Nell moaned. After some time, the maid returned with a message from Mrs. Adams that she would arrive as soon as possible.
“Mrs. Hawthorn’s personal maid has just arrived back from her day off, too,” she said, hesitating. “She’ll be here as soon as she has changed into her uniform.”
When the woman arrived with an alarmed expression on her face, he ordered Nell to be made comfortable.
The maid entered Nell’s room, and Charlotte came out. “Do you think she is nearing the finish?”
Vainly hoping to see the midwife sprint up the passage, he said, “I doubt it. She’s not making half enough noise.”
Charlotte smiled wearily. “She wouldn’t, no matter how much it hurts. She’s incredibly brave. Could you come inside with me now?”
“Tony would have my head if I did.”
“Will he come in, Charlotte?” called a voice from the depths.
“He thinks Tony wouldn’t approve.”
“Tony is a pragmatist,” Nell called. “He knows the end justifies the means. I think the baby’s almost here. I’d be happier with an adviser. I’ve had the urge to push during the last few contractions, and I’m about to give in to it.”
With reluctance, Nick moved into the room. Nell lay on her side covered from toes to shoulders with a sheet. She smiled, though she looked strained and blotchy. The maid was bathing her face.
“I expect if you want to push, you ought to. Whatever is natural can’t be wrong.”
Charlotte glanced at Nick and nodded in agreement. He noted her worried expression before she turned back to Nell. After two deep breaths, Nell closed her mouth and made a mighty effort. Nick could see every vein on her neck. He suppressed his urge to find a bottle of brandy. Charlotte would collapse if he left, and Nell would die alone.
Brave Nell. She deserved better than him watching her breathe her last. She reached out to him. He took her hand in his. As she stared into his eyes, her earnest gaze held him.
“The pain is worth the prize, Nick,” she said, squeezing his hand as the next contraction overcame her.
“What’s all this then, Mrs. Hawthorn? Can’t you wait till I get here?” A very loud voice came from a surprisingly small woman. “This should be my easiest job today. You’ve almost finished. Now, roll onto your back and hold on to your ankles when you get your next pain, and give an almighty heave. You there, hold her head up for her. Can’t you see she’s tired?”
The note of authority in the woman’s voice rallied Nick. Reprimanded and on edge, he sat behind Nell to support her head and shoulders as ordered. The small, noisy woman piled more newspapers under a sheet beneath Nell. “I’ll want water to wash my hands.”
Charlotte nodded at the maid who left. Nick stayed, sick with apprehension.
The woman aimed a piercing glance at Nick, indicating Charlotte. “Tell that girl there if she faints, she’ll have to stay where she is. I’ve no time to be stepping over people.”
“I think she heard you,” he said, finding a husky murmur.
As pale as paper, Charlotte nodded and breathed deeply. When the next contraction came, Charlotte murmured encouragement to Nell. The midwife started to busy herself. Nick closed his eyes. He concentrated on Nell’s pain, not his, knowing he’d lost all emotion. He stayed, too tense to move.
“Here’s what we want,” said the midwife finally.
A brief cry spluttered and stopped. His chest a lead weight, Nick stared at the tiny blue form held by the midwife. Unwilling to hope, he watched the blood-streaked creature begin to struggle, slipping around in her grip. Each breath transformed the dead blue skin into a live pink and, finally, a healthy red.
When the dawning realization hit him that this child lived, he eked out a long sigh. Nell struggled to sit, but her tired body refused to obey her will. Nick lifted her, his reactions automatic, and the length of his smile making his face ache.
“What is it?” Nell asked, clutching at his hand.
“A baby,” Charlotte replied in a droll voice.
Both Nell and Nick laughed, Nell in delight and Nick with sheer release as the midwife cut the cord and put the baby into Nell’s arms.
“A great, big, black-headed boy,” Nell said, nuzzling her face into the bloody bundle.
“Big?” Nick murmured. “Surely he’s small.”
“Bless you, Mr. Hawthorn. He’d be a nine pounder at least.”
“Mr. Alden,” Nick said. “I’m Nick Alden and this is my wife, Charlotte.”
“What are you doing in here then?” The midwife pressed her fists on her hips, her eyes wide with outrage. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Calling in your friends to help you have a baby! Out you go.”
“Come to see me tomorrow,” Nell said, counting the baby’s fingers and toes as Nick and Charlotte fled the room.
“Next week,” said the midwife.
Chapter 13
Outside, her hat looped by the ribbons over her arm, Charlotte leaned against the Hawthorn’s front door. A gas lamp lit the semicircular front drive.
“I can’t believe I’m so tired.” She took Nick’s arm into her hands and rested her forehead against his shoulder. The birthing had been exhilarating and somewhat frightening, but Nick had shown that she could rely on him, which had been a hope rather than an expectation when she sent for him. “I don’t know what I would have done without your support.”
“You would have managed. You’re tougher than you think. I sent for the brougham.” He indicated the burgundy and gold conveyance held steady by Harvey who showed only a careful profile. “I’ll leave you to take yourself home. I have some unfinished business to attend.”
She smiled. “Let your business wait. We should be celebrating tonight. It’s not too often you have a chance to attend the birth of a baby.”
His mouth tilted wryly. “Be that as it may, I shouldn’t have been there. Nell is another man’s wife.”
She took a deep breath. “And yet you have been with another man’s wife at a birth before.”
He reared back, his face hard.
“I’m not absolutely sure I chose the right place for this.” She indicated Harvey, who still hadn’t turned his head. “Would it suffice to say that I know about Clara?”
He opened the brougham’s door, waited for her to enter, and followed. The vehicle moved off as the door clicked. “And what do you think you know?” His voice sounded icy, and he folded his arms, his expression masked by the hooded interior.
“No more than anyone else.” She glanced out the window. Only one or two vehicles traveled along the dark streets. “You’re not the sort of man I thought I married, one who prefers male company.” She repositioned her hat in her lap. “You were carnally involved with a married woman, that is, another man’s wife, and she had your baby who died.” She waited, her spine tense.
“It was only a matter of time before you discovered that.” He massaged his forehead. “And so, now you know why I won’t go through fatherhood again.”
She faced him, not unsympathetic. “I wouldn’t have hoped you might help me with Nell if I hadn’t known you’d had the courage to stay with Clara.”
“Courage? I had no choice,” he said in a voice of disgust. “We were hardly the respectable couple. I couldn’t afford a doctor, and I had no faith in the midwife—she kept shaking her head every time she felt the baby, and I thought she didn’t want to help. No matter. It’s done and gone and buried, literally. Fortunately, tonight’s outcome was very different.”
She put her hand on his knee. “Because of you. You gave us both confidence.”
His laugh sounded like a mixture of surprise and outrage. “You both?” He shook his head. “If I had known you knew the truth, I could suspect a conspiracy—some sort of attempt to show me that my ever-present fears were groundless.”
She considered. “You either hold women in too low esteem or perhaps too high. I hadn’t thought of trying to influence
you.” Yet, she remembered Nell saying Charlotte had been clever to have asked Nick to help. Perhaps Nell had a plan. If so, she had been very generous and given Charlotte a great opportunity, which she must not waste. She inhaled a breath. “I was scared. I didn’t know what would happen, and of course my first thought was that Nell might die.”
He took her hand and turned over her gloved palm. “Yet you didn’t leave her or stop supporting her for one moment despite your qualms and your lack of experience. I would call that courage.”
“Or merely stupidly hopeful.”
The hackney passed under a light, and Nick turned to examine her face. He didn’t seem to be admiring her but simply trying to read her. Her breath stopped. For the first time, a man was trying to see through her façade.
“Not stupid,” he said. “No, not stupid.”
She thought he might kiss her, but instead he put her hand back in her lap and stared straight ahead.
“Nell is the real heroine.” She wound her hat ribbons around her wrist. “I can’t imagine how she went through that pain for that length of time, and I can’t imagine managing with such dignity myself.”
“Ah, my rambling rose. But you won’t have to go through childbirth.” He stretched out his legs, back to his usual mocking self.
“So you said.” Testing herself, or him, she leaned her head against his broad shoulder.
He re-crossed his ankles, his hand again moving to hers and picking up two fingers idly. “Nell’s baby can’t be nine pounds. Clara’s was that size, and he came two months before his time. The midwife must have made a mistake.”
“She sees newborns every day.” Charlotte entwined her fingers with his, trying to keep her breaths even. “It’s easy to forget how babies look, newly born.”
“Perhaps.”
“Couldn’t your unfinished business wait until tomorrow?” Her chest tight, she turned into him, slowly sliding her palm across his upper thigh. “I might want to seduce you tonight.”
His hand clamped over hers. “So, I should let you have your wicked way?” He sounded cynically amused. “That would be an interesting experience.”
“I expect so. You like me touching you.”
“I like anyone touching me.”
She put her hand between his legs and found he was hard. For her. “My. So you do.” Ignoring the thundering of her heart, she measured her palm along his shape, but again he stayed her hand.
“Don’t encourage me. We won’t be coupling tonight.”
“Because you don’t want a baby?”
“My father has a saying—you must pay for the goods you spoil. I don’t need to take an unnecessary risk.”
Ignoring the second part of his statement, she said, “But I need to have my wicked way. Let me, Nick. I like touching you, and you like being touched. You like touching me and—why can’t we please each other? Surely every coupling doesn’t produce a baby?”
He rubbed his chin on her hair. She listened to the steady tap of the horse’s hooves and the jingle of the tack. On either side, lit houses stood silhouetted against the silvery sky. The silence expanded, and the brougham turned through the stone gateway of Alden House. The graveled driveway crunched under the wheels.
“There are ways and means of preventing pregnancies,” he said, finally.
“Well, then,” she said with faked confidence. “That’s settled.”
The brougham stopped with a jolt. As if reprieved, he straightened, opened the door, and sprang out to await her.
She took the narrow steps and landed on her feet and against the flat of his chest. “Kiss me,” she said, offering her lips, determined not to let him evade her this time.
“One moment.” He signaled Harvey to drive on.
She held him around the waist with both arms, even now scared that he might decide to complete his unfinished business.
When the brougham reached the carriage house, he placed a kiss on her lips, one she easily prolonged by sliding her hands to the back of his neck and tickling her tongue across his mouth. She heard his breathing speed up, and she tingled with her success.
“And now, wife, to bed,” he said into her neck.
Over his shoulder, she saw Harvey stroll from the carriage house, glance at them, and stop. The man slid his hand into his pocket and lifted out an envelope which he mimed he would like to give to Nick. Charlotte shook her head.
“What?” Nick said to her.
“Harvey is behind you.”
“It would be wiser for him to stay there. I don’t want to see his face again tonight, which he knows.” With that, he changed his hold on her and hurried her into the house.
She clung to his arm, determined to bed him this time. If, after doing no more than insisting on her wicked way she became a real wife, then she would never regret being herself.
After reaching their night-lit rooms, he guided her into his bedroom and settled her onto his down-filled coverlet. A bottle and a glass sat on a tray with his bedside lamp. He hesitated for a moment before he began to undress. The light flickered over his smooth skin. From behind, his back was muscle-corded.
He stepped out of his rough working trousers, baring his tight buttocks and long, muscled legs. Fighting the unprecedented lack of coordination in her body, she swiped off her shoes. She’d wanted this, he had granted her wish, but the man was large, experienced, and quick to reject her when she annoyed him. Her hands trembled.
After stacking his clothes onto his bedroom chair, he faced her. Her eyes focused between his legs and stayed there. His naked part was much larger than she thought.
With a glinting questioning smile, he inclined his head. “Need help?” He sat on the bed beside her. Kissing her neck, he unbuttoned her gown, unhooked her corset, and eased her bodice past her shoulders.
Where his lips touched, her skin burned. Collecting her shaky limbs and faking self-possession, she slid off the bed and let her corset, gown, and petticoats drop. She peeled off her stockings. Wishing for half his confidence, she wriggled out of her under-drawers and her chemise.
Desire hazed his eyes, and he held out his hand to her, his gaze sweeping her body. “You are amazingly beautiful,” he said in a thick voice. He pulled her onto the bed, encircling her arm around his neck. “But you know that.”
He didn’t require an answer, and although he was also amazingly beautiful, she knew that was the least of all attributes. In her nervousness, she clung to him like a vine. Fortunately, this disguised the tremors in her exposed skin.
“I’ve never been with a virgin,” he said, his voice reverent. “I’ll be as gentle as I can.” A careful hand caressed her shoulders, and where he touched, she dissolved. His lips teased across hers.
He set the pace with gentle kisses, and when she had almost forgotten she lay naked in his arms, he lifted her onto the center of the bed. While flattening her palm on his smooth warm chest, he brushed his lips over hers, rolled, and she lay atop his perfect body. His protrusion pressed against her belly. As she prayed he wouldn’t move, he rocked, settling his male part between her thighs. She found she could concentrate on nothing else.
He smiled. Disarmed, she smiled back and tried to appear as unconcerned as he. Taking heart from the easy expression in his eyes, she leaned down and took his bottom lip between hers. His hand covered her breast, and he groaned into her mouth.
Her belly contracted with pleasure, and she moved her hand between them. He hardened even more under her fingers and glided back and forth in her palm, devouring her mouth, demonstrating his approval of her avid grip. Back arched, she lifted, realizing her body needed no instruction to guide him. As she eased her hips to take him into her, he tensed.
“Not yet.” He rolled. “I can’t have you unless I’m wearing a French letter, our protection against pregnancy.” Raising his head, he reached to the cupboard beside his bed and removed a white box.
He took out a flexible object and, without
a flicker of embarrassment, stretched the casing over his male part. Although interested, she pressed her hands on her cheeks to cool her sudden blush.
Steadying her voice, she said, “You always meant this to happen. And you let me beg you.”
He gave her a strange look. “Because I have protection available? You can’t assume that. I was a single man for many years. Don’t worry about this,” he said, watching her expression. “You won’t notice a thing. Touch me, sweetheart. You can’t tell, can you?”
“No. You’re still there, beneath.”
“Ah, that’s good.” He leaned down and kissed her belly, and she quaked involuntarily.
Twisting a smile across his mouth, he said, “I have the idea that we’ll have to start again. That’s the curse of these things. They break the mood. You’ll have to get used to me using protection. It’s the only way we can be together.”
“So we will be together another time?”
His gaze caught and held hers. “That depends on many factors, not the least of which would be your feelings in the matter.” He took her mouth lightly, and she slid her arms around his neck and began kissing him again. He reciprocated with enthusiasm, caressing her and murmuring enticing words. Need built inside her. When he teased his hand between her legs, he again made her jolt with excitement. She threshed her head from side to side, and when he caught her mouth with his, her passion culminated. She seemed to explode in wave after wave of intense pleasure.
Carefully lifting his body over hers, he guided his male part into her. She eased the slight discomfort by settling her calves on his buttocks. He murmured encouragement, and she lifted to take him. Without warning, a scream of pain burst through her throat.
Charlotte Page 14