by Fiona Faris
Mrs. Campbell’s niece, Maisie, lifted her voice in song; it sounded eerie and beautiful and suited the atmosphere perfectly. The wailing lament for love lost and gained was accompanied by an accordion played by one of the stable boys.
Georgiana let her father walk her down the aisle, her face glowing with happiness. Something that had been tight in Ethan’s chest loosened as he watched her walk towards him. He had been expecting something to happen that would stop the wedding.
The parson touched his arm briefly in comfort, and Ethan flicked him a glance of acknowledgment. He could feel Fergus behind him, warm and solid like a bulwark. He allowed himself to relax.
The duke was handing him Georgiana’s hand, and he took it between his own, feeling it so soft and delicate yet firm and steadfast. His hand trembled, but hers was steady, and she squeezed hard, a smile of understanding lighting her face.
“Dear friends, we are gathered here today…”
Ethan barely heard what the parson said, he was too busy drowning in Georgiana’s eyes. A single tear rolled down her face, and he reached out to wipe it away, a tender smile on his face.
“Are ye alrigh’?” he whispered.
The parson stopped speaking to gaze expectantly at them, and Georgiana giggled as she nodded. “Continue,” she whispered and then pouted at Ethan to make him keep quiet. That made him smile, as the last of his tension fell away.
Epilogue
As Georgiana approached the end of her pregnancy, she had started to get a bit anxious about giving birth. Having been excited about it for so long, she still decided that it couldn’t hurt to be prepared.
So she spoke to everyone she could, writing to her mother, having long conversations with Mrs. Campbell even drawing on whatever Misty could tell her of the birthing rooms she’d seen. She spent long hours interrogating the doctor on what to expect.
Ethan tried to calm her down, but she ignored him. However, when her contractions started, she barely noticed them. Georgiana rubbed her hands over her round stomach, assuming that what she was feeling was just the usual cramps she’d been getting off and on. Her baby has been active lately, and she had been having plenty of aches and pains from it, too.
It was after dinner that her labor intensified, and she urged Ethan to fetch the doctor.
“The baby’s coming!” she cried as she waddled to her prepared birthing chamber. She screamed at Misty to get the hot water as she lay down on the bed. Her water breaking caught them by surprise in spite of all her expectations. She panted as the doctor fussed around, putting her legs up on a pair of stirrups while Misty modestly arranged her birthing gown to cover her.
Her labor progressed quickly, and Misty was very good at distracting Georgiana from her increasingly long and close contractions by passing on news of Ethan pacing the corridor. The pressure on her pelvis was unbearable.
Finally, Georgiana felt like she was making progress… could feel the head crowning, and she reached her hand down between contractions to touch her baby’s head. The doctor asked her to bear down, and before she knew it, there was a wailing sound as the baby was born. Misty stepped forward, quickly gathering her child from the doctor’s arms and placing it in Georgiana’s. She brought the tiny, messy body in close to hers and breathed a sigh of relief that her baby was fine.
* * *
The doctor finally came out of the birthing chamber to talk to Ethan, who heaved a massive sigh of relief, brushing at the tears on his face.
“Doctor, how is she? Is she alrigh’? She screamed sae loud.”
The doctor smiled indulgently. “I do assure ye, that is quite normal. Yer wife is fine…and so is yer daughter.”
“My…” Ethan’s mouth worked, but he could not form words. “C-can I..” he pointed inarticulately at the door. The doctor’s smile widened into a grin. “Please, go ahead.”
Ethan burst into the room where his wife lay exhausted, cradling their little bundle of joy in her arms.
“Oh…” Ethan said, tears rolling down his face as he leaned against the door. He did not think his legs could support him.
Georgiana looked up at him and smiled with her entire face. “Hello there…Da.”
Extended Epilogue
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Afterword
Thank you for reading my novel, Highlander’s Sinister Deception. I really hope you enjoyed it! If you did, could you please be so kind to write a review HERE?
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Do you want more Romance?
Turn on the next page to read the first chapters of my latest best-selling novel: Highlander’s Mysterious Lady
This is the story of a woman who lost everything, and a Highlander who was haunted by lives lost on his watch…
* * *
Highlander’s Mysterious Lady
Chapter One
October 13th, North Yorkshire, England, 1890
Beatrice Margaret Smythe, Duchess of Marlow and widow of James Bartholomew Brown, the late Duke of Marlow, was sitting in her morning room, re-reading one of her favorite novels, when she heard the sound.
Chirping. An infernal chirping that, on a spring day in May when the sun was shining and all was well with the world, would be more than welcome—even rejoiced over. But at the current moment—when the clouds in the sky spoke of imminent rain and the trees were bare of their leaves, reminding the world that October was nearing its middle and winter would soon be upon them—the chirps were the very opposite. These happy sounds had no place in Beatrice’s melancholy life; not now, and (she suspected) not ever again. Not for her the sound of two birds merrily hopping about their nest.
Perhaps one bird crying out for its partner would be more suited to my situation, she thought morosely. She slammed her book shut and stood up from her chair.
Walking towards the window, she looked at their little forms hopping around their nest, balanced precariously on the windowsill.
It was dark enough outside that Beatrice could see a glimpse of her own reflection in the glass. Her black curls were set in a complicated twist, with rows of ringlets stacked back from her forehead. In the fashion of the time, her gown left her collarbones and neck bare, exposing her shockingly white skin, accentuated by the deep blue silk of her gown.
Beatrice noticed as she turned this way and that, looking at herself, that the silk elbow-length sleeves of her gown were loose. It was one of her older dresses, made just before James died. Back then, the sleeves had been fetchingly tight, showing off the curved shape of her arms. Now, however, they hung off her body in a way that would feed the gossip hounds.
I’ve lost weight, she realized with apathy. In the past, this would have worried her, but now, with no one left to care about her appearance other than herself, it was hardly worth fretting over. It didn’t matter how her gowns looked, how her body looked.
Looking back at the birds, Beatrice noticed they were both looking back at her, their small heads tilted, assessing and finding her wanting.
These birds were taunting her. If the chirping day in and day out wasn’t enough proof, this surely was. They had appeared just over two weeks ago, on the second anniversary of James’ death.
Beatrice had woken up feeling terrible; both because her beloved James was dead and because her walk in the rain the previous day had saddled her with an abysmal head cold. She had been hoping that exercising would boost her spirits, or rather, her maid Sally had supposed so, sending her out with a shawl and instructions not to return for at least an hour.
However, Beatrice had been walking not ten minutes when the previously sunny day with a sky dotted
with only a few clouds rapidly disappeared, replaced by an angry sky full of rain clouds that seemed to burst directly above her, soaking her to the bone in what felt like seconds. Beatrice had walked on, hoping that maybe the rain would wash her misery away, but instead, it had just given her a clogged nose and a headache that was still throbbing at her temples.
When she had returned to the morning room later to lie down, the chirping had started, those joyful little sounds making a mockery of her grief and sorrow on a day when all Beatrice wanted to do was lay down on the floor, curl herself into a ball, and disappear completely.
The birds had settled in the window just outside the morning room, building a nest right next to the glass, like they were trying to get as close to her as possible, to mock her more easily.
Beatrice could have had the nest moved, of course. She had thirty servants, and any one of them would be more than happy to help. She knew they all worried about her. They would jump at the chance to do something to relieve the near-permanent frown that had graced her formerly “cherubic cheeks,” as James had liked to call them, for the past two years.
But Beatrice needed those birds. Needed to watch them frittering about their nest, feeding their chicks and looking lovingly into each other’s tiny, beady eyes. These birds were living the life she had always wanted. They had each other their children and a home. Watching them allowed her to carry out a fantasy of how her life could have been, if only James hadn’t died. If only she hadn’t been deficient…if only her body had been able to do what God and nature intended.
The two of them and their babes, sitting happily in Charleston House with a roaring fire. Laughing, loving. No sadness, no death, no heartache to be seen. This was a fantasy, of course. The life they ought to have had...
After her miscarriages, Beatrice had felt so defeated, so empty.
If I cannot sire an heir, what use do I have? she had often thought after the loss of their second child. Now, she looked back and scorned her past self. Who cared about children? She had James back then. He was enough. Hadn’t she seen that? Why hadn’t she realized how truly blessed she was to have a husband who adored her? Maybe if she had appreciated him more, he would still be here. He wouldn’t be dead; Beatrice wouldn’t be a widow. She would have a purpose, a family.
Now, I have nothing, she thought, looking around the silent room. Just a large house, and no one to share it with except pitying servants.
“Bea, you’re not really starin’ at them birds again, are ya?” a voice called from behind her, and Beatrice turned to find her maid, Sally, giving her a withering look.
Such insolence from a servant would not be tolerated in most of the noble households of England, but Beatrice ran a very different kind of house from most women of her set.
Even before James died, they had both made a point of treating their servants more like family than people who were tasked with waiting on them hand and foot. After all, they were not so very different—for all that one set wore working clothes and the other elegant frocks, overcoats, and cravats.
James had grown up the bastard son of the previous Duke of Marlow. His mother, a former maid in his father’s house, died in childbirth and left James in the care of her neighbors, a butcher and his wife, who were rich in love but poor in fortune.
The butcher and his wife knew of James’ origins, but neither of them expected the Duke to recognize his bastard son. It wasn’t done then or now, nearly thirty years later. James and boys like him were meant to keep to the class of their mothers—which, in James’ case, was very low indeed.
But when Richard Bartholomew, the Duke of Marlow, lost both his legitimate sons on the ship ferrying them back from their Grand Tour of Europe, James’ fate changed. His father sought him out, traveling to the small village outside of York where James was living. It turned out that the duke had no other living relatives whom he could pass the dukedom. He wanted to officially recognize James as his son, and thereby instate him as the next heir.
Practically overnight, James shifted from being a poor butcher’s son to the heir of one of the wealthiest titles in all of Britain. And when his father died a year later, James became the eighth Duke of Marlow.
It was a stark change from his previous life. James was used to cooking his own meals, washing his own clothing. He even knew how to make his own soap from leftover animal tallow. He was, in short, a working man, and though the dukedom gave him more fortune than he could ever dream of, it did not change his essence. James never forgot where he came from, never forgot that only luck separated him from people like his parents, people like his servants.
For her part, Beatrice was part of the nobility from birth, but she had the misfortune to be born the daughter of a man more interested in gambling away his fortune than investing it. By the time she was twenty-two, and meeting James at a bookshop in the middle of Mayfair, her family’s financial situation had grown so dire that she was forced to dismiss all but the cook from the family’s rapidly deteriorating household.
As a result, she rapidly had to adapt to completing many of the tasks that the household servants had formerly done. She learned how to mend dresses, adding small, inexpensive embellishments to them to make old gowns look new. She dusted the house, scrubbed the floors, sold off some of her father’s possessions when they lacked the money even to pay their chandler bills.
While her father deteriorated in wealth and in health, Beatrice learned to be almost totally self-sufficient. Her best friend Helena was her only connection to the outside world, to the nobility of which she was still technically a part. For all that she had been born into a different class, she and James were equals by the time they met at that bookshop while she and Helena were looking for a copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress.
James’ humble nature was part of what made Beatrice fall in love with her husband. He was so different from most of the men of their set. He wasn’t frivolous, didn’t overly concern himself with his appearance. He didn’t waste money at the card tables or on women of the night. He donated as much as he could to charity, made a point of hiring the most destitute and desperate to work in his house, and treated everyone he met—no matter their race, age, or gender—with deference. He treated his title with respect and devotion, doing everything he could to ensure he lived up to the reputation the Kingwood title had in society.
James was, in short, the perfect man. And Beatrice missed him terribly.
I should have known he was too good to be true, she often thought. Thankfully, Sally interrupted then, preventing her from further destructive thoughts.
“You’ve got to stop punishin’ yourself, Bea. Stop staring at them birds, imaginin’ how it all could’ve been. Focus on the present, love. James would’ve wanted that for ya,” Sally said, taking Beatrice’s hand in hers.
Beatrice allowed herself to be led back to her chair and tucked into its overstuffed cushions, gratified to have someone else telling her body what to do and where to go. After she was settled in the chair, Sally shoving a hot cup of tea in her hands.
“Drink up. It’s sweet and milky, and exactly what you need at this moment, I expect,” Sally said, glaring at Beatrice until she dutifully took a sip from the cup in her hands.
It was pure bliss going down, the acidity of the black tea cut with the fresh cow’s milk and two generous helpings of sugar. In the circles Beatrice traveled in, sugar was de rigueur, a sign of wealth and privilege. But until James died, she had never taken her tea sweet. Now, however, she couldn’t get enough. The sugar never failed to revive her, those first few sips making her feel for like life might no be so wholly awful.
“Better?” Sally asked, crossing her arms over her ample bust and staring fixedly at Beatrice. Sally’s white-blonde hair was fixed in a serviceable bun at the nape of her neck, her blue eyes sparkling under her thin, dark eyebrows. Her small but curved figure was fitted into her usual uniform of smock, petticoat, corset, and apron, all of which were spotlessly clean. Sally was beautiful
, more so than almost anyone Beatrice had ever met, with the exception of her friend Helena. If Sally hadn’t been born to a farming family in South Yorkshire, Beatrice was sure that she would have been spotted by some nobleman traveling through the area who would have proposed marriage to her on the spot.