She nodded. He was right. The time had come.
Wordlessly, they rose and collected their discarded garments, then helped each other to dress, both taking every opportunity to caress with gentle hands, to place another kiss on exposed flesh before it was covered over. To Elizabeth, it felt like they were dressing to meet the end of the world, not the start of a new day. They hadn’t even parted yet and already she ached inside.
She would never stop aching.
It wasn’t until she began to tie James’s cravat that she at last felt strong enough to speak without risking tears. “James…” She focused on the activity of her fingers as she worked the linen into a series of knots. She couldn’t meet his eyes, but she felt his gaze on her face. “I know that we’ve already been through this…and when all is said and done, we may need to agree to disagree about whether you wait for me or not. But you will be forty, if not older when I am a widow in truth…” She glanced up then, and saw James’s mouth was compressed into a hard, determined line. She bit her lip. Oh dear. She shouldn’t have brought it up again. She didn’t want to part on a quarrel.
Swallowing past the tight feeling in her throat, she tried to blink away the sudden mist clouding her vision. “I just want you to be happy,” she whispered.
James reached out and cradled her face between his hands, brushing her tears away with his thumbs. “I know…but I will only be happy if there is the promise of us again,” he said gently. “I won’t give up the joy of being with you, Beth.”
“But if you meet someone else—”
“Shh.” James placed a finger against her lips. “As you said, we will agree to disagree, my love.” He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I want you to promise me something though.”
“What is it?” If it was within her power, she would do anything for this man.
He swallowed and placed a hand on her belly. “If you bear my child, Beth, will you write to me to let me know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“Of course,” she breathed, her sorrow now truly threatening to engulf her. Even if Hugh never let her pen another private letter again—she was certain he would scrutinize every piece of mail that entered or left their household from now on—she would get word to James, somehow.
He nodded, his dark eyes suddenly shining too brightly as they roved over her face, his gaze ending on her mouth. His head began to lower and her heart twisted in agony. This was it. His kiss goodbye.
His hand pushed into her tangled hair as his mouth met hers, his firm lips sliding, caressing, worshipping her with lingering, heart-wrenching slowness. When his tongue stroked against hers, she couldn’t bite back a whimper of distress and she sagged against him, clutching at his shoulders, her hands fisting into his shirt. Helpless with grief and desire. And love.
The key suddenly rattled in the lock and James let her go, just as the door grated open to reveal one of Hugh’s grimly scowling henchmen. A small pistol was trained on James. Hugh was obviously leaving nothing to chance.
“Time fer his lordship to go.”
Elizabeth nodded. Somehow, she forced her hands to relinquish their grip on James, and she took a step back. “Goodbye, my love.”
Through the blur of her tears, she saw his mouth tilt into a small, lop-sided smile. “For now.”
He suddenly reached for her, pulled her back into his arms and gave her a swift, hard kiss. A determined kiss. Not a goodbye kiss at all this time. Then, just as abruptly as the kiss had started, he released her, strode to the door and snatched his coat from the back of the handle.
And then he was gone.
Elizabeth pressed her fingers to her swollen, trembling lips. The end of the world had indeed come at last. But it hardly seemed fair that she was still breathing, that her heart was still beating; that sunlight still filtered through the grimy mullioned window onto the rumpled bedcovers, and the rug at her feet. Not when she wanted the earth to split open and the sun to be extinguished. She wanted to lie down here and never wake.
“Lady Beauchamp, yer carriage is here.” She glanced up to find the chancer, MacSweeney, was standing in the doorway. His brow was creased with something like concern. “Are ye all right?”
She bit her lip hard as she put on her bonnet and lowered her black veil. “I’m fine.”
Holding her head high, she then marched past him, out the door.
Back to Hugh.
* * * *
Hugh was still seated in the wing chair before the fire, brandy in hand, when she walked into the sitting room of his suite at Boyd’s Inn. With the exception of his scarf, which now lay discarded on the hearth rug, he was still clothed in the same outfit she had last seen him in.
Had he been up all night, waiting for her? Brooding? Despite the fact that he had organized her ‘assignation’, she couldn’t help but think he would punish her in some way. That her penance for what she had done was only just about to begin.
A frisson of cold unease crept down her spine as he cast her a measured look. His gaze was hard and assessing as it travelled over her disheveled hair, lingered on her stubble-grazed cheeks, to the bruises on her neck left by James’s passionate kisses. Thank God he couldn’t see below her skirts to where James’s seed still clung to her inner thighs.
“You look like a whore, Elizabeth,” he sneered, his consonants slightly slurred. It seemed he had indeed, been drinking throughout the night.
She felt her cheeks grow hot, but nevertheless she lifted her chin. “Isn’t that what you wanted, Hugh? For James to tumble me all night?”
He snorted and tipped back what remained of his brandy in one large swig. “You’d better hope that Rothsburgh got the job done,” he said as he poured himself another drink, then dispensed a peculiar looking concoction of darkly colored drops from another small, dark brown bottle—she suspected it was laudanum—into the golden-brown liquid. He swirled the mixture around, then glanced at her again, his eyes narrowed. “And you’d also best pray that it’s a boy you carry.”
Fear, like nothing else Elizabeth had ever known, suddenly frosted her blood and twisted her gut. The cat and mouse game had begun again in earnest. A taut silence stretched between them as she struggled to make her numb lips and tongue work again. “What do you mean?” she eventually asked, knowing that Hugh would probably enjoy the fact that she was breathless with fear.
“Suffice it to say, that if you fail to produce me with a healthy male heir, I’ll have to get someone else to do the deed. And after what Blaire told me about his stint at Eilean Tor, I’m sure that he’d be more than happy to offer his services. He always wanted to be in the Sapphire Club, you know.”
Elizabeth nearly choked on the nausea that surged to her throat, and dark spots appeared before her eyes. She clutched at the back of a nearby chair to keep herself from falling. “You bastard,” she whispered. “You wouldn’t. I’d rather die than have that man touch me.”
He smirked and shrugged. “I don’t know why you are looking so shocked, my dear wife. You know I don’t mind sharing. And despite your previous history, you now clearly have the morals of the commonest street doxy.”
She closed her eyes against his mocking visage and attempted to control her breathing, and roiling stomach. She would not faint. She would not vomit. If she was to survive this life with Hugh, she must not show any more weakness.
“I will be able to let you know within a week or two whether I am with child,” she managed to grit out from between clenched teeth.
He nodded once. “Good girl. And I’m glad to see you have gotten control of yourself. You know how I hate histrionics.”
Ice cold anger, as hard and sharp as an iceberg in the Arctic, formed within her. It suddenly occurred to her that she would need to hold onto this feeling to sustain her through the long, fraught years ahead. She dragged in a deep breath and made herself release her hold on the back of the armchair. Smoothed her skirts. Lifted her eyes to Hugh who was watching her with sardonically amused interest.
/> “Is there anything else, my lord?” she asked with pretended docility.
He sighed and raked her with a withering look, but she steadfastly resisted the urge to flinch this time. “Spare me the false sweetness, Elizabeth. But yes, there is something you can do. Go and clean yourself up. We leave for Scarwood Hall within the hour.”
Chapter Nineteen
Harcourt House, London, August 1816
“Excuse me, my lady.”
Elizabeth lifted her gaze from the tapestry she was sewing—a cushion seat featuring a pair of swans for the nursery upstairs—to find Jenkins lingering uncertainly in the doorway to the drawing room.
That was not like Jenkins at all.
Her brow furrowed with concern. “What is it, Jenkins?” she asked, laying aside her sewing as unease prickled beneath her skin. Something was clearly wrong.
Jenkins’s eyes flitted briefly to her swollen belly—an action that was also uncharacteristic of the man because as a rule he would never overtly acknowledge her advanced pregnancy—and then he swallowed and cleared his throat.
“There is a Bow Street Runner at the door, a Constable Vickery, who wishes to speak to you, my lady, and a…colleague who will not identify himself. I did mention that you are not receiving visitors at present. But the constable is most insistent.”
Elizabeth nodded. “It’s all right, Jenkins. Did either of them mention what this is all about?”
Jenkins hesitated, his lips compressing into a thin line before he answered. “No, my lady. But at the risk of both disconcerting and displeasing you by stepping beyond the bounds of my station, I feel I should mention that Lord Beauchamp did not return home last night.”
“Oh…” Elizabeth felt the blood drain from her face, and she placed a hand over her belly where the baby—James’s baby—suddenly kicked. “I know he went out last night with Lord Blaire.”
“Yes, my lady…but he hasn’t yet returned.”
“I see…” Elizabeth closed her eyes and didn’t know what to think or feel. After Hugh had entered into a stage of apparent remission from the pox, they’d left Scarwood Hall in Gloucestershire, and had returned to London in the middle of the Season. With the rash resolved and his full head of blond hair—and therefore vanity—restored, Hugh had again taken to frequenting his club, gaming hells and whatever other dens of iniquity he cared to visit, usually with Blaire in tow. That meant she rarely saw him or the equally lascivious and odious Blaire—a circumstance that she was wholeheartedly grateful for.
Indeed, once she had announced that she was unequivocally pregnant, during the long journey from Edinburgh to Gloucestershire, Hugh had been content to leave her to her own devices. For the most part. Although largely ignored, she knew her movements and correspondence were constantly monitored by his staff that included several recently appointed, burly footmen and a pair of pernicious lady’s maids.
At times, Jenkins and Dr. Morton seemed to be her only allies.
But despite her lonely existence, Hugh needn’t have worried that she’d do anything rash during her pregnancy. As much as her body and heart—indeed her very being—longed for James, she wasn’t going to run off and find him. She would rather throw herself off a cliff than disgrace the Marquess of Rothsburgh’s name and ruin his whole family’s reputation.
No, she still believed to the depths of her soul that James should forget her. And as much as it pained her, she was determined to give him the time he needed to do just that. She didn’t doubt that he loved her, but he had a man’s needs—strong needs. She was certain he would one day meet another pretty society miss and fall for her. Perhaps not this Season or the next. But sooner or later he would. He deserved a wife who loved him, and children that he could claim as his own.
And that couldn’t be her, or this baby. For better or worse, she would remain with Hugh.
Unless of course she gave birth to a baby girl…
Although she encountered Blaire infrequently, she couldn’t help but notice the way he looked at her whenever he caught sight of her. The glaze of lust in his eyes. In the last few weeks, Hugh and Blaire had even taken to joking about commencing a Moonstone Club in honor of her grey eyes if she failed to produce the male heir her husband craved.
The thought constantly made her feel sick, even though her morning sickness had long since passed.
If she did give birth to a female child, she would undoubtedly have to run away again. But not to James. Her former friends—the women of the Widows of Waterloo Trust—someone would help and provide her and her child with sanctuary. They had to.
If she lost all hope, she would indeed want nothing more than to throw herself off a cliff.
“My lady?”
Elizabeth sighed and opened her eyes. So Hugh hadn’t returned home last night. The Bow Street Runner had probably come to tell her that he’d been involved in a dust-up over the outcome of a cock-fight, or a game of cards. Or he had been found drunk and disorderly in Covent Garden, or in Oxford Street when he’d tried to pick up a prostitute. It had already happened once before this Season, and she’d had to buy the Runner off to keep his silence to stop charges being pressed…but it hadn’t been Constable Vickery.
She felt the baby kick again and she felt a sudden twinge in her lower back. It wasn’t long before the baby was due, Dr. Morton had informed her during his visit to see her the day before. A week at most by his estimate. He’d given her strict orders to rest, and that she was not to be subjected to anything that would cause nervous excitement.
But now Constable Vickery and an unnamed stranger were knocking on her door.
“Just send them in, Jenkins,” Elizabeth said with another defeated sigh. As the butler disappeared into the hall, she idly wondered how much spare money she had in the house. Hugh sometimes hid some in a Chinese puzzle box locked in a curio cabinet in his study, along with his stash of laudanum. Jenkins usually knew where he’d hidden the key.
“Constable Vickery and…a gentleman, Lady Beauchamp.”
Elizabeth smiled politely as the stern faced Bow Street Runner, and his dark-suited companion, came to stand before her on the drawing room rug.
“Gentlemen,” she said with a gracious inclination of her head. Although the constable had not had any qualms about running his gaze over her figure, the other gentleman—a man who looked to be from her own class given the exquisite tailoring of his suit and his bearing—looked nowhere but her eyes.
The well-mannered stranger inclined his head in return; his expression was solemn. “Thank you for agreeing to see us, Lady Beauchamp. I hope you will forgive our intrusion at this time. But we have come to you about a matter of grave importance.”
“And you are…”
“Sir Farnsworth, my lady. I am a representative from the Magistrate’s Office.”
“Oh…” Elizabeth was suddenly glad she was sitting down. She clasped her ringless fingers together in her lap—she had left her wedding band in her travelling trunk in Edinburgh, and neither Hugh nor she had bothered to replace it with a new one—and strove to keep her expression calm. What on earth could Hugh have gotten up to now?
Sir Farnsworth’s brow descended into an even deeper frown. “Is there anyone else from your family at home with you this morning, my lady? Or a close friend?”
Elizabeth swallowed nervously and shook her head. “No…there is only me, Sir Farnsworth. Wh-what is this all about?” She noticed that Constable Vickery was transferring his weight from foot to foot and staring at the rug, rather than looking at her now. Something bad had happened.
Her heart began to pound furiously in her chest and a sharp stabbing pain knifed through her lower back again, momentarily taking her breath away. The baby…
Sir Farnsworth cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I must convey some rather distressing news, my lady. And there is no delicate way to tell you this…your husband, Lord Beauchamp, was found dead in Lord Blaire’s rooms in Curzon Street, earlier this morning.”
Hugh w
as dead? It was as if the world had suddenly tilted sideways and everything appeared strange…not quite real.
She shook her head, struggling to breathe as another pain gripped her body. “No…you must be mistaken.” Hugh couldn’t be dead. He had syphilis, but he was supposed to live for a long time yet. She was supposed to play the role of dutiful wife for another decade or more. She couldn’t let her hope for another life—a free and happy life—take hold unless it was really true…
Constable Vickery spoke then, his gaze firm yet compassionate. “I’m terribly sorry, my lady, but there is no mistake. Lord Blaire’s staff and another acquaintance, a Lord Kendal, identified your husband’s body.”
“But how…how did this happen?” Hugh had been so well lately. It didn’t seem possible. Am I really awake?
“There will have to be an examination by the coroner, of course. But at this stage it would appear that your husband succumbed to an overdose of the drug opium. It seems Lord Blaire and your husband, along with Lord Kendal, left a—shall we say club—in Marylebone in the early hours of this morning, and returned to Lord Blaire’s townhouse. It seems they all then indulged in a rather dangerous cocktail of overly potent laudanum and Cognac. Lord Blaire is also gravely ill.”
“Oh…I see.” Elizabeth dropped her gaze to her lap as she was battered by a storm of powerful, conflicting emotions—a strange bitter sadness, overwhelming relief. Hope…
Hugh was dead. Her vain, cruel, self-indulgent husband had at last gone too far with his excesses and had paid the ultimate price. She could scarcely believe it.
She was a widow.
But she wouldn’t think about James. She mustn’t. She must clip this tremulous, budding hope within her. It had been nearly nine months since she had last seen him. He had most likely moved on like she’d asked him to.
But what if he hadn’t?
Another sharp pain gripped her back and shot all the way round to her belly like she was caught in a vice. She gasped and clutched the arms of her chair as warm liquid suddenly gushed between her legs.
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