Sattler, Veronica

by The Bargain

  Ashleigh began to cough and choke as she shook her head at him. "H-had to... Brett," she gasped. "Sh-she's your mother...."

  At that moment, Patrick came rushing up to them, a blanket in hand. He was in time to catch his sister's words before she sighed and lost consciousness. He was in time to catch Brett's incredulous stare.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  "So now you know the whole story, Brett," Patrick was saying, "or at least as much as I know of it. For the rest, you'll have to talk to Mar—to your mother."

  They were sitting in Abner Thornton's cabin aboard the Ashleigh Anne while nearby, in the captain's cabin, Signore Capetti, the contessa's physician, was examining her for damage from smoke inhalation and a few minor burns. Following last night's fire, Brett and Patrick had decided to take everyone to their two ships in the harbor, for, though the fire was out, there was extensive damage to most of the villa and Maria's home was deemed uninhabitable for the time being.

  "I see," said Brett, a bitter twist to his lips. "All this time you knew who she was, where she was, and yet you never said a word!"

  "Oh, have off, Brett!" Patrick's tone was sharp, tinged with weariness. They'd been up all night fighting the fire and performing the rescue work, and now he was fighting exhaustion. "Maria made me promise—made us all promise—not to reveal who she was. I gave my word! Can't you understand that?"

  Brett nodded, but the cynical expression did not leave his face. "I understand that there was a massive effort at concealing from me some information that was central to my life! And in your case, and hers—" he nodded his head in the direction of Patrick's cabin "—it went on for years!"

  Patrick leaned forward, his blue eyes boring into Brett's. "For God's sake, man, what would you have had us do? Storm the gates of Ravensford Hall and demand to be taken to you so that you might learn the truth? Oh, your grandfather would have loved that! He'd have welcomed her with open arms, this woman he'd exiled, wouldn't he?"

  Brett was silent at this, and Patrick thought he saw a flicker of doubt in his eyes. But at that moment there was a knock on the door, and further discussion cut off.

  "Yes?"

  "Signore Capetti and the priest to see you, Your Grace," said the first mate's voice.

  "Show him in, Mr. Thornton," said Patrick.

  The door opened, and in walked the small, bearded physician whom Enrico and one of the grooms had fetched and driven to the Ashleigh Anne earlier. Behind him stood Father Umberto, who was functioning as a translator.

  "Come in, please," said Patrick, rising from his chair. "Ah, you know His Grace, the duke of Ravensford?" He gestured from them to Brett, who had also risen.

  "Si, si, buon giorno, Signore Duca," said the priest, bowing.

  Brett nodded impatiently, then addressed them both. "How is she?"

  Father Umberto turned toward the doctor, but the little man began speaking in rapid Italian, as if he'd already understood the question. When he was finished, the priest smiled at both Brett and Patrick.

  "He says la contessa, she's-a rest-a comfortably, signores. She's-a, how you say? Out of danger."

  There was another rapid burst of Italian from Signore Capetti, and the priest translated. "He says he's-a geeve-a her someteeng to make-a her sleep. Please-a, not to ask-a her questions unteel she's-a wake up."

  A smile of relief broke over Patrick's face. "Well, that's good news, I should say! Now, what about the children? Shall we—"

  Another barrage of Italian cut him off.

  "Signore Capetti says he's-a weesh to-a see la duchessa piccola and-a da bambini on-a da beeg-a sheep. He's-a say he's-a alraddy examine da bambini on-a dees-a sheep, and-a dey varry good."

  Brett nodded. "We'll board the Ravenscrest immediately." He strode to the door of the cabin and opened it, then turned to Patrick. "Patrick, I'd appreciate it if you'd stay here... with her. And send me word when she awakens?"

  Patrick nodded.

  "Very well, then, signori," he said to the other two, "if you'll follow me?"

  They boarded Brett's ship, which he'd moved to lie at anchor beside Patrick's during the early hours of the morning. Brett's first mate, Geordie Scott, met them as they came on board.

  "Is my wife still in my cabin, Mr. Scott?" Brett asked.

  "Aye, Your Grace," said Scott. "I looked in on her not fifteen minutes ago. Sleepin' like a babe, she was."

  "And the children on board, what of them?"

  Mr. Scott's weather-beaten face crinkled as a wide grin spread across it. "Livelier 'n a barrel o' eels, Cap'n. Isn't one o' them tykes looks the worse for what they've been through. Cook's feedin' 'em breakfast right now."

  "Very good, Mr. Scott. Sounds like you've got things well in hand. Carry on while I escort these gentlemen to my cabin."

  "Aye, Your Grace."

  Scott left them, and Brett motioned to the priest and the doctor to follow him as he strode briskly to his cabin.

  As he walked, his thoughts were jumbled and disjointed. Maria, his mother? It didn't yet seem possible! She was nothing like what he'd come to—God! The fire! They had both nearly died in the fire! They'd both lied to him, too.... Deceit... wasn't it the one thing you could rely on where women were con— But Patrick had lied, too, and he was an honorable ma— Oh, God, Mother! Why did you keep silent all these years? I thought you were dead—or as good as dead. I believed you didn't care....

  Suddenly the door to his cabin loomed up before him, and Brett's thoughts switched to the moment at hand. He turned to the two men behind him.

  "Here we are, gentlemen, but I ask you to give me a moment with my wife before you join us."

  The priest nodded and spoke briefly in Italian to Signore Capetti in low tones; Brett opened the door.

  When he entered, his first thought was that she'd fled his cabin because the huge bed at one end of it was unoccupied. But then his gaze flew across the room to his desk. There, her hands braced on the back of the chair in front of it, stood Ashleigh, dressed in one of his shirts, its ample folds nearly dwarfing her.

  She looked up at him, a bewildered expression on her face, then glanced at the floor near her feet. "Oh, Brett, I— Help me, please!"

  Following her gaze, he saw that the hem of his shirt was clinging wetly to her thighs and she was standing in a puddle of water.

  "Oh my God, Ashleigh!" he cried as he rushed over to her. "It's the baby! Your water's broken!"

  Lifting her up into his arms, he shouted over his shoulder, "Signore Capetti, come quickly! The baby's coming!"

  But as the door behind him opened and he carried her toward the bed, he thought, but the baby isn't supposed to come for two more months yet!

  * * * * *

  "If ye don't stop that pacin', ye're liable t' wear a hole in the floor, Yer Grace," said Megan. "Relax. This isn't the first babe t' enter the world, ye know, and of all those that did, I niver heard o' one 'twas helped along by the father's pacin'."

  Brett turned sharply to look at her. "But most of those that arrive safely come after nine months—not seven!"

  Megan smiled. "Perhaps, but ye're lookin' at one that did come at seven!"

  He frowned. "You?"

  She nodded. "Aye, me. And a good thing 'twas, too, fer me poor ma! Full size, I was, at seven months. I weighed half a stone! Can ye imagine what might have happened if I'd gone t' nine? 'Twas God's way o' intervenin', the midwife told me ma. Said if I'd been in there much longer, I'd have split her asunder."

  Brett winced at this, and Megan felt instantly sorry for him. He was nervous as the proverbial cat in a roomful of rocking chairs, poor man, and exhausted, too, by the looks of him.

  "Look, Yer Grace," she began, "why don't ye—"

  "Megan, if you 'Yer Grace' me one more time, I swear, I'll—" He stopped, forced a smile to his weary features and softened his tone. "That is, don't you think you might call me Brett now? After all, you are my best friend's wife as well as my wife's best friend—and Lady St. Clare, to boot. How'd you
like it if I suddenly took to calling you m'lady all the time?"

  Megan hid a smile. "Why, I wouldn't fancy it at all, at all... Brett."

  "There." He attempted a smile. "That didn't hurt a bit, did it?"

  "No." The redhead sighed. "But, Brett?"

  He raised an eyebrow.

  "Yer bloody pacin's drivin' me t' Bedlam!"

  Brett paused, then broke into a hearty laugh, and Megan joined him.

  "That's the trouble with the Irish," he scolded good-naturedly. "Give them an inch and they stretch it to a furlong!"

  "No, no, you've got it all wrong." She laughed. "'Tis our Irish horses'll take the furlongs—we folk'll settle fer acres—as many acres o' good Irish soil as we can take back from—"

  Just then, a knock sounded at the door. Brett whirled around, tensed, then forced himself to relax. It was probably just Abner Thornton again, coming to retrieve something from his cabin.

  "Come in," he called.

  The door opened, and Maria stood there, leaning shakily on Patrick's arm. She wore a beautiful day gown of peach silk with dark green trim, and her hair was neatly braided in a high chignon, but her face appeared pale as she attempted a weak smile.

  "I... thought it was time we... talked," she said quietly.

  Brett gave her a long, searching look, then nodded.

  "I'll be lookin' in on Ashleigh," Megan said softly, then left with Patrick, but not before lightly touching Brett's sleeve and sending Maria an encouraging smile.

  When they were alone, Brett offered Maria a chair, saying, "I hope it won't prove unwise for you to leave your bed this soon. How... how are you feeling?"

  Accepting the chair, Maria attempted a laugh. "I've felt better." Then she looked up at him. "But I think you'll agree that... that this couldn't wait."

  "If, by 'this,' you mean a long overdue conversation, I suppose not." His eyes met hers and held. "Years overdue, Maria."

  Again an attempt at laughter, but it came out forced and broken. "I suppose I should be glad you've addressed me as Maria! It could have been 'contessa' or 'my lady,' couldn't it?"

  The cynicism was back in Brett's eyes. "What did you expect, Maria? Surely you didn't think I would address as 'Mother' a woman I haven't seen for twenty-seven years! Twenty-seven years, Maria!"

  His mother's eyes closed for a moment, as if to shut out some remembered pain. She breathed deeply, then opened them to look at him. "And not a day, an hour, really, in all of them that I didn't yearn to be with you... didn't hold you in my heart."

  Brett's eyes were expressionless as he raised them to a point above her head. "I wish I could believe that."

  "But it's true! And the only reason I'm here is because I've made myself hope that I can convince you to believe it! Oh, Brett, you cannot know what it was like at the time they forced me to—" She caught the rising emotion in her voice and took a moment to compose herself, then continued.

  "I want you to know that I loved your father. And, if you will let yourself believe it, that I went on loving him, even after, after he—they—obtained the divorce. Oh, I was hurt, deeply hurt, that he should have given in so easily to... to those forces that opposed my presence in his life; that he should have so readily believed the lies in those forgeries—I understand Patrick explained the details?"

  "He did." Brett's eyes flew back to hers. "But why didn't you fight them? I've seen you here in Livorno. You're a strong woman. It's evident in everything you do, Maria. So how can you expect me to believe you meekly stood by and let them vilify you, drive you out of my life, and my father's, when—"

  "But you are wrong, Brett! The young woman I was then bore no resemblance to the woman I am now! Mary Westmont was a bewildered, frightened young woman who suddenly found herself in an untenable position in a country that was not even her own. I was alone—without family or friends, except for the Sinclairs, and believe me, they were no match for the powerful duke of Ravensford! Maria di Montefiori is the product of years of—of pain and finding the strength, somehow, to endure in spite of it—that, and a little luck.

  "Did you know that I only remarried after I received word of your father's death?" She watched him register surprise. "It's true. For even though he divorced me, shut me out of his life, I continued to consider myself his wife until... until he died. Then, and only then, did I accept Gregorio's offer of marriage—an offer that was made years earlier!"

  "Then... how did you survive? I thought—"

  "You thought I walked right out of one rich marriage and into another?" Wearily, she shook her head. "Hardly. Oh, I knew Gregorio and his family, and for a while after I first arrived, they gave me a roof over my head and wanted me to remain with them, but I told them I couldn't. After the initial pain and shock wore away, I went to see Father Umberto with an idea. My mother—your grandmother—was a successful opera singer. Although I hadn't inherited her talent—or, more important, her drive to sing, to train my voice in the rigorous way that the profession demands, I had received some early training and had a reasonably good voice, and some basics of a musical background.

  "So, with Father Umberto's help, I set myself up as a music teacher. I gave lessons in voice and on the pianoforte. For seven years, Brett, until your father's death, and I felt myself free... to marry."

  Brett looked astounded. "It—it couldn't have been much of a living. I've seen what they pay music masters in England, and I doubt it could have been different here. My God, Maria, you might have starved!"

  She laughed, and this time it wasn't forced. "Oh, there were a few times, I daresay, when it was close—when I went fishing to put food on the table. But, truly, Brett, it wasn't that bad.

  "You see, for the first time in my life, I was forced to rely on myself, and—I know this will sound odd, but it's true—there was a kind of exhilaration about it, to know I was able to do it, despite the odds!"

  She smiled softly to herself, her eyes looking as if they saw something far away. "Those were wonderful years, really. During that time I truly came to know myself, what my strengths were... and my weaknesses."

  Her gaze returned to Brett. "The only thing that kept them from... from being truly satisfying or—or fulfilling was a great gaping hole I had inside me... the void left by you.

  "And whether you choose to believe me or not, Brett, I tell you, I loved you—have continued to love you, every moment since the day I bore you thirty years ago. And it was that love, and the unquenchable hope that I would one day see you again, that really allowed me to survive those years."

  She reached into the square neckline of her gown and withdrew the chain with half a locket on it; with trembling hands, she unfastened it and handed it to him.

  "Here, my son," she whispered as tears began to form in her eyes, "I think it is time you had this."

  Brett took the locket into his palm and stared at it, stunned, for several long seconds. At last he raised his head and met her shining eyes.

  "It was you?" he whispered.

  Nodding her head, her eyes on his, his mother smiled through her tears. "It was. This is the first time, in twenty-seven years, I have taken it off. And I only do so now because I have you here with me, in the flesh."

  Brett stood very still, trying to assimilate everything her words implied. It was not an easy moment for him. In just a few minutes, with a few simple words, she had begun to demolish some very basic notions he had lived with nearly all his life. And actually, if he were honest, the demolition had begun even before this; it had started the moment he'd come to Livorno and met her, when he'd seen the reality that was Mary Westmont, unhampered by the blinding prejudices he'd been raised with.

  This was no woman who could have deserted a child! Her very life centered around children, children she'd taken to her heart and loved because—

  "Your... children," he questioned in a voice hoarse with emotion, "were they—that is, did you—?" He stopped, finding it difficult to continue.

  She smiled. "They were never really
a substitute for you, no... but they did need love, and having them to love... well, it helped to ease the pain, the emptiness. I think I—"

  "Oh, God, stop!" he cried. "No more, I beg you!" A host of swirling emotions was seizing him, throwing him off balance. Guilt, terrible and real, surged through him. He'd been wrong about this woman who was his mother, and if that were true, then what did it say about others in his life? What of the grandfather who'd raised him? What did it say about him? And his perceptions of women? What of them? And Ashleigh! Dear God, what about Ashleigh?

  Maria saw his doubt and her heart ached for him. But she also sensed he needed to be alone, to have time to sort out his feelings and come to terms with what had suddenly turned his emotional world upside down.

  Rising, she was about to tell him she was leaving, when there came a sudden pounding on the cabin door.

  "Your Grace!" It was Geordie Scott's voice. "I've critical news!"

  "Come in, then, Mr. Scott," said Brett, his private thoughts pushed aside as he responded to the alarm in the first mate's voice.

  The door opened and Geordie Scott entered, his face flushed, excited. "Your Grace, terrible news! We just received word from a messenger. Bonaparte's escaped from Elba! He landed at Cannes two days ago with fifteen hundred men!"

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Brett made an entry in his ship's log, but his mind wasn't on what he'd written. Within hours after receiving the news about Napoleon, he'd convinced Patrick to join him in setting a course for England. Patrick had been reluctant at first, but the argument that Italy bore too many powers friendly to the Corsican had finally persuaded him; that, and the fact that his sister was in enough danger from what was proving to be a long and difficult labor, and would hardly benefit from having their ships boarded and possibly detained by enemy sympathizers.

  For the third time in as many minutes, his thoughts focused on Ashleigh. Had he made a mistake in giving the order to set sail? It was true, the weather was mild, with calm seas, but what if that changed? Could she withstand a rough voyage while she labored to bring a child into the world?