by Georgie Lee
For all his efforts to impress her with his determination to succeed, the constant reminder of how easily he’d failed before still shadowed him. There was nothing to ensure he’d be any more successful in this venture than he’d been in his last one. He might avoid the sea and all its perils, but he’d seized enough men’s collateral to be familiar with the hundreds of other risks merchants faced.
He turned and made for the Rathbones’ house, unwilling to entertain further doubts about his business or how much he missed having Susanna beside him already. There were better things to think about, such as Monday and the life he and Susanna would enjoy. She believed in his ambitions like a wife should and would help him achieve his goals. In return, he’d make her see the wonderful woman she was. Together they’d forget the pain their families had caused them. That was a more pleasant subject to ruminate on than his father’s insults, or his own past failures.
Chapter Six
Susanna, dressed only in her stays and chemise, stood on the small stool in the room in the back of Mrs Fairley’s shop. She laid her hands on her stomach, fighting against the dizziness creeping over her. The stool wasn’t very high, but she felt as if she were teetering on the eaves of a house, with any quick turn sure to send her tumbling to the floor. It’d been like this all morning, and she stepped down to sit in the small chair beside the oval mirror, trying to settle her head and stomach.
The queasy feeling had come on after breakfast when Susanna had begun packing in anticipation of Monday. It wasn’t nerves over the uncertainty of her future which had made her stomach swim, but Lady Rockland watching her and the maid as though expecting Susanna to slip some silver teaspoons into the trunk with her things. The duchess hanging over her like a bird of prey had exacerbated the tension still nagging at her after a long night spent tossing and turning in bed.
The memory of Justin’s lips on hers last night had teased her until she’d jerked awake with the sheets sticking to her sweaty skin. With the dreams of his hands on her fading, the memory of his argument with his father had slid in to dominate her thoughts. Justin might have smiled jovially at her afterwards, but the pain etched in his eyes as his father had left was one she knew all too well. She’d wanted to soothe his hurt as much as she’d wanted to ease the elder Mr Connor’s.
It’d been the same way with her grandfather and mother, when her grandfather had thrown her mother’s mistakes in her face, flinging at her the same contempt Mr Connor had hurled at Justin. Back then Susanna had tried so hard to make peace between them, until one day, frustrated by her continued interference, her grandfather had aimed his insults at her. She should have known better than to approach old Mr Connor, but there was a pain deep inside of him, too, like the kind she’d witnessed in her grandfather after her grandmother had passed. It had seemed as if there was too much loss in one room for all of them to endure and she’d wanted to banish it with a touch of kindness.
‘Here’s the wedding dress for you to try on, Miss Lambert,’ Mrs Fairley said brightly as she carried in the creamy silk gown, the paleness of it highlighted by the woman’s light yellow dress, the hue of which nearly matched the tone of her blonde hair. Blue satin ribbon the colour of the modiste’s eyes adorned the small, puff sleeves and circled her trim waist, emphasising an enviable bosom contained by the crossed material of the bodice. ‘I altered it according to the measurements I took last week.’
Susanna rose, rocking a bit as she stood. Mrs Fairley reached out a steadying hand. ‘Are you well, miss?’
‘Yes. I haven’t eaten much today and I was up all night. I’m nervous about the wedding.’ She fought the swimming room to focus on the modiste. ‘You must know how it is.’
‘I do.’ She nodded with enthusiasm. ‘I could barely eat or sleep for days before my wedding to John. Now let’s try on the dress and see how it looks.’
She lowered the dress so Susanna could step into the centre of the silk, then the modiste raised it, pausing so Susanna could slip her arms through the smooth sleeves. The silk kissed the bare skin of her shoulders, reminding her of Justin’s tongue against hers last night. He hadn’t been greedy or lecherous in his caresses, or pressed her for more than she was initially willing to give. Instead he’d been patient, holding back even as he’d claimed her mouth with caresses to make her knees weak.
Susanna turned to face the mirror, the image of herself hazing a little as her eyes filled with tears.
‘What’s wrong, miss?’ Mrs Fairley laid her hands on Susanna’s upper arms and gave her a heartening squeeze.
Susanna wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. It wasn’t like her to be so emotional, but never in her life had she imagined herself in a wedding dress, ready to marry a respectable man who cared for her and her mother’s dream for her about to be realised.
‘I wish my mother could have seen this.’ When she’d been alive, she’d wanted Susanna to have a loving husband, children and a home of her own, all of the things she’d been denied. Her mother had been rigorous in training Susanna to live a merchant’s life, convinced those skills would attract a good man, but also aware it would help Susanna make her way in the world if need be. Despite her hopes for Susanna, she’d feared no one, not even the simple men along the high street in Oxfordshire, would offer for an illegitimate woman. Now Susanna was to marry, and well, and all the hours her mother had spent training her to run a business would be employed at last.
‘I’m sure your mother would be proud of you,’ Mrs Fairley offered.
‘Yes, she would have been.’ If only she could be here. It would stifle some of the coldness of preparing for Monday with only the modiste to care about her and assist. Perhaps she should have invited Mrs Rathbone to join her today. Their acquaintance might be slight, but it was deeper than anything she’d enjoyed with her so-called family. Neither Lady Rockland nor Edwina had shown any interest in her coming nuptials. She hadn’t expected them to. They were too eager to see her gone and overly consumed with their own affairs to trouble with her. This was Edwina’s second Season and already there were rumblings amongst the family, and wider society, over her failure to marry last year. Her half-sister was probably jealous of Susanna making her way down the aisle before her.
‘I’ll do up the buttons so we can have a proper look at you.’ Mrs Fairley began to fasten the long line of buttons along the back. As she reached those at the top, she was forced to pull the two sides of the dress tighter to fasten them.
‘It’s too tight,’ Susanna complained, her breasts sore from the pressure of the bodice.
‘My measurements must have been wrong.’ Mrs Fairley frowned apologetically at Susanna in the mirror from behind her. ‘It isn’t like me to mismeasure.’
‘My blue dress needs altering, too, it’s also snug,’ Susanna added, surprised the young lady’s work was suddenly so shoddy. It’d always been so neat before. ‘And I think I need my stays let out as well.’
Mrs Fairley’s eyes met Susanna’s in the mirror and then she came around to stand in front of her, looking up into her face with a motherly concern. ‘Are you sure everything is well with you, Miss Lambert?’
‘I’m quite well, other than a slight bit of dizziness and no appetite. Why?’
The kindly woman studied Susanna, a curious realisation dawning across her round face, as though she was aware of something Susanna was not. The modiste opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it.
‘It isn’t my place to pry into your affairs.’ Mrs Fairley dropped her hands as she stepped behind Susanna to undo the dress.
‘You don’t pry, I tell you.’ The modiste knew more about Susanna than anyone else, except Justin. Strange he should garner her confidence faster than Mrs Fairley, whose kind patience had relieved some of Susanna’s aching loneliness over the last few years. ‘You’ve helped me before. If there’s something you think might help me now, please tell me.’
Mrs Fairley shifted on her feet, her cotton dress crinkling with
the subtle movement as she silently debated Susanna’s request. Then, at last, she spoke. ‘Miss Lambert, were you intimate with Lord Howsham, in the married sense?’
Mrs Fairley had been the only other person besides Lord Howsham who’d known about the affair and Susanna’s plans to run away with him. Even with the Rocklands paying her bill, the modiste had never betrayed Susanna. Despite the shared knowledge, and Mrs Fairley’s discretion, Susanna was reluctant to admit her mistake. She wanted to leave it in the past, as Justin had urged her to do, but she couldn’t lie to the one woman who’d been the closest thing to a confidante she’d ever known. ‘I was, just once. We were walking in the woods at Rockland Place the day before the Rocklands and I left for London. He kissed me and then insisted on more. I didn’t refuse him. I thought it meant he cared for me, but it didn’t.’
She rubbed the back of her neck, remembering how the bark of the tree he’d pressed her against had scratched her skin as he’d pawed at her and how much she still regretted her foolishness. She should have known better, she should have pushed him away, but she hadn’t.
‘When were your last courses, miss?’ Mrs Fairley asked, beginning to plant in Susanna’s mind the most horrifying of thoughts.
‘The week of Lady Day, I think.’ So much had happened since then, coming to London, then Vauxhall Gardens, and she’d lost track of time. ‘It wasn’t long ago.’
Mrs Fairley’s eyes widened. ‘Miss Lambert, Lady Day was over six weeks ago.’
‘It couldn’t have been so long.’ Yet the modiste’s worried expression told her it was.
Susanna racked her mind, trying to determine if her courses had arrived since, but they hadn’t. Her hands flew to her mouth as she realised exactly what the modiste suspected. The memory of Lady Rockland watching the maid struggling to do up her dress last night, and then warning her not to delay the wedding, came rushing back to her. Mrs Fairley wasn’t the only one who suspected the horrible truth now beginning to fill Susanna. Lady Rockland did, too.
‘It can’t be. It can’t.’ The little breakfast Susanna had eaten threatened to come up and stain the skirt of the dress. She held it back, shrugging out of the silk as fast as she could, afraid of ruining it just as she had all hope of a future with Justin.
Mrs Fairley said nothing as she laid the dress to one side and watched as Susanna began to pace back and forth across the small room.
‘It can’t be. Justin thinks I’m so much more than a bastard, but I’m not and he’ll know it. He’ll hate me because of it.’ The intimacy she’d experienced with him last night, every promise hovering in his kisses, all desire to prove everyone wrong, to enjoy a family and friends who loved and cherished her came crashing down around her. She slouched to the floor against the chair and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, determined not to cry, and to face this calamity as she had every other one in her life, but her chest constricted with her sobs.
Mrs Fairley wrapped her arms around Susanna and rubbed her back, her kindness making it impossible for Susanna to stop the tears from coming. A hopelessness she hadn’t experienced since the morning of her mother’s funeral crashed over her. If she told Justin, he’d break off the engagement and nothing but penury and the dark, ugly streets of London waited for her and the baby. She could interrupt Lord Howsham’s wedding, insist he do right by her, but she knew he wouldn’t. He’d cast her aside as he had before and Lord Rockland would allow it. He wasn’t likely to fight for her, not against another peer.
‘What am I going to do?’ She moved away from Mrs Fairley and rubbed her cheeks with her hands. Tears and self-pity wouldn’t help. They never had before. ‘No man wants another man’s child foisted on him. I know, because no man would accept my mother because of me, not even my family.’
‘Perhaps you could go away to the country,’ Mrs Fairley suggested, attempting to bolster Susanna’s hope. ‘Once the child is born and settled with a good family, you could return to London and marry Mr Connor.’
‘I can’t. Lord and Lady Rockland would never allow such a delay, and if I tell them why I need to leave, they’ll throw me out without a shilling.’
Susanna sat back on her heels and stared at the small cutting of ribbon lying on the floor beneath the chair. Her stomach ached more at the thought of giving up a child than telling Lord Rockland the truth. The stories of families who’d fostered infants with farm couples who’d shown their charges little concern, leaving them to near starve or die of illness even when they were paid well, made her cringe. It was the reason her mother hadn’t relinquished Susanna despite her grandfather’s insistence. She couldn’t subject her own child to such a horrid fate, or the lonely existence she’d endured. Her mother had made sacrifices to give Susanna the safety of a family home, even if it’d lacked true acceptance and love. Susanna would have to do the same, though she had no idea how. Her grandfather and uncle wouldn’t take in another bastard, and Lord Rockland wouldn’t stand staunchly behind her this time as he had the day he’d brought her to Rockland Park and presented her to his wife.
She sagged against the chair, two tears of despair rolling silently down her cheeks. ‘I’m going to lose everything.’
‘I’ve heard of a woman, miss,’ Mrs Fairley began hesitantly as she handed Susanna a small scrap of fabric to wipe her cheeks with. ‘She offers a tonic of pennyroyal-mint oil.’
‘I can’t.’ Susanna cringed. One of the maids at Rockland Place had tried to end her troubles in a similar way and it’d killed her.
‘Then you must trust in Mr Connor.’ Mrs Fairley took Susanna’s hands in hers. ‘I’m sure he’ll understand and help you, one way or another.’
‘Why? There’s no reason for him to care about me.’ He’d tried to raise her up last night and in the curricle in Hyde Park. Telling him of the child would lower her in his eyes and turn him, the one person who’d ever thought highly of her, against her. ‘There’s no more reason for him to marry me.’
‘What about your dowry?’ Mrs Fairley suggested. ‘You two wouldn’t be the first to marry, one for money, the other for protection. The better sort do it all the time.’
Susanna snatched at the hope. Even coming to him as tainted goods, she did possess some value, if not for herself and her skills behind a shop counter, then for the fifteen hundred pounds which would be his. It was a depressing, if not practical and uncertain, prospect to hang her future on, and worry gnawed away at the chance it offered. ‘What if the money isn’t enough?’
It hadn’t been the first time her father had proposed the idea to him.
‘He’s a good man. I’m sure he’ll find a way to help you and the child.’
‘I hope you’re right.’ His charity was the only way she and the baby might avoid being cast out on to the streets.
* * *
Justin’s chaise rolled to a stop in front of Gunter’s in Berkeley Square. The sweet scent of the treats inside wafted out of the front door and further turned Susanna’s already knotted stomach. It was early in the afternoon and unusually warm for the middle of May. The more fashionable members of society who usually filled the tables inside, or sat outside in their open-topped carriages to enjoy their ices, were missing, leaving the shop to merchants’ wives and officers courting young ladies.
Justin had arrived at the Rocklands’ at noon to finalise the details of the wedding contract and the disbursement of Susanna’s dowry. It’d been a brief meeting in the duke’s office, with her father agreeing to the time and place of the wedding and engaging him in a short conversation about Susanna’s pin money, doing at least that much for Susanna despite the duchess’s disapproving glare. The woman had roused herself before noon to stand behind her husband and their solicitor, never daring to second-guess the men and not once smiling, even at the prospect of being rid of Susanna the next day.
During the entire discussion, and the review of the dowry contract, Susanna had attempted to sit still and not twist in her chair or fumble with her bracelet. More than o
nce the desire to reveal her horrid secret had flitted to the tip of her tongue, ready to be freed, but she couldn’t do it. It would make everything Lady Rockland believed about her true and Susanna wanted to deny her the satisfaction, if only for a little while longer, though it was a hollow victory. The harsh way Lady Rockland had regarded her when the issue of providing for future children in the event of Justin’s death had been raised told her she did suspect the truth. Susanna had waited while the solicitor had read the wording aloud, wondering if the duchess would say anything, but she’d held her tongue. Like Susanna, she’d allowed events to continue, no doubt more relieved than before to be rid of her bastard charge.
Having failed to reveal her condition in the Rockland study, Susanna had suggested the outing in Justin’s borrowed curricle, eager to be alone with him where they might talk. She’d intended to broach the subject while they drove, the open top giving them the illusion of being in public while in the privacy of the conveyance, but her courage had failed her again. Justin had been so enthusiastic in his discussion of the wine-shop inventory he’d acquired, and so solicitous of her advice on how best to sell the different quality vintages, she hadn’t wanted to ruin his mood.
‘I’m glad you suggested coming here.’ Justin flicked a coin at a young boy on the pavement and asked him to watch his horse. As he came around to help her down, the bright sun played off the dark felt of his hat, shading his eyes, but not concealing his pleasure in her presence. His hand in hers was confident and sure, but it did nothing to bolster her own spirits and she bitterly regretted again her time with Lord Howsham. This would be the last time Justin would regard her with such joy.
