by Susanne Lord
“See what?”
“The sudden insensibility, the overstimulation of the nerves. I am not suggesting such a thing with your wife—but in cases where girls wish for their menses to return, to avoid pregnancy, they use a mash of parsley, rapunzel, or pennyroyal. Would Mrs. Repton have…handled any of these herbs?”
“I don’t know, I don’t think so.”
“There are other herbs that are dangerous, brewed in a tincture or a tea.”
“She drinks tea all day but—”
This is not Mrs. Allen’s usual blend.
Not the usual blend…
He ran down the stairs, calling into the kitchen. “Bring Mrs. Allen here. Now.”
The doctor followed, not speaking as Will paced the entryway. Mrs. Allen appeared, her face drawn and concerned. “Is Mrs. Repton doing better?”
“What was in the tea you served today?”
Her eyes grew round. “The tea? Oh lord, did I do this to our sweet girl? It was tea, is all.”
“What was in it?”
“The usual tea. The same we’ve been drinking.” She wrung her hands in her skirt. “Betsy will bring it. Jamie, where’s Betsy?”
The footman stared blankly back. “But she’s gone, Mrs. Allen.”
“What do you mean, ‘gone’?”
“Didn’t you send her off? She said she was going back to her last post, said it was grander than here—”
“Where?” Will interrupted.
Jamie’s earnest face creased with concentration, he gripped a handful of hair as if to pull the name forward. “A Lord something-or-other, she said. Harland, maybe?”
Will’s blood ran cold. “Harlowe?”
You mustn’t get with child…
No man of honor will have her if she carries your babe…
“The Earl of Harlowe?” he asked again.
Jamie’s eyes met his. “That’s the one. He’s to be the next Earl of Harlowe, Betsy said.”
“That would be the viscount, then, wouldn’t it?” Mrs. Allen said. “Betsy’s gone to…”
But her words trailed off as Will raced out the door.
* * *
“Who the devil is making that commotion?” Viscount Spencer swept off his valet’s offer of his coat. Someone was pounding on his front door.
Buttoning his waistcoat along the way, he headed to the stairs. Barrows opened the front door. Repton stood in the shadow of his portico, his coat unbuttoned and his arms cocked at his sides.
Repton spied him over the butler’s shoulder and pushed Barrows aside. “Spencer!”
With a roar of fury, Repton lunged up the stairs, muscled thighs pumping and shoulders rolling. Hands like claws pushed off the railing, the steps, propelling him upwards. He was halfway to Hugh before two footmen dragged him to his knees.
His heart stumbling in his chest, Hugh gripped the banister, eyeing the still-struggling Repton on the stairs. “What the hell are you doing? How dare—”
“I know what you did to the tea!” Repton yelled, his teeth bared.
“I… Throw him out! He’s mad.”
“You did this! If she loses the baby, I’ll kill you.”
“Barrows! I will not suffer this man in my home.”
A third footman scrambled to grapple with Repton, slowing—but not stopping—his advance.
Repton broke their hold and lurched toward him. “I’ll kill you!”
“Grab him!”
The footmen slammed him from behind, forcing his cheek to the tread of the step, but still the man struggled.
“You’ll regret this!” His words were strangled beneath the weight of the three men.
When a fourth entered the fray, Hugh squared his shoulders. “Get out or meet a Blue Devil on the street.”
Repton strained against the arms binding him but he was losing ground. Forced back, forced out, until Barrows managed to close the front door, leaving the footmen out on the pavement with him.
A wave of dizziness buckled his knees. His heart pounded. It would for several minutes more. He did not recover from excitements as other men did.
If she loses the baby…
If.
Pounding rattled the doors. Repton had broken free. He eyed the massive walnut doors shuddering in their frame. “Don’t let him in.” Not that Barrows appeared to have any inclination of doing any such thing.
Slowly, mindful of further strain, he returned to his rooms and locked the door.
So Betsy had guessed correctly. Charlotte was with child.
He had to be rid of that stupid maid. Not only had she lost all nerve and come running to his door, she’d brought the poison back with her. The vial was in his dressing room with what was left of the powder.
No wonder Repton knew. Did Charlotte taste something in the tea? If the apothecary gave him something discernible…
He fished the glass vial from the back of his chest of drawers, swept the inside with his finger, and moved it to his lips. A flash of uncertainty stilled his hand as he stared at the powder. It was an insignificant amount. And he was male, twice her size.
He closed his lips around his finger. Bitter. And woody. But it would have been diluted in tea, not as he’d taken it.
“Goddamned incompetence.” He marched to the fire and cast the vial into it. Idiotic girl. He’d send the baggage to his house in Wales, far from here.
God damn them all. Christ, what possessed him to go so far? What if Repton told his father? The earl would believe Repton. Over his own son.
A strange fluttering in his chest slowed his step. His skin was…it was freezing, it was—
“Jenson?” His valet was never far. He marched toward the bellpull and tugged it hard. But that small effort left him panting. Something was wrong. “Jenson!”
What had the apothecary said? About relaxing muscles? About the heart? He said something…
A pain like lightning cracked his chest. He sank to his knees on the thick rug.
An apt name…malevolence…
“Jenson!”
Christ, his heart…his heart was going to burst…
He heard the rattle of the door, a voice calling.
And then nothing ever again.
Twenty-eight
Will bounded up the stairs to his and Charlotte’s bedroom, his muscles still quaking with unfulfilled vengeance. Spencer would pay. And soon.
But Charlotte needed him now.
Wallace and Jacob stood in the hall. Alerted to his presence, Wallace squared his shoulders and moved to block the bedroom door.
“Where did you go, Uncle Will?” Jacob asked, his small face full of blame.
He couldn’t have Jacob angry with him too. Not now. The little boy held his body stiff and resentful, but Will hugged him anyway. “I’m sorry, Jacob. I needed to see someone about your Aunt Charlotte, but I came back as soon as I could.”
Little arms hugged his neck and a nearly crippling surge of love for the child swept over him. Like Charlotte, Jacob forgave quickly.
“She’s sick, so I’m being quiet.”
With a last tight squeeze, Will set him down. “You’re a good boy.” He straightened to face Wallace. The man had a white-knuckle grip on the door handle and his legs were planted wide.
“She is not ready to see you, Will.”
“Let me pass.”
Wallace swallowed, a flash of futility weakening his expression. They both knew if Will wanted in, Wallace couldn’t stop him. “Allow her a little time.”
“She’s my wife—”
The door opened. Lucy stepped from the room, her face drawn. “It’s all right. Will, you can go in.”
Ignoring the troubling look of compassion on Lucy’s face, he swept past her into the room, closing the door behind him.
Charlotte was sitting up. Her hair had been let down and the gloss of those curling, dark tresses almost disguised the fact that her skin was too pale, her expression too lost. And in the same sweep of his eye, he noted the too-firm set of
her chin, the fingers fidgeting with the extra blanket at her waist, the tracks of dried tears on her cheeks, the fresh nightgown she wore. Charlotte wasn’t wearing her wedding rings—
Christ. He clenched his fist, the nails biting into his palm. He wasn’t cataloging some specimen—this was Charlotte. And her hair tickled his nose when they slept, and she was always depriving him of his pencil, and she smelled like peonies in the sun, and she was a talented sleeper and a terrible artist, and she couldn’t let five minutes pass without smiling at him.
His Charlotte. And he hadn’t protected her.
“Will you sit?” she asked quietly.
He lurched forward, his feet leaden. The bedside chair was in his way and he dragged it aside to climb on the bed—but Charlotte jerked up her blanket.
“No—would you…would you not?” she said.
His hand still gripped the chair, and it was only this tactile prod that made him comprehend. She didn’t want him in their bed.
He pulled the chair close and sat. “How are you feeling?”
“I am not in pain.”
He searched her eyes. “You didn’t tell me.”
Her fingers tightened on the blanket. “I thought…not to burden you—”
“Burden me?” He grabbed her hand. It was cold and limp, and it was a shock when she slipped it away.
“Ignorance would have been better. And you are sensitive, Will, though you are loath to confess it. Would the news of another child be welcome to you?”
“I don’t know.” He regretted the truth but he wouldn’t be false with her. I wasn’t prepared.
Her lips quirked in a small, sad smile. “The day we met, you said I see only what I wish to see. Do you remember?”
The fear in his gut grew heavier. But damn it, when had it not been heavy? He’d picked it up in Tibet, carried it back to England, found there was more to bear in caring for a woman. He knew its weight.
He couldn’t put it down.
“I remember,” he said quietly. “I was wrong.”
“But you weren’t wrong. I wish I had understood then how right you were. None of this would have happened.”
“Charlotte—”
“You rejected me and I sought your friendship. You growled at me and I kissed you. You warned me not to touch and I gloried in our lust.” She paused. “I married you when there was no need.”
“That’s not—”
“And you do not love me, Will,” she said, slow and clear. “Yet I dared to have a baby.”
The fear that bowed his back crushed him. “That’s not—no, listen—”
“My love was not supposed to hurt anyone, but look what has happened. God is punishing my selfishness. But he is offering me a chance at redemption, as well.” Her eyes slid from his. “We cannot be married anymore,” she whispered, as if the words stunned her as well.
“What are you doing?” He wanted his voice to command an answer, but he sounded desperate, afraid.
“If I am to be a mother, I cannot dream the world my child lives in. Not as I dreamed our marriage.”
He grabbed her shoulders, but she looked through him. “Listen to me. This child is mine, you are mine, we are married because you were right. You saw the truth, all of it, under every cover, under every stupid thing I said and did. You saw what was between us.”
“No, Will. I saw more.”
His hands gripped tight, wanting her to stop her talking, stop her saying good-bye. The ground dropped from under him, the room whirled, and he didn’t know where he would land… “Charlotte—”
“If the baby survives—”
…his fate in the hands of a woman who never did what was expected…
“—I will thank you every day for him—”
“I love you.” He flung the words because they were his last hope.
Charlotte. The love of his life. The greatest adventure of his life…
A horrible look of compassion dawned in her eyes. She didn’t believe him.
She was letting him fall.
“That is the second-nicest thing you have ever said to me,” she said, smiling sadly.
“Charlotte—”
“Thank you for the days we were married, every one of them. We need to end this as we had planned. Just as you planned to find what you lost in Tibet and I planned to live without you.”
He shook his head, his hands dropped, lifeless, to the bed. “You love me.”
“Perhaps.” Her eyes clouded and her beautiful face stilled, as faraway as a porcelain doll’s. “Perhaps you were only the man of my dreams.”
Twenty-nine
“Christ, what did you do to your wife?” Seth Mayhew said by way of greeting as he stood on the threshold of Will’s parents’ door in Richmond.
Will froze with his hand on the knob. “You saw her?”
“Just come from the house, looking for you. I’d never seen her so down in her pretty mouth.” Seth peered behind Will into his parents’ kitchen, the table strewn with letters, maps, and papers. He stepped past him and took a seat.
Will followed, failing to close the door. The thought that Seth was the last person he expected to see was obliterated by news of Charlotte. “How was she?”
Seth nudged an empty chair in Will’s direction in a crude invitation to sit. “I just said she looked all weepy.” He crossed his arms and eyed him. “And you’ve got the same look about you. It was damned awkward then and worse now, so stop it.”
His heart was good and shattered—and Seth wasn’t helping a damn bit—but Will sat. “I’d hoped to see you before I set sail Monday.” He met Seth’s eye. “I never wanted George to search for Aimee.”
“I know it.” Seth sighed. “And I shouldn’t have said what I did. I know you couldn’t find that baby.”
Will’s heart tore deeper. “I’ll do everything I can to see they both get back safe. I’ll start in Bombay, I know a man there. Then move east—”
“Here’s what I propose, Will.” Seth turned the map on the table to face him. “You give me your funds…and I find George and Aimee.”
“Seth—”
“I don’t have the blunt to go myself. But I can’t stay here, not knowing what happened.”
Sadness weighed Will down like an anchor. He knew that feeling well, and the moment he left England, he’d feel it double with Charlotte. But she didn’t need him to stay.
And she didn’t want him to.
Will shoved his chair back from the table, tired of sitting. “You don’t speak any of the languages. You don’t know the culture—”
He shrugged, studying the map. “There’s Englishmen enough in India. And I’m adaptive.”
Adaptive… Will scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve spent months preparing. You don’t—”
“Didn’t speak Portuguese when I landed in Recife, either.” Seth dropped the map lightly on the table. “We’re explorers, Will. There’s no preparing, no protecting. Hell…you know that better than anyone. And George is the only soul left belonging to me.”
Will stared. Christ, if Seth went…no. He shook his head. “You can’t—”
“You won’t find her,” Seth said plain. “I know you won’t. You won’t even survive the first week outside of Bombay.”
Will froze in anger. And doubt. “Why would you say that to me?”
“Because this ain’t your adventure no more.” Seth angled over the table to lance him with his sea-green stare. “I’m going to get my family, Will.” He grinned. “Go get yours.”
Thirty
The clock began its eleven chimes and Charlotte locked her eyes on her drawing pad. The pencil gripped in her hand hadn’t made a mark on the paper. Another scene drew itself in her mind instead: the Blackwall Frigate in the East India quay, its three masts towering into the sky, the sails ruffling in the wind. Will, heavy with the silver ingots and coins sewn into his clothes, taking leave of a tearful John and Liz on the dock and climbing the steep gangplank onto the deck.
> She tried to erase the scene. She did not want to imagine Will as he must look now. His hair ruffled by the ocean wind, his eyes squinting against the sun glinting off the Channel, girding against the next hundred days at sea.
She did not want to imagine him. But he was there every time she closed her eyes.
The last chime tolled in her ears, reverberating long and mournful. Eleven o’clock. The ship would have cast off. Her fist opened, the pencil that was glued to her palm dropped to the paper.
She covered her face. Please keep Will safe, she prayed as she prayed every day. Let him find the Bouriannes’ baby safe. Let our baby be safe.
Dear God…how was she to endure this? A year not knowing if he lived?
She wiped her eyes and sat up. One week and there had been no more bleeding. On the day of Hugh’s funeral, fittingly, every trace of pain had vanished and her color had returned. Doctor Simmons said there was hope if she rested and stayed calm.
She would be calm. She would be anything he told her to be.
The doorbell sounded and she jumped, until she remembered it could not be him. Not today.
The past six days, Will had called every day, leaving a bouquet of white blossoms, but she had refused to see him. She could not. It had been too hard to send him away the first time.
In the hall, Goodley’s steps sounded. The front door opened. And then…
“Will she see me today, Mr. Goodley?”
Will?
The shock of his voice made her rise on unsteady legs. Had she imagined it?
But Goodley answered. And then the door opened and she stared at the butler with alarm.
“No,” she said before Goodley could speak. “He cannot—”
But there he stood beyond the parlor door, a bouquet of white peonies in his hand, looking so dear she could have wept. And she very likely would, later. “Are you really here?”
A smile spread across his face and he inhaled long and deep, his eyes coursing over her. “I’ve missed you.”
She gaped at him, then the butler. Surely she was dreaming this. She was dreaming and she had to stay calm. “What day is it, Mr. Goodley?”
He grinned, his chest puffing up. “I am sure it is Monday, the twenty-sixth of August, Miss Charlotte.” With a duck of his head, Goodley closed the parlor door, leaving the two of them alone.
