The Bittersweet Bride

by Vanessa Riley

  Breaking stems in his hands, Jasper made a bigger scatter of red bits on the dirt floor. “I won’t lie. I want our land protected, but I also want you happy. I know what love feels like. I know it. And I’ve watched it die. If I had a chance to regain that feeling I would, but you have to be brave to do that.”

  “I went to war. I am brave.”

  “On the outside, Ewan. Admit to her why you accepted Father’s offer. You were set to elope, but then you changed your mind. Why?”

  A sober Jasper meant all his acumen came full bore. His aim was deadly accurate. His brother shook his head. “Admit the regret, the one that made you turn from the woman you obviously loved.”

  “I didn’t think I could support us against the earl’s wrath. He’d threatened to make sure all my plays would never sell. How would I bring bread to the table? How would I be enough for her?”

  Jasper lifted Ewan’s hand and shook the scabbed thing. “With these. You’ve stood up to me with every slight I’ve thrown. You beat someone to a pulp last night, because of her. You should fight for her as you told Father to do for your mother.”

  Ewan blinked and he was on his sick bed reading the earl’s gloating letter about Theo running off with another man. Dormant fury erupted. Knuckles stinging, he drew back his hand. “It doesn’t matter now. That was a long time ago. She doesn’t want me and I’m not so sure I want my cousin’s mistress turned wife.”

  Jasper’s face blanked. The man never showed any other emotion than humor, except when that long fuse tempering his anger was spent. He looked as if he’d explode, too. “It does matter. We all have pasts, but what about a future? What about being made new each day, because we are given a new day?”

  “The elder brother holds the land not the role of a vicar. You’re more loveable when you are less ministerial.”

  “I’m stating the obvious. Neither of you have resolved your feelings. You’re both stuck in yesterday. I doubt if either of you know how to forgive.”

  “I forgave her when I thought she was a victim.”

  Jasper folded his arms, looking every inch the older, wiser brother. “Maybe it was easier to forgive your duplicity in deflowering her, thinking you died. The score sounds pretty even, in a tit-for-tat kind of way.” His lips thinned to a line. “And if you don’t get the widow’s agreement before Father returns, he will coerce her. And you know how he is. It won’t be pretty. Get the widow to see the light, before it is too late.”

  Hadn’t the earl’s dealings set Ewan and Theo onto this hopeless path? Ewan dropped his still fisted hands to his sides. “What did he threaten this time?”

  With a shrug of his shoulders, Jasper turned. “Nothing specific, but I don’t want to find out. Fix this, Ewan.” Head hanging low, his brother walked out of the carriage house.

  Alone again, Ewan felt a knot tighten in his gut. Theo was about to face the earl’s vengeance a second time.

  A sober Jasper, a fearless Jasper, not wanting to see the earl’s schemes, meant the old man prepared for war.

  How could Ewan get Theo to compromise when it seemed being compromised was the root of her anger at him? What Jasper had said, to tell Theo why he had changed their plans six years ago felt valid. Maybe things would be different if he’d told her then. Maybe things would be different now.

  He bent and scooped up a single rosebud. Snipping off a bruised petal revealed a perfect flower. Maybe under their scars, the same could be said of the playwright and the widow.

  Yes, there was a woman down the hill who needed to give him one last audience.

  …

  Theodosia stared out the balcony of her bedchamber at the sunny sky. The sun was high, casting short shadows over the rail. The morning had fled. It had to be past noon, maybe two or three o’clock, and she’d only written two words, Dear Sir.

  She’d tried to prove Ewan wrong, that she could admit to the R words, but she’d failed. It was too hard to admit her greatest regrets.

  A knock sounded on the door.

  Theodosia pushed up from the writing chair, the one she’d taken from Mathew’s adjoining room, and smoothed a drooping curl back behind her ear. “A moment.”

  Listless, she pulled back the flowing cream curtain around her bed. Her shawl lay there and she’d need its comfort. She was still drained from arguing in the rain with Ewan.

  What if Pickens needed her to go to outside to the fields to check decorations for the festival? Her heart lunged forward then slapped back into her chest. Ewan would be there. She felt it. Pickens said he’d stopped by three times yesterday. Oh, let this not require going outdoors. She couldn’t face him again. Not now, and never alone.

  Another knock.

  Resigned, she slogged forward, but before her fingers turned the doorknob, in popped Frederica. “Mrs. Cecil? Are you well? The butler said you haven’t budged from this room except to check on Philip.”

  Pickens followed and his frown could’ve touched the floor. “I tried to stop her, ma’am, but I was busy dissuading Mr. Fitzwilliam.”

  Oh no. Ewan had come again. Why wouldn’t he give up? “It’s fine. Have Miss Burghley’s room ready. She’s here early.”

  Still frowning, Pickens left, closing the door with a gentle thud.

  Frederica leaned against the threshold connecting the bedchambers. “What has occurred?”

  Theodosia pulled at her shawl and shrugged. “I’m not in the best spirits, and you’ve arrived early. You were to come tomorrow morning. Is everything well with you?”

  With her hazel eyes squinting, her friend slipped off her dark blue gloves. “I had a feeling you might need me.” Frederica sashayed to the balcony and back. Her sleek indigo carriage gown looked like a uniform, with military fobbing and buttons about her sleeves. Was she coming to battle?

  “Well, you are alone in here. There goes one of my ideas.” A giggle fell from her lips, then her tone sobered. “So what happened with your cousin?”

  Shaking her head, Theodosia backed up to the post of her canopy bed. “Nothing.”

  “The way the man stormed away from Tradenwood, something happened. Why is he desperate and why won’t you see him?”

  “How mad was Mr. Fitzwilliam?

  “He looked like he’d breathe flames. Confess. What is going on with him, with you?”

  Theodosia glanced down and folded her arms about her middle. She couldn’t run from the truth. Now she didn’t want to. “I deserved his wrath,” she said. “I angered him.”

  “No one can be angered by you, dear Theodosia. You care too much for others.”

  “Oh yes, they can be. And Ewan Fitzwilliam has the right to be mad. I led him on, then dumped him without a care onto the side of the road. I knew it was wrong, but did it, anyway.”

  Frederica’s mouth fell open and not in a snack-on-a-bonbon kind of way, but in a wide gape. “But you…you jest. I saw him at the door, here, applying to enter Tradenwood. Where did you leave him? At the gate? The edge of the fields perhaps?”

  “I left him outside my mother’s old brothel, the one I was born at near the docks. A most dangerous part of London.”

  Silence.

  Frederica’s eyes grew bigger.

  Shame, almost as bad as the day she had been turned away from Grandbole six years ago, rocked Theodosia. She had gone there to seek help and had been reminded that she was no better than her mother. The angry taunts rang in her head. She was filled with shame. Shame at her mother’s profession. Shame at begging for a crust of bread to save her unborn child. “I wanted him to feel desperate and tawdry, like I had.”

  “Why would you?” Frederica’s fair cheeks were ashen. “We never talk about the brothels…your mother’s or mine. We don’t.”

  For a moment, Theodosia closed her eyes, hoping to forget the hurt stirring in Frederica’s irises. “This is why I hate talking of regrets. They are horrid and they remind people of their worst pain. I won’t say it again.”

  “It’s us. The lucky by-blows. The one
s who escaped that life.”

  Theodosia rushed to her friend and lifted her chin. “I needed Ewan Fitzwilliam to see what happens to the unlucky ones. They have to go to brothels and sell their souls when men leave them unprotected.”

  With a nod, Frederica moved away, opened the balcony doors, and pulled back the gauzy curtains. “So you and this Fitzwilliam? He was a beau?”

  “Yes. Then he went to war and died. I was left to figure out how to survive, me and my baby.”

  Frederica spun to her like a top. “Philip?”

  “Only Mathew knew the secret, and he told me never to tell. My husband adored my son and loved him as if he was his own.”

  “I always thought Cecil was too old, but with Philip being so sickly—”

  “Philip is sickly because I starved while I carried him—all because of the Fitzwilliams. They never approved of me and made things worse when they thought my beau, their son, had died in Spain.”

  Shock didn’t look good on Frederica. Her features were made for lightness, nothing heavy or foreboding.

  But Theodosia had to tell someone. As if to keep herself intact, she wrapped herself deeper in her shawl, the light cream wool bandaging over her gray widow’s garb. “I regret believing my lover’s lies, but not Philip.”

  Eyes growing larger, Frederica came near. “Fitzwilliam doesn’t look dead now. He obviously still likes you. Maybe he could be the husband we need.”

  Turning her head like a mad woman, Theodosia said, “No. No. No. I can’t trust him. He won’t fight for Philip, not against his family.”

  “But you, and especially Philip, are his family, too. You should give him the opportunity to choose. The Peninsula War ended some time ago. He may have changed, and I saw how he looked at you when he assisted you from my father’s box.”

  Refusing to agree, Theodosia shook her head faster. “That was lust. It will pass.”

  “But I saw your face and how you clung to his arm.” Frederica paced from the bed to the desk and back, with her arms pinned behind her back, the picture of a barrister. She stopped at the desk and fingered the letter from the newspaper advertisement baron, then Theodosia’s measly attempt at a reply. “Admit you still like Fitzwilliam. He’s more interesting than the squire. Hopefully, he’s as clever with words as this baron. Can’t you see it in your heart to forgive your cousin?”

  Theodosia took the notes from Frederica’s fingers. “Forgive and forget? I don’t know anymore. I idolized him. I made our love seem so perfect and tragic. That was a farce, like that shrew play we watched. And poor Mathew. It took him too long to get through to my heart, because I kept comparing my dreamer to practical Mathew. I’m a fool. I had a perfect man who loved a child that wasn’t his, while I wrongfully held on to lies.”

  “But Cecil won your heart. I saw you two. You loved him, and he knew it.”

  “Yes, but how many months, years, did I deprive him of my heart?”

  Frederica wrapped her arms about Theodosia and held on tight. “You loved him, and he loved you. Don’t you forget that. He chose you. He gave that boy a name, but Cecil wanted you happy.”

  “Mathew would want me to protect Philip. Maybe Philip and I need to leave here. I could take Philip and the means I could quickly garner and go. Do you think the waters of Bath will help him?”

  Frederica tightened her embrace. “You can’t leave. You haven’t left because of Lester’s threats, but this Fitzwilliam makes you so scared you want to flee? He can’t hurt you. Philip was born during your marriage. He’s Cecil’s because he claimed him.”

  That was true but it didn’t stop the fear of the Fitzwilliams figuring out ways to use the secret to hurt Philip or to steal him away as Lester had threatened. Biting her lip, she straightened and pried out of Frederica’s hug. “I can’t let them put out nasty rumors about my son. If I don’t run, I must marry. The sooner I marry, the safer Philip will be.”

  She put her hands onto Frederica’s shoulders, spun her around, then steered her to the door. “You go settle into the guest room Pickens has for you. I promise to clean up and dine with you tonight. And we can talk about any nonsense you want, any other nonsense.”

  “Will there be bonbons?”

  “Of course, so many we can forget what I’ve said.”

  Frederica stopped dragging her low-cut boots, but paused at the door. “Cecil had a look in his eyes that told me how much he loved you. His cousin has that look, too.”

  She opened the door and gave Frederica a light shove. “Bonbons. Now go on.”

  Her friend smiled and headed down the hall.

  Closing the door, Theodosia took a long breath. Alone again, she felt lighter, maybe even motivated. She’d told her regrets and the world didn’t crumble. She returned to her desk and picked up the cut of foolscap she’d started with Dear Sir. Her fingers tapped the smooth surface of the small pine desk. This was the ideal setting, tucked in the corner of her bedchamber, different from her business desk in the parlor. Through the billowy curtain covering the balcony, she could enjoy the sweet air rising from the fields, her fields.

  Regrets didn’t smell so fine. How did they look on paper?

  Another knock sounded.

  Frederica again? Did she think of another question to ask?

  Two knocks sounded. The second echoed as it came from the lower part of the door.

  Philip?

  Pulse throbbing in terror, she rushed to the door and flung it open.

  Her heart started to beat again as she saw her son standing in his blue pinafore next to Pickens. Then it stopped again. He was holding his ear. His pretty eyes were sad, filling with tears.

  “Ma—ma.”

  Not caring about her dignity or station in front of her butler, she dropped to her knees and grabbed the boy. She massaged his head, the way that brought smiles once the pain went away. “It will be all right. I’ll make it better, Son. How long has he been hurting?”

  Pickens bent and picked up the boy and took her arm, helping her to stand. “Only a few minutes. The governess came to me.”

  The woman should’ve come to her directly. Philip’s well-being was the most important thing. She scooped up her son and took him fully into her arms. “Can you have some hot tea sent? And send for the doctor.”

  The man’s lips thinned. “Mrs. Cecil, the doctor will be here tomorrow at the festival. He won’t do any better than what you do for Master Philip.”

  Why did Pickens have to be right? Why couldn’t the answer be different for once? Couldn’t any of the doctors do something to save her son? She spun from the butler, taking Philip with her, sailing almost half into the room before she faced the man again. “You say that as if there is no hope. Is that what you want to hear?”

  Her butler stood in the threshold. His face was unreadable.

  She clutched her son more tightly to her bosom hoping that the feel of her, the smell of her lavender would let him know that she was close, that she’d never stop hoping, never stop loving him.

  Philip let go of his ear and hugged her neck. “Make—go away.”

  “Get the laudanum, Pickens. It will help him sleep until this passes. That’s what all the doctors have done.”

  The butler nodded. “Master Cecil used to say hope was everlasting. That it lifted his head as he walked in the fields. He never feared, ma’am. Hope was on his side.”

  She looked down at the boy her husband had claimed for his legacy and snuggled her face against his shiny black mop. She’d never give up on trying to make her son whole.

  As she rubbed his temples, she watched him breathe. He was small for his age and looked so delicate, but love overwhelmed her. He was the best part of her.

  The need to gain the best advocate for Philip renewed. She’d wait for the medicine to take hold as he slept in her bed, then she’d return to her desk and answer the baron.

  She wouldn’t be afraid anymore. Her son needed her to be strong. She’d found a champion once, a kindly gentleman farmer
, Mathew Cecil. Maybe she’d be that lucky again. Hope still existed for her and Philip. It had to.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Flora Festival

  The noise, tap, tap made Theodosia snuggle in her blanket. Frederica would have to wait for a decent hour to hear more gossip.

  Tap.

  It was too early for her chamber maid.

  The rhythm continued. She sat up, pulling the bedclothes to her chin. Her eyes slowly opened to the ebony darkness. She struck a match and lit a candle. Gazing at Philip’s sleeping form, her pulse slowed. He lay still beside her, hopefully enjoying pain-free dreams.

  Before she could tuck the covering about his shoulder, the noise started again. This time she heard the ting ting. It was something hitting the balcony door glass panes. Something outside wanted in.

  Blinking, Theodosia squinted at the curtains. Through the parting of the fabric, she spied an outline, a ghost, no a man. Ewan?

  Like a cat, she sprung up, closing the sheers to her bed, hiding her sleeping son.

  Fear pumped through her, her ghost…too near her boy.

  Holding her breath, she pulled on her robe and cinched it tight. Starting to the doors on tiptoes she stopped. Philip wouldn’t hear. Only if he were looking at you and concentrating could he make out noise with his good ear.

  Sad and sighing, she stood at the glass doors, staring at the frowning man on the other side.

  His hands were on his breeches. The man bent, half-hunched over, gasping air. “Theo. Open up.”

  “Go home.” She hoped he’d heed and not wake the house, but the fire in his gaze said no. He wouldn’t be moved. “Please.”

  “Not until we speak.” He punched at the glass while still gulping like his lungs weren’t working. “Not with this between us.”

  Unbelievable. Ewan rapped against the door, wheezing like an old fool. What did he expect climbing up here? And he could’ve fallen. Her chamber sat high on the second floor.

  He banged this time, harder. “Let me in.” His voice sounded louder this time.

  Philip might not hear, but the rest of the house would. She couldn’t have more whispers about her conduct, not after the footman had witnessed the argument outside the brothel. Resigned, she unlatched the door and pushed onto the balcony. “Be quick.”