by Danice Allen
“Why don’t you finish your sentence, love?” Alex quizzed her, his head bent slightly to the side and one black brow arched questioningly. “Why do you suddenly look as if the world has tumbled about your ears? You must tell me. Husbands and wives tell each other everything, you know. Or at least in our marriage that will be the case.”
Beth could hardly believe what she was hearing. She felt deliriously happy, a relieved smile wreathing her face. “Oh, Alex, you horrible, wonderful man! You’ve just now reconstructed my tumbling world!”
Alex responded to Beth’s joyous smile with a smile of his own, but he also looked perplexed. “I don’t understand, Beth. Why am I a mixture of horrible and wonderful, and how have I reconstructed your tumbling world?”
“Do you realize that this is the first reference you’ve ever made to marriage in connection with you and me? Heavens, I never really knew whether you wanted me as a wife or not. I dared not assume—”
Alex’s eyes widened in a horrified expression. “Lord, Beth, how could you ever think I meant to offer you anything other than marriage?” he said roughly. “You’re my better half, the half of me I’ve been looking for all my life. You don’t think I’d shackle you to me with anything less binding than the irreversible bonds of matrimony, do you? Whether you still love me or not by the time we’ve grown old together, I intend to have you by my side. I love you, Beth. Now have I made my intentions clear?”
Beth laughed softly. “Yes, yes. Delightfully, satisfyingly clear. But what about my mother? Is she here? Does she know … everything? Have you made your intentions toward me clear to Mama?”
Alex grimaced, then smiled ruefully. “Yes, your mother is here, and she knows all. And the miracle of it is, she does not consider me a villain.” He shifted slightly on the bed and continued in a more serious vein. “She has agreed to our marriage. However, she has retired to the bedchamber across the hall to rest and, with the help of some laudanum, to restore her nerves to something like normalcy. I cannot blame her. Everything has changed in the last few hours. She must be given time to grow used to these new circumstances.”
Beth nodded and remained silent, hoping he’d reintroduce the topic of Zach’s baby girl.
“You’re thinking about the baby again, aren’t you?” he offered obligingly. “I know what you’re thinking. To finish your sentence from earlier, you think Zach should give the child to us to raise, don’t you?”
Beth’s heart swelled with hope. “I do. I think it the most logical and at the same time the most emotionally satisfying alternative, next to Zach keeping her.” She squeezed his hands hard and looked appealingly at him. “Say you feel the same way, Alex. I could not bear it if that sweet baby wasn’t given the chance for a happy, wonderful life just because of the circumstances of her birth. No one need ever know she isn’t ours. We could marry here and go on an extended honeymoon. When we returned to England, we could subtract a few months from her actual age. I suspect she will always be rather small. She was premature, and Tess was petite. I think we could pull it off without a hitch, Alex.”
“Good God, Beth, but you’re a sly cat, aren’t you?” Alex suggested teasingly. “You seem to have thought this out quite thoroughly. But what about the gossip hereabouts? Somehow it will work its way to London, and everyone, from the lowliest stableboy at Tattersall’s to the king himself, will know that the child we profess to be ours is, in reality, Zach’s illegitimate offspring. It wouldn’t come out at first, probably, and years would go by with the two of us feeling quite sanguine, thinking we’d fooled everyone. Then the truth would surface just as we were about to present her at court and give her a coming-out ball. That would be worse for the child than a more humble upbringing in an adoptive home nearby.”
Beth pondered this problem for a moment, then said, “No one can claim she’s Zach and Tessy’s child if they think she died during the night and was buried with her mother.”
Alex raised both brows this time. “Are you suggesting that we tell everyone she’s in the coffin with Tess?”
Beth did not blink an eye. “Yes.”
“Even the vicar?”
“Especially the vicar. He’s the biggest tattle-tongue in all of Cornwall. If he consecrates the grave to receive both Tessy’s body and the baby’s, the story will be well spread that Zach’s child died, too.” When Alex continued to look sober and unconvinced, Beth added softly, “God will forgive us. He’ll see how we love and care for the child, giving her a life her mother was denied through no fault of her own. It will atone.”
Alex seemed to reflect on this suggestion for a few moments, then said, “I hope it may atone. I’m not of a mind to cross God these days. I feel too grateful, too blessed.” He lifted a hand to slide a caressing finger along the curve of Beth’s cheek. “We’ll let Zach decide.”
Chapter Seventeen
Alex stood outside Zach’s door, gathering his courage. It was nearing eleven o’clock, and Zach had been inside his bedchamber for several hours. The hot weather demanded that Tess’s funeral take place the following day, and Zach had to make some decisions concerning arrangements, decisions that Alex did not feel entitled to take upon himself. Judging by the sultriness of the night, tomorrow would be just as hot as today had been, and Tess’s body could not hold up for very long in such unremitting heat. Better to put her in the cool earth while she was still beautiful.
Alex slid his hand along his stubbled jaw and around to the back of his neck to massage the tight muscles there. It had been a damnable day, the likes of which he hoped never to repeat. He felt terrible about Tess’s untimely death, though he had not met the girl till a scant couple of hours before he watched her die. As he’d told Beth, now he could understand Zach’s obsession with her in the past weeks since he’d come to Cornwall. The trouble was, Zach hadn’t realized that what he’d felt for Tess was true love—until it was too late.
Alex thanked God that he had found Beth and knew exactly what he felt for her. Beth. Alex closed his eyes and pictured her as he loved to keep her in his mind’s eye. All in rose-pink, her hair loose and flowing down her back, her aqua-blue eyes fixed on him in unwavering love. Thinking of her gave him a temporary peace; she was his oasis in a vast desert of trouble and worry. Finally he recalled his purpose in standing outside Zach’s door, and he raised his hand to rap sharply on the panels with his knuckles.
Zach did not answer the knock, but then, Alex hadn’t expected him to. “Zach?” he called, his mouth close to the door. “I need to talk to you. I daresay you’ve wished me to the devil, but there are matters that must be settled tonight … about Tess.”
Then, to Alex’s surprise, he heard Zach call, “Come in.” He let himself into the room, shut the door behind him, and found himself standing in utter darkness.
When his eyes adjusted, he could perceive varying shades of gray as illuminated by a three-quarter moon shining in through the one narrow window whose curtains had not been drawn. Positioned in front of the open window was a wing chair, and in it sat Zach. His profile was etched against the hazy background of the moon-bathed swell and dip of rolling moor, with its inky splotches of scrub and bracken and strangely candescent lichened stone. Zach sat motionless, his composed figure pretematurally still and eerie. Gloom hung over him like the pressing clouds of a bleak winter’s day. Yet outside, the nightingale still sang in the trees by the creek, and the frogs and crickets still strummed their courting calls to the heavens.
“Do you mind if I get a candle? I’m likely to break my neck if I attempt to cross the room without a little light to find my way. Or would you rather I broke my neck?” He had tried to sound casual, playful, speaking to Zach in his old way, the way they’d spoken to each other before today’s tragedies had taken their toll. But he realized how stupid he’d sounded, and that Zach might think he was implying something more than was meant.
“No, I’d rather you didn’t break your neck,” Zach replied in an expressionless voice. “I’ve no stomach
for revenge, if that’s what you’re wondering. As God is my witness, never again shall I be responsible for another’s death. By all means, brother, fetch a candle. There’s a candelabrum on the mantel.”
Considering a fitting reply to Zach’s dismal words, Alex moved carefully past the looming shadows of scattered furniture to the mantel, locating the candelabrum and a tinderbox beside it. He had lit one candle and was about to light another when Zach said, “Just one, if you please. The dark suits me. It mirrors my soul.”
Alex sighed at this self-loathing remark, cast his eyes about the room till he spied a chair pushed up against a far wall, fetched it, and placed it directly across from Zach. He sat down and placed the candle on the floor between them. He spread his legs, rested his elbows on his knees, twined his hands together, and leaned forward.
“Zach, you can accomplish nothing by sitting thus in the dark. As for your soul, it does not mirror this darkness you’ve pulled about you like a cloak. Perhaps it feels a bit tarnished, full of sorrow, wounded, but it will light again. You will recover. You will find happiness and give happiness, I promise you.”
The low-angled candlelight cast strange, dancing shadows over Zach’s face as he shook his head. “I don’t deserve happiness. I’ve robbed yet another young woman of her life through childbirth. First my mother died. Then I got Tessy with child, and she died. I’m cursed, Alex.”
“That’s foolish talk—”
“I almost killed Gabby through my own irresponsibility, and then I tried to kill you. Lord, Alex, I wanted to strangle the very breath out of you! Don’t you think that’s indicative of a black soul?”
“You were angry, as you’d every right to be. I was wrong to take Beth to bed. In my heart’s heart I knew that what we were doing was an injustice to you. Even though Beth and I are very much in love, we should have waited. We should have told you about us long ago—”
“You are going to marry her, aren’t you?” Zach quickly interjected, showing for the first time a little interest in what Alex was saying.
Alex raised his brows. “Of course I am. There was never any question in my mind that that’s what I’d do. Do you think me such a blackguard that I would trifle with Beth’s affections and not offer her marriage? B’gad, even she asked me about my intentions!”
“Well, you never mentioned marriage in all your sincere efforts to explain things and to placate me this afternoon. You’ve a reputation to live down, Alex. After all, Wicked Wickham has avoided marriage all his life. No wonder Beth was insecure.”
“I perceive I’ve been a bit remiss in my courting methods, but I assure you, brother, I’ve had some pretty troublesome thoughts filling my mind and heart these days. It seemed precipitate and disloyal to speak to Beth of our future together when we had not yet informed you of our affection for each other.”
Zach chuckled softly, bitterly. “Yet making love to her did not strike you as equally precipitate and disloyal?”
“God, Zach, if you knew how I’ve suffered over this, how we’ve both suffered—”
Zach flicked his wrist in a dismissive gesture. “I know. It doesn’t matter anymore. Everything is changed.”
“But our friendship mustn’t change, Zach,” Alex said feelingly. “You don’t know how much our reunion meant to me. I never dreamed we could truly be brothers again. I fought the feelings I had for Beth, ever so long, because I love you, Zach, and she loves you, too—”
“Like a brother,” Zach finished quietly.
Alex paused, then said, “Yes, like a brother. And I would wager that you now realize your love for Beth is more appropriate for a sister than for a wife.”
Zach turned his head toward the window. “Yes, the sort of love one feels for one’s wife is … special. I loved Tessy that way, you know. Like a wife. But I was a coward. I feared society’s disdain. And in the end I feared the intensity of my own feelings.” He did not speak for a moment or two, but Alex could see how his fingers fidgeted with the linen doily that rested on the chair arm. “I never told her I loved her before today. I didn’t want to put myself at her mercy, you see. But I did love her, Alex, more than life.”
Alex did not like the direction Zach’s thoughts had taken. They were too morbid. “Yet life stretches before you, promising endless possibilities. You’ve a daughter now who requires your attention and concern. You must face life again, Zach, just as you’ve learned to face your responsibilities these past weeks. Tessy would want you to.”
Zach released a long, slow hiss of breath. “And my first responsibility is to see to Tessy’s burial. Would that I had never seen her that December evening last year. She would still be alive.”
“Damnation, Zach, stop this!” cried Alex, growing impatient out of fear for Zach’s self-condemning, melancholy state of mind. “I won’t listen to your hateful remarks a minute longer. Even though they’re not directed toward me, I find them abhorrent. When you deride yourself, you are speaking derisively of my beloved brother, in whom I have boundless faith and for whom I feel boundless love. It is self-indulgent and beneath you. Begin living now. Your life is painful now, and it will be painful for a long time, but you must live it.”
Zach bent forward and rested his head in his hand. Long moments passed, and Alex sat quietly, allowing Zach this time to reach deep inside himself for the strength to carry on. Alex knew it would be a long, hard struggle, but he would not allow Zach to do anything but fight, to be anything but a survivor. He loved him; he needed him too much.
Finally Zach lifted his head, and Alex saw the tracks of tears on his cheeks, but his expression was firm and full of resolve. Resolve to live, Alex hoped. Resolve to learn from the past and embrace the future. “I want Tessy buried here at Pencarrow.” Zach seemed to be waiting for Alex’s reaction.
“Of course you would,” Alex agreed. “I don’t see any problem with that. You are master of Pencarrow.”
“And I don’t give a blessed fig who might object to the fact that I’ve buried my mistress at Pencarrow. They would not allow her to rest among the quality at the parish cemetery, but would consign her to some beggars’ corner. Even in death, society draws a line between the classes. But I’ll not bury her close to Grandfather or any other of the priggish Hayles, for she would not be comfortable in their midst. There’s a tall horse chestnut tree in the far corner, by that old family chapel we haven’t used for services since King Henry was on the throne. It’s green there and sheltered from the worst of the wind that blows over the moor. Tess will like it there.”
“Then it is settled. Shall we have services in the morning?”
“She needs a proper casket. I’ll not have her buried in a makeshift box, Alex.”
“I put Dudley to work arranging for that and sent him to request the vicar’s presence at the funeral, too. We have only to send word to the vicarage of the exact time and location at which we wish to hold services.”
“Vicar Bradford did not object to presiding over Tessy’s funeral?”
“He did not dare to. Dudley can be quite fierce when he feels strongly about something.”
“Yes, I saw that in him today. And I suppose the good vicar would not dare to offend Lord Roth and his ramshackle brother. But I only want you and Beth, Dudley, and myself at the funeral. No one else knew her. I won’t have a false or a pitying tear shed for Tessy.”
“As you wish, brother.” Alex leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs, left ankle over right knee. “Now what shall we do about the baby? Have you thought of that? For if you haven’t, I’ve a suggestion.”
“Oddly enough, I have thought of the baby. And I know exactly what I’d like to see happen to the little thing. She’ll never have a chance if she stays in these parts. And I haven’t the slightest notion how to be a father to her, especially since I haven’t a woman to direct me. I won’t marry merely to secure the child a mother. I want you to take her back to Surrey with you. I want you and Beth to raise her as your own.”
Alex unc
rossed his legs and leaned forward. “I must confess that that is exactly what Beth and I had hoped for. But are you sure about this, Zach? She’s your own child. Tessy’s child, too.”
“All the more reason why I want the best for her. Tessy had to do without and was scorned for things she had no control over. Victoria must have the opportunities Tessy didn’t!”
“Victoria?”
“I want you to christen her Victoria, if you will grant me that favor. I’ve always fancied the name.”
“Victoria it is,” Alex promptly acquiesced.
“But how are we to keep the child’s true parentage a secret? I confess myself utterly befuddled as to how to accomplish that.”
“Beth has a scheme of which you might or might not approve,” Alex began cautiously. “Brother, lend me your ear.” Then Alex briefly explained Beth’s idea of announcing the child’s death and telling everyone that she was inside the nailed coffin with her mother. Alex would then take Beth and Victoria to Italy for an extended honeymoon. When they returned to Surrey and reentered society, everyone would think the baby was theirs.
“Not even the vicar must know the truth. We will tell him that the child died, too,” Zach added.
“Are we selling our souls here, Zach? Spinning whiskers to the vicar is most probably considered a monumental sin.”
“To put to right what’s been terribly wrong, I’d tell lies to the king.”
“That’s what we’ll be doing when Beth and I present Victoria at court as our own daughter when she comes of age,” Alex mused aloud.
Zach shrugged his shoulders. “As I said, I don’t care about that. I want her to have everything her mother should have had. I want her to have everything Tessy would want for her.”
“But do you think Tess would have wanted her daughter separated from you, her father? I’m sure that what Tess would have wanted above all else, above money or social standing, would be for Victoria to be loved and cherished within the circle of a family. You may not think so now, Zach, but someday you will marry. There’ll be brothers and sisters for Victoria—”
