by Jane Feather
“I’m not at all sure when it comes to respectability that we’re at opposite ends of the spectrum,” Jack declared, seeing how his sister was suddenly more lively, the tiniest spark of light in her eyes.
“Well, it wouldn’t do for only one of us to be unconventional,” Arabella observed with a grin. “That wouldn’t make for a happy union at all.”
“I’d dearly like to see this child that you two have made,” Charlotte said with a faint smile, shifting slightly on the narrow bunk in the swaying, creaking cabin.
Jack swung startled eyes towards Arabella, who still lay on the cot beside Charlotte, her arm supporting the frail form, Charlotte’s head still pillowed against her shoulder. Arabella’s smile was somewhat complacent. “I didn’t think I was the type to suffer from seasickness,” she said. “My constitution is disgustingly robust.”
Charlotte laughed weakly, but even that tiny effort was too much. The laugh began the dreadful racking cough and the towel she brought to her mouth turned scarlet in seconds. Arabella whisked it away, reaching down to grab the bowl she had kept ready on the floor beside the bunk. Jack turned aside, unable to bear his sister’s torment. Finally it ceased and she lay back against Arabella’s shoulder once again, her face paper white, her eyes set so far into her head they were like hollow caverns, the blue bruises beneath so large as almost to cover her cheekbones. The spark of liveliness was extinguished like the last flare of a guttering candle.
Arabella reached out to give the bowl to Jack, who wordlessly emptied it and set it on the table. Arabella resumed her position, supporting a frame so thin and birdlike it felt as if the slightest touch would break it. She held Charlotte while Jack sat on the window seat, gazing out of the porthole, his back stiff, shoulders set, and she felt the life bleed slowly from the woman. “Jack,” she said softly.
He turned, rose, and came over to the bunk. He knelt on the floor and took his sister’s dry, papery hand in his, cradling it against his cheek. And they stayed like that until some minutes after the last faint whisper of breath left Charlotte. Arabella was dry-eyed because Jack, his face drenched, had enough tears for both of them at this moment.
At last Jack silently lifted his sister away from Arabella, holding her against his chest. Arabella understood and slid away from the bunk, walking soundlessly to the cabin door, leaving Jack to his grief and his vigil.
_______
They buried Charlotte at dawn, her body sliding softly away into the quiet pink-tinged sea. Tom Perry spoke the simple words, “We commit her body to the sea,” while the sailors stood in silence and Jack, now dry-eyed, stood at the rail and watched his sister slip into the quiet waters. Arabella, beside him, placed her hand over his on the rail, but she knew he couldn’t feel her touch. He had gone from her again. But she kept her hand there and struggled in vain to swallow her own tears. Tears for Jack, but also for herself. She had known Charlotte for a few days only but she had grown to love her as a sister and she wept for her own loss and for the child in her womb who would never know an aunt who could only have enriched a child’s life.
And then it was over, the sailors broke their line, and Jack, with a word of thanks to Tom Perry, went immediately below to his own cabin. Arabella took a step after him but his hand flicked infinitesimally at his side and in dismay she understood she was being told to leave him alone. She hesitated, then quietly she turned back to the rail to watch alone as the dawn broke fully and the coastline of England solidified on the horizon.
She felt rather than heard Jack’s return. He stepped up to the rail under the early rays of the morning sun. He leaned on the top rail and stared out across the smooth waters of the Channel, towards the harbor bar. Wordlessly he stretched one arm along the rail towards his wife and she took the few steps necessary to bring her beside him. He didn’t touch her, but their bodies were so close she could feel his heat.
“Forgive me,” she whispered.
“For what, Arabella?” He turned his head slowly to look at her. His expression was calm but his shadowed eyes were filled with pain.
She struggled to find the words. “For my brother.”
“It’s been many months since I thought of you as existing in the same universe as Frederick Lacey,” he said. He slipped an arm around her and drew her tightly against him. “It’s I who should ask your forgiveness, my love. It took me too long to understand the worth of the treasure I have in you . . . and how little I deserve such treasure.”
Arabella felt the warmth seep into her. She took a deep, shuddering breath and let her head rest on his shoulder as the hurt and uncertainty finally fell away.
After a minute he spoke again. “I feel as if Charlotte died twice, Arabella. Twice I couldn’t save her. I don’t know if I can endure it.” His voice broke and he dropped his face into his hands.
She held him, her tears mingling now with his. Shared grief . . . shared love. They were inextricable at this moment. And she had no words to comfort him. She could only hold him until he could endure again.
Epilogue
On a bitterly cold January morning, Meg stood on the bottom step of the house on Cavendish Square, waving a cheerful farewell to a flamboyantly moustached cavalry officer who swept his plumed hat in an elaborate bow. “Farewell, dear lady. My heart will yearn until we meet again.”
“Oh, tush,” Meg retorted. “You say that to every woman under the age of sixty, Lord Thomas.”
“You cut me to the quick,” he declared, but with a grin to match her own.
Shaking her head Meg turned to walk up the steps and collided with the duke of St. Jules, who, in most unaccustomed haste, was running hatless from the open front door.
“Meg, where have you been?” he demanded, even as he moved her out of his way.
“In the park,” Meg said, looking at him in astonishment.
“Arabella . . . the doctor . . .” he said, waving a hand in inarticulate explanation as he prepared to resume his run down the steps.
“Jack, wait.” She seized his arm. “It’s the baby?” It was really a rhetorical question. “Why are you going for the doctor, Jack? Send a footman.”
He shook his head, saying distractedly, “Arabella won’t have me in the room. Said she can’t stand the sight of me. I have to get the doctor. I don’t know what else to do. I can’t stay in the house.”
Meg made no further attempt to stop him. She hurried into the house, where the usually imperturbable Tidmouth was pacing the hall. “Oh, there you are, Miss Barratt. Her grace—”
“Yes, the duke told me,” Meg said, going swiftly to the stairs. She ran up them and hastened towards Arabella’s apartments. Boris and Oscar were pacing the corridor outside the door to the duchess’s boudoir and leaped up at Meg, barking excitedly.
“Shh,” she said. “It’s all right. There’s nothing to worry about.” She pushed them down. “Stay here.” She opened the boudoir door and then closed it firmly on their resentful soulful gaze.
The door to the bedchamber stood open. Arabella was pacing the floor, white-faced and grim. Lady Barratt and Becky were occupied with linens, and kettles of water on trivets over the blazing fire.
“Oh, Meg, thank God you’re back,” Arabella greeted her friend without preamble. “This just started so suddenly.”
“I gathered as much.” Meg cast off her cloak and hat. “I bumped into your poor husband on the way to fetch the physician. He was utterly distraught.”
“Oh, Jack,” Arabella said with a disgusted wave. “He’s no good at all in a crisis. He just goes to pieces.”
Meg swallowed a chuckle at this description of the cool, composed, utterly debonair duke of St. Jules.
“I did explain to his grace that women in labor can be somewhat grumpy,” Lady Barratt said. “They sometimes say things they don’t mean.”
“Oh, I meant it,” Arabella stated, then gasped and held out her hand blindly towards Meg, who took it and grimaced as Arabella squeezed it until tears sprang in her friend’s ey
es.
“I think you should go to bed, now, Bella dear,” Lady Barratt said calmly. “Things seem to be moving along rather quickly.”
“I thought first babies were supposed to take forever,” Arabella said, but she climbed into bed.
“Don’t complain,” Meg said practically. “It doesn’t look much fun to me, so the shorter the better, I would have thought.”
Arabella grinned weakly. “Now, that’s the kind of comment I wish my husband would make. Instead of wringing his hands and moaning.”
“Arabella, he did no such thing,” Lady Barratt expostulated. “He was very calm until you started shouting at him.”
Becky bustled over with a cool lavender-soaked cloth and laid it on Arabella’s forehead as another pain brought an involuntary groan to the laboring woman’s lips. Meg offered her hand again.
“I told Jack I don’t need a doctor,” Arabella said when she could breathe again. “Lady Barratt and Becky can manage perfectly well.”
“I think it’s best, my dear,” Lady Barratt said.
“The physician’s here now anyway.” Meg spoke from the window, where she was looking down on the street. “Jack practically pushed the poor man out of the hackney.”
The doctor entered the room ahead of Jack, who hovered in the doorway. “If you still can’t stand the sight of me, my love, I’ll go away again.”
But Arabella was lost now, no longer really aware of anyone in the room. Jack could neither bear to remain nor bear to leave as morning gave way to afternoon. He was gripped by a dreadful fear. Charlotte’s death was a part of him and always would be. The sorrow rested deep in his soul, but he was at peace with it. Arabella had brought him that peace. And now he could lose her too.
And with such a loss he might as well not live himself.
He stood helplessly at the head of the bed, gazing down at her white, contorted face. He wiped her brow with the cloths Becky gave him. He tried to take comfort from the doctor’s calmness, from Lady Barratt’s matter-of-fact attentions to Arabella, from Becky’s apparent lack of concern, as the long afternoon wore on. He wished he could be like Meg, who kept up a light stream of joking chatter that just once in a while Arabella responded to with a glimmer of a smile.
The sudden bustle at the end of the bed alarmed him. Arabella’s abrupt cry terrified him. And then the thin wail of an infant astounded him. He stared blankly at the blood-streaked scrap in Lady Barratt’s hands.
“A son,” she said. “You have a son, your grace . . . Bella, love, he’s beautiful.” She laid the baby on his mother’s breast.
Arabella smiled wearily and kissed the tiny head. She looked up at Jack. Tears stood out in his gray eyes. “See what a miracle we have wrought, my love.”
“I’m not sure how much I had to do with it,” he said with a watery smile. He kissed her, then kissed his son. “It makes me feel very humble.”
“Charles,” she said. “We shall call him Charles.”
“Yes,” he agreed, tentatively taking the tiny body into his hands.
“You’d best give him to me now, your grace.” Lady Barratt bustled across the room. “We don’t want him to catch cold.”
Jack hastily yielded up his son into the blanket that her ladyship held to receive him.
“Now, you go away for about an hour and when you come back Arabella and the baby will be ready for you,” Lady Barratt instructed. She was generally in awe of the duke but her role as midwife had given her sufficient authority to think nothing of ordering him around.
“If you want to do something useful,” Meg said helpfully, seeing his hesitation, “you could take the dogs for a walk. They’re moping around in the corridor.”
“Yes, I noticed,” he said rather dryly.
“Do go, love,” Arabella encouraged, her voice rather faint. “Give them a good run. They’ve been cooped up all day. They refused to go with anyone else, but you know they’ll go with you.”
Jack regarded the circle of female faces rather quizzically. Then he yielded. “Oh, very well. I’ll be back in an hour.” He bent and kissed Arabella’s damp forehead, brushing a strand of lank hair aside. “No more than an hour, mind.”
She smiled. “Hurry back.”
He left, whistling for the dogs, who chased after him down the stairs. Tidmouth was still pacing in the hall. “Your grace . . . ?”
“A son, Tidmouth,” Jack said, trying to control his beam and failing utterly. “A fine boy. And her grace is well.”
“Congratulations, your grace.” A smile cracked Tidmouth’s ordinarily austere expression. “May I offer the congratulations of the household?”
“You may,” Jack said, still grinning. “And broach a keg of the October ale for the kitchen to celebrate.”
“Yes, your grace. With pleasure, your grace.” Tidmouth bowed and went off on his errand with something of a spring in his usually stately gait.
Jack returned to the house an hour later and found it humming with excitement. Tidmouth informed him that the doctor had left some fifteen minutes earlier. Jack took the stairs two at a time, the dogs racing ahead of him, and burst into Arabella’s bedchamber, bringing the cold freshness of the outdoors with him into the overly heated room.
Boris and Oscar leaped up at the bed and Meg swiftly seized their collars. “No, not now,” she said. “I’ll take them to the kitchen.”
Jack had eyes only for his wife. She was propped on snow-white pillows, her face still very pale, but serene. She held the baby to her breast. “He has Charlotte’s nose,” she said.
Jack knelt beside the bed and Lady Barratt trod softly to the door, shooing Becky in front of her.
“Don’t you think?” Arabella said, putting a fingertip on the feature in question. “It’s a tiny miniature of Charlotte’s.”
Jack smiled. He couldn’t see it himself but he was more than willing to believe it. “Charles,” he murmured, laying his lips on the baby’s cheek.
He looked at his wife. “I love you. There are no words for how much I love you. I don’t know how a man can be so happy.”
She touched his cheek. “Or a woman,” she said.
Charles, Marquis of Haversham, yawned.
“He’s not impressed,” Jack said with a soft laugh. He lay down beside his wife and son, slipping an arm behind Arabella as she slid into an exhausted sleep. For the first time in his life, Jack thought, he understood contentment.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JANE FEATHER is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of The Wedding Game, The Bride Hunt, The Bachelor List, Kissed by Shadows, To Kiss a Spy, The Widow’s Kiss, The Least Likely Bride, The Accidental Bride, The Hostage Bride, A Valentine Wedding, The Emerald Swan, and many other historical romances. She was born in Cairo, Egypt, and grew up in the New Forest, in the south of England. She began her writing career after she and her family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1981. She now has more than ten million copies of her books in print.
Also by Jane Feather
Vice
Vanity
Violet
Valentine
Velvet
Venus
Vixen
Virtue
The Diamond Slipper
The Silver Rose
The Emerald Swan
The Hostage Bride
A Valentine Wedding
The Accidental Bride
The Least Likely Bride
The Widow’s Kiss
Almost Innocent
To Kiss a Spy
Kissed by Shadows
The Bachelor List
The Bride Hunt
The Wedding Game
Next, look for Meg’s delicious adventure in which she proves that sometimes there’s more to life than being a lady . . .
On sale in early 2006 from
Bantam Books
ALMOST A BRIDE
A Bantam Book / April 2005
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Rand
om House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2005 by Jane Feather
Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN 0-553-90136-2
www.bantamdell.com
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