When sunset had turned the bedroom to a mellow golden glow, Bristol looked up at Jean Pierre, and her questions reformed. During her slow recovery, the family had steadfastly kept upsetting topics away from her. Now she felt the need of answers.
Quietly, holding her hand in his, Jean Pierre told how Bridey had raced up the stairs to tell of Diana and Bristol dashing out into the blizzard; how he waited, pacing frantically until the coach returned—without Bristol. Servants had carried a raving Diana upstairs; Jean Pierre dragged the driver to the stables. Before the man died, Jean Pierre learned the coach had driven east. The driver didn’t know how far or where he’d stopped. But it was a beginning, a place to start. Then came the months of searching, of not giving up—someone had to have seen her, had to know if Bristol Adams was dead or still alive. Then one day Kitty appeared at the servants’ entrance with her tale of a brutal beating. Kitty told them Bristol was dying, that she had lost the will to live. Kitty told them where to find her.
“Prudence ordered bolts of cloth for Kitty,” Jean Pierre added, “and baskets of food every week. That and the purse I sent should make her life easier.”
Bristol nodded, thinking what a difference those items would mean in Kitty’s life. She and Jean Pierre sat quietly, holding hands and listening to the soft sounds of Aunt Pru’s sleeping. After a while Jean Pierre lit a candle and placed it near the bed. He glanced at Bristol, and she met his eyes with a reassuring smile. It hadn’t upset her to talk about the ride, Kitty, and the Royal Rumm. It all seemed so long ago. Safe in the pink bed, with Seven curled against her waist and Jean Pierre’s warm fingers pressing her hand, the past seemed like a distant country; unpleasant, but a place to be discussed without pain.
“Where is she now?” Bristol asked.
Understanding, Jean Pierre said, “Diana?” His eyes pained and grew dark. He looked down at Bristol’s hand in his fingers. “Dr. Weede supplies us with a ready amount of laudanum. Diana spends her days floating in a world half between sleep and wakefulness.” Lifting his dark head, he gazed at the dying rays of sunset. “Some days she lies quietly in bed. Others... Occasionally she howls at a wall. Sometimes she crawls on the floor and cries like a child. She can stare at an object for hours without moving. Someone must be with her always.” He sighed. “She was left alone twice. Both times, she did damage to herself. All we can do is try to let her know we care.”
Bristol shuddered. Where did Diana’s mind go when it left her vacant and blank? For a moment Bristol remembered the wretches in Bedlam, and then she squeezed Jean Pierre’s hand. Wherever Diana’s mind wandered, her body was safe and clean and protected. Bristol no longer felt any animosity toward Diana for throwing her into the snowstorm; one might as well blame a baby for crying. Diana could not help what she was.
Jean Pierre and Bristol relaxed in comfortable silence, watching the room darken. Seven yawned and adjusted himself into Bristol’s side. Her hand idly stroked his ear.
She felt Jean Pierre’s smoky eyes loving her face, and she lifted a hand to touch his cheek. He kissed her palm, heedless of Aunt Pru. Smiling, Bristol inclined her curls toward the sound of snores and withdrew her hand. Her fingers dropped to the soft fabric of a summer nightgown, and she felt the expanse of flat stomach beneath. For a moment the smile froze on her lips and horror leaped behind her eyes.
Jean Pierre’s sober gaze measured her expression. “Bristol, my love,” he said in a low voice. “Can you talk about it now?”
Stricken, she lifted tortured eyes to him. They had not spoken of the baby, not mentioned the loss of life’s dearest treasure. She looked down at her hand, the palm flat against her stomach. “I lost our baby,” she said in a dull voice. “The baby died.”
Gently he took her hand, lifting it from her stomach and pressing it to his cheek. “Yes.” The pain in his voice matched the pain in her heart.
Bristol’s throat worked. Her eyes stung and burned. From the first, she’d wanted his baby like she wanted breath. And when the baby died, she’d lost a piece of herself.
“Perhaps it would help, little one, to let the tears come.”
“No!” She wiped a hand across her eyes. “Jean Pierre, my dearest love... I want to tell you, but... I can’t bear to talk about... It was...” She’d loved that tiny growing life so deeply, so hard. “I...”
“Shhh.” His strong face paled, and Bristol saw something in his slate eyes she’d never seen there before. “I know. There is no need for words. I know.”
Bristol stared into those flinty eyes and knew he did understand. She turned her face toward the dark windows. Her pain was of such a depth, such a dry hot intensity, that tears could never bring relief.
Jean Pierre cupped her chin in his hand and lifted her face to meet his eyes. “Listen to me, little one,” he said, his voice low and intense. “I love you like life itself. You are safe now. You will always be safe with me. I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again.” His smoky eyes burned into hers. They stared at each other; then his mouth moved to cover hers.
“Arghhh...” Aunt Pru yawned and stretched. “Did I nap long? Did you miss me?”
Hastily they broke apart and looked at each other. Then they laughed and called Aunt Pru to the bed for a three-handed game of ombre.
Soon Bristol’s strength had returned until it seemed she couldn’t possibly have been so desperately ill. Cards and invitations arrived daily from friends rejoicing at her reappearance and recovery, and hinting for an explanation of her absence. Many, like Charles Easton and Louis Villiers, had doubted Aunt Pru’s story of an extended illness from the beginning.
Bristol shuffled the cards and invitations and frowned. Though it was obvious she could pick up a varied and demanding social life if she chose, Bristol saw no point in doing so. It didn’t seem fair to Charles and Louis to keep them dangling with unfounded hope. Nor was it fair to herself. Why immerse herself in a tide of parties and courtships when she neither welcomed nor enjoyed the company of other men? It all led nowhere, and she was not the person she had been.
Bristol felt at loose ends. She didn’t know what direction her life was meant to take. And she felt it to be only a matter of time before she and Jean Pierre came together. Each tried to deny it. Neither wanted to dishonor the Hathaway name; neither wanted to betray their beliefs. They tried to convince themselves they could build a relationship based on loving companionship. But the physical magnetism between them was too strong. Their eyes met, their fingers brushed, and a smoldering passion ignited.
Bristol saw it in Jean Pierre’s brooding eyes, and she felt a familiar fire whenever she looked at him. She couldn’t be in the same room with Jean Pierre without feeling a tingle of response to the call of his body. How long could fragile intentions withstand the craving needs of flesh?
Then Hannah’s letter arrived. And the torment of indecision was swept away by a new pain.
Dear Bristol,
There’s been an accident. A hired man was guiding the plow and Noah was walking alongside throwing stones out of the path. He fell beneath the blade and his legs are gone. William Griggs comes by every day and doctors as best he can, but he doesn’t give much hope. Come home. Your father regrets sending you away and now admits it. Noah wants you home, Bristol. He wants to make peace with you before he dies. He suffers for what happened. Please hurry. Prudence tells us you have been very ill and unable to write. I hope you are well enough to travel now. Come quickly, daughter, there is little time.
Your affectionate mother,
Hannah Adams
White-faced, Bristol extended the terse letter to Aunt Pru. While Prudence read, Bristol slowly gazed around her bedroom with a numbed expression. Papa. She couldn’t imagine this bedroom vacant; she thought of it as hers. Papa wanted her home, and he was sorry he’d sent her away. This room was more hers than anything she’d known before; the desk, the bed, the chair by the fire—they held so many memories. Papa wanted to make peace with her before he...
Aunt
Pru gasped, and quick tears sprang into her eyes. She folded Bristol against her massive bosom. Inhaling the light scent of lavender, Bristol met Jean Pierre’s smoky eyes above her aunt’s shoulder.
She was going home.
24
Immediately Prudence dispatched a lengthy letter to Noah, and in it she promised Bristol would sail on board the Princess Anne. Bristol scribbled a quick note, adding that the Princess Anne departed England ten days from the date of her letter.
Those ten days were the most frantic in Bristol’s life. She and Aunt Pru paid a hurried call to Paternoster Row and cajoled Collette into creating a wardrobe of Puritan gowns, collars, aprons, and petticoats. Grudgingly Collette agreed, but only with the proviso that Bristol never wear such abominations in London Town, and that Bristol never admit such horrors were sewn in Collette’s shop. Next, Bristol and Aunt Pru shopped for plain sturdy shoes and handkerchiefs devoid of decoration. They bought unadorned shawls and unbeaded reticules and plain white dust caps. They had two strong trunks delivered to Hathaway House.
The shopping trips were dismal, quiet outings, totally dissimilar to previous excursions. Aunt Pru wept continually, and Bristol couldn’t speak past the constant lump clogging her throat.
Gossip being London society’s favorite pastime, word traveled quickly, and a deluge of farewell invitations arrived hourly at the house in Pall Mall. Lord Pepperal-Haught hosted a lavish dinner-ball in Bristol’s honor, the first and last invitation she accepted. Too much wine soured the dispositions of the Duke of Easton and the Marquis de Chevoux; tempers flared and each accused the other of stealing Bristol’s affections. An embarrassing argument erupted, noisy with shouts and threats. To the dinner company’s horror, it ended with the duke and the marquis squaring off in the gardens, their swords poised, and a drunken Jean Pierre roaring a challenge for the victor. Only the cool intervention of Lord Hathaway prevented a scandalous disaster.
The following day Bristol received both Charles Easton and Louis Villiers privately, and endured distressing scenes with each as she firmly and irrevocably declined their pleas for marriage.
Every day more personal items disappeared into her new trunks, and gradually the pink bedroom lost its sense of being uniquely Bristol’s and assumed a vacant, impersonal look. To Bristol’s dismay, most of the things she’d accumulated during her year and some months in England could not be kept. There was no place for luxuries in staid New England. She assembled the gifts and trinkets from her host of admirers and presented them to the servants, seeing that Molly and Bridey received first choice and the most pieces. Bristol kept Mr. Aykroyd’s brooch and the gold chain from Jean Pierre; she could bear to part with neither.
For two days Bristol composed a speech for Aunt Pru and attempted to deliver it when she presented Aunt Pru with the emerald-and-diamond necklace and eardrops Jean Pierre had given her on the eve of his wedding. But Bristol’s carefully prepared speech crumpled in the face of Aunt Pru’s streaming eyes, and the women fell into each other’s arms. The English language didn’t possess words strong enough to convey Bristol’s gratitude and love. She doubted any language did.
Then suddenly everything was packed, all the last-minute chores complete. It was time to leave.
Bristol’s trunks were loaded on the Gravesend ferry, the good-byes had been said. She stood outside the Hathaway coach and met Uncle Robert’s sad eyes through the carriage windows. “We shall greatly miss you, Miss Bristol,” he said gravely. Aunt Pru shrieked and fell across the cushions looking ill. Lord Hathaway leaned to touch her arm. “Now, Pumpkin, you can see the girl is suffering, give her a smile.”
Aunt Pru’s tearstained face appeared in the window; she held a linen to her swimming blue eyes. “I can’t bear it. I simply can’t bear it!” Her chins wobbled and she summoned a ghastly parody of a smile. “Come back! Come back and bring Charity and Hannah and... and Noah! But come back!” Her face collapsed. She held Seven’s orange head to the window, hiding her own face.
Seeing Bristol’s chalky expression, Jean Pierre stepped forward and firmly cupped her elbow. He turned her away from the carriage and guided her over ropes and netting, past barrels and piles of cargo littering the docks. Raucous noise surrounded them, and hot August sun drew a hideous stench from the rotting laystalls enclosing the wharves.
By the time they boarded the ferry, Bristol had nearly conquered the scald threatening her eyes and the quiver in her hands. She pressed a linen to her nose against the stench burning her nostrils and breathed through her mouth. She and Jean Pierre paused at the rail of the flat-bottomed ferry, and Bristol directed her eyes to the green-and-white coach at the edge of the pier. An orange mound leaned from the window and waved a bit of lace.
Gently but firmly Jean Pierre led her from the rail and toward seats in the shade of the bulkhead. They sat down, not speaking. Slowly the unwieldy ferry lumbered from the docks and sought a sluggish brown current. On either side, London slid away, giving place to a summer countryside baking in August heat.
The ferry rode low in the water, crowded with travelers, some holding wicker baskets upon their laps, other waving limp hands before irritable faces and complaining loudly of the heat. Their eyes slid to the elegant, commanding man who escorted what looked to be a servant girl, or perhaps one of those roundheads from the colonies. Pretty she was, but so out of fashion. Yet plainly the man adored her; his lack of manner and decorum was shocking; the two might have been alone, for all the notice the man paid watching eyes. After a time, the observers lost interest. They dozed in the heat and tried to breathe the fetid river air without retching.
Bristol toyed with the edges of her new white apron. She’d noticed the sharp glances dismissing her clothing, and she smiled at her lap, thinking of Collette. The ferry passengers couldn’t know the high-necked brown gown and square white collar felt as strange to her as it looked to them. This morning Molly had dressed Bristol’s glossy red hair in the style she’d worn when first she arrived in England—parted in the center, with long curls tied loosely at her neck. A dust cap with a dainty lace edge (Aunt Pru had insisted on the lace) rested on the back of her head. Bristol felt uncomfortably out of place and out of balance, like a ghost who is suddenly returned to unfamiliar flesh.
Jean Pierre startled her when he spoke near her ear. “You look very young and very innocent.” He smiled. “More like the girl I pulled from a snowbank than the sophisticate that brought London to its knees.”
Bristol didn’t look at him. “I feel neither young nor innocent,” she said in a low voice. “I feel ancient. Tired and empty.” It was true. She hadn’t slept well in days. And her heart bled at the decisions she’d made during those hot, sleepless nights. Decisions that sucked away life; decisions she’d known for a long time must be made.
“Look at me,” he commanded softly.
Unable to disobey that tone, not wanting to look into those cherished gray eyes, Bristol lifted her head.
Jean Pierre read her face, and his smoky eyes darkened with pain. “You’re not corning back,” he said flatly.
“No,” she whispered, her eyes pleading. She reached into her apron pocket and withdrew the pewter cup, the only thing she owned that was hers alone. Silently she placed it in his hands.
He held the cup between his fingers and stared toward the shoreline, his jaw knotting, his face hard. “I came to you last night. Your door was locked.”
“If I’d opened my door to you... I could never leave you.” She saw his face glittering through a mist of unshed tears.
Jean Pierre looked at her, and she saw every detail of his strong loving face, a face that would haunt all the days of her life.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I love you enough to let you go. My Bristol. My little one.” He stared at the distant shore and then back. “Yet I’m selfish enough to want you with me. To sentence you to a half-life, to expose your reputation to ruin and ridicule. My selfish needs would keep you with me, in the shadows, always.”<
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A sob rushed past Bristol’s lips, and she buried her face in shaking hands.
His accent thickened with emotion. “I never met Noah Adams, and I wish him no hardship. Yet some sliver of decency is glad of his misfortune, grateful that Noah Adams saves you from my selfishness by calling you home. For no other reason would I let you go.”
Bristol’s shoulders trembled, and she squeezed her eyes shut, leaving damp traces where her lashes brushed her cheek.
“I love you,” he continued quietly. “I battle myself for your sake. I want you like a dying man wants life. But I love you enough to want more for you than I can offer. Somewhere, my little one, a brighter life waits for you, a life without guilt or shame. A life with the honor that shines in your spirit.” His hand lifted her chin, oblivious of disapproving stares. “I love you enough to give you honor at the cost of the only thing in life I hold dear.”
She met his burning stare, her face twisting. “I love you more than anything else in this world,” she whispered.
His eyes made love to her. “I know,” he answered in a hoarse voice.
Then, there was nothing to say. They passed the remaining ferry journey in aching silence, each agonizingly aware of their thighs touching on the cramped bench, of heartbeats tuned as one. It was almost a relief to disembark at Gravesend and step into the longboat of the Princess Anne, one of Jean Pierre’s ships.
Straining backs bent to the oars and threaded the longboat through a multitude of schooners and small boats bobbing in the harbor. Then Mr. Aykroyd was assisting Bristol onto the rolling decks of the Princess Anne. He beamed down at her, his blue eyes sparkling. “‘Tis a fine day for a sea voyage, gel.” Bristol pressed his hands and tried to smile. The result was disastrous.
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