Of course, his choice would have been her.
Bugger it all, but he was going to wring her bloody neck.
Chapter 37
Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.
~ Jane Austen from Emma
Telegram to Abby at Rose Lawn Coppice:
To Mrs. Richard MacKintosh
c/o Lord Joshua Boughton
Rose Lawn Coppice
Deal, England
18 January 1888
Angel,
Received word of the news from Jack. Intend to have strong words with you upon my return.
Yours, Richard
Reply:
21 Jan 1888
Captain Richard MacKintosh
c/o British Consulate
Cairo, Egypt
Sir,
I don’t believe I care for your tone.
Not yet courted, Lady Abygail Merrill
Richard read the telegram, unable to hold back a bark of laughter. In typical fashion, Abby had been unable to stand for any reprimand against her. He could just picture her, hands on hips and chin thrust forward impudently. If he were there, he would kiss her silly.
God, but he missed her. He missed the joy in his heart when he was with her. Soon it would be theirs to share each day. He looked down at her closing words. Aye, he would court her, as promised. He was looking forward to it.
The telegraph operator, unable to stifle his curiosity, leaned forward across the desk. Well, the fellow had earned every right to his nosiness, given the quantity and tone of the telegrams that he had received for Richard in his absence. “Will there be a reply, Captain?”
He grinned. “There certainly will.”
To Mrs. Richard MacKintosh
c/o Lord Joshua Boughton
Rose Lawn Coppice
Deal, England
22 January 1888
Angel,
The courting will commence upon your most abject apology.
Already yours, Richard
Reply:
24 Jan 1888
Captain Richard MacKintosh
c/o British Consulate
Cairo, Egypt
Richard,
Conditional or unconditional?
Nearly yours, Abby
The telegraph operator leaned forward on his elbows, rocking back and forth over the desk with a wide grin. “Would you like to reply, Captain?”
Richard couldn’t help but smile broadly in return. God love the woman.
“Is there really anything I can say to that?”
Chapter 38
One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.
~ Socrates
The home of Lord and Lady Boughton
Rose Lawn Coppice
Deal, England
February 12, 1888
Finally, Richard thought as the carriage pulled into the drive at Rose Lawn. The day was gloomy, even for winter. The clouds hung heavily close to the ground making it almost impossible to see the manor as they approached. The last almost three weeks of travel had been hard and fraught with delay. So much so, that they might have been better off waiting an extra week for the British mail packet to leave Cairo. Instead they had taken a passenger ship to Marseilles and traveled overland via railroad to Calais before taking a commercial transport into Dover.
The Boughton’s estate was less than ten miles north of Dover, perched right on the cliffs high above the channel. It had been the longest ten miles of his life.
His anticipation had been palpable to the other two occupants of the carriage. While Francis simply shook his head in bemusement, Jack claimed to be nearing physical illness in the face of such ‘love-struck rubbish’. He could only grin in response. Someday Jack would understand.
Well, with Jack Merrill, perhaps not.
As they pulled up to the door, he felt a rush of euphoria at the thought of seeing his wife again. His wife, Richard grinned. He couldn’t wait to hold her, hold their child when it came. And he was a bit anxious as well, he admitted, though only to himself. Though he had her letters and had dreamed of her for…well, he chuckled, almost nine months, their relationship was still a new one. He hoped there would be no regrets from Abby in regard to their hasty marriage. That she would be as anxious to begin their ‘courtship’ as he.
* * *
Leaping from the carriage before the step was let down, he bounded up the stair to the front portico but what he saw there stopped him in his tracks. Ice chilled his veins. His feet were leaden, frozen in horror.
The blood that had been pumping eagerly through his veins just moments before roared in his ears. Richard’s head swam with the same dizziness he’d felt when Jack had told him that Abby was pregnant.
Or perhaps not the same at all, that moment had resulted in the exhilaration of hope and anticipation for a life that held very little. This was…pure dread. Sickening fear.
Black crepe draped over the door.
His breathing hitched, stopped as he stared at the door and what it represented. Francis’ supportive hand fell on his shoulder, and he actually heard Jack’s painfully audible swallow next to him.
No.
His heart thudded heavily, excruciatingly in his chest. It was something Richard had never considered. Women died in childbirth all the time. His own mother had died that way. Abby. His heart slowed painfully…or was it time that slowed? As if he were caught in the moment with no escape?
“Do you think…?”
“Nay. Don’t jump to conclusions,” Francis said, raising his hand to rap on the door that had been stripped of its knocker.
“To hell with that,” Jack said, reaching for the doorknob.
Richard agreed, taking the knob before Jack could.
Three abreast, they entered the house in mourning.
* * *
The house was as silent as the highlands on a winter’s day. Chilled and soundless. Their boots echoed hollowly in the deserted hall. Richard shouted out for Abby as they looked in each room, searching for any living being.
“Richard.”
Hearing his name, he jerked around expectantly but only found Moira MacKenzie at the top of the stairs. As she rushed down to meet him, Joshua Boughton also appeared. For a moment, all five of the stared at one another in silence before they all began talking at once.
“What happened?”
“Where is she?”
“You’re here.”
“We weren’t expecting you for a couple more days.”
Silence fell awkwardly once again before Richard was able to make his lips move again. He looked pleadingly at her grandfather. “Abby?”
“She was doing fine,” Joshua Boughton began, “then the baby came early. Dr. Leven doesn’t know what went wrong. He was so big.”
The words faded until it was if they were being spoken from a distance. Richard couldn’t ask. She was gone. Abby was gone. His hope was gone. His chance for happiness gone. All of it…gone. He swayed on his feet.
“Oh, Richard!” Moira cried out, as she realized what he was thinking. “No, no! Abby’s not…she’s alive, but…”
“Good God, man!” Francis exclaimed gripping hid arm. “You need to sit down before you fall down.”
A part of Richard wanted nothing more than too comply. His body had gone from anticipation to terror to lifelessness in just a few moments. His chest ached with anxiety, with fear. Breathing had suddenly become a chore. He pushed his brother away.
“She’s all right then? Why didn’t you send a cable?”
I did,” Lord Boughton said. “It must have reached Cairo after you left, and we don’t know where to contact you since then.”
Francis asked, “Who is the mourning for?”
“Her father,” Moira said, then cast a sympathetic look at Jack when he sucked in a deep breath. “Your father. I
’m so sorry, Jack. Abby insisted on observing the mourning.”
“When?” he croaked out.
“A few weeks ago. Just before the baby came.”
“Where is she?” Richard wanted to know.
“Richard, you must understand…you must remain calm,” Lord Boughton said softly. “The doctor said she must have quiet.”
“Where?”
“She’s in her room.”
Remembering the layout of the house from years past, he took the stairs two at a time, racing to Abby’s room. Lord Boughton and then Jack trailed behind.
Francis lingered in the hall. It wasn’t his place to follow. Nor did he want to. He remembered his mother’s death too vividly to do it, even for his brother. Instead, he turned to Moira, who he remembered as fondly as Abby, having grown up with her nipping his heels as well. “Tell me what happened, Moira.”
“We’re not certain if it was the news of Haddington or something more but the baby came early—Dr. Leven says he’ll be fine,” Moira reassured him quickly. “But he was a big babe. Too big for Abby. There were complications.”
“She’ll be all right?” Francis asked the same question as Richard. The one that he realized no one had answered before. His heart ached for his brother who was just beginning to realize how fortunate he was to have found someone to love, someone to love him in return. “Will she?”
“I don’t know,” Moira said finally, her lip trembling. “She’s so weak.”
Francis was silent for a moment, then asked, “It’s a boy?”
“Yes, he was born on the 26th of January. He was early but Dr. Leven says he’ll be fine. He’s a fine baby, a handsome boy. Abby named him Tristram. Tristram Vincent MacKintosh.”
The second name emerged with a slight stutter.
“Tristram?”
“She got the name from a gothic novel she read,” Moira told him as if that news were supposed to make him smile. “She thought the name quite heroic.”
“Richard is going to kill her,” he said thoughtlessly, then grimaced. “I mean…”
“I know what you meant and you’re right,” she said with a sad smile. “Assuming he gets the chance.”
“I should go and see, I suppose.”
“Francis.” She caught his arm as he passed. Her eyes were filled with dread, her voice weak as she asked, “Did y-you find him?”
Francis closed his eyes as the realization of what Moira was asking—and perhaps why she was asking—washed over him. Bloody hell, he had never known. “Ah, lass,” he sighed, opening his arms to her.
A jagged sob hiccupped through her entire body as her eyes filled with tears. “No?”
“Nay, lass, I’m sorry, but no.”
Moira wilted in his arms.
Chapter 39
Time is very slow for those who wait
Very fast for those who are scared
Very long for those who lament
Very short for those who celebrate
But for those who love time is eternal
~ William Shakespeare
Richard came to a halt at the door of Abby’s room. He barely saw the other occupants of the room and only vaguely heard Lady Boughton’s surprise exclamation at his appearance. His entire being was focused was on Abby, so small she almost disappeared in the middle of the bed. She wasn’t as pale as he remembered, but rather her skin was cast in pasty gray. Her once shiny blond locks, dull and lank.
As it had at the front door, his every heartbeat slowed as if time had decelerated or he were in a dream, but he knew it wasn’t so. It was all too real. Pain lanced through him. “She’s dying.”
“Richard, no,” Lady Boughton said, rising to her feet.
He couldn’t believe her. Abby was as still as death. He shook his head and pierced the doctor with a level look the brooked no lies. “Tell me.”
“In truth, it’s hard to say,” Dr. Leven said with more candor. “I’ve known Lady Abygail almost all her life. She’s a fighter, always has been. She just needs to know there’s something worth fighting for.”
He wasn’t certain how he got there, but somehow Richard’s feet propelled him to her side where he dropped down next to her, taking her cold hand in his as Abby’s grandmother and the doctor slid out the door, catching her grandfather and Jack on the way.
Richard felt Jack linger, felt his concern for his sister, but could pay him no mind as he took in Abby’s deathly still form. He’d known death in his life. He’d lost both parents before he was sixteen, he’d lost Vincent—as hard as it had been to accept. None of that compared to what he felt now. He’d never prayed for God to spare anyone, had never pleaded for mercy in any situation.
In that moment, Richard thought he might even commit to a Faustian pact to save Abby’s life. He would give anything; bargain anything he had including his own life and soul, to spare hers. With one hand, he reached up, smoothing her hair back from her face and bent to press first one kiss then another to her forehead. “Abby?”
There was no response.
He kissed her again, his hoarse voice pleading as he squeezed her hand tighter. “Angel?” He said it again and again. Was that his voice, he wondered. He’d never imagined he could sound on so emotional, as if he were on the verge of tears.
Her eyelids flickered.
“Richard,” she sighed.
“Hullo, angel.”
A tear splashed on his arm. Damn.
* * *
“No flowers?”
A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “My apologies, angel. I didn’t want to let anything slow me from reaching your side. But it is not I who needs to apologize, is it?”
How wonderful to see him smile, even just a little. Abby had dreamed of his smiles and wished to see them more often. Wished she could give him more to smile for. The tiniest smile tugged at her lips in return. They felt cracked and dry, so she licked them and felt Richard’s lips there as well for a moment. He kissed her so softly, just the brush of his lips really, but still it was enough to bring tears to her eyes.
Tears that had nothing to do with the pain that had refused to pass these past weeks. She was aching with it and foggy with lingering fever. Her mind was dull and slow to focus. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, but the first was the most important. Closing her eyes once more, she asked, “Did you find them?”
“Nay.”
“Then you must go back.”
“Nay, never again,” he said unequivocally, halting the argument that he must have sensed was on the tip of her tongue. Bending his head down next to hers, he told her of their search, of how they had looked high and low to no avail. Even through her haze, Abby could feel the guilt weighing on him for leaving once again but also understood that Richard felt that there was nothing else to do.
Vincent and Jason were lost.
She could feel his pain but also heard something in his voice that hadn’t been there before. Hope. And resolve, perhaps. He was whispering again, close to her ear. His brogue was thick with emotion.
“I can either wallow in the past, thinking of what I could change, or I can live again. I choose life, angel. A life living for the present and the future.” There were tears in his voice. “A present and a future with you. I choose you. But to have that, I need you to choose life as well. Choose a life with me. Please, angel.”
His words, so full of feeling, called to her and drew back to him. Her throat tightened painfully but she felt a blush bloom in her cheeks, where for weeks there had been only numbness. Opening her eyes once more, she stared up into his mossy green ones. There were tears there. Funny, she couldn’t recall ever seeing Richard cry before. It tore at her heart that she had made him so sad.
Surely, he had to know that she never wanted to leave him? He had to know that she would do anything, give anything for him. Which reminded her. “You have a son, Richard.”
“We have a son, Abby,” he corrected, brushing his lips against her cold hand. �
��You don’t expect me to do that alone, do you?”
Somehow a dry chuckle worked its way out of her, surprising them both. “I love that you can make me laugh when I don’t even want to smile.”
“I love you, angel.”
The smile slid away. “You don’t have to say that.”
“I don’t need to say a lot of things, angel, but I will,” he told her. “I love that you contradict nearly everything I say. I love that you never back down from a fight and that you’ll give back in equal measure to anyone who tries to cut up at you. Me, Jack—it doesn’t matter. I love that you care more about others more than yourself. That you kept even our child a secret from me, so that I would have no excuse to give up my search.” He paused. “I cannot believe you lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie,” she said. “I just didn’t offer the truth. It was for your own good.”
“What is for my own good is what is good for you, angel,” he argued. “If you ever keep anything like that from me again, I’ll take you over my knee, make no mistake.”
Abby sniffed, though she was smiling as well. “I’d like to see you try.”
“You will never deny being my wife again either, Lady Abygail Merrill.”
“Shall I simply be Mrs. Richard MacKintosh then?”
“How about Lady Richard MacKintosh?” he asked. “The Queen has seen fit to bestow a lordship of Glen Cairn upon me for me bravery and sacrifice for the glory of the Empire. It’s rubbish, of course, but I’ll take it. For you, for us. I love you, angel,” he repeated.
“And I’ve loved you my entire life.”
“I know.”
Abby rolled her eyes, but her heart soared at his tender rebuttal. That is what life with Richard would be like. A more grown up and infinitely more romantic adaptation of their entire lives together. They would challenge but support, provoke yet soothe. And they would love.
All You Could Ask For Page 22
