He nodded his understanding as yet another cry was wrenched from the girl.
“She’s going to fight you. She’ll scream,” Grace whispered, her voice breaking on the word. “But it has to be done or they’ll both die. They may die anyway.” She searched his eyes. They were steely with resolve. She hoped that resolve wouldn’t crumble. “I need you. I can’t do this alone,” she said, placing her hand on his arm.
“You won’t be alone.” He turned to look at Fanny. “She won’t be alone.”
The earl went to Fanny and kneeled beside her, his back to Grace. She heard him murmur something but couldn’t understand the words, only the tone. Calm, gentle. It didn’t seem possible that the earl would be kneeling in a thatched cottage in his fashionable clothes, trying to soothe a laboring woman.
Yet, there he was.
Grace drew a deep breath and gathered herself for the agony of the task ahead. Straightening her shoulders, she went to Fanny’s other side and knelt. She reached out to place her hand over the bare mound of Fanny’s belly.
But a hand was already there.
His. Long, tanned fingers rubbed slow circles over Fanny’s belly, even over the silvery marks where the skin had stretched tightly over the growing babe. His other hand held one of Fanny’s, her work-roughened fingers entwined with his aristocratic ones.
Rocked to the core, Grace’s gaze flew to the earl’s face. Their eyes met and held. Filled with an unbearable ache as sweet as it was painful, Grace placed her hand on top of the earl’s. Beneath their hands, Fanny’s unborn babe shifted and her belly rippled, as if welcoming their joined touch.
The earl blinked like a man coming from some dark place into the light. Astonishment flickered in his eyes. Grace took an unsteady breath as tears blurred her vision. Still, through them she saw the awe on his face.
“I think the babe wants out,” he said. Fanny moaned, and he leaned forward so that his lips were near the laboring woman’s ear. “Let’s bring your beautiful baby into the world, Fanny.”
Fanny’s eyes fastened on the earl’s face. She squeezed his hand. “Yes,” Fanny whispered, the sound harsh as it made its way between cracked lips.
Knowing what was to come, Grace wanted desperately to weep. But she kept her voice steady and strong. “Get behind her, my lord,” she said.
Her eyes met the earl’s once more, and something fierce and powerful passed between them. He nodded, his face grim with purpose, and she positioned herself to turn the babe.
Fanny did scream. She screamed until she was hoarse, the sounds inhuman, primal and so full of suffering Grace’s heart ached. The earl did as Grace had asked, holding the girl down, forcing her to bear the pain. Yet his words were gentle, his fingers light as he wiped her brow with a wet cloth.
An hour later a girl was born. Weak, tired and undersized, but healthy. As her tiny blue body was pulled from her mother’s womb and her first cry rent the air, Grace met the earl’s eyes over Fanny’s exhausted body. There was relief in those eyes, as well as elation.
Grace washed the baby girl, wrapped her in clean linens and laid her in her mother’s arms. Fanny cried once more, but the tears spilled from eyes full of joy.
Minutes later, as the sun’s gold rays slanted through the cottage windows, the door burst open and Jem hurtled into the room.
“Fanny!” he gasped, stumbling over to the pallet. He froze when his gaze fell on the tiny bundle in his wife’s arms.
“You have a daughter,” Fanny whispered, exhaustion still etched on her face.
“It’s too early. Are you—is she—”
Grace stepped in, laid a hand on Jem’s shoulder. “She is healthy, Jem. Healthy and beautiful.”
“Congratulations, Papa,” the earl said, placing his hand on Jem’s other shoulder.
“Thank God.” Jem dropped to his knees before his wife and daughter.
“No,” Fanny said, reaching out for her husband. “Thank Gracie and his lordship.”
Grace let them have a moment, watched the new father’s wonder as he gently touched the downy head of his daughter and tangled hair of his wife. The light that shone from Jem nearly blinded her.
“You’re crying, Grace. Again.”
“What?” She jerked as the earl’s thumb brushed her cheekbone. She felt the hot tears now and could taste the salt of them on her lips.
“You cried during the entire birth. Now you’re crying again.”
“Oh. Well.” She stepped back, swiping at the tears. When she looked up, the earl’s gaze thankfully rested on the new parents.
“What will you call her, Fanny?” the earl asked.
“Grace. And—what was your mother’s name, my lord?”
“Elizabeth.”
“Grace Elizabeth, then.”
The earl looked as exhausted as Fanny. The lines on his face were deep. Blood coated his hands and smeared the front of his shirt. Dirt covered the knees of his expensive breeches.
A delighted grin stretched across his face.
__________
"STARKWEATHER, I’LL BE in the library. I don’t wish to be disturbed.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Julian pulled the door shut and stalked to the low side table that held the crystal brandy decanter and glasses. He poured a short glass, tossed it back and poured another. This one he swirled in the glass.
He looked down. He was still wearing the clothes he’d worn during the birth of Fanny’s daughter. The fabric was marred by dried blood and would never come clean. But he considered the loss of the expensive clothes more than worth the life of that little girl. It had been a wonder to see that blue body turn pink with life as she took her first breath. Grace Elizabeth. A beautiful, healthy baby brought into this world by a mother’s pain and suffering and the knowledge of a competent healer. A healer full of compassion.
Grace hadn’t even known she’d cried with Fanny while she turned the babe, silent tears tracking down her cheeks as her bloodied hands did their miracle work.
In that moment, Julian knew he had never seen a more beautiful woman than Grace Hannah. Whether she was a smuggler, a traitor or an innocent, the fact remained that she had struggled to bring life into the world and had saved both mother and child.
He was a fraud. He should have confronted Grace in the garden of Cannon Manor. Before he kissed her. He knew, he knew, that once he kissed her he’d lose his control and the opportunity. But he couldn’t help himself. She was nothing but temptation. He couldn’t explain why he was drawn to her, even to himself.
His hand fisted around the brandy glass. If she were innocent, he would stand by his decision, do the honorable thing and marry her.
He looked down at his bloodied shirt. Marriage meant children. Travers children. It seemed the ghost of his father hovered over his shoulder, telling him that he would raise his child as a Travers, as his father had, and his grandfather before him.
No. Any child of his might be a Travers, but his child would not witness his father beating his mother, or assaulting a maid, or cavorting with his latest mistress.
His child would never once doubt whether he was loved.
Julian left the library, climbing the stairs to reach the carved doors of the earl’s chambers. He had yet to sleep in these rooms, instead retiring every evening to a nondescript guest chamber instead of the soft four-poster he had inherited from his father.
Nymphs cavorted across the oak door that marked the earl’s chambers. He reached for the elaborate handle and pulled it open.
Ghosts hovered in this room.
The window curtains were drawn, giving the appearance of dusk. The gloom was suffocating, and Julian tugged at his cravat to relieve the sensation. His gaze fell on the bed. His father had commissioned the artist shortly before his mother’s death. Heavy crimson curtains hung from the tester. The carved posts were
nude women in a lewd parody of a classical pose. Long hair swirled around breasts and thighs. Hips were cocked in a suggestive stance and lips were quirked in seductive smiles.
Fury and hate and shame roiled in his belly, a volatile mixture that strained his control. His fingers tightened on the brandy glass. With a sharp, angry snap he set the glass on a side table and strode purposefully to the bed.
Taking a deep breath, he clutched at the crimson curtains. The fabric was smooth and thick and rich in his hands. Seized by frenzy, he ripped the curtains from the side of the bed frame. Nearly running in his haste, he tore the hangings from the foot of the bed as well, then the remaining side.
Leaving the crimson damask in a pool of fabric on the floor, he moved to the heavy brown window curtains. One sharp wrench and those, too, lay on the floor. Bright, cleansing sunlight streamed into the bedroom, forcing him to squint against the glare. But it was a welcome glare that dispelled the hovering ghosts.
It didn’t matter how the room was redecorated, as long as it bore no trace of his father. He would empty it of all remnants of the previous earl and his predilection for infidelity. And violence.
A series of impatient tugs on the bellpull had Starkweather running into the room.
“Get an ax,” Julian commanded before the butler could catch his breath.
“An ax, my lord?”
“Now.”
While he waited for the butler to return with the tool, Julian stripped off his bloodied shirt so that he stood bare-chested in the bright sunlight. He began to pace the room, impatient to begin. But the door that joined the earl’s suite to the countess’s suite caught his eye.
Grace would soon be his countess. Most couples slept in separate bedchambers. She would need a bed, a space to call her own. Something rose in this chest. It lodged there, clawing and howling.
Not that room. The room belonged to his mother.
Julian turned from the countess’s chamber when Starkweather handed him a long, wood-handled ax. He took the instrument from the butler and stepped to the bed.
Each nude woman held the curtain frame with one upraised arm, the other arm resting provocatively on a hip. Julian reared back then swung the ax with as much force as he could muster, striking the first post at the juncture of arm and frame. He struck a second time, then a third until the frame was separated from the post. With a grunt of satisfaction he turned his attention to the juncture of post and footboard and began hacking at the woman’s ankles. The wooden post fell to the floor with the dull thunk of wood striking wood.
In his peripheral vision, he saw Starkweather standing in the doorway, mouth agape. Julian ignored him, and attacked the second post, the third, then the fourth until the tester crashed to the floor.
When the wooden frame was nothing but splinters he focused on the mattress. He pulled it from the bed with a strength born of rage and began to strike at it with the ax. In seconds the ax broke through the fabric and began to shred the feathers beneath.
He could see his father’s face in his mind, the cold eyes and cruel smile. His chest ached with a dreadful emotion he couldn’t name, filling his body and mind. He swung at the mattress again and again, trying to ease that horrible ache.
But it didn’t. When he flung the ax aside the ache was still there, the pressure of it nearly unbearable.
“Master Julian,” came a shocked whisper from the doorway. Julian turned and saw that Mrs. Starkweather had joined her husband in the doorway. Her face was so full of pity, her voice so full of sympathy, that he thought he might shatter.
“Burn it all,” Julian rasped. “Better yet, give everything combustible to the poorer tenants for firewood. Let them use the fabric and feathers to make pillows. I don’t care. Just make damn sure that this room is completely empty by tomorrow morning. I don’t want a single tapestry or table or curtain left in this house.”
The ache pressed down on him so that he couldn’t draw a breath. He needed to get out. He pushed past the Starkweathers and through the house until he reached the courtyard. He doubled over, hands on his knees, and forced himself to breathe deep.
To just breathe.
Chapter 13
The Earl of Langford has intercepted our last two communications. The foreign secretary and the prime minister have been informed of our general location. Extreme caution must be exercised. Evacuation procedures will be implemented. Send the enclosed information using the usual methods, then destroy this note. No further meetings shall occur and no further dispatches will be conveyed until said evacuation procedures are complete. At such time as the evacuation plans are established, you will be contacted for final instructions.
Our plans must be abandoned, but hope remains.
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, ou la Mort!
Chapter 14
“AH, MY LOVELY! Come to have a little fun with Jack?” The publican sent Grace a playful wink as she stepped up to the counter at the Jolly Smuggler and took a seat on a tall stool.
“Why, Jack Blackbourn, what would your wife say?” She leaned her elbows on the counter.
He looked the same as ever. Tufts of hair sprang from his temples while the back was neatly queued. An apron covered his belly and he’d rolled up his shirtsleeves. “She’d say I have good taste in women, as I managed to snare her.”
Grace laughed. “A glass of wine, please. Then I have a few questions for you.”
“I have your favorite French wine, as promised on your last visit.” He disappeared through a doorway behind the bar and reappeared a few moments later holding a glass of deep ruby liquid. “You know I only stock it for you, my lovely. Else why would Miss Gracie come to the Jolly Smuggler?”
“I’d come by to see my favorite publican, wouldn’t I? I wouldn’t be able to stay away.” Grace placed a few coins on the counter.
“That’s what Jack likes to hear.” Jack scooped up the coins and replaced them with the glass. “Now, I can tell by the shadows in your pretty eyes that your questions are serious.”
“They are.” Grace sipped at the wine and let the strong, sweet flavor roll around her tongue before she swallowed. She lowered her voice. “Nothing else has been discovered in the quarries, has it?”
“The men haven’t come to me with any new documents.” He propped an arm on the polished wood top and leaned forward conversationally. “But I did have an interesting visitor. A man ordered a drink at my bar a few days ago, and while he was enjoying his pint he inquired about any fishermen willing to carry a few dubious items across the Channel, no questions asked.”
“Who was it?” She scooted forward on her stool.
“Now that I don’t have an answer to. He was tall and young. His hair was covered by a cap, so I don’t know the color, but his eyes were blue. He was dressed as a laborer, but that doesn’t mean he was.”
“It could be anyone,” Grace mused, toying with stem of her glass.
“It could.”
“But it wouldn’t be one of the locals, or you’d have instantly recognized him.” She relaxed. Not one of her men, then. Nor one of the neighboring gentry.
“Well, now, I know a few things about disguises, my lovely, given my former line of work.” He grinned. “It doesn’t take as much work as you’d think to create a disguise. The problem is the eyes. You can’t change the eyes.”
“True,” she agreed, thinking of the sharp light in the Earl of Langford’s summer sky eyes. “You can’t change the eyes.”
“Our visitor will be back in a week for answer. But an answer bears thinking about, doesn’t it?”
She tapped a finger on her glass while she mulled it over. “Could you tell him you’re willing to courier whatever the items are? We would be able to catch him in the act, so to speak.”
“I could, indeed, my lovely.”
“Good. Let me know when the man comes back.”
/> A voice rose above the general din. Grace turned and saw that its owner stood in the middle of the room, his hand on his heart and his tankard raised in the air as though making a toast. Drink slurred the off-key tenor.
Married beauties may yield to a stranger,
My rib need not fear such disgrace;
Her virtue is never in danger,
The moment you look at her face!
The other patrons roared with laughter as the song ended. The singer took a swig of his ale and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
Grace snorted. “For heaven’s sake, that’s John the blacksmith. He’s not been married even six months.” She cocked her head. “His poor wife. He sounds completely foxed.”
John raised his hand and waved at her. “Lookit! It’s Miss Gracie. Hullo!” He staggered to the bar and used the counter to prop himself up.
“Hullo, John!” She put a steadying hand on his shoulder. His eyes were bloodshot and his cheeks were ruddy, but he seemed cheerful enough. “How’s your new young wife?”
John’s face split into a wide grin. “Perfect, Miss Gracie. Pretty as a summer day and fair worships me. Don’t know why I waited so long to pick me a girl.”
“There now, I told you there was nothing to worry about.”
“I was holding out for you, Miss Gracie,” he answered with a wink.
“And I told you I’d marry you in June. But June came and went, and you didn’t come courting and broke my poor spinster’s heart.”
“Oh, now, Miss Gracie—” he protested.
“And a spinster I’m happy to be.” She laughed.
John raised his tankard and frowned into it, then looked down the bar. “Jack, a drink, please. Mine’s empty and so is Miss Gracie’s.”
Jack took the tankard and set it aside. Easily, he said, “Why don’t you head home for the night. You’ve got yourself a pretty young bride waiting for you.”
John perked up. “That I do.”
“Though she’ll likely skin you alive when you turn up foxed.” Grace grinned as John spun haphazardly around.
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