by Jenny Lykins
“Faith and Samuel married yesterday,” Molly announced. “He said he would return to thank you properly for your care and hospitality.”
That insecure little part of Shaelyn couldn’t help but study Alec’s face for any sign of regret. He slid her hand into his and gave her a smile loaded with love...and a devilish little smirk.
“Thoughtful of them not to interrupt us.”
Molly chattered on, guiding them onto the back terrace as if they were visitors, insisting they stay for the noon meal. As they finished their dessert, Alec told Molly they would be moving back into the house that night.
“Hmm,” Molly said. “Do you suppose we can keep the news of your marriage…or, rather your…well…your marriage…from Father? I fear he’ll see no point in my chaperoning you then. Indeed, he’ll most likely find a way to blame me for your…well…your…”
“You have made your point, pest. And as much as I would like a reprieve from Father as well, I see no way to - ”
The slam of the front door and the roar of “Alec!” bouncing through the house killed any hope they had of even one more day of peaceful bliss. The cliché, “Speak of the devil,” crossed Shaelyn’s mind.
Margaret, who had been collecting dessert plates, snatched the last of the china and literally ran toward the kitchen. Martin appeared at the French doors.
“Sir, I believe your father has - ”
William Hawthorne shoved the butler out of his way and stormed onto the terrace. Jane Hawthorne appeared behind her husband, doing her bothersome gnat impersonation.
“What the devil have you done, boy?” he demanded with all the quiet of a sonic boom. If there had been any china left on the table, Shaelyn was sure it would have rattled.
Alec tossed his napkin on the table and leaned back into his chair.
“I have done quite a few things of late, Father. Would you care to be more specific?”
The man sputtered, his face turned from brick red to an alarming purple, then, if possible, he bellowed even louder.
“You have let Faith Almany’s fortune slip between your fingers! No doubt for this little nobody who tricked you into marriage!”
Alec shot out of his seat so fast the chair tumbled across the terrace. He towered over his father, clenching his fists.
“My wife is not a nobody,” he said, his voice low and barely controlled, “and she never has been. There are no ‘nobodies’ in this world, Father, except for small-minded, bad-tempered, greedy men like you.”
Jane squeaked.
“I have spent thirty years” he went on, “honoring my father, bowing to your unreasonable demands in a misguided sense of duty. But I will bow no more.
“I told you, it was I who tricked Shaelyn into marriage, not the other way around. And now I thank God I did. I would not have married Faith. Especially not for her fortune. Saint’s blood, Father, how much money does one man need?”
William quivered with rage as Jane fell into a chair, fanning herself.
Shaelyn vacillated between wanting to crawl into a hole and wanting to throw herself into Alec’s arms.
“You will treat my wife with the respect she deserves”, Alec continued, “or you will not be welcome in our home.”
William stood there, his face changing a rainbow of hues. Shaelyn wouldn’t have been surprised if the man keeled over from a heart attack or stroke. She wondered if she could stomach giving him mouth to mouth if he did.
He quivered, speechless with rage. He turned his gaze on Shaelyn, a gaze so full of loathing she unconsciously shrank back in her chair. Before she had a chance to stiffen her spine and return his look, he wheeled around and stormed back through the French doors.
Jane rose slowly from her seat, all resemblances to a flapping goose gone. She looked at Alec, then Molly, then Shaelyn, tears glistening in eyes that must have once been alive with life.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered, then ducked her head and hurried after her husband.
The only sound that broke the silence was Alec’s muttered curse.
“Damn him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Weeks went by; heavenly weeks marred only by that one encounter with Alec’s father. His look of pure hatred haunted Shaelyn for days, but unpleasant thoughts couldn’t last long under the onslaught of Alec’s love.
Alec seemed actually relieved after the confrontation, as if he’d known the meeting was coming for years, and he was glad to get it over with.
Molly, of course, was summoned home, but she managed to circumvent her father’s wrath and come for regular visits. No doubt the carefree girl had no compunctions about lying through her teeth in order to visit her beloved brother. Even Jane braved any consequences from her husband and showed up a few times, showing a hint of backbone and apologizing for William’s behavior.
Faith and Samuel visited several times before going back to New York. Samuel was man enough to admit he’d been wrong about Shaelyn’s journalistic endeavors and asked her to write several articles for his paper. Not until she’d settled down at the desk in the bedroom to write the first in a series on the political issue of slavery did she realize how sorely she missed her laptop, her word processing program, her online research. And what she wouldn’t give for her spell-checker.
Times like these were when thoughts of her parents haunted her. She missed the twentieth century and all the wonderful conveniences, but she would gladly live without the luxuries in exchange for Alec. But even her blinding love for her husband couldn’t keep her from missing her parents. From worrying about them. From wishing they could see their grandchild.
As if the thought stirred the nausea, Shaelyn threw down the quill pen and made a dash for the closest receptacle. She made it to the porcelain bowl on the washstand just in time.
No doubt about it. There was going to be a grandchild. She didn’t need a pregnancy test to confirm what she’d suspected for the past couple of weeks.
Considering she’d never thrown up in her life, and now she had a record going of twelve days in a row of tossing her cookies, she felt pretty confident that her diagnosis was correct.
A baby. A little piece of Alec. The thought thrilled her, yet saddened her, knowing her parents would never see this child.
For the first time since before the voyage with Alec, she unconsciously twisted the ring on her finger.
She froze when it slipped onto her knuckle.
Her head spun, whether from shock or from the effect of the ring on her knuckle, she didn’t know. She shoved it back into place, willing away the dizziness, fighting to slow her staccato heartbeat.
The ring would come off!
She shook her head, trying to clear her mind. What did this mean? She hadn’t lost weight. The thing would have slipped off her finger as easily as it had slid on. She almost felt as if it had kept her there in the past until she and Alec had fallen in love, and now it gave her the freedom to go home.
What kind of game was Fate playing?
She slowed her breathing and forced herself to calm down. It may have been a fluke. Maybe she imagined it.
She tugged again on the ring, and again her head spun as the ring eased onto her knuckle.
This couldn’t be happening. She almost wished it would have kept her trapped there, with no decision to make; no being torn between two worlds.
There had to be a reason it had kept her in the past, and there had to be a reason it freed her to go home. Perhaps, as she’d thought before, she could remove the ring and go home to see her parents, and then put it back on and return to Alec.
Her head throbbed at her temples. She couldn’t deal with this right now. For all she knew, she could wake tomorrow morning and find the ring back to being tight as a drum. No, she wouldn’t think of this right now. She would wait to see what the future brought and decide how best to deal with it then.
In the meantime, she had something she needed to tell her husband.
*******
Alec rubb
ed his aching temples, massaged his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. Every time he worked at the shipping offices, he remembered why he preferred to work at home. But some things could only be done in town, so he’d been forced to spend the day at Hawthorne Shipping.
Bumping into his father.
He made one last entry into the books, stoppered the ink, and shoved away from the desk. What he needed to remove this throbbing headache was a healthy dose of Shaelyn.
His secretary, Ezra Cartwright, leapt to his feet when Alec left his office.
“Take those books for you, sir?”
Alec handed over the ledgers. “Check my figures, Ezra. I would not swear they are accurate. I’ve been fending off a headache all day.”
“So I’ve noticed, sir. He just went into his office.”
Alec’s bark of laughter relieved some of the pain in his temples, but Ezra flushed to a brilliant red when he realized what he’d said.
“Oh, sir! I didn’t mean to imply - ”
“Oh, no, Cartwright. You were correct the first time.” He slapped his blushing secretary on the back and strode from the room, his mood improved already.
The simple act of putting distance between him and his father loosened the knotted muscles in his shoulders and neck. The closer he got to Windward and Shaelyn, the more his spirits lifted.
Before he reined Irish to a stop, the front door burst open and Shaelyn flew into his arms the moment he dismounted. The feel of her arms around him, the scent of her hair as he nuzzled the top of her head, wiped away the last vestiges of his day-long headache. She gave him a kiss that threatened to melt his knees, then smiled up at him with mischief.
“Welcome home,” she purred.
He bent his head and dotted kisses on her face.
“With a welcome home like this, I might be inspired to work in town more often.”
“Oh, no you don’t, bubba.” She took his hand and dragged him into the house. “I like our arrangement just the way it is.”
She had ordered dinner to be served in their rooms, and after a hot bath, in which she tormented him by helping him bathe, they settled down to feed each other their meal.
He smiled at this woman and thanked God yet again that He had delivered her to him. Where she came from didn’t matter. Where she stayed meant the world.
After she fed him the last bite from her plate, she took him by both hands and pulled him toward the bed.
“Care for dessert?”
Her words erupted a dizzying tidal wave of want. He didn’t need to answer her. She already worked at the buttons on his shirt, and he returned the favor by freeing the laces of her gown.
She shoved him onto the bed and pushed him to his back. He lay there, playing along with her little game, letting her have her way with him until he thought she would drive him mad. When he could stand no more, he rolled atop her and paid her back for her mischief until they both lay exhausted, satiated, euphoric, wrapped in each others arms.
He tucked his chin and looked down at her.
“What is that misty look for?” he asked, his lips against her temple.
She sighed and cuddled closer. Alec thought she could curl right into his heart.
“I was just wondering what we’ll name him.”
“Name who?” He rubbed his cheek against the top of her head and wondered if she was too tired to…
He jerked his head back and stared down at her. She gave him an angelic little smile.
The unspoken words slammed into his brain, then rattled around in there like echoes off a seacliff wall. A baby? A baby!
A thousand emotions raced through him. Shock. Joy. Stark terror. Fear for Shaelyn.
Was he equal to the task of being a father? Would he crush the spirit from his children as his father had tried to do? Would Shaelyn have the problems Griffin’s wife had had?
A baby!
His head swam with visions of Shaelyn, swollen with his child, of her straining to push it into the world, of him holding the tiny evidence of their love. Riding him on his shoulders. Buying him a pony. Taking him fishing. Teaching him how to be a man.
His heart swelled and rose in his throat. He thought he would burst from the love for this woman. He wrapped her in his arms, tried to pull her right into his very being.
“I love you,” he whispered against her hair, too choked with emotion to utter more.
“And I love you,” she whispered back, and then added, “Daddy.”
His heart did a joyful somersault as he lowered his lips to hers.
*******
Shaelyn hugged the chamber pot, laid her head against the cool porcelain, and wondered why in the world anyone would get pregnant a second time, knowing what they went through with the first.
Another wave of nausea hit her, but there was nothing left on her stomach. When she thought the worst was finally over, she stood on shaky legs and rinsed her mouth, brushed her teeth with their nasty tooth powder, rinsed again, then staggered to the bed for her third nap of the morning.
When Alec walked in, she almost groaned. Her morning sickness scared him to death. She couldn’t convince him that it was completely normal. But he’d been so cute. A regular little mother hen. He wouldn’t let her lift anything heavier than a sheet of paper and her ink pen. He nearly hand fed her when he didn’t think she’d eaten enough, even though she’d remind him that the bulk of the food would end up in the chamber pot. When he started making noises about moving their bedchamber into one of the downstairs parlors so she wouldn’t have to climb the stairs, she’d put her foot down, reassuring him that the morning sickness should be over in a couple of months, and pointing out that if she didn’t get enough exercise, she’d soon look like a beached whale.
“You’ve been sick again,” he stated with his astute diagnosis of the obvious. Shaelyn just groaned at him and rolled over.
“You did this to me,” she moaned, trying to keep her face straight and the smile off her lips. Just having him this close put ideas into her head, now that she felt better.
He looked miserable when he sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed back her hair.
She smiled up at him. “Would you do it to me again?”
His look of misery turned into a playful glare.
“You are incorrigible.”
She let her hands wander freely along the firm peaks and valleys of his body as she looked up at him through her lashes. “Did you say incorrigible, or encourageable?”
The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she found herself flat on her back.
“Never let it be said,” he growled in her ear,” that I passed up a chance to encourage you.”
A solid knock on the bedroom door had them cursing in unison.
Shaelyn repaired what little damage he’d had time to do to her gown, while Alec stomped to the door, muttering under his breath.
“What?” he barked as he yanked open the door.
Martin stood on the other side, his impassive face flaming.
“I am sorry to disturb you, sir, but a messenger came with this.” He handed Alec an envelope. “He said he’s not to leave until you’ve read it.”
Alec ripped the paper open and scanned the contents.
“Tell him I’ll leave before dawn. Send word to the Zephyr to prepare to set sail.”
While Martin left to deliver the message, Shaelyn scrambled off the bed.
“Who’s it from?”
Alec handed her the note. “It’s from Griffin, Shae.”
Her stomach did a little flip at this shortened use of her name. He didn’t use it often, and she loved to hear him say it. She ignored the urge to drag him back to the bed.
The note simply said Griffin needed Alec’s help, and to come in his fastest ship.
“Well, that’s rather cryptic. When do we leave?”
Alec took her face in his hands and kissed her once. “Not we. Just me.”
This time her stomach flipped from alarm.
“What do you mean, just you? You can’t take off on a trip to Louisiana without me! In this day and age it would probably take a month!”
She watched his jaw clench at her vague inference that she knew another time besides this one. He still wouldn’t accept her story. She jerked away from his hands and glared at him.
“Shaelyn, whatever the reason, Griffin’s need is urgent, and probably dangerous. We shall be traveling with all haste, and I have no idea what to expect along the way. And you’re with child! I’ll not let you take a chance with your health.”
She narrowed her eyes and dug in her heels. There was no way he was getting out of here without her.
“Pregnancy is not a disease, Alec.”
He sighed and pulled her onto his lap when he sat down.
“Shaelyn, I have to go. Griffin would not send a message like that if it were not urgent. But please do not ask me to be distracted by worry for you from what needs to be done. If it weren’t for the baby, I would carry you onboard myself. But you’ve been so ill every day. I cannot imagine that a sea voyage in hurricane season would be conducive to your health.”
He looked so miserable, so torn, that Shaelyn knew she couldn’t ask him to take her. He was already beside himself with worry, having only Griffin’s stories of his wife’s miscarriages as a basis of knowledge. Every time she so much as sneezed, Alec wanted to fluff pillows around her and build her a little nest.
“Oh, all right,” she sighed. He gave her a little boy smile that melted her heart. Would this baby wrap her around its little finger as its father had done?
He gave her a long, slow kiss, then scooped her up and carried her to the bed. He untied her lacing, unfastened a couple of his buttons, then hovered over her, his lips against her neck.
“Now. Where were we?”
*******
Shaelyn stood on the dock blinking back tears, her stomach twisting in knots, her heart in her throat as the men loaded Alec’s trunks onto the ship.