by Mary Balogh
The baby was lying on a blanket in the middle of the nursery floor, his arms punching the air and his legs kicking while his nurse sat in a chair close to him, knitting. But it was not exactly a place of peace and quiet. There were several other children present, some of them babies, a few older, including Becky and Davy, who waved cheerfully at Freyja before returning their attention to their paints. There were three other nurses in attendance.
Freyja would have been quite contented to stand looking down at the baby and to make a few appropriately admiring comments. But Lauren bent down, scooped him up into her arms, and deposited him in Freyja's before leading the way into an inner room, which was obviously the baby's bedchamber, and closing the door.
Freyja held him gingerly, terrified of dropping him. He had Kit's brown hair, lighter than Lauren's. But he was going to have her eyes. He was soft and warm and weighed almost nothing at all. He smelled sweet and powdery. He made little gurgling noises and gazed at her with eyes that were not yet quite fully focused. She was alarmed by the rush of tender emotion she felt.
For Kit's baby-and Lauren's.
"He is beautiful," she said-lame words indeed. She handed him back to his mother.
"Freyja," Lauren said, "I cannot tell you how happy I am that you have met Lord Hallmere and are betrothed to him. I will not pretend to know him on such short acquaintance, of course, but in addition to his extraordinary good looks he has smiling eyes. I always trust eyes like his. He looks happy, and you look happy. How becomingly flushed your cheeks are! I knew this must happen for you one day, but until it did I have been anxious for you. I know how you felt, you see-I was abandoned at the altar by the man I had loved all my life. I thought my life had ended. I certainly never expected that I would love again. But I did-and the second love has been many times more powerful and satisfying than the first. I believe you must be discovering that too. It will only get better as time goes on. Believe me."
She really was extremely lovely, Freyja admitted grudgingly to herself. And she glowed with her new motherhood-and perhaps with more than just that.
That man-the one Lauren had grown up with and almost married-was the Earl of Kilbourne. He was downstairs with his wife. Their daughter was one of the babies in the nursery. It was clear that Lauren felt not one twinge of lingering bitterness regarding him and what might have been.
"I never really loved Jerome," Freyja said. "I was fond of him. I mourned him far more deeply than I could ever have predicted. But I did not love him."
Lauren smiled her acknowledgment of Freyja's deliberate misunderstanding and looked down at the baby, who was being lulled to sleep in her arms.
"I wish I had known Jerome," she said. "Kit adored him."
Yes. But their last encounter had been a bitter, violent one. Kit had broken Jerome's nose before riding over to Lindsey Hall and fighting Ralf and then returning to the Peninsula.
"I should tell you," Freyja said, "about the time the two of them kidnapped me and locked me in that gamekeeper's hut in the woods."
Lauren looked up and laughed. "Kit has told me," he said. "How delighted I was to hear that you came out the victor. Did you really swear the air blue? And did you really punch Jerome in the face? Childhood memories are wonderful, are they not? We use that hut quite often, you know, Kit and I. It is our own quiet, cozy retreat."
Freyja was suddenly reminded of what had happened there just an hour or so ago-she had been trying not to think about it. Perhaps even now she was with child herself. Perhaps even now she was fated to marry Josh-against both their wishes. But if it were not so, then she was fated to end their betrothal soon and never see him again.
It was a strangely dreary thought.
The baby was sleeping. Lauren kissed him softly on the forehead and set him down gently in his crib before covering him with his blankets. Then she turned back to Freyja, and this time she did link arms with her before they went back downstairs.
"I am so glad we can be friends at last," she said. "I have always liked and admired you. Sometimes I wish I had your bold spirit. But I must confess that I have also been a little afraid of you."
Freyja let out a short bark of laughter. "One would never have known it," she said. "Do you remember that first time you came to Lindsey Hall with Kit?"
"And you all tried to make me as uncomfortable as you possibly could?" Lauren said, laughing too. "How could I possibly forget? I could cheerfully have curled up and died."
"But instead you dealt me a magnificent, oh-so-ladylike set-down," Freyja said. "My brothers were crowing with delight after you left."
The party was breaking up, Freyja saw when they entered the drawing room. Some of the neighbors had already left. Wulfric was on his feet. So were the other members of her family. The carriages must have been sent for.
"Gracious, Free," Alleyne said, appearing at her side as Lauren made her way toward Wulf, "has there been a grand reconciliation between you and Lauren? Life is threatening to grow very dull indeed."
"It is time you got a life for yourself," she said severely.
He winced. "A hit, Free!" he said. "A palpable hit, to quote some authority I cannot quite identify at the moment. I shall have to go out into the world to seek my own happy ending. Aidan, Ralf, you . . . Happy endings are becoming an epidemic among us."
Joshua was standing talking with Lady Kilbourne and the Duchess of Portfrey. He was using all his considerable charm on them and looking devastatingly handsome in the process. The light from the chandelier overhead made his hair gleam very blond. Again Freyja felt that rush of knee-weakening knowledge. Just an hour or so ago . . .
He had tried to stop it from happening.
She had dared him to stop.
How complicated life had become.
And how undeniably exhilarating!
He turned his head and smiled at her, and she raised her eyebrows. And then he slowly depressed one eyelid and she bristled with indignation.
Joshua was normally an early riser. He was not late up the following morning, but he was later than usual. He had scarcely slept all night, only to fall into a deep sleep when it was already light. All the Bedwyns except Freyja and Judith were at breakfast.
"She is feeling indisposed this morning," Rannulf said, looking rather sheepish, when Joshua asked about Judith, "just as she was yesterday morning until it was almost time to leave for church. I have just been admitting to the family that she is in a delicate way. We were going to keep it to ourselves for a while, but morning sickness is a great spoiler of secrets."
"Poor Judith," Eve said. "I'll go up and keep her company for a while after breakfast-unless I discover that she would rather be alone."
"And Freyja?" Joshua asked. Surely she was not still in bed, unless she had had as sleepless a night as he. It was altogether possible.
"Did you two quarrel yesterday?" Alleyne asked, grinning. "She would not come back inside after riding with us before breakfast. She said she needed more air and went striding off on foot."
"Quarrel?" Joshua said. "With your sister? How could one ever provoke a quarrel with a sweet-natured lady like Freyja?"
Everyone at the table laughed. Even Bewcastle looked faintly amused.
"I winked at her across the drawing room just before we left Alvesley last evening," Joshua said, "and sent her into a towering rage. People, she told me when we had a moment alone together before getting into the carriage with Morgan and Alleyne, might have noticed and thought us remarkably vulgar. Where might she have gone?"
"You might be wise," Aidan said, "to wait for her to walk off any lingering indignation and return to the house in her own good time."
"Ah," Joshua said, "but no one has ever been able to accuse me of excessive wisdom."
"There is a wilderness walk out behind the house," Morgan said. "She usually goes there when she wishes to be alone. And if I had quarreled with my betrothed, Aidan, I would want him to come after me even if I had told everyone that I wished to be left alone
and even if I had warned him not to follow me."
"Eve is still in the process of teaching me how to understand women," Aidan said. "I spent too many years in the military, it seems."
It was not that they had quarreled exactly, of course, Joshua thought as he strode off beyond the stables half an hour later to where the wilderness walk began. And she had not been in a towering rage over the wink-only hotly indignant. He had made a kissing gesture with his lips and called her sweetheart when she had scolded him, and had watched her nostrils flare, and then they had been in the carriage with her brother and sister and he had deliberately drawn her hand through his arm.
No, they had not quarreled. But last evening they had had conjugal relations and everything had changed between them. What had begun as a light flirtation to alleviate the boredom of being stuck in Bath for a week had escalated into an impulsive and very temporary betrothal to stave off his aunt's dastardly entrapment scheme and then into something rather more lengthy with his grandmother's decision to give them a betrothal party. And then Bewcastle had arrived in Bath and quickly discerned the truth, and that had led to this prolonging of the connection. He had known the danger. He had prepared himself for it, steeled himself against it, for both her sake and his own. But now look what had happened. They were in dire peril of having their temporary lark transformed into a lifelong commitment. If it so happened that she was with child, they would have no choice at all. And even if she was not . . .
Good Lord, she was Lady Freyja Bedwyn.
Last night she had seemed not to realize the seriousness of what had happened. Or perhaps she had, but had simply refused to admit it. This morning, if his guess was correct, she had faced reality and found it disturbing indeed.
The wilderness walk began with a series of wide, earthen steps with wooden borders leading up between rhododendron bushes to larger trees farther up the hill. Then a well-worn, shaded path turned sharply to the right to weave among the trees and give the walker an impression of total seclusion, of being miles from any habitation. It was fragrant with vegetation even though the height of summer was past, and loud with birdsong.
So had he-faced reality this morning, that was-or last night, to be more accurate. He was Hallmere now, whether he wanted to be or not. The wars were over with Napoléon Bonaparte imprisoned on the island of Elba. His job was done. He was twenty-eight years old. It was true that he had no intention of returning to Penhallow-ever. But he was a peer of the realm. He was going to have to take his seat in the House of Lords one of these days. He was going to have to acquire a permanent home somewhere-probably in London. He was going to have to settle down-those dreaded words.
Though why he should think them with dread he did not know. He had settled down once before, years ago, when he had learned and practiced the trade of carpenter. He had expected to live his life out there in the village of Lydmere. He had even been starting to look about him at some of the village girls.
Perhaps it was time he married. And if he must marry, why not Freyja? Socially he could not do better. He would never be bored with her. He found her attractive. He had discovered last evening that she was quite as explosively passionate in bed as he had expected. He would certainly enjoy the opportunity of bedding her under less frantic circumstances in order to discover if her nature was as sensual as it was passionate-he would wager it was.
Why not Freyja?
Perhaps because he had never set out to woo her. Perhaps because she had never shown any inclination to be wooed. Perhaps because his nature was still too restless or because her feelings were still too tied up with a thwarted passion for Ravensberg.
But perhaps now they had no more choice in the matter, he thought, striding along the path and peering into the occasional grove or folly set aside for rests along the way. There was no sign of Freyja. It was possible, of course, that she had not come this way at all. Or, if she had, she might have returned to the house another way by now.
The path had been climbing steadily upward from the beginning, though not with any steep gradient. He was about to move over the crest of the hill, Joshua realized, and begin the gradual, curving descent to the end of the walk. A stone tower, artfully built to look romantically ruined, had been built on the crest. If there was a winding stairway inside the narrow doorway with its Gothic arch-and he rather believed there must be-the energetic walker could get up to the crenellated battlements and have a magnificent view out over the treetops to the surrounding countryside.
He looked up-and grinned.
Her hands were resting on the battlements. Her face was raised to the sun and more than half turned from the path on which he stood. If she had been wearing a hat for her ride earlier, there was no sign of it now. Or of any hairpins. Her hair was billowing out loose behind her in the breeze.
Once more he was reminded of Viking maidens or Saxon warrior women. Or perhaps this morning she looked more like the medieval lady of the castle, holding it against all assailants while her lord was away in battle.
She had told him once that she sometimes felt she had been born in the wrong era.
"If I come closer," he called, cupping his hands on either side of his mouth, "will I be greeted with boiling oil and poisoned arrows raining down on my head?"
She turned and looked down at him, raising her hands to hold her hair back from her face.
"No," she called back. "I thought I would give myself the more personal pleasure of pitching you over the battlements. Come on up."
She favored him with one of her feline smiles.
CHAPTER XIV
Look," she said after he had come up the spiral stairs inside the tower and joined her at the top. She gestured about her with a wide sweep of her arm. "Is there a view more lovely anywhere, do you suppose?"
There was a view for miles in all directions. The house was back behind her, but she preferred to look into the wind the other way, over the trees, over the back part of the park, and on out over farmland and farm buildings and hedgerows and winding lanes. The tower was one of her favorite places in the world-wild and secluded, dwarfing her little problems and heartaches, blowing them away in the wind.
She did not like sharing it with anyone, but it would have been petty to send Josh away. She wished she could have done so, though. Hearing his voice calling unexpectedly from below and then looking down and seeing him had turned her knees to jelly and sent her stomach somersaulting and taken her breath away for an unguarded moment. She was terribly aware of him physically, more so now that he had come up beside her, tall and virile in his riding clothes-and hatless.
She did not like the feeling one little bit. Passion had been all very well four years ago when she had also fancied herself in love and headed toward a happily-ever-after-how young she had been in those days. But now it suggested only a loss of control, a fear that she could somehow lose her hard-won sense of strong independence. She was not in love with Josh, but she was certainly and ignominiously in lust with him. She did not like it. She did not choose to be either in love or in lust-especially not with a man who found everything in life amusing and rarely seemed to entertain a serious thought.
Joshua Moore, Marquess of Hallmere, was not worthy of her love, even if she was prepared to offer it. She was not.
"Not that I have seen in any of my travels," he said in answer to her question, looking about appreciatively at the view. "The fields have all been harvested and some of the trees are beginning to turn color. In another few weeks they are going to look more glorious yet. Ah, pardon me." He turned his head to look down at her. "You do not like autumn, do you?"
"Only because winter comes so close behind it," she said. "Winter always reminds me of-" She shivered.
"Your mortality?" he suggested. "Have you read Gulliver's Travels?"
"Of course I have," she said.
"Do you remember those characters who were doomed to live forever?" he asked her. "I cannot remember which part of the book they were in, but they were born
with a mark on their foreheads that meant they could never ever die. Instead of being envied, they were the most pitied members of their race. It was a terrible fate to be born with such a mark. Jonathan Swift was wiser than most of us, it seems, and understood how undesirable it would be to live forever. And if we live always in constant dread, Free, how can we enjoy the time that is allotted to us?"
"I do not live in constant dread," she told him.
"Only in winter?" he said, smiling at her. "And in autumn because winter comes next? Half of every year?"
She shook her head. "This is foolish talk," she said. "Who told you that you would find me here?"
"Were you hiding from me?" he asked her.
"I never hide from anyone," she said crossly-she had, of course, been doing just that, or at least postponing seeing him as long as she could this morning. "I think it is time we quarreled, Josh. It is time I set you free and sent you on your way. It is time to end this farce."
"It cannot be done, sweetheart," he said, leaning one elbow on the battlements and turning to look fully at her. "Not yet. Not until we know if you are with child or not."
She had lain awake most of the night worrying about just that. About having to marry Josh. About his having to marry her. About being forever trapped in a marriage that neither of them had freely chosen and both of them would forever resent. About having a soft, warm, living baby of her own.
"I am not," she said firmly. "And there is always something or another. When we started this, we were going to end it the next day. Every day since then we seem to have dug ourselves a deeper hole."
"Am I to understand, my charmer," he asked her, "that you do not want to marry me?"
"You know I do not," she said irritably, "any more than you want to marry me. Do be serious for once in your life, Josh. I begin to think that your laughter and your carefree manner are masks that you wear. What I have not yet decided is whether they mask nothing at all or whether there is a person behind them that I would not recognize if I were to meet him without the disguise."
