiny white fur muff dangled from her daughter’s wrist. A gift from Daniel…

  “Are you ready, love?” The deep voice came from her right. Ellie jumped. Daniel was standing there, with a look in his eyes that drove all the last-minute jitters from her mind.

  “Oh, yes. I’m ready,” she said, and with a full heart laid her hand on his arm.

  “Then lead the way, Sergeant and Amy.”

  Gravely the sergeant offered his arm to the small girl. Like a little princess, Amy walked solemnly beside him down the aisle. As they reached the altar, Amy’s attention was distracted. “Look, Mama, the vicar has a dolls’house, too,” she whispered.

  Ellie followed her daughter’s gesture and her hand tightened on Daniel’s arm. To the right of the aisle at the front of the church sat a Christmas diorama on a small wooden table. A stable, thatched with straw, was surrounded by carved wooden sheep and cows and a donkey.