by Jenn LeBlanc
“I intended to tell you everything as soon as I returned to our bed,” Ellie said as she shifted to see Louisa. “But you had some rather sudden plans of your own that night.”
“Oh, did you now?” Hugh asked, and Louisa reached across Ellie and smacked his arm.
“As if any of this is your business, sir,” she said.
“Isn’t it though?” he asked, and Ellie and Louisa both glared at him. “Alright, alright, so be it,” he said with a laugh. “I was teasing you both. Don’t have me drawn and quartered yet.”
Ellie laughed and turned back to Louisa as she sank into the pillows again. “I can’t see as how it would hurt anything, Lou. I mean, he was there…for most of it.”
Louisa leaned into Ellie and kissed her, opened her mouth with her tongue and pressed in until there was only the breath between them. “Tell me then, my darling. Tell me about that night.”
“I’ll start, shall I? Since the two of you are occupied,” Hugh said with a smile. Louisa scooted up in the bed when he waved his hand, and Ellie shifted down to rest across her belly as Hugh took over massaging her back. “It was beautiful for a wedding night, was it not? We’d all returned to Castleberry Hall for the wedding breakfast, and then that afternoon was one of the most incredible afternoons—”
“Why?” Louisa asked.
“We didn’t know each other. Not really. Maitland and I were perfect strangers—save those times she attempted to harass me in society we hadn’t spoken at all.”
“Oh, well, yes.”
“And I wasn’t so excited about the prospect of that night. So sitting about and chatting—”
“Not so very eager to ruin your stranger wife?” Ellie smiled. Neither one of them had been looking forward to the actual act of consummation.
“Not exactly…but who’s telling this story?” he asked.
“I am,” she said with a grin. Ellie settled in, between her husband and her wife, and she took over the telling for a while.
Hugh
Hugh breathed through the emotion Maitland’s story brought back to him. It seemed odd to him that he should become aroused for Maitland when he felt for her in a different way than his Amelia, but he had, and they’d been successful in the endeavors. He was a man, of course. But his interactions with Maitland were much more perfunctory. Not that they were emotionless and mannered, but the purpose was different. He and Maitland loved each other, as all of them did, in some regard. But he belonged to, and with, Amelia.
He felt Maitland shift against him and he looked to find them both watching him. Maitland brought his mouth to hers with one finger under his chin, and he kissed her. Not quite like a lover, but nothing like a brother either. Then Louisa leaned over and kissed him as well, kissed the both of them.
Hugh heard a knock at the door and turned. “Enter,” he said.
“Hello,” came the tiny voice of his wife, Amelia. Hugh bussed Louisa and Maitland one more quick time then stood and went to her, pulling her up in an embrace and leading her to the bed where Maitland labored. “I wanted to come check on you, see if you need anything,” she said as she sat on the bed at Maitland’s knee, and Hugh took up his spot behind her back once more.
Maitland closed her eyes, and Hugh pressed his hands into her back, feeling the strength of another contraction coming on. He turned to Amelia, not wanting to worry her. “We were exchanging stories. Louisa told me of the first time they met, and…other such things,” he said with a smile.
Maitland laughed, her muscles relaxing as the contraction eased. “And I was going to set the record straight because Louisa made me out to be a simpering miss, which is unacceptable.”
“Now’s your chance,” Louisa said, and Ellie smiled—and that smile, from her, in this moment, lit up the room like nothing else had. It was a contagion, and both Louisa and Amelia smiled in return and Hugh felt blessed to be a mere witness to it.
“Alright, Ellie, set the record straight. No simpering miss… What happened next?” Hugh asked and he watched as these women looked into each other’s lives, their very souls, and shared the most intimate moments. He wasn’t sure how he’d been blessed to be witness to this, of all things. He loved them all so very much, he would hang the moon for the lot of them and burn the world to the ground should one of them hurt. It wasn’t the family he’d expected, but it was the family he was given and he couldn’t be more thankful for all of them. He couldn’t imagine life without each of his women. Every one of them important to this life.
He took Amelia’s hand and showed her how to help him ease Maitland’s muscles. Wondered for a moment where Charles was hiding. Probably in the study with a snifter of brandy, or more likely—scotch. The birthing of babies terrified Charles. Amelia settled in at Maitland’s knees as she shifted more toward Louisa to make room for her on their massive bed.
“It was true,” she said. “It was a crush. And we were situated in an inappropriate location, and my dress was magnificent. All of these things were true.”
“But?” Amelia prodded.
“But…everything I’d done had been done with purpose. I was there to snare a husband as quick as possible so I could be done with it, as one does. Because I wanted to leave society as rapidly as I’d entered it. I’d no interest in the parties and the matrons and the rest of it. I wanted a quiet life, a country manor, several children to raise, and a husband to provide that who would give me the children and otherwise let me be,” she said with a grand smile at Hugh.
“You’re welcome,” he replied, and she smacked his leg with a wink, then she turned back to Louisa. “I felt your gaze, and it was like nothing I’d ever felt. I knew you were watching, but I miscalculated my trap. Because with that sort of intense regard, I had expected to turn and catch the eye of a man.”
“I’m no man,” Louisa said.
“That truth is certain, my darling, and I am ever so grateful for it.”
“But what about the ball?” Amelia asked. Hugh knew how she loved stories. As she’d no interest in being a part of society, it all seemed quite grand and beautiful through the experience of others. In Amelia’s own reality, that kind of function, that sort of attention, terrified her to no end, and she was thankful to be done with it for the most part.
“Yes, the ball. So there I was, expecting to turn and gaze upon my future husband.”
“But you didn’t,” Louisa finished with a smile.
“That’s it? That’s all?” Amelia asked when Ellie paused because of a contraction, but she watched Ellie and the understanding followed, and Amelia flushed from embarrassment.
“I’ll carry on the story from here, shall I?” Louisa said, turning to Ellie, who nodded as she tried to breathe. It seemed to Hugh this contraction was a bit stronger than some of the previous and Louisa knew it, so she picked up where Ellie left off. Mostly.
“’You’ll call me Ellie.’ That’s all she said. I’d been so frightened at first that I’d smiled without looking up. I wasn’t yet ready to meet those wondrous eyes, but the assumption Ellie made in that simple phrase was the most beautiful sentence in the history of speech.”
Ellie smiled and squeezed Louisa’s hand, her breathing stilted and short, a sheen of perspiration across her lip and forehead. Louisa gazed up at Hugh, and he winked then squeezed the excess water from a cool rag from the basin next to the bed and dabbed Ellie’s face.
“Ellie had followed me to the retiring room when I fled the ballroom, or so I’d thought, but perhaps it was an accident. However, it had happened I’d been found, and in that moment when Ellie said those words, I…” Louisa leaned closer to Ellie and placed a kiss on her forehead, and in any other household it would feel an intrusion to watch, but not here. “I never wanted to flee again,” she said. “I’d been terrified to meet her eyes because this thing that I felt, it wasn’t like anything I’d ever felt in all my life. It was how I expected to feel when I met a husband…it was the feeling that had been explained time and again by happy wives e
verywhere before they bid their goodbyes and disappeared from my life.” Louisa paused, closed her eyes and rested her head on the pillow next to Ellie for a moment. Hugh squeezed her shoulder and motioned to Amelia that they should leave them for a moment.
“I finally felt composed enough to be able to look up into her eyes and not give away how flustered I was. And so I did. But I’d been wrong, so wrong, so very, very wrong. It felt like forever before I could speak. I was trying so hard to find words, anything with which I could greet this angel before me.” She faced Ellie, their eyes locked together. “For you were an angel, haloed in the blondest hair, the only depth of color those eyes, those deep, mesmerizing lavender eyes. How is that even possible?” She blinked. “I opened my mouth and willed myself to speak. But ‘Lou—’ was all that came out. I was horrified. But Ellie took my hand and said—”
“’Lou is a beautiful name,’” Ellie interrupted, and Louisa smiled and he watched as Louisa sank into the words. Letting the feeling embrace her once again.
“I feared she’d abandon me, but I decided right then that it would be better to have had this small moment than to lose her after many more. I held my breath, hoping I still had a friend.”
“And you did, of course you did. You had much more than that.” When Ellie said that, Louisa glanced up, catching his gaze as he blew a kiss from the entry. Amelia had already left the room, giving them a little privacy as they reminisced.
“Tell me more about that day, my darling Ellie,” she said, then Hugh pulled the door closed behind him.
Hugh heard Maitland cry out and ran for the stairs, Amelia and Charles following behind. When they reached the door to her suite, Charles took his shoulder, and he turned.
“Let us know. We’ll be right here,” Charles said.
Hugh thought a moment about how different Charles was now than when they’d first met. He was somehow softer, yet still stiff and sharp around the edges. Hugh nodded and as he turned back to the entry, Amelia ducked into the safety of Charles’s arms. That was something else that had taken time to change, Hugh appreciating Charles and what he was for Amelia, what they were together, the three of them.
He entered the room and pulled the door shut behind him to find Louisa rubbing Maitland’s back, whispering, while Maitland appeared to be tense but sleeping, and Louisa asked him the question with her eyes, to which he shook his head. No news yet.
He turned back toward the door and let Charles and Amelia know she was well enough, so they could return to the study for the time being, instead of pacing the hall. Then he closed the door once more and went to the bed, lying down behind Maitland. He wrapped his arm over her body and took Louisa’s hand in his own, squeezing it to reassure her. “Tell me more about when you first met,” he said, hoping that keeping her talking would alleviate some of the concern for Maitland. He knew Louisa, knew what she’d endured more than anyone else. He carried her secrets and her horrible past with her, so she would never be alone with it. Because of that knowledge, he wanted to help alleviate any difficulties for her as best he could, as he always had.
It seemed odd, the two of them tossed together the way they’d been. But her first season her mother had put her in his path, and though they hadn’t suited in that way, because Louisa was a sapphist and he was in love with Amelia, they did suit as friends. They’d searched each other out at balls and societal functions, because it had kept the attention from them, and that first year, they’d become close.
“Hugh,” Ellie said. “It’s your turn. You tell me about Louisa, something I don’t know.”
“How will I know what to say?” Hugh asked. “Louisa has told you everything about her past.”
“Not everything,” Louisa said then and caught his gaze.
A shudder slid down his spine as he realized to what she referred. “I’m not of a mind to speak on certain things,” he said, and Maitland struggled to sit up a bit, Louisa helping her.
“I know what happened,” she said. “I know how he saved you. I didn’t mean that part, unless you need to speak of it, and perhaps you do,” Ellie said, her hand tightening on Louisa’s.
Hugh shook his head. “Perhaps later,” he said. He would like to speak about it, sometime, with someone, but it seemed a cruel thing to speak with Louisa about that night and the days that had followed, and at the same time he would never discuss it with anyone but her, because it was her story, not his. Even as painful as it was for him to live, to remember, for her it was much more so.
“I would like to speak of it, once and for all,” Louisa said.
He searched Louisa’s gaze. He didn’t know what he was looking for but whatever it was, he didn’t see it. He nodded.
“I don’t have all the pieces. I would like to have them filled in,” she said.
Hugh nodded again as if she needed his permission to do this. She didn’t…but he was here for her, as he had been that night.
They waited, letting Louisa consider. “It’s only that…I don’t understand where you came from. One minute I was alone with him and the next…there was you.”
Hugh nodded when she paused long enough. “Perry and I were in the study that overlooks the side garden. We heard something and he went to look out the window, and the next thing I knew he’d gone out of it and I followed. I didn’t know it was you until after he’d run off.” They sat in silence for a moment as Hugh considered. “I would have married you,” he said. “I meant what I said. I would have married you and taken you away from all of it, but I never had that chance. It was taken from me, as you were.” He closed his eyes as he remembered, attempting to forget, his throat tight against the emotion. “But I would have married you.”
Louisa took his hands then. “I would have let you, had I known, but then—”
“How could you? Hepplewort is dead now. He crossed the wrong man not long after that, and he suffered for what he did.” Hepplewort had crossed Perry, in fact, as well as Perry’s brother, the Duke of Roxleigh. But that night, they hadn’t even known who he was because once they’d pulled him off Louisa, he’d taken off, and Hugh had been caring for Louisa, then Perry had been managing the situation and…Hugh wasn’t sure. He only knew that that night, he’d managed to slip away. “Perry,” Hugh said. “Perry was with me that night. He helped me. It was his wife…” Hugh let that statement hang in the air.
“You saved my life, Hugh. Twice.”
“You would have done the same for me, Louisa, and in the end you saved us all.”
Ellie groaned, and Hugh stood to try to get her into another more comfortable position, when a knock came at the door. He went to open it.
“My man has returned with the midwife. She’ll be up in a moment,” Charles said, and Hugh nearly collapsed from the relief of it. Charles wrapped one hand around his arm, as though to lend a bit of support.
“Thank you,” he said. He felt his body shaking from head to toe and knew he needed to calm his nerves before returning to Ellie and Louisa. He turned back from the door. “The midwife has arrived. I’ll go greet her, shall I?” Then he nodded and pulled the door behind him. He leaned a bit too heavy on Charles, realized he’d slumped a bit against his shoulder.
“I’ll go greet her, shall I?” Charles repeated in the same jovial tone Hugh had used, and he straightened.
“Fuck’s sake, Charles, I had to get out of there before I caused a panic.”
Charles squeezed his arm. “It’s fine, Hugh. I was jesting.”
“Why would you attempt a new form of communication at this particular juncture?” Hugh asked.
“No time better than now,” he said with a shrug. Hugh laughed. “See?” Charles pointed at Hugh. “It worked. Come, let’s go greet the midwife. Amelia is asking all sorts of questions about childbearing, and I need to get her away before my line is jeopardized by knowledge.”
“Please tell me you’re still jesting, Charles,” Hugh said. “If Amelia’s afraid to have children, she shouldn’t be forced into it.”
“I am, Hugh,” Charles replied. “But we should cross that bridge when we are approaching it, perhaps not right this moment.”
“That I can agree with,” Hugh replied. Their Amelia was a special woman. So brilliant and strong. Her brain so beautiful in the way she saw the world.
They came down the main stairs together, Charles attempting more lighthearted jesting before they found Amelia speaking with a small stout woman in the entry. She turned to them as they approached. Her eyes narrowed.
“Oh, no,” Charles said.
A spear of fear worked its way down his throat to his gut.
“Husbands,” Amelia said. Hugh glanced to the midwife, who happened to be looking off in another direction. “This is Margarethe. She’s brilliant with birthing babies.”
Hugh nodded when she turned and gave him a very thorough once over. “This is the father?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Lord Endsleigh. I’m certain you can call him Ender,” Amelia said with a smile.
“Lord Endsleigh, take me to the woman.”
“Margarethe is quite perfunctory,” Amelia said, and Hugh motioned to the stairs.
“Right this way.” She followed.
“Hugh, we’ll stay down here until you have need, shall we?” Charles said, and Hugh glanced back over his shoulder in time to see Amelia look at Charles in disbelief.
Hugh laughed nervously but continued on.
“Childbirth is no laughing matter, sir,” Margarethe said.
“No, ma’am, apologies. It was something Castleberry said.”
“Are your friends always here?”
“This is his seat, so yes. We’re the visitors at the moment.”
“Did you not plan for this birth? She shouldn’t be traveling if she’s laboring.”
“We planned for her to labor here, as a safety measure. It’s closer to Pembroke, and Amelia said you’re the absolute best if we had need,” Hugh said, and the woman harrumphed in response.
“I delivered that child into this world and I’ll deliver her children as well, I imagine. Might as well deliver this one too. I’m told the babe is turned.”