by Merry Farmer
The baby. She took a shaky breath as she finished fastening her earrings. She still hadn’t told Alex. She should have said something that evening when they strolled through the garden, discussing James’s visit. Not coming out with the truth made her as guilty as Alex was for failing to mention James. Well, not quite as guilty. But really, how did one find a smooth and natural way to inform one’s husband that they were about to become a father? Legitimately.
Marigold stood, blowing out a breath and smoothing her skirts. “Thank you for your help, Ada. I expect we’ll be back from this party rather late tonight.”
“I’ll wait up for you, ma’am.” Ada curtsied.
Marigold fetched her beaded reticule from the vanity and headed for the door. If she were counting her blessings, she would have to count Ada among them. She was a cheerful young woman with a smile that put her at ease. And heaven only knew how much she needed that.
As she reached the top of the stairs and started down to the front hall, where Mr. Noakes was waiting to see her and Alex off, James burst out from one of the drawing rooms, laughing and shrieking. A moment later, Alex stomped into the hall behind him, arms outstretched, a comical snarl on his face.
“Beware, Sir James! The vicious dragon is going to snatch you up,” Alex called.
James rolled with laughter. “Macky! Macky, no!” He spotted Marigold and charged up a few stairs to hide in her skirts.
Marigold’s heart leapt, then flopped into her stomach as James grabbed her leg through the layers of her skirt. She couldn’t have stopped herself from laughing if she’d tried, and rested a hand on his head. “Don’t worry, Sir James. I’ll protect you.”
She turned to Alex, but he had dropped his dragon stance. Now he just looked like a slightly sheepish gentleman dressed in a fine evening suit, with grey in his hair. All the same, Marigold’s heart leapt again.
“Ah, Lady Marigold, this dragon has been slayed by one look at your radiant beauty,” he said.
It wasn’t so much his words as the hope in his eyes that sent heat and color straight to Marigold’s cheeks. She hid the reaction by finding James’s pudgy hand in her skirts and walking down the last few steps with him.
“Mari go out?” James asked as they crossed to Alex.
“I’m afraid so,” she said, crouching and cradling his face with one hand. “But Macky and I will come home later, and when you wake up tomorrow, we’ll have eggs and toast.”
“Mmm.” James rubbed his belly.
A thousand conflicting emotions welled up in Marigold’s chest. As frustrated as she was with Alex, it was impossible not to love James. He was just a child, after all. His origins weren’t his fault. She kissed his cheek and stood, feeling unaccountably misty-eyed, and handed him over to Martha, one of the housemaids.
“Your carriage awaits, my lady,” Alex said, offering his arm and continuing the charade.
She smiled at him and chuckled as she took his arm. A moment later, she sucked in a breath. It was the first time she had genuinely laughed at something Alex had said in two weeks. If the sting of his betrayal was already fading, perhaps they had a good chance of making something of their marriage after all. She touched a hand to her stomach. Of course, they’d already made something of their marriage.
“Why does James call you Macky?” she asked as Alex handed her into one of his more formal carriages. It was drawn by two powerful horses instead of one, like the buggy.
Alex let out an ironic laugh. “He calls me Macky because we were all too silly and indecisive when he was learning to speak to come up with anything better.”
Marigold stared blankly at him as the carriage lurched into motion.
“We couldn't very well have him call me Papa,” he said, a flush painting his cheeks in the evening light streaming through the carriage window.
“I suppose not.” Marigold nodded.
“Clara began teaching him to call me Mr. Croydon, and Arthur kept calling me Alex. I suppose James gathered up what syllables he could from those names and came up with Macky.”
“The logic of a child.” Marigold smiled.
“He’s a clever boy,” Alex agreed with a father’s proud grin.
“I’m sure he’ll make quite a name for himself,” she said.
He didn’t reply, and she couldn’t think of anything else to say. As clever as James was, Marigold couldn’t help but wonder what kind of place he’d have in the world, especially as younger siblings came along. Perhaps Alex was thinking the same thing, because he stayed quiet for most of the rest of the journey.
In the two weeks since they’d been in Wiltshire, Marigold and Alex had dined at Edward’s house twice. Edward was younger than Alex by almost ten years, and although he admitted freely that he wasn’t half as ambitious as Alex, or nearly as good with money, he had a wide circle of friends and entertained frequently at his cottage, as he called it. Though “cottage” wasn’t quite what Marigold would have called the stately, ten-bedroom house in the town of Frogwell, adjacent to Chippenham. Edward was a bachelor who enjoyed life, and in her two previous visits, Marigold had met everyone from the Bishop of Swindon to famous cricketer W.G. Grace.
“I’m told Lady Evangeline Gilchrist will be in attendance tonight,” Alex finally said as they neared the lights of the town. The sun had set during their half-hour journey. “I think you’d enjoy her company.”
“I look forward to meeting her, then,” Marigold answered, feeling doubly awkward, since the conversation had lagged for so long. At any point, she could have given Alex the good news, but she hadn’t.
Alex smiled at her in the dimming light and took her hand. She didn’t pull away. “Edward is particularly fond of Lady Evangeline. So fond, in fact, that I hope we’ll have a wedding to go to next spring.”
Marigold’s lips twitched. Her insides quivered. She simply couldn't resist cracking a joke at their expense. “Good for them for waiting more than three weeks to become engaged,” she blurted before she changed her mind.
Alex turned his head to stare at her, his eyebrows lifting. Slowly, a smile spread across his face, reaching his eyes so that they caught what little light there was and glittered. “Smarter than we were, eh?”
“Infinitely.”
It felt as though someone had opened a window and let the air in. Alex’s chuckle was low and subtle, but he was definitely laughing. She couldn’t keep her own laugh from escaping, though she tried to by pressing her free hand over her mouth.
By the time the carriage pulled up in front of Edward’s house, Marigold felt lighter than she had in weeks. Things were progressing. They weren’t perfect, the mistakes were all still there, but they were moving forward. It was more than she could have hoped for.
“Alex,” Edward greeted them with a loud, cheerful shout as they were shown into the large sitting room where two dozen guests at least were already gathering. “And my darling sister-in-law. What a pleasure to see you here.”
Marigold’s laughter continued to bubble right under the surface. Edward held a large glass of wine, and it was clear he’d already enjoyed at least one other. Alex shared a long-suffering look with her and rolled his eyes, which only spurred her to laugh more.
“Edward,” Alex greeted his brother with a handshake and a thump on his back. He leaned closer. “Shouldn’t you save the wine until after supper?”
“Of course not, old chap,” Edward replied, loud enough for everyone in town to hear, let alone everyone in the room. “This is a celebration.”
“What are we celebrating?” Marigold asked, pressing a hand to her stomach. It fluttered with the wild thought that somehow Edward had found out about the baby, even though she hadn’t told anyone other than Lady Stanhope.
But Edward shouted, “Turpin’s downfall!”
Several of the other guests raised their glasses and echoed, “Turpin’s downfall!”
“Why? What happened?” Alex asked, his eyes suddenly bright.
“Haven’t you heard?�
� A beautiful woman in what Marigold recognized as the latest Paris fashion swept forward to join her. “The Times came out with a salacious story about him and a maid he supposedly dishonored.”
“Marigold, I’d like you to meet Lady Evangeline Gilchrist,” Alex said, though his eyes were alight with more than just the introduction of a woman who could end up as Marigold’s sister-in-law. “Lady Evangeline, this is my beautiful bride, Mrs. Marigold Croydon.”
For the first time in weeks, it felt good to be introduced as Alex’s wife. “How do you do?” She nodded to Lady Evangeline.
“Splendidly,” Lady Evangeline replied, a little too enthusiastically, making Marigold wonder just how much wine had been poured all around before they arrived. “That horrible toad, Turpin, is about to get his comeuppance.”
“Today it’s The Times,” Edward said, “and tomorrow it will be every other newspaper in Europe.”
“It’s scandalous what he did to that poor woman,” Lady Evangeline followed on top of Edward’s words.
He returned the favor by rushing on with, “Of course, Turpin will claim it’s all hearsay and nonsense, but if they can find what happened to the girl and get her to tell her story in court, why, this will be the end of that blighter’s career.”
Marigold sent a sideways look to Alex, who was grinning like a cat with a canary. It was the same mysterious, wicked sort of grin that had drawn her to him in the first place, and it made her toes tingle. Better still, she could tell that he wasn’t about to burst out with the truth of how the story had made it to the papers or where Ruby Murdoch was. He would let the whole thing play out without taking credit for a bit of it. And although that was brilliant strategically, it raised him in her estimation as well.
“You’re a little late,” Edward went on. “We’re all just about to sit down to supper. Come along.”
Marigold exchanged a full glance with Alex and squeezed his arm before they followed the rest of the crowd through the parlor and into the dining room.
Supper truly was a celebration, although Marigold wasn’t convinced Edward and his friends needed something like Turpin’s scandal to burst into bacchanalia. They were in high spirits, and managed to lift hers with them. Or perhaps it was the way Alex laughed and carried on with the rest of them that warmed her heart. She hadn’t seen him so relaxed since the night before they left for Wiltshire. His smile was easy, his manner was charming, and as the meal progressed, a whisper at the back of her head reminded her that this was why she’d fallen so hard and fast for him. How could a woman not throw caution to the wind when a man was as charming as the devil himself? It made her wonder if perhaps the time had come to put everything on the table, tell him about the baby, and take their marriage back to where it had been before hitting the bump.
“Do you know,” she whispered to him as everyone rose from their places at the end of supper and prepared to adjourn to the ballroom, “I think I might be a little too tired for dancing tonight.” She glanced up at him with confidence, hoping he would understand that she was promising something more when they returned to Winterberry Park.
“Are you sure?” Alex began. “Mr. Holbert over there is an excellent—” He stopped abruptly and did a double-take as soon as his eyes met hers. “I’ll have the carriage brought around,” he said in a suddenly hoarse voice.
Marigold stifled a giggle, glancing around to see if any of the other guests had noticed the exchange or interpreted what it foretold. They were all too busy laughing and chatting and pushing their way through the hallway to the ballroom. Alex dodged through a few of them to have a quick word with his brother. A very quick word. He broke away from Edward after only a few seconds.
Edward raised his hand and shouted, “Good night and Godspeed, Mrs. Croydon.”
“God speed, Mrs. Croydon!” several others echoed.
Alex’s carriage was brought around with surprising speed. The driver remained in his seat, his cap pulled low.
“I would have expected Henry to be carousing with the other servants downstairs,” Alex said as he helped Marigold to climb inside.
“Do they have their own parties here in Wiltshire the same way they do in London?” Marigold asked, excitement buzzing through her as Alex settled on the seat beside her, closing the door.
“Of course,” he smiled. “What’s the point of driving your employers to a revelry like this one if you can’t enjoy the leftovers yourself? Drive on, Henry,” he called. The carriage lurched into motion.
Marigold grinned from ear to ear, even though she wasn’t sure Alex could see it. “In that case, I hope Henry isn’t too put out to have left the party early.”
“If he is, I’ll make sure there’s something in his pay packet to compensate him.”
He leaned closer to her, sliding his arm around her waist. A thrill of temptation like she wasn’t sure she’d ever feel again zipped through her as they sped away from the lights of Frogwell and into the darkness of the countryside. They slowed for a moment, and the carriage dipped slightly, but it rushed into motion again, picking up speed, in no time.
“And now, my darling wife, was there something you wanted from me?”
Marigold’s heart beat as fast as the carriage raced through the night, and both were racing with incredible speed. “There’s something I need to tell you,” she said, barely able to suppress a giggle. This was why she’d waited to say something about the baby. After two weeks of misery, she finally felt as though she and Alex had reached common ground. Things were exactly the way they should be for news like hers.
But before she could say a word, Alex pulled her closer, resting his hand on the side of her face. “Are you going to tell me you forgive me?” he asked. Even in the darkness, she could see the light of hope in his eyes. “Because I know I’ve been a wretched fool. But I promise I can learn. I may be an old dog, but I want more than anything to learn new tricks. Teach me.”
Excitement blossomed in Marigold’s chest, leaving her breathless. She felt dizzy and out of control, and not just because of the way the carriage rattled and jolted as they charged over country roads. She wanted him. She wanted her husband, faults and all. The shock was over, and her heart longed to be with him.
She surged into him, which felt like being thrown against him the way the carriage jostled. He caught her tightly in his arms and kissed her. Everything else disappeared. All Marigold felt as his lips parted hers and his tongue invaded her was promise and hope. She had never been so grateful to discover that anger could be temporary and peace could be restored. His hands caressed her curves over the layers of her dress, and she unbuttoned his jacked to reach for his warmth. They could mend the wrongs between them after all.
Thoughts of the closet at Westminster came back, and heat poured through her. If they could make love in a closet, surely they could make love in a speeding carriage too. She reached for the buttons of his waistcoat—then let out a sudden yelp as he bit her tongue.
“Sorry,” Alex gasped, leaning back. “Sorry, it wasn’t me. This bloody carriage.”
He was right. The carriage was knocking around wildly. She’d been too caught up in the return of passion to notice at first.
“Henry!” Alex leaned forward, banging against the top of the carriage near where Henry sat outside. “Slow down, man. Are you trying to get us all killed?”
He was answered with a jolt of stunning force. To Marigold, it felt as though they’d run over something, but kept on going. Fear replaced desire in a split second, and she grabbed the edges of her seat as hard as she could.
“Henry!” Alex shouted, banging for all he was worth.
It did no good. The carriage tore on, hitting every rut and bump along the way. In fact, without being able to see through the night, Marigold would have guessed they’d left the road entirely and—
She didn’t finish her thought. With a loud crack, the world tipped sideways. Seconds later, she was slammed against the front of the carriage. Then pain. Then blackness
.
Chapter 13
Alex drifted through the darkness, hearing nothing but the roar of blood pounding in his ears. Slowly, groggily, the world came into partial focus around him. His head pounded. His body ached. His left arm in particular throbbed. He clawed his way up through the blackness, noticing small details. A horse was crying in pain nearby. Tiny shafts of moonlight stabbed down through cracks that shouldn’t have been where they were. And in the distance, he heard faint shouts of alarm.
The temptation to give up and fall back into the darkness was overwhelming. If he could just relax and sleep, the pain would go away, and—
“Marigold.”
The single word spilled clumsily from his lips, but it was enough to snap him to full attention. They were in the carriage. The carriage had crashed. That was the only explanation. He pushed away from a padded surface, possibly the back of a seat, but it was in the wrong place. One of the carriage doors was above him, and what had been the front was shattered.
“Marigold,” he repeated, more urgently, and reached in the darkness to find her. His hands closed around warmth and fabric, what might have been her arm or her leg, he couldn’t tell. Everything was topsy-turvy.
Careful not to crush her because he couldn’t see her, he twisted, reaching for the handle of the door above him. His heart pounded in his chest and his breath came in painful, shallow gasps. He pushed the door up and open, letting in enough moonlight to see.
Marigold lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. Blood streaked across her pale face. She wasn’t moving.
“No.” The word came out as a sob. He reached for her, bracing himself against the odd angles of the wrecked carriage and gathering her in his arms. “No, oh, no. Marigold.”
Desperation ripped through him as he hugged her close, cradling her and rocking. He wiped the blood from her face, kissed her cheek, felt for her pulse. It was there, faint and thready, but it was there.
He had to get her out, get her to a doctor. With every ounce of effort he could manage, he pushed his way to a standing position, struggling to lift Marigold high enough to get her through the door and onto the side of the carriage. One of the horses continued to make horrible, shrieking sounds, but the other was silent. As he pulled his way through the door to perch on the side of the carriage by Marigold’s side, he searched through the darkness.
