Wellington Cross (Wellington Cross Series)

by Lane, Cheryl

  He gathered both of my hands in his. “Please, don’t leave,” his eyes were pleading, his voice deep with regret. “I don’t love her the way I love you. I still love you, Madeline. I can get the marriage with her annulled, now that you’re back. Please…don’t leave me again.” He took one of my hands and brought it to his lips. “Please give me a chance. Give us a chance. Let me help you remember.”

  He just said he loved me. I felt joyful and hopeful once again. But was he telling the truth? He had re-married, after all. I was still hesitant. He had said that he needed this other woman. “It might be best for me to go live with my brother,” I said in a softer voice, “until I remember everything. Besides, it wouldn’t be proper for me to stay here with you as long as you are married to another.”

  “My whole family lives here, too. And your servant friend with her daughters – they are familiar to you, and right now, your brother is not. Besides,” he squeezed my hand between his. “I want to be close to you. I want to help you remember me. I want to see your face when you finally remember who I am. You already remembered my voice. Now that you’re here with me in person, you may get your memory back quickly.”

  I looked hard into his eyes, looking from one eye to the other, wanting desperately to believe that he cared about me, this man who claimed to be my husband. I wanted to believe that he loved me and not this other woman. I wanted so much to have someone who would take care of me, since nearly everything around me had been taken away, twice. I wanted to fill the loneliness that was in my heart. And most of all, I wanted him to fulfill the longing that I felt when I first heard his voice call my name in my memory.

  I’d have to forgive him for marrying another woman. Could I do that? I didn’t know the answer just yet, but I was willing to try.

  “All right,” I finally agreed. “I will stay here for a little while. But if it doesn’t work out or I don’t get my memory back, then I will go to my brother’s.”

  Ethan kissed my hand again and said, “Thank you, Maddie.”

  Maddie. He’d just called me “Maddie”. Just like in my dream of the dark-haired boy I’d played with as a child, the one who had helped me when I fell out of that tree.

  It hit me like a bullet.

  “Wellsy?” I remembered all of our nicknames then. His was Wellsy, mine was Maddie, and my brother’s was Jonesy. Was my childhood friend, Wellsy, the same person as Ethan, my husband?

  “You do remember me!”

  “Is it really you, Wellsy? I married Wellsy?” I couldn’t believe it. I remembered now; Wellsy was shortened for Wellington. He didn’t like being called Ethie. I quickly hugged him with all my strength, suddenly feeling safe for the first time in a very long time. The playmate I had cherished had been the same voice that I’d longed for and had been the one I’d been married to. I felt tears well up in my eyes. “My Wellsy,” I whispered softly. “I only remember you as a child,” I said, letting go of him to look into his amber eyes. Of course, I’d seen those eyes before. How could I forget those eyes? His appearance may have changed as he grew up, but his eyes didn’t.

  “There’s my girl. You see, you’re already remembering things,” he said, smiling brightly, wiping tears at the corners of my eyes. I laughed and finished the job with my handkerchief.

  I told him all about the dreams I’d been having of us playing. “So the blonde-haired boy, is that Jonesy? He’s my brother?” He nodded. “And he’s still alive?”

  “Yes,” he laughed lightly at my excitement.

  “Oh, thank God. I found my two dear friends again. I wondered what had happened to you both. I wish I could remember more.”

  “I’m sure you will in time.” He rubbed my hands in his. “There is more,” he said. “Much more. Does the name Lillie Rose mean anything to you?”

  “Who?” I asked. That name didn’t ring a bell at all.

  “Lillie Rose. She’s your daughter…our daughter. You had a baby before you disappeared.”

  I caught my breath, and then I had no breath at all, and I felt my back side hit the hard ground.

  Chapter 6

  Lillie Rose

  I woke up moments later to concerned honey-colored eyes hovering over my face. “Are you all right, Maddie?” Ethan asked, anxiously.

  I moved to sit up, and he helped me, his arm around my back. “Yes, I think so.” My back ached a little but otherwise I felt fine, just shocked. I’d had a baby? Why couldn’t I remember that? “We had a baby?” I asked him.

  “Yes.” He brushed off dirt or leaves from my back, and then looked at me again, squatting next to me. I knew that we had been married, but realizing we had a child together meant I had been intimate with this man. I swallowed hard. I had just found out that my childhood best friend grew up to be a handsome man and that I’d married him. To find out that we’d had a child together also was overwhelming.

  “I…I’m a mother?” I still couldn’t believe it. What kind of mother had I been? What kind of mother was I that I couldn’t even remember having a baby? Perhaps I should have had that country doctor give me a personal exam, after all. “I wish I could remember. Could I see her?”

  “Of course.” He helped me to my feet, and we walked back up the hill for my first look at my daughter. It was a scary thought. I’d had a baby girl, and now that Ethan had re-married, another woman was taking care of my baby. Did the baby think this other woman was her mother? Would she love the other woman more than me? It was too painful to think about.

  “What does she look like?” I asked as we ascended the hill together.

  “You,” he said simply. I looked over at him and smiled. I wondered if she would recognize me or my voice when I met her, the same way I remembered Ethan’s voice. Would she know I was her mama? I couldn’t wait to find out.

  As Ethan and I approached the river-front door of the manor, Clarissa was there to greet us on the terrace. “I see you found each other.”

  “Yes,” Ethan said, as he walked over and kissed his mother on the temple. “How are you, mother? I’m glad you’re back.”

  “I’m glad to be home, and just look who I brought back.”

  “You did good, mother. I had given up hope of ever seeing our Madeline here again.” He walked back over close beside me again and reached for my hand.

  “Madeline, dear” she said to me. “Is it all right to call you Madeline? What is the name you were going by before? Melinda?”

  “Yes, that is the name Mrs. Washington first gave me, but I started having dreams of me and Ethan as a child, not too long ago, and I remembered that my nickname was Maddie. I just remembered that Ethan’s nickname was Wellsy.” I failed to mention that it was Jefferson who first called me Madeline, one of the few truthful things he told me. I didn’t know why, but I felt like I should leave Jefferson out of the conversations for now, as I didn’t know where he fit into my past.

  “That’s wonderful, dear. I’m glad you’re starting to remember things,” Clarissa said.

  “Mother, Madeline would like to meet Lillie. I told her everything.”

  “Oh, of course. Madeline, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I felt Ethan should be the one to break the news to you. Do you forgive me?”

  “Of course. Think nothing of it.” I smiled tentatively.

  She smiled at me and turned around and walked inside the house. Ethan walked me to the door and held it open for me, helping me step over the threshold. I was distracted by the fact that I had a child, whom I was excited to see, but I suddenly felt needy for him. It was the familiarity of him as my childhood friend in the midst of this – for now, at least – unknown world that I was re-discovering. Finally, something familiar. I didn’t want to ever let go of his hand. Ethan smiled encouragingly at me. I felt nervous and somewhat tremulous. I wanted to look around the manor to see if I could remember anything, but for the life of me, all I could think about was that I was a mother. I wanted to see my child. Everything else was a blur.

  “Would you like a
drink of water, Madeline?” Ethan asked me. He told Clarissa about my fainting spell.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Please, let’s get her some water. Won’t you sit down for a moment, dear?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  She led me into a nearby parlor, and I sat on the couch while Ethan poured me a glass of water from a pitcher on a large round table. I drank half the glass quickly.

  I heard Clarissa in the hallway and other footsteps approaching. “Jake, we need a hand up on the third floor if you have a minute, to bring down Madeline’s trunk of clothes. Get Zeke to help you.” She called to Ethan in the parlor. “Ethan, when you go up to get Lillie, I think you should tell Elizabeth the news. Let her know that Madeline is going to be staying with us for a while to help her regain her memory.”

  Ethan nodded and turned back and looked at me. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m fine now, thank you.” I put the glass on the round table and stood up. “Elizabeth…is that your-”

  “My wife, yes,” he said softly. I cringed slightly. He kissed my hand before reluctantly walking across the hall and through the dining room. I wondered where the staircase was, as I didn’t see one.

  Clarissa linked her arm with mine. “Shall I show you the house now? Do you feel up to it?” I nodded, and she led me back into the hall. We were standing in the entrance hall, which was wide enough for dancing, Clarissa said. The river-front door was exactly opposite of the carriage-front door at the other end of the hall. Clarissa showed me the dining room, the first room on the left when coming in the river-front door. Once I entered that room, I could see the staircase down a narrow hall, where Ethan had just gone. Clarissa pointed up above near the staircase to a landing where she said musicians played during parties. That seemed familiar; I could almost hear the violins now. Beside the staircase was the master study. Looking in, I saw a big desk in the corner by a window across the room, and there was a sofa by two more windows on another wall. Stacks of books filled a bookcase in the corner and more were scattered over by a fireplace as well as on top of the desk. The fireplace was on the wall closest to the dining room.

  We walked back through the dining room and out into the hall. Moving towards the carriage-front door, we passed a fake door on the left where the staircase was on the other side of the wall. Clarissa told me that this was so it would be symmetrical to the door across the hall, which was a sitting room. This was typical in Georgian homes, for the doors to be lined up directly across from each other. In the sitting room, there was an old piano in the far corner. This room is where the family gathered and where I had apparently played the piano. I didn’t remember that. In all my childhood dreams, I’d never dreamed of being inside a house.

  On the other side of that room was the parlor where I had sat earlier, where visitors were normally entertained. The sitting room and parlor had a two-sided fireplace in the middle on a shared wall, and there were double-arched entrances connecting the two rooms on both sides of the fireplaces. That way, Clarissa explained, the British could only charge taxes for one room instead of two back before the War for Independence. It was truly an old house. There were many paintings of family members on the walls all throughout the house, none of whom looked familiar. Faces from the past, Wellingtons from another time.

  We went back out into the hall again at the same time that Ethan came out of the dining room with a bundle of pink ruffles in his arms. She looked like an angel. She had light brown curls all over her head, and she looked at me with big amber eyes just like her daddy’s. When she saw me, she put her little fingers in her mouth, looked at me hard, and then reached her arms towards me.

  Clarissa took a quick intake of breath. “She wants to go to you, Madeline. She hasn’t taken well to Elizabeth at all,” she said. That made me feel good.

  Ethan said, “Lillie, this is your mama.” He handed her over to me. She was still looking at me. Once I took her in my arms, she put her hands on my face, feeling it, looking me over real good, and then she smiled. I smiled back. My heart was overflowing with love for her. I couldn’t remember her yet, and of course I’d never seen her at this age before, but I felt a close connection to her. She laid her head against my chest, and tears filled my eyes. My baby girl. I patted her on the back and hugged her close.

  Ethan was beside himself. His face turned red as he held back tears as he watched us. I smiled at him, and he walked over and hugged us both. Lillie turned her head so she could look at both of us, and she made happy cooing noises.

  Clarissa was weeping and smiling at the same time. She kissed Lillie Rose on the head, wiped her eyes, and told us we could go in the sitting room if we’d like. She left us to go upstairs to get a room ready for me. I carried Lillie into the sitting room and sat her down on my lap with me on the sofa, which was adjacent to the fireplace. Ethan sat across from us on one of two chairs that faced the sofa on the other side of the fireplace.

  “I can’t believe how easily she has taken to you,” Ethan said. “As mother said, she has not taken to Elizabeth and is very fussy around her. We thought it was perhaps because Elizabeth was nervous around her.”

  “She’s so beautiful, Ethan.” Lillie still had her head against my chest, and she was holding a strand of my hair in her fist.

  “Just like her mother,” Ethan said.

  I looked at him and smiled, blushing. “She has her daddy’s eyes.”

  “And her mama’s hair and little button nose.”

  I looked back down at Lillie. “Hey, Lillie. I’m your mama. I’m so sorry I haven’t been here for you.” She looked up at me while I spoke, and then she smiled at me again. I started weeping silently and hugged her close. I had so many emotions going through me and felt shaky. “I wish I could remember you,” I said to her, looking down at the hardwood floor, my head resting against the top of hers, tears dripping onto her hair. “I’m going to try my best, I promise.”

  I raised my head back up and looked over at Ethan, who had a hint of a tear in his eye, which he quickly wiped away with his hand. “I’m so happy to see this,” he said, his voice deep with emotion. “You don’t know how happy. We’ve both missed you so much.”

  I swallowed hard. That was sweet of him to say. If I could’ve remembered them, I knew I would have missed them, too. “How old is she?” I asked.

  “She’s a year and one month. Her birthday was in May.”

  I calculated in my mind how old she was when I had my accident and lost my memory. “So she was only one month old when I had the accident?”

  “Yes. She was very fussy, has been quite fussy the whole time you’ve been gone. Mother and I thought she might do well to have another female – uh, Elizabeth – around her, but that has not been the case. That’s why it’s so wonderful to see her take to you like that. She seems happy and content.”

  I smiled again. “Has she been healthy?”

  “Yes. She had a cough over the winter, but she got better by spring. She eats well.”

  “Does she walk? Talk?” My mind was racing, trying to learn everything about her. I didn’t remember what it was like to be around a baby, and there had certainly not been any staying with the Washingtons.

  “No, she doesn’t walk yet, but she can crawl, and she talks very little, mostly just babbling.”

  I looked down at her. She had fallen asleep in my arms. She looked so sweet. I couldn’t believe how right it felt to be here in this house with this baby in my arms and with this handsome man who had been my husband. I still couldn’t believe my childhood playmate was my husband. I wished I could remember growing up with him. I tried to picture my life here with him…and with her.

  “Ethan, I don’t know how to be a wife or a mother. I don’t know how to take care of a baby. I’m still getting over the shock that I married my childhood friend. I wish I could remember how to conduct myself.”

  “You’ll be fine, sweetheart. You were a wonderful wife and a doting mother. You’ve done a lot of re
sponsible things since you grew up, a lot of things to be proud of…through the war, through childbirth. You’ll remember it all in time. Don’t fret. It will all come back to you. Mother and I can take care of Lillie for now. You just concentrate on getting your memory back.” He stood up and walked over to me. “Shall I take her upstairs for a nap? Then you could get settled in your room and rest if you’d like.”

  I reluctantly let him take Lillie out of my arms, and our arms brushed against one another in the process. I was suddenly aware of his presence in a very physical way. I looked at him and realized he must’ve felt the same way. He just stared at me for a moment and then adjusted Lillie in his arms. I had the sudden longing to be held by those arms again, but not in a childish way. Even though I couldn’t remember him as an adult, I did remember his voice and had felt a longing for him. I was feeling that same longing now for him, an attraction I felt deep inside.

  I followed Ethan down the hall through the dining room and then started climbing the staircase on our right, up to the next floor, just as Clarissa was coming down. She stopped at the landing and waited for me.

  “Would you like to see your room? Jake and Zeke have brought down a trunk of some of your old clothes from yours and Ethan’s rooms on the third floor.” Mother and son exchanged a look when she said that, and I wondered why. I simply nodded and followed her to the next set of stairs to the second floor. I watched Ethan turn a corner at the top of the staircase, look back at me, and then continue down the hallway away from us.

  “Now don’t you worry about a thing, Madeline. Everything will turn out all right, you’ll see. Why, Ethan just about grieved himself to pieces when he couldn’t find you last year. He was gone for weeks searching for you, till he came home exhausted and emaciated. Then for weeks on end, he would just sit at that desk in his father’s study and pore through papers and books, and then go out and work hard all day in the fields without eating anything, trying to drive his mind away from what he was feelin’. His father tried to convince him that you must be deceased, but he didn’t want to believe it. Do you remember anything about Ethan at all? Or Lillie Rose?”