It certainly did not hurt that she was carrying the Townsend’s first grandchild. As the weeks passed and her belly slowly began to swell, she was treated like royalty (much to her chagrin) and there was hardly a day that went by when she wasn’t scolded for overexerting herself.
Just yesterday morning Temperance had entered the drawing room and found Lynette balanced on a chair attempting to hang an ornament on the tree. She hadn’t found the act particularly dangerous – the chair was quite solidly built and not very tall – but from the way Lady Townsend had shrieked one would have thought Lynette had been dangling out a third story window.
“I adore her,” Lynette had confided in Temperance when Nathaniel’s mother finally left the room. “I truly do. But if she tells me to go upstairs and rest one more time I am going to scream!”
“She is only looking out for you and your future grandchild.”
Lynette took a deep breath. “I know. I know she is, and I cannot fault her for it. Have you seen Annabel this morning? There is something I wanted to ask her.”
“I believe she’s in the parlor entertaining Lord Something or Rather.” Temperance tried – and miserably failed – not to grin. As she had predicted, Annabel had been swarmed by suitor after suitor the very second they had arrived in England. Where they were all coming from Temperance hadn’t a clue, but she did know Annabel was far closer to screaming than Lynette.
“Another one? The poor dear. At this rate she will never make another caroling practice.”
Annabel’s newest charitable venture was actually one Temperance fully supported. Her idea was simple: to go caroling from house to house asking for donations that would be given directly to the poor. All three Swan sisters, including a few close friends, had been meeting for bi-weekly practice sessions for the past month. With Christmas right around the corner time was rapidly slipping away and due to Annabel’s busy schedule she had only been able to make a handful of rehearsals.
Temperance was not concerned. The hard truth was Annabel could have made every single practice and she still wouldn’t have been able to sing a single note on key. But she always tried hard, and her earnestness helped bolster the spirits of the other women. What Temperance was concerned about was Hugh.
Nearly eight weeks had passed since they’d last spoke and she had heard nary a word from him since. She had no idea where he was…what he was doing…if he was even still thinking about her. Every time she stepped outside she looked for him, but if he was in London he did not want to be found. At least not by her.
With every passing day her confidence that they would be reunited sank lower and lower, until it threatened to vanish all together.
Thankfully everyone was so busy with the upcoming holiday they did not seem to notice Temperance was not acting like herself which saved her from trying to muster an explanation for her morose behavior. Annabel was the only one who knew why she was under the weather, but lately she’d been too distracted to ask any questions. Temperance suspected her distraction had something to do with the handsome Irish rake who had saved her life two weeks ago in the park, but Annabel was remaining stubbornly mum on the subject.
One thing was certain: love was in the air, except this time it had nothing to do with Temperance and Hugh.
On Christmas morning Temperance was the last one to make her way downstairs into the drawing room. Still dressed in her white cotton nightgown, she drew a heavy peach colored wrapper around her shoulders and sank down in front of the fireplace beside Delilah. Everyone else was already sitting in a semi-circle around the tree, but they’d waited until Temperance arrived to open presents.
“Ready?” Lynette asked, a mischievous light in her eye. “Go!”
In a mad rush everyone – even Lord Townsend – sprang forward and grabbed the neatly boxed presents with their names scrawled on the side. A mixture of oo’s and aah’s filled the room as mittens, scarves, fancy chocolates, and even a new leather collar for Mr. Humphrey were unwrapped.
“It fits perfectly!” Delilah declared as she looped the collar around Mr. Humphrey’s neck. With a playful growl the puppy – who by now had grown into a full-fledged dog – rolled onto his back and tried to bite at the collar while Delilah shrieked with laughter and did her best to keep it out of his grasp.
On the other side of the tree Lynette held up a tiny bonnet stitched with lace and her eyes immediately filled with tears. Nathaniel wrapped a comforting arm around his wife’s shoulders and lovingly kissed her cheek. “Oh Rebecca,” she sniffled, referring to Lady Townsend. “It is beautiful!”
“I am glad you like it,” Lady Townsend said with a satisfied smile. “Annabel dear, what do you have there?”
“Hair ribbons and stockings.” The blonde grinned and held them up. “Precisely what I needed as I’m always losing the first and getting runs in the latter.”
“Temperance, what did you receive?” Lynette asked after she’d dashed the happy tears from her cheeks.
Carefully pulling back the delicate tissue paper that concealed her gift, Temperance revealed an entire box of sweets. “Peppermints and caramels,” she said, forcing a smile. It wasn’t that she was disappointed in the candy. No, her sense of melancholy was much more deep-rooted than that. As she looked around at the happy faces of her family, she couldn’t help but feel as though something was missing. Or rather someone.
What was Hugh doing this very moment? Was it still in Farmingdale, or had he long since moved on? Was he opening presents in front of a crackling fire, or was he sitting in a cold, lonely room while Christmas passed him by? She ached to think of him by himself. He had already spent so much time along, cut off from the rest of the world. A man capable of such great feeling did not deserve such isolation, even when it was self-imposed.
“Tempy, you have another present,” said Delilah, pointing to a small brown package that had gone overlooked. “At least, it has your name on it.”
“It does?” Her brow creasing in confusion, Temperance reached for the tiny box. Unlike the other presents it had been wrapped in plain brown paper instead of silver, and when she saw the mystified expressions on her sister’s faces her heart sped up a beat.
With trembling fingers she ripped away the paper to reveal a box no wider than a tea saucer. Prying the lid open she couldn’t believe what she saw. There, carefully nestled on top of fresh golden straw, was a wooden snowflake so intricately carved it took her breath away. “Oh,” she gasped as she gently lifted the snowflake out of the box and held it cradled in the palms of her hands. “It’s beautiful.”
“Let me see it!” Delilah demanded as she jostled for position. “Let me see! What is it?”
“A snow flake,” Annabel marveled from behind Temperance’s right shoulder. “Hand carved out of wood.”
“A snowflake?” Lady Townsend asked. “How peculiar.”
But for Temperance it wasn’t peculiar at all. She did not know if Hugh had made it himself or if he’d somehow found the means to purchase it from a store, but she knew it had come from him. She could feel it in her heart and her fingertips tingled as she gently traced the sharp outlines of the snowflake before she returned it to the box and slid the lid back into place.
“Something from a secret admirer, perhaps?” Lynette said with a knowing glance.
“Perhaps,” Temperance acknowledged as her cheeks bloomed with color and her heart swelled with love. Hugh hadn’t forgotten about her after all. He was still out there, somewhere, thinking about her as she was thinking about him. She didn’t know why he hadn’t approached her yet, but she took the snowflake as a meaningful sign that their reconciliation would be coming soon.
All things considered, it was the best gift she ever could have asked for.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
London, England
April
Three months without a word. Thirteen weeks without so much as a letter. Ninety-two days without any hope.
As she stared out her bedroom window at the
drizzling rain falling from a dull, dreary sky, Temperance knew it was finally time to let Hugh go. Heaven knew she did not want to, but neither did she want to keep waking up day after day feeling as though she had a stone lodged in her chest where her heart should have been. For whatever reason – and she hoped it was a bloody good one – Hugh had forsaken her. As much as she loathed to admit it, he wasn’t coming for her. Not today, not tomorrow, not a month from now.
So it was time to let him go. To forget what she could and forgive what she couldn’t. To hope he was happy and healthy and had found what he was looking for, even if what he was looking for wasn’t her.
She would rather look back on their time together with fondness rather than regret, which was why she was making a concerted effort not to curse his name to the high heavens. He had given her her first taste of true passion, for which she always be grateful. As for the rest…well, she supposed her heart would heal in time.
She rang for her maid to help her dress and was nearly finished when Lynette knocked softly on her bedroom door and asked if she could come in.
“Of course,” Temperance said automatically. Since their argument on the day of Lynette’s return the two sisters had put the past behind them and two weeks ago Temperance had even gone so far as to confess everything she’d been hiding. Lynette had been shocked and disappointed, but in the end she had given Temperance her full support.
I know how much it hurts, she’d said while they sat beside each other in the parlor. But it is out of your hands now. For what it is worth, it sounds as though Mr. Jacobson truly cared for you and I can see you cared for him. Hold on to that if you can, and try not to begrudge him for things that may be completely out of his control.
“There you are!” Lynette said breathlessly as both hands went to her burgeoning belly. At nearly six months she was beginning to show more and more every day. Soon she would begin her lying in and sometime at the end of the July she would give birth to either a beautiful son or daughter. “I have been looking for you everywhere.”
“Sit down,” Temperance said with some alarm as she noted the high color in her sister’s cheeks. “You should not be running around in your condition.”
“Psh,” Lynette said with a wave of her hand. “You sound just like Rebecca. I will sit down when I want to sit down. Besides, I have something to tell you.”
“Did Mr. Humphrey get into the flower beds again? Because if he did I am not taking the blame like last–”
“No, no,” Lynette said hastily. Brown eyes all but glowing, she stepped forward and squeezed both of Temperance’s hands. “Someone is here to see you.”
“To see me? Who?”
“Who do you think? Mr. Jacobson, of course! And let me tell you he is every bit as handsome as you and Delilah described. Not to mention tall! Why, I believe he is even taller than Nathaniel.”
“Hugh is here,” Temperance repeated blankly. “Right now. In this house.”
“Yes! He is sitting in the parlor as we speak. I wanted to get you myself.”
“I – I do not know what to say.” As an unprecedented wave of dizziness overcame her, Temperance stumbled back and sat down on her bed with a hard thud. “I was just reconciling myself to the fact that I would never see him again and…and here he is.” Her eyes narrowed as her fingers dug into the edge of the mattress. “I am going to kill him.”
“Wait!” Lynette cried out frantically as Temperance shot off the bed and stormed out of the room. “Delly, Delly do something!”
“When she looks like that?” Wisely the maid shook her head. “With all due respect, my lady, but I think the best thing to do is stay out of her way.”
A red haze enveloped Temperance’s vision as she flew down the stairs, taking them two at a time in her rush to get to Hugh and tell him precisely what she thought about him. Leave her for all this time, would he? Send her a bloody ornament just to get her hopes up, would he? Well, she had a thing or two to say about that!
She threw open the door to the parlor with enough force to rattle the windows. Hugh was standing with his back facing her, his broad shoulders stiff beneath a neatly cut white linen shirt and waistcoat. If Temperance were in the mood to notice such small details she would have seen his clothes were brand new and perfectly tailored to fit his broad frame. She would have also seen the splattering of blood on his right cuff, but as it stood the only thing she saw was her own anger.
“What you doing here?” she demanded the moment she slammed the door closed, effectively sealing them in. “And where the hell have you been all this time? Did you really think you could come waltzing in here and all would be forgiven? Well I am sorry to say that you are sorely mistaken! So you better have an amazing explanation for where you have been all this time or…I…will…Oh Hugh,” she gasped in shock and dismay when he finally turned and she caught her first glimpse of his face. “What happened to you?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
One Day Ago...
“I must say, you do beautiful work. Do you think the dresser will be done by May? I want to surprise my wife on her birthday.”
Wiping a bead of sweat from his eyes, Hugh set down the rough piece of sandpaper he’d been using the smooth out the edges of a roughly hewn table leg and turned to face Edgar Shilling, the Earl of Fenwick. He was also the nephew of Mrs. Parsons and reason Hugh had left Farmingdale for London.
He still did not know what had possessed Fenwick to stroll into the tiny shed he’d been using as a workspace. But he was grateful that he had, for it had ultimately led to Fenwick commissioning him to build enough pieces to fill an entire house…and Hugh’s desperately empty pockets.
Other the past six months he had been tirelessly working to create a future for not only himself, but for the woman he still thought about every morning when he woke and every night when he fell, completely exhausted, onto his bed.
Temperance was like a part of his body that had been taken from him, and without her he did not feel whole. The urge to go to her was constant, and last week when he had glimpsed her beautiful face outside a dress shop he had nearly broken his vow then and there. A vow he had made the day she left Dunhill. A vow that had kept him strong these past few months when all he’d wanted was to hold her in his arms and tell her how much he loved her. How much he had missed her. How much he wanted her to be his wife.
He knew he would have the opportunity to do those things soon enough. The advancement Fenwick had given him, combined with the money he had earned from selling some of his extra pieces, was considerable. Enough to start over. Enough to purchase his own shop. Enough to buy a cozy cottage in the country…nothing large or ornate, but a place where he and Temperance could be happy.
A place where they could finally be free from the shadows of their illicit affair.
So he had made himself a vow that he would stay away from her until the day came when he could give her what she deserved. When he could provide for her as a husband should be able to provide for a wife. When he had made himself into a man she would be proud to call her own. And after six long months of labor, that day had finally arrived.
“I will have it done by May,” he told Fenwick. “But only if you leave me the hell alone.”
Instead of being insulted, the earl merely grinned, tilted his hat, and stepped out of the old abandoned mill where Hugh had temporarily set up shop. He had grown accustomed to the furniture maker’s gruff demeanor in the time they had gotten to know one another. In some ways, he’d even come to welcome it. The American may have been surly as an old bear, but Fenwick wasn’t paying him for his demeanor. He was paying him to fill his house with the most well-crafted furniture he’d ever seen.
“Have a good day,” he called back over his shoulder. Hugh grunted something unintelligible in reply, and Fenwick’s grin stretched across his entire face only to abruptly fade and be replaced with a scowl when he found himself pushed into a brick wall. “Best watch yourself,” he warned to the short, stocky man who had
just blown by him. When the man did not turn or acknowledge Fenwick, he shrugged and continued on his way. The stranger had most likely an American, given the cut of his clothes, and God only knew how bloody rude Americans were.
Hugh bit back a sharp sigh of annoyance when he heard the door to his shop open again. How many times – and in how many different ways – did he have to tell the presumptuous earl to leave him the hell alone before the message was clearly received? Without looking behind he said, “Damnit Fenwick, if you keep interrupting me I’ll–”
“You’ll what?” a cold, chillingly familiar voice interrupted. “Slit my throat while I’m sleeping?”
“Brownstone.” There was no question in Hugh’s tone. Only certainty. After all, he had always known this day would come. This day of reckoning when he would need to answer for crimes he hadn’t committed. It was the second reason why he had stayed away from Temperance all of this time. Because part of him knew – part of him had always know – that Aileen’s brother would find him. And he would rather die a slow, painful death a thousand times over than have any harm come to the woman he loved.
“You do not sound surprised to see me.”
“Because I’m not.” Subtly pocketing the whittling blade he’d been using to carve the border in the dresser that Fenwick wanted to give to his beloved wife for her birthday, Hugh faced his nemesis without a flicker of expression. Frederick Brownstone looked exactly as he remembered. Stocky and bullish with the same blonde hair all of the Brownstone’s shared. The ugly sneer on his face was familiar as well, as was the shimmering glint of cruelty in his eyes. “I know you would come. It was only a matter of time.”
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