Voyage With a Viscount

by Murdoch, Emily

  Adena watched the door close, and then turned to her friend. “Should we call a doctor?”

  Rowena laughed, and shook her head. “Now, where on earth have you got that idea from?”

  “You have not looked well since we returned here,” countered her friend. “I have a little medicine, but you I think need the benefit of an expert.”

  A flush of heat moved through her cheeks as Rowena felt herself under the fiery gaze of her friend. She returned sarcastically, “I must be lovesick.”

  But her words did not have the response that she had expected. Adena rose slowly, and made her way to her friend, seating herself beside her.

  “That is not,” Adena said quietly, “exactly what I had in mind.”

  The seriousness of her expression was enough to make Rowena hesitate. “What you had in mind?”

  Adena nodded, and lowered her voice, even though they were the only ones in the room. “Rowena, I would not ask this unless I…I absolutely had to. When was the last time that you had your flux?”

  Rowena felt her cheeks pink, but thought about it carefully – and her mouth dropped open as she spoke without thinking. “You know, I think that it was over seven weeks ago.”

  Adena whistled, and Rowena’s thoughts became frantic and panicked. “No, that cannot be right; I must have miscalculated. I am tired, that is why I cannot remember properly. I am sure that I have had one in that time, I just cannot recall…”

  Her voice disappeared as she thought about it again. No, she had recalled correctly. She had not suffered her flux since she had been brought here by Adena and Luke – and before then, it had been a few weeks before she had eloped with Mr Bentley. That was at least six weeks, perhaps seven.

  “You have been lethargic and nauseous ever since we returned here,” whispered Adena, her eyes not leaving her friend. “Since we returned from the King’s Head Inn.”

  “Yes, but…” Rowena tried to calm her frantic thoughts. It could not mean – Adena could not mean what she thought she meant. It was not possible.

  “It is possible,” Adena said quietly, as though reading her friend’s thoughts. “’Tis true, it would be unusual, but plenty of women have fallen with child from just the one lovemaking.”

  “Fallen with child,” whispered Rowena, her eyes growing wide. “With child. Child. Adena, I cannot be pregnant!”

  But it was possible – and not only possible, but probable. Oscar Bentley had barely touched her, and James, Viscount of Paendly, had very definitely touched her. She was pregnant: pregnant with James’ child, and he did not know.

  Her instincts almost overwhelmed her, and she felt a need to tell him immediately – but then her pride returned. She could do this on her own, just as she had been about to make her own journey home before he get involved.

  “I can do this,” she found herself saying to an astonished Adena. “I do not need him.”

  They both know who ‘him’ was, he needed no name.

  Rowena saw Adena bite her lip. “My dear, your parents have disowned you. Your name is disgraced throughout London, throughout the ton. You can stay here, hide with us as you have done for the last month. Have the child here, secretly. No one needs to know.”

  Tears were threatening to escape from her eyes now, but Rowena was determined to hold them in. “The father of my child – the father of my child should know.”

  It hurt to even think that the life growing inside her would not know its father, would not be known by him – but to have him back in her life, to see him again, it would tear her apart with the pain, knowing that he did not love her.

  Adena shook her head sadly, and clasped her friend’s hand in hers. “You still love him.”

  It was impossible to deny. Rowena nodded jerkily as the tears finally fell. “But I can never tell him. How can I tell him about this child?”

  “You will have to, eventually,” countered Adena softly. “One day, the child will need to know – better to tell James now, than – ”

  “No,” interrupted Rowena, and this she knew with all her soul. “James would not hear me; he would just think that I am attempting to trick him into wedlock. And besides,” and the tears flowed freely now, “he met me after a failed elopement with another man. Why should he even believe that the child is his?”

  * * *

  “No, I promise you, I have had enough.”

  The serving man looked sceptical, but James was determined. He had already drunk four whiskeys; another would be too much.

  “As you wish, my lord,” whispered the man with a bow, and he departed from the room.

  James sighed, and looked around him. The club was quiet, as it always was, with old men reading the Times and the Observer. Almost nothing moved, save for the slight nods that rippled around the room as another old man wandered into the room, and he was acknowledged by his peers.

  Back to his normal, boring life. James could almost laugh at the despair of it all. Nothing had changed, and he was right back to where he had started.

  Dark brown eyes, long blonde hair, a sarcastic laugh: this memory flashed through his mind, and James smiled at the very remembrance of Rowena Kerr. To think that he had known her as Rebecca Kirkland for the first two days of their acquaintance. To think that he had gone four weeks without seeing her.

  To think that he would never see her again.

  His depressed heart was weighed with sadness whenever the idea of her crossed his mind, and it was impossible not to consider her each day, now that he had returned to London. He had been so sure that he would encounter her here; he had almost hoped that he would see her.

  And yet the days had gone by, and not only had there been no sight of her, but no sound, no murmurings, save for the gossip of the town that whispered that Miss Kerr had been despoiled by a gentleman in the country.

  “I never had any intention of marrying her, and that was never promised. Understand man, she wanted me to make love to her, and I was not strong enough to say no. Once you get the clothes off, all women are very much the same.”

  Bitterness unconnected to the whiskeys bit into his throat. To think that he had said such a thing: to impress a Marquis, no less, what a fool he was! Attempting to be strong and masculine had, in the end, cost him the very woman that he loved, rather than secured or impressed her.

  Now she was out there somewhere, in the world, undoubtedly alone and friendless, with none to protect her, when he should be at her side.

  He was a fool, and a fool in love, and for a love that was unlikely to ever be requited.

  A heavy sigh escaped him, and it was echoed by the groan of a leather chair as someone sat beside him – a gentleman who looked awfully familiar.

  He was tall, dark, and had a stately bearing. Nothing unusual in this gentleman’s club, of course, but there was something beyond that. Something in the eyes – no, the smile.

  James blinked at the gentleman, and could not put his finger on how he knew him.

  “Excuse me,” he said, leaning over, unable to help himself, “but have we met before?”

  The look of surprise and lack of recognition in the gentleman’s face answered clearly enough, but he cleared his throat nonetheless and said, “I am sorry, I do not think we have – but let me introduce myself. I am George Northmere.”

  The name was unfamiliar, and James sat back in his chair in disappointment, shaking his head. “No, you are correct, we have not met. My apologies.”

  “None required,” smiled the man jovially, despite the tuts that they were now receiving from other gentlemen in the room. “‘Tis a common occurrence for me, so I am quite accustomed to it. Most people mistake me for my older brother, the Marquis of Dewsbury.”

  James jumped, startled, at this information: but of course! Rising from his chair and moving into the one beside it, to be closer to Mr Northmere, he smiled.

  “You have got it exactly – ‘tis your brother’s likeness that I see in you, to be sure!”

  The two men
shook hands, though James could see that Mr Northmere was more than a little irritated that it was once again not himself that was of interest, but his sibling.

  But James could not stop now: not when he had such a providential opportunity to ask what he had been desperately hoping to enquire about for so long.

  “And how,” he said with quiet trepidation, “is your brother?”

  “Oh, you must not alarm yourself,” said Mr Northmere hastily. “He is quite well, and we do believe that he will recover completely with no long term ills.”

  James stared at him, confused, as another gentleman in the room tried to hush them. “Recover?”

  Mr Northmere nodded, and smiled his thanks at the serving man who had just brought him a large glass of brandy. “Yes, recover, from the duel. We were alarmed at first, but ‘twas just a graze really.”

  Trying to keep his voice calm and his face steady, James enquired nonchalantly, “And the cause of the duel: had it ever come out?”

  The Marquis’ brother evidently assumed that James was more intimate with his dealings than he actually was, for he leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered, “Well, of course, it was over a woman!”

  James swallowed. “A woman?”

  Mr Northmere took a large mouthful of the brandy before he answered. “Not his wife, you understand – she is quite innocent and unconnected with all events, save the fact that the woman in question was a friend of hers. She is with them now of course, and will undoubtedly stay there until her confinement.”

  “Con-confinement?” James stared at him, the words trying to sink in but not quite managing it. Confinement? What could he mean?

  “Ye gods man, have you not heard?” For all that Mr Northmere was a gentleman, thought James, he seemed to be having far too much enjoyment passing on this piece of tasty gossip. “I thought everyone knew: the woman, the one whose honour my brother protected, is with child. A failed elopement, you know, and no one knows who, but the pregnancy itself is common knowledge.”

  At the word ‘pregnancy’ James started up, knocking over the table holding George’s drink which smashed on the carpet, throwing glass and brandy everywhere.

  “Are you sure?” James cried out, ignoring the horrified looks and shouts of those around him. “You are sure, man, that the woman is with child?”

  Mr Northmere, startled out of wits and staring at James as though he were a man possessed, nodded frantically. “All know it, sir, though none know the identity of the woman herself, nor the man who has so shamelessly abandoned her! She is adamant, my brother tells me, that she will not lay claim on the man’s honour, and will bear the child alone!”

  James was breathing heavily, as though he had just run a thousand miles in a minute. There was absolutely no chance that it could be anyone else: it had to be Rowena. His Rowena. His child.

  A smile, broad and light-hearted, spread across his face. “Thank you, Mr Northmere,” he said, stepping across the broken glass and brandy soaked carpet to wring the bewildered man’s hand. “Thank you with all my heart.”

  And without another word, he rushed out of the club to find his child, and his beloved who carried it.

  10

  The smile that Rowena managed was wan at best, but her friend was good enough to pretend that she was convinced.

  “There now,” said Adena with a concerned expression. “‘Tis good to see you smile.”

  Rowena nodded, her smile unwilling – or unable – to broaden, and as she was jolted by the coach moving over a stone, her gaze shifted to the window revealing the ever moving landscape, house after house, building after building rushing past.

  Perhaps it was that which made her feel even more nauseous – or perhaps it was the child growing within her. How could she have not guessed that she was with child? The pregnancy signs were all there: tiredness, lethargy, sickness in the morning and nausea throughout the rest of the day. She had even grown to dislike tea.

  She shook her head slightly as Adena chattered with Luke, the two of them seated on the other side of the carriage. It had been her friend who had noticed first rather than herself, and she had had enough of a conversation with her mother when her fluxes had first arrived to understand their meaning.

  But this situation was absurd: with child, her? Who would have thought that you really could make love just the once – one heady night – and fall with child immediately?

  “Do not concern yourself,” Luke was saying to his wife, a comforting hand on hers. “We shall arrive at the doctor’s quite soon.”

  “I still do not understand why the doctor cannot come to us,” said Adena petulantly, her other hand on her stomach.

  Rowena watched Luke’s gaze look over at her for a moment, and then fall back to his wife. “Because…because it is easier this way, that is all.”

  Rowena watched the flicker of concern mingled with excitement on Adena’s face, and the guilty feeling that she had been experiencing ever since the Marquis and Marchioness of Dewsbury had taken her in after her disgrace increased once more. Of course the doctor could not come to visit them – there would be talk, and talk would lead to visits, and visits would mean the truth would come out.

  They had sacrificed much – Luke especially – to harbour such a fallen woman. Their social engagements curtailed, the constant threat of discovery hanging over their heads. As the carriage picked up pace as it travelled outside of London, Rowena sighed and tried not to think about the journey they were on.

  “I must apologise for the discomfort of the journey,” Adena murmured to her with a smile. “No doctor in London could be trusted to keep their tongues quiet, and we would have used our own carriage to transport us there, but this one is not recognisable.”

  Rowena nodded, and felt the sense of shame increase in her once more. All this trouble, all of this expense, for her. She should never have gone with them, that day at the King’s Head Inn. She should have found her own way home.

  But was not that attitude exactly what had got her into this trouble in the first place?

  Her eyes watched as the houses thinned, and countryside appeared as they left London. To breathe clean air against hat was at least one simple comfort that she could draw from their overly cautious trip.

  “Is the doctor expecting us?” She asked Adena.

  Luke nodded, a broad smile creeping over his face. This seemed to be such a strange response to her predicament that Rowena glanced at her friend, to see if she had noticed the strange reaction – but Adena blushed as her friend’s gaze came upon her.

  Rowena laughed, and it was a true laugh, the first for many days. “Adena, you sly thing! Clearly I am not the only one who is visiting the doctor today to discuss their child!”

  Adena’s face flushed an even darker pink, and Rowena was able for a few moments to forget that they were seated in an uncomfortable, dank carriage with little to no comfort, forced out of London to visit a doctor whose silence could be trusted.

  “No wonder,” grinned Rowena, “no wonder you were so quick to easily identify my situation!”

  “Well, it was obvious anyway,” Adena countered, her hands tightening around her husband’s. “But…yes, ‘tis true. We are also expecting!”

  The two friends laughed together, and Rowena felt some of the tension in her shoulders melt away. Well, if she could not share this with – no, she would not think of him, she would not allow him to even enter her mind – then the least she could do was share it with someone who she knew cared about her, and knew what she was experiencing.

  “Tell me all,” Rowena said, a little more fiercely than she had intended in order to drown out the thoughts of him from her mind. “When did you know?”

  Adena exchanged a glance with her husband, and they both grinned. “Well,” she said coyly, “you may be surprised to learn that we were not…strong enough, shall we say, to wait until we were married before we…”

  Rowena’s jaw dropped, and she stared at Luke who had the good breed
ing to look a little embarrassed. “My lord Marquis, you do surprise me!”

  “I have no idea what you are referring to,” replied Luke good-naturedly, above his wife’s giggles. “You know Adena, she talks such nonsense.”

  The three of them laughed together, and Rowena leaned back to listen to her friend’s chatter; about their love, about how they met on the island, about their baby…

  As interesting as Adena’s words were, Rowena could not help but glance more often than was strictly necessary at her husband. Luke was watching his wife with such a look of pride and devotion that it almost made Rowena blush, as though she had disturbed one of their most intimate moments.

  To think that James may have looked at her in such a way, if he knew that he had a child coming into the world. A son? A daughter? Would they have his pale blue eyes, or his way with words? Rowena placed a hand surreptitiously across her stomach. Could it feel her love, even now when it was so small? Did it know how much it was wanted?

  All three of them gave a shout as the coach jerked suddenly to one side, and Rowena shrieked and brought a hand to her head as she was thrown against the side of the carriage. Head spinning and stars appearing in her vision, she saw a blur of something that looked like a man on horseback through the window of the carriage.

  Mind dazed and head sore, Rowena blinked. She could not have seen that. She could not have – but her eyes focused and found the window once more, and was dismayed to see the same image. A highwayman, riding at full pelt just to the left of the coach, galloping to keep up and despite the hurried yells of their driver, managing it.

  “A-a man,” was all she managed as her temple throbbed. Luke stared in the direction where she was pointing, and cursed quietly under his breath.

  “Faster man!” He yelled, hitting the roof of the coach. “Faster!”