The Earl’s Intended Wife

by Louise Allen

  The chaise was making good time and had passed though Watford when Hebe gave a little gasp. ‘Hebe?’ Anna sat up sharply from the light doze she had fallen into. ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘My back has been aching all day, but suddenly, a pain.’ She put a hand to the small of her back and then gasped again as a cramp lanced though her stomach. ‘Oh, Anna, it hurts!’

  Anna took one look at her white face and dropped open the window to lean out. ‘You! Postilion! Stop!’ The man reined in and twisted round in the saddle. ‘Quickly, the lady has been taken ill. Drive to the first respectable inn you come to!’

  The man whipped the horses up and Anna sat next to Hebe. She touched her forehead, which was clammy with sweat. Through the pain Hebe heard her say, ‘Put on my ring, and remember you are Mrs Sersay. Yes?’ The warm metal band was slipped on to her finger, then Hebe’s hands clenched again.

  ‘Anna, what is it? Is it the baby?’

  ‘I am afraid so, querida. Try to hold on to my hand, we will soon be at an inn and we will get a doctor.’

  The next half-hour passed in a haze. Hebe was aware of being helped from the chaise and into a house. Strong arms scooped her up and she was being carried and placed on a bed. A strange voice said, ‘Put her down there, Joe, gentle now, then go and get Dr Griffin, and hurry.’ There was more pain, Anna’s voice and that of the strange woman, both kind, both trying to hide fear.

  Then a man’s voice, elderly, firm, reassuringly confident. ‘Give me some room, now. How far pregnant did you say, ma’am? Two months, hmm.’

  At some point she must have fallen asleep, for Hebe woke to morning light in a strange bed. She felt as weak as a kitten, but the pain had gone. ‘Anna?’

  ‘Here I am, ducky.’

  ‘The baby…’

  ‘I am sorry, my love. The doctor said there was nothing to be done. Sometimes it just happens, as though it was never meant to be.’

  Never meant to be. My baby. Alex’s baby, never meant to be…

  ‘I would have done anything to protect it.’

  ‘I know.’ Anna had her in her arms and was gently rocking to and fro.

  ‘But I never felt it was real. Does that make sense?’

  ‘No,’ the older woman said, ‘but that doesn’t matter.’

  ‘When can I travel? Aunt and Uncle will be worried.’

  ‘Tomorrow, the doctor says, if you rest today. He will come back this afternoon.’

  ‘I will write to them. We are still on the main road, are we not? It should catch the mail.’

  Anna went for writing paper and a quill and Hebe wrote a brief note explaining that she had been taken sick on the road with an illness she had been suffering from since Gibraltar, but hoped to be with them the next evening. That went off with reassurances that it would be in town by the afternoon and Hebe tried to compose a letter to Alex.

  This was far harder. She had to tell him that the need to marry her was gone, but in such a way that if it was read by anyone else it would give no clue as to what she was talking about. She hated to break the news in such a way. Surely he would be sad to hear what had happened, even if it spared him the painful necessity of an unwelcome marriage?

  After much thought she wrote: My lord, I feel I must write at the earliest opportunity to thank you for your hospitality when I called yesterday. Your patience and kindness to me at a moment of the deepest grief for your family is not something I will ever forget. Nor will I forget the efforts you made to assist me with the problem that I discussed with you. I regret to tell you that I have been taken ill upon my journey. Although the doctor assures me I may travel tomorrow, the nature of my illness is such that I find all my previous plans have come to nothing and I believe I will spend some time quietly in London with my aunt and uncle and not undertake the journey against which you so strongly advised me. Please accept my sincere condolences upon your sad loss, and for all the other distressing instances that have marked your return home to England. I remain, as ever, your friend, Hebe Carlton.

  Surely he would understand her meaning. Hebe folded the letter and wrote the direction. When Anna came back she gave it to her to seal. ‘Please see this is sent to Tasborough Hall, Anna. And that it is put into Alex’s hands only.’

  The doctor came later that day and expressed himself satisfied with Mrs Sersay’s progress. He spoke to her plainly but gently, assuring her it was no fault of hers and that there was no reason at all why she should not bear many healthy children in the future. But not Alex’s children, Hebe thought sadly. Nor anyone else’s.

  The journey to London was accomplished safely and slowly, and it was with relief that Hebe found herself outside the smart townhouse in Charles Street. Her Aunt Emily, her late mother’s younger sister, came running down the steps, cap ribbons flying, as pretty and impetuous as Hebe remembered her from so many years ago.

  After one look at Hebe, she summoned a sturdy footman and ordered her niece carried inside and up to her bedchamber immediately. ‘Take care, Peter, do! Oh, good day, ma’am, you must be Mrs Wilkins, Hebe’s companion? Welcome… Through here, Peter, put Miss Hebe down carefully. No, Joanna, you may not see your cousin, she is not well and needs to rest.’ Shutting the door firmly on husband, footman and daughters, Emily Fulgrave leaned against it and regarded Hebe with a warm smile.

  ‘You poor child, you look exhausted. Now, what is this mysterious illness? I must get Sir William Knighton to see you tomorrow.’

  Hebe sent Anna a look of desperate entreaty, and she plunged into the breach, taking Mrs Fulgrave by the arm and beginning to whisper confidentially. Eventually Emily came over to the bed and sat down, patting Hebe’s hand.

  ‘Poor child. No wonder you do not want to be embarrassed by more male doctors examining you. The advice your own doctor gave you seems perfectly sensible: we must let you have lots of rest and build you up with good food. Plenty of milk and chicken, did you say, Mrs Wilkins?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. And liver,’ Anna added firmly, ignoring Hebe’s horrified expression.

  ‘Well, dear, you are here now, and we are all looking forward so much to you feeling yourself again. Joanna wants to show you London and all the sights, little William has promised to lend you any of his toys if you are bored, and Grace and I cannot wait to take you shopping and to parties. Town is a little short of company now, at the start of the summer, but I am sure you will find plenty to entertain you. And I hardly need say that your uncle Hubert is delighted to have his favourite niece to stay.

  ‘Shall I leave you with Mrs Wilkins to get undressed and into bed? You can have a little rest and, if you feel a bit better later, Grace and I will come and have supper up here with you.’

  Hebe agreed gratefully to this programme and lay back on the bed as her anxious aunt closed the door quietly behind her. ‘What did you say was wrong with me?’ she asked Anna, who was lifting clothes out of one of the portmanteaux in search of a nightgown.

  ‘I told her it was a woman’s problem and not serious and that your doctor said you would grow out of it, but meanwhile you are very embarrassed at being questioned and examined and I was sure you would soon be feeling much better.’

  ‘Grow out of it? Anna, I am twenty years old!’

  Anna shrugged. ‘She seemed to accept it. If you rest, I am sure you will soon be feeling much better, and then she will stop worrying about you.’ She found the nightgown she was looking for and shook it out. ‘This is a nice family, I think. I saw the children: two pretty girls and a handsome little boy, all very worried about their cousin they have not seen for so many years. This will be a good house to grow happy in again.’

  ‘Grow happy again.’ Hebe blinked away a tear. ‘Yes, if I cannot grow happy here, Anna, I do not know where I would.’ Except at Tasborough Hall, with Alex, her heart told her.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Hebe slept until supper time, then had a wash, put on a wrapper and lay on the daybed with a tray while Aunt Emily and Grace, her newly engaged ninetee
n-year-old daughter, ate their suppers from a card table Peter the footman carried in.

  ‘You look better already,’ Grace said, smiling happily. She was a short, slightly plump blonde with a pretty figure, wide blue eyes and an expression of quiet contentment. ‘I am so looking forward to us being able to go around together. I have my wedding clothes to buy and you have your new wardrobe for your come-out. Although that is not quite right, is it? You have already come out in Malta.’

  ‘Yes,’ Hebe agreed. ‘But, of course, nothing there was as fashionable as London parties and assemblies.’

  ‘I can see no problem at all in securing you vouchers for Almack’s, my dear,’ her aunt confided. ‘And, of course, your presentation at the next possible Drawing Room. Just as soon as we have your court dress ready.’

  ‘But that will be very expensive, will it not?’ Hebe enquired anxiously. ‘Mama and Sir Richard have made me a very generous allowance, and I am sure that will cover all my other dresses and so on, but not a court dress.’

  ‘I think we can contrive,’ Aunt Emily said. ‘I have been thinking about it. I have Grace’s plumes laid up in silver paper, so that is one big expense spared. Now Grace’s gown would not do for you, for you are taller, but we can use the hoops and I have laid by just the fabric.’

  The thought of being presented at court was enough to keep Hebe’s mind pleasantly occupied for some time, and she was unaware of Anna’s relieved smile as she watched her talking to her cousin, her face relaxed and her cheeks just stained with colour.

  The next morning Aunt Emily bustled in while Hebe was taking her breakfast. ‘How did you sleep, dear? Was the street too noisy for you? You look so much better this morning, what a relief. Now, dear, will you and Mrs Wilkins be all right if you are alone in the house for a while? I am so sorry, but your uncle has to go and speak to his bankers, Grace and Joanna really must go to buy new shoes—what they have done to all their satin slippers I just cannot conceive!—and William, I am sorry to say, is bound for the dentist. He will not go with his tutor, so I am afraid I must drag him there myself.

  ‘We will all be back by lunchtime. If it stays warm, would you like to go for a drive in the barouche with the top down this afternoon?’

  ‘We will be quite all right, Aunt, you must not worry about us,’ Hebe assured her. ‘Anna wants to continue unpacking and I will lie on the daybed with a book, if there is something I might borrow? And, yes, I would like a drive very much.’

  Grace ran up a few minutes later with an armful of books. ‘All novels except…here we are, Byron’s poetry. Don’t let Papa see, he doesn’t approve. Have you read Miss Austen’s Pride and Prejudice? Do try that if you don’t like Byron. Mama says you can come for a drive this afternoon. I am so glad!’ She bent and kissed Hebe on the cheek and ran out with a cheerful, ‘Goodbye!’

  ‘So much energy, this family,’ Anna commented, laughing. ‘They seem to run everywhere. Would you like to get up now, Hebe? See, I have found this pretty wrapper and given it a press.’

  Hebe was glad to get out of bed and curl up on the daybed with Pride and Prejudice in her hand. Her body seemed to be recovering with uncanny speed. She supposed it was because she had always been healthy and fit. Her spirits, though, were all over the place. Part of her just wanted to curl up and weep over the baby. Another part was happy to be with her aunt’s cheerful, loving family. Her sensible self told her what a good thing it was that she had escaped a loveless marriage; her rebellious, emotional self pined for Alex.

  Anna, wandering about the room, folding clothes into drawers and setting out Hebe’s brushes on the dressing table, watched the play of emotions on her face and remarked, ‘I think you will feel very mixed up for a day or two, Hebe. It happens to women who have had a baby—one minute happy, the next all tears, and I have heard it said that it happens also in cases like yours. Do not expect too much too soon.’

  There was the sound of the knocker. ‘Who can that be?’ Hebe said idly. ‘They will be disappointed to find all the family out.’

  A moment later there was a tap on the door and Peter appeared, somewhat red in the face and studiously averting his eyes from Hebe in her wrapper. ‘I beg your pardon, Mrs Wilkins, ma’am, but there is a gentleman here asking to see Miss Hebe. I told him she was not at home, so he says he wants to speak to you. I said I didn’t think you were home either, ma’am, the mistress not having given me instructions, but he says if you don’t come down, he’ll come up.

  ‘I don’t rightly know what to do, ma’am.’ The footman shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. ‘I mean, he’s a gentleman and all, and he’s big—I don’t think he’ll take kindly to me shutting the door in his face, and there’s only me and Cook and little Dorothy in the house, ma’am.’

  He spun round as the sound of steps on the stairs reached them. ‘Oh, gawd, begging your pardon, ma’am.’

  ‘Anna! Where the devil are you?’ It was Alex, and, by the sound of it, he was in a towering rage.

  ‘Thank you, Peter. I know the gentleman, I will come down.’ Anna went out, followed by the footman, who sent Hebe a harassed and apologetic glance as he shut the door.

  Alex! Here… She put down her book with fingers that shook slightly and was wondering whether to get up or stay where she was, when the door opened with enough force to send it back against the wall and he stalked into the bedchamber, Anna behind him.

  ‘Major! You cannot go in there!’

  He turned to look at the agitated Spanish woman, who was hanging with some determination to his sleeve, and at the footman who was bobbing about on the landing in an agony of indecision. ‘Anna, I am going in there, and, unless you can find someone other than this unfortunate youth to throw me out, I am not sure how you are going to stop me.’ He turned sharply to face them, making them back off as he advanced, and the moment Anna was over the threshold he shut the door, turning the key in the lock with a twist of his wrist.

  He stood against the door for a long moment, ignoring the efforts of those outside to turn the handle. Hebe had never seen him look so gentle, and, she realised with a start, so fearful. He walked over until he was beside the daybed, then went down on one knee, close beside her but without making any attempt to touch her.

  ‘My dear girl, I am so sorry.’ All the anger that had been in his voice as he had spoken to Anna and Peter was gone, and the tenderness made Hebe blink back tears.

  ‘You understood my letter, then?’

  ‘Yes. I would have come at once, but the funeral was yesterday. I left as soon as I could, rode through the night and got here at dawn. I have been standing in the street until I saw everyone leave. I did not want to have this conversation with your aunt present.’ She realised that he was indeed in riding breeches, his boots thick with dust.

  ‘I see you haven’t shaved,’ she said, her voice shaking as she tried to speak lightly.

  ‘No French spies to notice,’ he answered in the same tone. ‘How are you? Have you seen a doctor?’

  ‘Yes, I saw a very good one, I think, but not since I got to London. My aunt has no idea what has happened, just that I have been ill since Gibraltar and that the same thing overtook me on the journey here.’ She paused, looking down at his hands, lightly clasped on the edge of the daybed beside her. ‘I feel much better, I will soon be well.’

  ‘But sad?’ he asked gently.

  ‘Yes, sad. Are you sad?’

  ‘I thought I only cared that you were well, but I find I care about the baby as well. More than I would have thought possible in the circumstances.’

  Hebe wondered what would happen if she gave in to her feelings and just turned into his arms and clung to him. Instead she swallowed hard and said, ‘There was no need for you to come.’ It came out sounding harsher than she intended and he withdrew his hands from the bed and stood up.

  ‘I think there was every need, beside my concern for your health. What did you mean by saying in the letter that all your previous plans had come to nothing
?’

  ‘Why, that there was no need for us to marry, of course. I did not want to say anything more specific in case anyone else saw the letter.’ Hebe watched him as he stood turning her brushes over and over on the dressing table, apparently engrossed in the play of sunlight on the silver backs.

  ‘And why is that?’ He was not looking at her. From the severe, priestlike profile she could read nothing.

  ‘Because, without the baby, there is no necessity.’

  At that Alex turned slowly on his booted heel and walked back until he was standing over her, looking down. ‘There is every necessity. I have ruined you, I will marry you.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Hebe retorted with more confidence than she was feeling. ‘I do not feel in any way ruined. Society might consider me so—I feel perfectly normal and ordinary and I will not be forced into a—’

  ‘Loveless marriage. You would rather have a loveless spinsterhood?’

  ‘I…well, I would have my independence.’

  ‘And no money to enjoy it.’

  ‘I could become involved with charitable work, that would be worthwhile.’

  ‘Why not do so from a position of power and influence and do some real good?’

  ‘There are other things than charitable works.’ Hebe was beginning to feel trapped. ‘I want to stretch my mind…’

  ‘Then stretch it with a large estate to look after, and a big house to be mistress of. Collect books—’ he gestured at the pile that had fallen across the end of the daybed ‘—collect works of art. Do what you will, I can afford to indulge you.’

  ‘I do not want to be indulged,’ Hebe snapped, now thoroughly on the defensive. The thought of marriage to Alex, of Alex indulging her, was painfully seductive.

  ‘Hebe, I warn you, I will not be gainsaid on this. It touches my honour. I will marry you.’

  ‘I do not see why I should marry you because of your sensitive honour,’ she protested. ‘And I will not. It is not right.’