Ohenewaa saw and heard much more than others thought. It was no secret to her that Violet was with child. And what disappointed her was Vi’s choice of the man who had fathered it. From what little she had seen of Ned Cranch, he was a man without a soul when it came to his dealings with women.
“I know that you can help me." Violet spoke softly. “I have heard you know ways to end what I am suffering with.”
“Illness? Suffering? Young woman, these are certainly not the right words to use to describe the gift of life.”
“You know?” The blue eyes started tearing when Vi looked up. “But I don’t want it, Ohenewaa. So please help me get rid of it. I beg you, free me of this curse.”
“I cannot help you.”
“Please don’t say that,” Violet pleaded. “I heard the other women talk. They spoke of the ways you helped women on plantations end their pregnancies. I cannot—”
“Was this child forced on you?”
Ohenewaa’s sharp question silenced Violet for a second. She wiped the tears off her face, but they continued to come. “No, but I didn’t know—”
“Did you go willingly to the man’s bed?”
“I did, but that was before I found out how horrible he was.”
“I cannot help you.”
“But why?” She sobbed. “You have done it before. You have your ways. What difference does it make if I was willing at the time or not? I was stupid. I was tricked and made to believe that we would have a future together. Why can you not think of me as one of the women you helped in Jamaica? Or on board the slave ships? Please, Ohenewaa, give me a new life to live.”
“How could I ever think of you as one of those women?” Ohenewaa said harshly. “I cannot, but do you know why?”
Confusion flickered in Violet’s eyes.
“Can you even imagine what ‘tis like to be an African woman? To be a young girl stolen from your home and your family and dragged on board a slave ship? Do you know the horrors these women endure?”
Violet’s chin sank onto her chin. “I…I have heard the stories. I cannot imagine, even in my worst nightmares, such suffering.”
Ohenewaa approached Violet.
“Then how could you believe I could ever, in my conscience, think of you in the same way as one of those I did help?”
A choked sob escaped the young woman’s throat. She shook her head.
“Do you believe this child growing inside of you has the same fate awaiting him or her as those slave children?”
She shook her head.
“Is she a curse, girl? Is she a sickness?"
“Please—”
“Will you hate her because she is a reminder of a mistake?”
“No! I can never hate her…him.” Violet covered her face. Sobs wracked her body. “I don’t want to do this.”
“Then what are you here for?”
“I…I should never have come here. I’m just so lost. So sorry…”
Without another word, Ohenewaa took the weeping young woman into her arms and held her.
CHAPTER 26
"Overwhelming" was a word that kept pushing into Millicent’s brain as she followed Mrs. MacAlister, the housekeeper, on a tour of the house. At some point during the afternoon, Millicent had lost count of the number of bedrooms, and the location of the old Eating Room and the second-floor salon, and which wing contained the old armory, and what floor the new library was on, and which sitting room she was supposed to write her correspondence in.
It was beautiful. It was comfortable. It was a marvelous representation of Robert Adams’s ideas of aesthetics. No question about any of that.
But Baronsford was too big.
After having a brief dinner with a rather preoccupied Lyon in the old dining room, Millicent found her way back to her apartments, while her husband continued his discussions with Truscott. Wandering into the sitting room off the bedchamber, Millicent collapsed into a lovely upholstered chair and looked into the fire.
Though she should have been warm, she was cold. Though the tiredness of the days of travel should have begun to seep out of her, she was becoming more tense. The grandeur of Baronsford was certainly imsentasive, she supposed, but it was not the main thing lying like a weight on her spirit.
It was the memory of Emma.
She was everywhere. With Millicent’s first steps into the entrance hall, she had found herself faced with a life-sized portrait of the woman. She was clearly beautiful. Then, in the course of her tour, she had picked up bits and pieces of information that told her Emma had had a greater hand in shaping Baronsford as it was today than had any previous mistress of it.
This had come through most clearly when Mrs. MacAlister had taken her through the east wing. The six luxurious bedrooms there, looking out over the gardens and cliffs and the river, had been renovated and decorated by Emma for a specific purpose. She had forbidden having family, friends, or guests stay in any of them. No, the entire second floor of that wing was to be a private haven reserved for her and Aytoun.
And there was more. The drawing room in the old tower was also for Emma’s private use.
Millicent had also been told about the parties in the ballroom and the dinners in the formal dining room and the choice of dishes imported from France. “None of Mr. Wedgwood’s things for her,” Mrs. MacAlister had informed her.
Even the arrangement of the portraits and the specially woven carpets ordered from Persia. All Emma’s doing.
Hours later, Millicent’s head still echoed with everything she had seen and heard.
Before long her maid appeared, and Millicent moved into the dressing room while Bess helped her get ready for bed. As she stood watching the young woman hang her dress, Millicent questioned her decision to come. She was of no use here, no use at all. In fact, with all the work that faced Lyon, Millicent had no idea when she would even see him again.
Millicent felt insignificant at Baronsford, and she hated that feeling.
At a knock at the outer door to the bedchamber, Bess went to answer it. Millicent was surprised to see both doors from the hallway swing open, and Will and John carried Lyon in.
“I am glad you are not sleeping yet. I would have hated for these two clumsy brutes to have awakened you while getting me ready for bed.”
Millicent gaped, lost for words. And the way his gaze moved down her body, as if she were not wearing a thick dressing gown, but rather the most revealing of nightdresses, did not help her to recover. To share a bedchamber with him at Melbury Hall, when they had been short on available rooms, had been one thing. But here! With so much space!
“Are you done with your work for tonight?” she asked for lack of something better to say.
“Tomorrow is another day.”
The valets were wasting no time in getting him ready, moving quickly in and out of another dressing room on the far side of the bedchamber. Millicent dismissed Bess, then went to wait in the sitting room, giving her husband privacy.
She took a book from a shelf and sat on the chair. She tried to focus on the first lines. It was so like him to confuse her. Just when she felt totally useless, here Lyon came. And then, to look at her the way he did. She reread the first paragraph again. And then again. No use. No comprehension. She rose to her feet and went to the small writing desk. Perhaps she should write a letter.Again the words were not there.
“Are you not done with your work for tonight?”
Hearing his question, Millicent laid her pen down and moved to the doorway of the bedroom. Lyon was already sitting in bed. The valets were gone.
“Tomorrow is another day,” she said softly, leaning against the jamb. In a hundred years, she thought, she would never get her fill of him. He looked so handsome, so confident.
“Then come to bed.”
She started slowly toward him. “I am surprised to find you here tonight. I was told today that his lordship’s apartments are in the east wing.”
“You were misinformed. My rooms are wher
e yours are.” He reached for the belt of her robe when Millicent arrived at the side of the bed. “I missed you today.”
“We have been apart only since this afternoon.” She looked down as his hand undid the belt and let it fall to the floor. “And we did have dinner together.”
“Too many people there. Tell me what you did this afternoon.”
“I was shown around Baronsford.”
“It is too damn big.”
“It is impressive.”
He pushed the robe off her shoulders and let it drop down around her feet. “Do you approve of the place?”
“Baronsford doesn’t need my approval.”
“I say it does.” His gaze met hers. “You are the mistress of Baronsford now.”
“I have never had aspirations so high,” she replied softly.
Lyon’s fingers looped around a tendril of hair that was dangling by her chin. He tugged it gently, bringing her lips closer to his mouth. “There must be something you aspire to.”
Millicent placed her hands on his shoulders. She brushed her lips against his. Lyon’s arm wrapped around her waist, encouraging her onto the bed. She pulled herself up and nestled against his side.
“Tell me about it.” His lips placed feather kisses on her face.
“I aspire to this.”
“This bed?” He smiled, pulling her more tightly against him. “This demesne of the night is yours to rule, m’lady.”
“And I should like to rule your heart.”
The seriousness that took possession of his features made Millicent sorry to have voiced her thoughts aloud. She searched for something to say to bring the smile back into his eyes.
“This is what being so far away from Melbury Hall does to me. I’ve become foolish, rambling on and saying things that should not be said. I—”
“You alrady do rule my heart, Millicent.”
She watched in bewilderment as Lyon lifted his right arm tentatively, and his fingers brushed away the tears that had fallen on her cheeks.
“You are the only woman whom I have ever known who would have me—as incomplete as I have become—over this place.”
She hugged him fiercely. “There is nothing incomplete about you. I love you as you are.”
His arms wrapped tightly around her in return. “And will you stay with me always?”
“I shall stay with you as long as you want me.”
“Or need you?”
“Yes.” Millicent pulled back to look into his face. “I need to belong, though. I need to feel that I can make a contribution. I want to give.”
“And take. Is that not part of marriage as well?”
“With someone like you, in a place like this, I am afraid that the scale may tip too heavily to one side. You have title and wealth and every means to give more than you take.”
“And you object to that.”
“Of course. I want to carry my weight. I want to feel I am as much needed as I need.”
“Then perhaps my injuries add that balance to our lives.”
She pushed herself up to a sitting position. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You do, Millicent.”
Lyon’s hand was wrapped around her wrist. She wondered if he could feel her pulse beating wildly in her veins.
“If you and I had not married under the conditions we did…” He shook his head. “Let’s go back even beyond that. Let’s say that I was never injured. If I were to approach you, if I wanted to court you…”
“You wouldn’t have.”
“Why?”
“Because I am plain. Because there is nothing special about me, Lyon. Not to mention the fact that I would not even travel in your circles in society. You would have had no opportunity.”
“And I am telling you, you are wrong about all of that. But what would you have done if I had made a proposal to you and asked you to become my wife?”
“I would have said no. I wouldn’t have known you.”
“What if we had a torrid love affair, and you could not keep your hands off me? What would you have said then?”
“Still no. We are just not from the same—”
“Same what, Millicent?” he asked sharply. “At what point in our relationship would you feel comfortable enough to trust me witf I ur love?”
“I would have told you I love you, and that would have been enough.”
“But it is not enough. I would have wanted a future for us together. I would have wanted to know that your love for me was stronger than the unfounded fears that you had been living with for years.”
Raw emotions welled up in her. “I am here now, Lyon. Is that not enough?”
“Will you be here tomorrow?” he asked.
“I will.”
“And the day after, and the month after, and the year after?”
“I will be here as long as you want me.”
“And need you?”
“And need me.”
****
Rain spattered steadily on the roof of the carriage waiting to take the lord of Baronsford to the village. In the old days, no carriage had been required. It was a familiar sight, for both tenant and villager, to see their laird sitting atop one of his fine horses and riding through the hills. In fair weather and foul, they would see him stopping to talk as they made their way out of their cottages, ready for a day’s work.
Aytoun had always been an early riser, and he knew that many of his people cherished this daily connection with their earl. Grievances and complaints did not need to be made in formal settings. Good news passed from one family to another without any difficulty. Someone’s hardship was often alleviated before it became a crisis. They were valuable rides he took those mornings. Though he had also been their landlord, the Earl of Aytoun was first and foremost a friend to all of them. And no one missed these morning travels more than Aytoun himself.
Lyon intended to start again. Instead of riding his horse, though, a carriage would have to suffice. Rather than going alone, he would need to take his two valets and his secretary, Peter Howitt, with him.
It would be different, but life down in the village and on the farms was different too, he was told. The village was crowded with vagrant families huddled together, protected from the weather. In the eyes of everyone, Truscott had said, one could see the worry about what lay ahead.
This morning before he left, he had asked Truscott to bring the housekeeper and the steward to the library. What he needed to talk to them about was as important to him right now as anything happening in the village or on the farms.
“I want the two of you to get every available worker and make a sweep of the house immediately.” His words were specifically directed to Mrs. MacAlister and Campbell. “You will search out and remove every item that might in any way be associated with my late wife. This includes paintings, clothing, personal items, whatever might remind the new mistress of her predecessor.”
Neither one of them seemed surprised by the request.
The steward spoke first. “I can only guess, m’lord, but I’m thinking the collection could be very extensive. What shall we do with it once we’ve gathered it all together?”
“Put everything in one of the bedchambers in the east wing, if you like. Just lock the door.” He turned to his secretary. “Send a letter to Emma’s mother, and tell Lady Douglas she is welcome to anything she wishes of it…starting with that bloody portrait.”
“As you wish, m’lord.”
Lyon turned to Mrs. MacAlister. “I also want you to make a point of asking the countess’s opinions on everything. From now on, she is to be consulted on all decisions that pertain to the household here at Baronsford—the menus, the seating arrangements for dinners, the purchase of linens, the choice of wine, everything.”
“Aye, m’lord. Not unhappy with me, I pray.”
“Hardly, Mrs. MacAlister. There is no better housekeeper in the entire British empire.”
“Thank ye, m’lord.”
; “Conferring with her should be no hardship. You will find dealing with Lady Aytoun quite different than…than with your previous mistress. I am leaving everything to your good judgment to make her feel welcome here.”
He turned to Campbell next. “You will make sure that there is no idle talk by the servants in front of her. No comparisons with Emma will be made regarding her ladyship’s actions or dress or conduct. Millicent is her own woman, and everyone shall treat her as such. I know she is English, but there is no finer woman anywhere, and I want the household to recognize that.”
Not a word was voiced by either, and Lyon looked from one face to the next.
“Emma Douglas Aytoun is dead,” he said flatly. “It is time we laid her ghost to rest. There is a new mistress of Baronsford.”
****
Millicent stayed up in their apartments as long as she could. Lyon had told her that he was planning to spend most of the morning at the village. She asked for a breakfast tray to be sent up, thinking to stay put for the time he was gone. But after writing a letter to Mrs. Page and Mr. Gibbs, she found her attention was continually wandering to the window and the gardens and the lake and the blue sky slowly breaking through the clouds.
Finally losing her battle against temptation, Millicent had Bess help her into some riding clothes and stepped out of their rooms. A young servant hurrying down the hall careened right into her.
“Och, m’lady, there ye be.” The girl curtsied. “Mrs. MacAlister sent me to fetch ye. She was wondering if she could have few minutes of yer time this afternoon to go over some menus for dinners and such for the next few days.”
“Tell Mrs. MacAlister I shall put aside as much time as she likes.” She started off down the hall with the servant beside her. “I was planning to go for a ride this morning, but I could go later if you think she prefers to speak to me now.”
“Nay, m’lady. At your convenience, I’m sure. With the house all helter-skelter as ‘tis this orning, I’m certain Mrs. MacAlister—”
“Is there a problem?”
02 - Borrowed Dreams Page 28