“Mama is hopeless in a crisis,” Alice said, staring at her.
“Well, she will be good in this one,” Lizzie said decisively. “I have a feeling she will do us proud. Go!” She gave Alice a little push and then when she had made sure that her friend had hurried off she turned toward the stair. As she put her foot on the bottom tread there was a scream from above that almost made her turn and run, then she stiffened her spine. She had lost so many people. She hoped she would not lose Nat, too. What was certain was that she would not lose Lydia and Laura, two of her best friends, through ignorance or folly or neglect. She would give her last breath to help them even though she had little real idea what she must do. She was praying very hard as she ran up the stairs, harder than she had ever prayed before in her life.
WALKING INTO THE Crossed Hands Inn in Keighley, Nat Waterhouse was assailed by the now familiar and deeply repulsive smell of ale and sweat. He doubted that he would ever want to drink a pint of beer again. He had seen the inside of every inn on the road from Skipton to Keighley and he hated the lot of them, but on the way he had picked up news of a traveling coach with two occupants, one of whom was a flame-haired woman of staggering beauty and he had known that it was Lizzie.
There was only one occupant of the taproom at the Crossed Hands, a man sitting in the corner by the window placidly drinking a glass of brandy and reading the newspaper. As Nat came in he rose to his feet.
“Waterhouse,” he said. “I thought you would come.”
Nat, dragging up every ounce of civilized behavior he could muster and finding it exceedingly difficult, just about managed not to hit him across the room.
“Jerrold,” he said. He looked around. “Where is Lizzie?”
His mind was already conjuring up images, unbearable, intolerable pictures of Lizzie lying in bed upstairs, naked, sated and blissful, having shared a night of tempestuous passion with her lover. His fingers itched to take Jerrold by his immaculately tied neck cloth and murder him without further ado. He had played this moment over and over in his head, time and again, telling himself that if he really loved Lizzie and she wanted to be with Jerrold and not with him, he should let her go. Perhaps a more generous man would indeed free his wife so that she could be happy. But Nat was damned if he was going to let Lizzie go without a fight.
He waited in an agony of suspense for what seemed an hour and then saw the self-deprecating smile that twisted Jerrold’s lips.
“Lady Waterhouse has gone back to Fortune’s Folly,” Jerrold said. “She didn’t want to be with me. She has gone to find you, Waterhouse. Good luck,” he added, ruefully, to the empty room.
Nat had already gone.
WHEN DEXTER ANSTRUTHER, Miles Vickery and Nat Waterhouse arrived at The Old Palace some three hours later, accompanied by an exhausted and tottering Carrington, they found the place in uproar. Dr. Salter and the midwife, Mrs. Elton, had only just arrived. Josie Simmons and Alice’s mother, Mrs. Lister, were sitting on the stairs with the maids Rachel and Molly and Frank the gardener, and appeared to be working their way through the contents of their fourth bottle of brandy while the other bottles rolled empty on the flagstone floor below.
“Ah!” Josie said, lumbering to her feet as Dexter ran into the hall. “Mr. Anstruther! Late again! Quick enough to do the deed—” she cackled, nudging Mrs. Lister “—but slow to wet the baby’s head!” She waved the half-empty brandy bottle at him in salute.
“Laura?” Dexter said. “Is she—”
“She’s fine,” Josie said heartily, slapping him on the back so hard Dexter almost fell over. “Dr. Salter is with her now, but he says there are no problems. I did a grand job though I say so myself, and the ladies were splendid! Not a swoon in sight!”
Nat was looking around for Lizzie, but in the chaos of The Old Palace she was nowhere to be seen. He had already called at Chevrons to be told by the breathlessly excited maid that Lady Waterhouse had returned and had ridden out to look for him. Nat rather hoped that Lizzie was here or they would be chasing each other across the county for days.
He saw Alice coming slowly down the stairs toward them, a bundle in her arms. Her face was radiant. She smiled at Miles as though she had been given the sun and the moon and the stars and held out the bundle to Dexter.
“A son for you, Dexter,” she said. “Congratulations.”
Dexter was at her side in a second, drawing aside the swaddling clothes to touch the baby’s face with a reverent finger. His son’s tiny rosebud mouth opened and a loud wail emerged.
Mrs. Elton bustled forward. “Give him to me, Lady Vickery,” she commanded, taking the baby from Alice and bending over to admire him. “The little lamb! My, look at the size of him! Poor Mrs. Anstruther. No wonder she is exhausted!”
Laura and Dexter’s daughter Hattie rushed forward and Dexter swung her up into his arms.
“I’ve got a brother!” Hattie said importantly. “May we go and see Mama now, Papa?”
“Yes,” Dexter said. “Yes, we shall go at once.”
Nat could hear the catch in his voice and felt a rush of emotion. Devil take it, there was something about this childbirth business that quite unmanned him. He looked across at Miles to see if he was suffering the same problem, but Miles was kissing Alice and paying no attention to anything else at all.
Dexter and Hattie set off up the stairs and Josie turned to Nat.
“You’ll be looking for your lady wife, no doubt,” she said. “She’s with Miss Cole. I don’t know how the poor girl would have managed without her. Lady Waterhouse gave her the strength and the spirit to go through with it, I reckon—” She stopped.
Nat looked up and saw that Lizzie was coming down the stairs. Like Alice she was holding a small bundle in her arms and she had a huge smile on her face.
“I have a niece!” she said. She sounded so happy and so proud that Nat felt the emotion rip through him again. “She is the most beautiful baby!” She saw Nat and stopped dead.
There was a long silence. Lizzie’s eyes were enormous, her face suddenly pale. She came hesitantly down the last few steps and Nat went across to meet her. He could see that her eyes were swimming with tears now. He remembered the broken words she had whispered in her fever and the desperate longing for a child that was in her heart. He reached out and touched her cheek with fingers that suddenly shook.
“I hear you were splendid,” he said softly.
“I came back to find you,” Lizzie said. Her voice was shaking, too. She looked down at the bundle in her arms. “I…Somehow I became diverted.” She smiled suddenly, dazzlingly. Nat’s heart lurched with love. “This is Elizabeth,” she said shyly.
“Elizabeth?” Nat said. He felt his heart catch as he looked down into his wife’s face. “Lydia named the baby for you?”
Lizzie nodded. “Elizabeth Laura Alice Cole,” she said.
The whoops from the hall behind them became louder as Josie and Mrs. Lister and the servants started their fifth bottle of brandy and with it a round of elaborate toasts to the babies. Alice came over and took the baby from Lizzie’s arms.
“I will take little Beth back up to her mother and sit with Lydia a while,” Alice said, holding the baby in the crook of her arm. She smiled at Miles.
“You are an expert already,” Miles said, his eyes gleaming as they rested on her and the sleeping child. “Hmm. If you wish us to set up our own nursery, Alice, you need only say the word and I am at your service.”
“Actually…” Alice said, blushing peony-red, “I think I might already—”
Miles caught her and kissed her hard. “Don’t squash the baby!” Alice chided, as she emerged ruffled and even pinker from her husband’s embrace.
Nat grabbed Lizzie’s hand and pulled her through the door into the library. And suddenly it was quiet and it was just the two of them and the rest of the world was shut out.
“Lizzie,” Nat said. His voice sounded rough to his own ears. He closed the distance between them until she was less tha
n a heartbeat away. “You came back.”
“Yes,” Lizzie said. “Nat, I need to tell you—”
“Let me speak first,” Nat said. He felt as though his heart would burst with everything he wanted to say to her, with all the love he had for her. “Please, Lizzie.”
Lizzie waited. Her face was white. Nat could hear her breath coming quick and light.
“I don’t care what’s happened,” Nat said. He felt as though he was teetering on the edge of a precipice, fearful that with a single wrong word she would be lost to him forever. But he had to say what was in his heart. “You came back to me,” he said. “I love you. I don’t care about John Jerrold. I don’t care what happened with him. All I want is you, Lizzie.”
“Nat,” Lizzie said. She sounded shaken to her soul. “Oh, Nat.”
“Don’t say anything,” Nat said, catching her hands and drawing her to him. He could feel them both shaking. “You must understand. I made a terrible mistake in not trusting you with the truth about Tom’s blackmail and I am sorry for it. It was entirely my fault. I was trying to protect you, but instead I drove you away. But you must believe that I never sought revenge through you, Lizzie.”
He gripped her hands tighter. “I want only you and I love you for yourself alone,” he said. “When you were in your fever you spoke of love, Lizzie. You said that you wanted someone who would love you forever and would never leave you nor betray you.” He sought her gaze with his. “I am that man you once spoke of, Lizzie. I am the one that you wanted, and if you trust me I will never hurt you ever again. I swear it on my life.”
“Let me speak now,” Lizzie said. The tears were running down her face, huge tears that plopped onto Laura’s worn carpet, making the colors bright. “Nothing happened with John Jerrold, Nat.” She gulped in a breath. “I only turned to him because I was so unhappy. Then I realized that I couldn’t go through with it, I wasn’t like my mother after all. I could not accept second best because all I wanted was you. The only man I ever loved was you.” She freed herself, resting her palms against his chest and looking up into his face with candid eyes. “I realized then that I had to come back and talk to you,” she said, “and find out the truth about Tom, because I could not throw away the most precious thing I ever had.”
Relief and sheer, blazing joy smashed through Nat and then his arms went about her and he kissed her, pressing feverish kisses across her cheek and brow, until he found her lips at last and she gave a little sigh and melted closer into his arms. And then all was quiet between them for a very long time and not even the sound of the increasingly drunken revels outside the door could penetrate their happiness.
LATER, LYING COCOONED IN their bed in the aftermath of lovemaking and in the hot darkness of the Fortune Folly summer night, they talked. They lay as close as when they had made love. For a while they had both drifted from fulfilment into sleep but they awoke together and Nat held Lizzie with proud possession as well as love.
“I was such a fool not to tell you about Tom’s blackmail,” Nat said. “I only gave into it in the first place to protect Celeste and my parents, and because I could see no way out. I kept it from you because I wanted to protect you from this latest example of Tom’s wickedness and instead I gave him the means to ruin our happiness.”
“I suppose Tom seduced Celeste, the blackguard,” Lizzie said. She was feeling so light and free, so blissful that nothing could touch her happiness now, and yet she still had space in her heart to feel Celeste Waterhouse’s pain. She rested her head on Nat’s chest and felt the warmth of his body and his love envelop her. There were no doubts or fears now. They had banished them forever.
“I could not understand how a man like you could succumb to blackmail,” she said, “but I can see that you had to protect your family.”
“I thought so,” Nat said. He shook his head. “Perhaps I was wrong in what I did. But Tom did not seduce Celeste, Lizzie. He found her in a compromising situation—a very compromising situation—with another debutante. He had witnesses, and such scurrilous and damning tales of what they were doing together that I…” He shrugged uneasily. “Well, it would have been the scandal of the season had it got out and I know it would have killed my father. I simply could not allow that to happen. I love my sister and I have to protect her.”
“A woman,” Lizzie said. She could see what Nat meant. Such things were never spoken of outside the brothels and bawdy houses of London. It was as though they did not exist, though everyone knew that they did. For such a scandal to take place in the Ton would have been the most shocking, the most outrageous piece of tittle-tattle for years.
“Poor Celeste,” she said softly. “Poor, poor girl.”
Nat drew her closer to his body and Lizzie stretched, luxuriating in the warmth and intimacy of their connection.
“In some twisted way I think I have been trying to make up for failing Charlotte all those years ago,” Nat said softly, after a moment. “I felt that I could never allow myself to fail again. I had to protect everyone—Celeste, my parents and you, too.” He cupped Lizzie’s face in tender hands. “I thought that if you knew of the blackmail, of this latest piece of cruelty on Tom’s part, you would be utterly destroyed,” he said. “You had already lost Monty, scoundrel though he was, and even before you told me how you felt about your family, I knew that you cared deeply for your undeserving brothers. Love has no rhyme or reason—” He pressed a kiss on her hair, moving one hand softly over her tumbled curls. “And I could not bear for Tom to injure you even more. So I kept quiet, wanting to shield you from harm. And in the process I hurt you very much because of my apparent lack of trust in you. I am sorry, Lizzie. Will you accept that I never married you to revenge myself on Tom and that I wanted more than anything to care for you?”
Lizzie raised her hand to his lean cheek, feeling the stubble rough against her fingers. “I do accept it,” she whispered. “I knew in my heart that you were honorable, Nat, but I felt so shocked and deceived when I overheard you talking to Tom.”
“I was trying to buy time,” Nat said, “so that I could tell you myself about the blackmail. I was terrified Tom would blurt it all out to you first and that you would misunderstand and hate me for it.”
“I did,” Lizzie said, “but not for long.” She brought his head down to hers so that she could kiss him. “Enough of the past,” she said gently. “We can let it go now.”
They washed the memories away with kisses, soft and sweet. The drowsy press of Nat’s body against hers was the most tender thing Lizzie had ever experienced. Nat brushed the hair away from her brow.
“Miles told me I was a fool,” he whispered, “and he was right. I have loved you for so long, Lizzie darling, and I could not even see it. All I ever wanted was to care for you and protect you. I admired you. I was so proud of you and I could not see all my feelings were but facets of my love for you.” He drew away a little. “I am sorry about the baby,” he said gruffly. “I wish you had told me.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Lizzie said. “I can wait. Now I know I have you.”
She remembered telling Alice she had wanted a child to bind her closer to Nat, but now that she knew his whole heart, that his whole life was hers, she felt strangely serene and patient. It was a new sensation. There was no hurry. She could see that now. Whatever came to pass, she had Nat beside her, and that was the only thing that mattered now. Perhaps in time she would be able to build the family she wanted; the one that she herself had been denied. She did not know, but she had Nat and he loved her and that was more than enough.
“Although,” she added thoughtfully, moving her hand over the flat plane of Nat’s stomach and down, “I do not mind trying to make a baby whenever you wish…”
Nat rolled over lazily, drawing her beneath him. His mouth moved from her lips to the line of her throat, gentle kisses that caressed her even as his hands roamed over her body worshipping every curve and hollow. Previously there had been nothing but passion between
them and Lizzie had understood that, but this felt different. Now there was a need to give and give again with generosity and love. She felt it for Nat and knew he felt the same for her, and at last she experienced the depth and power of his love for her.
“I love you,” he murmured as he slid inside her with infinite gentleness, “I will always love you, Lizzie. Lizzie,” he repeated, “my love, my life.”
“I love you, too,” Lizzie said. She remembered all the times she had held back from telling him. Her pride had come between them. Her fear of the inequality in their feelings had kept them apart but now there was no more reason to hide and no more secrets to keep. She moved restlessly beneath his hands and her body quickened with the pleasure he could always give her but now it was love returned as well as pleasure given, deep and searing in its intensity.
“You’re impatient still,” Nat murmured, laughing, as he rocked within her, tantalizing and slow, and Lizzie gasped and pulled him to her for a kiss that stole her soul. “Some things will never change.”
“You are no better,” Lizzie whispered, her skin slick against his in the heat of the night, the tide running strong between them again now, “though you pretend—the conventional Earl of Waterhouse, so proper, so passionless. I should have realized from the first when I knew what a terribly cross disposition you had. I should have known such temper could only be matched with such passion—” She broke off on another gasp as Nat moved again, his mouth at her breast now, shocking and sweet. The desire twisted within her, driving her higher. This time it was a matter of slow, shimmering, exquisite delight and afterward Nat wrapped her in his arms and held her and she knew she had come home at last. The nightmares were gone. The tragedy of her mother’s lost love had at last been balanced by her love found.
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