The Wedding Gamble

by Julia Justiss

  “Ah.” The doctor gave a sympathetic nod.

  “Do not misunderstand—my husband is everything considerate.” She swallowed and willed the tears away. “But I cannot go back to London now, knowing who—what I will find there. Not yet. Please, will you help me?”

  “What is it ye wish me to do, lass?”

  “Just tell him my health requires an extended convalescence in the country.”

  “And if he wishes to remain?”

  Nicholas might well think that his duty, so she’d already prepared her argument. “Could you not tell him I feel I’ve failed him—’tis true enough—and that his presence would be a constant reminder of that failure? Tell him I need some time alone to…recover my spirits.”

  The doctor stayed silent so long she feared he would refuse. Finally he said, “To my thinking, if it’s his affections ye wish to engage, ye’d do best to get with child again at the earliest opportunity.”

  Sarah blanched. “Oh, but Doctor—”

  “There, there, dinna fash thyself. I’m but a man, and lacking in sensibility, or so my wife is always telling me. I suppose, after what ye’ve suffered, if ’tis solitude ye wish, ye should have it. Mind, I’m not agreeing ’tis best.”

  Sarah gave him a tremulous smile. “No doubt you’re right, and in a week or two I’ll come to my senses and pack my trunks. Thank you for giving me the choice.”

  He nodded brusquely. “I’ll talk with yer man, and be on my way. Keep thyself safe, lass.”

  Weary but relieved, Sarah leaned back against her pillows. She’d have a month, perhaps more. Surely in that time, she could reconcile herself to her duty.

  Nicholas was finishing his repast when Dr. MacPherson entered the breakfast room.

  “I’ve just checked yer lady wife. ’Tis my opinion she’ll make a good recovery, given time. As she has no further need of me, I’ll be going.”

  Nicholas rose to shake the doctor’s hand. “Thank you for tending her.”

  “No need for thanks. I’ve a great regard for Miss Sarah. Everyone about Wellingford does.” The doctor hesitated, frowning, and motioned Nicholas back in his chair. Seating himself, he said, “I must tell ye, she’s taking this hard, just as I feared. I strongly recommend ye let her stay here, or at Wellingford. Keep her out of the noise and filth of London.”

  “Of course. Is there anything else?”

  The doctor paused a long moment. “Yers was what they call a marriage of convenience, was it not?”

  Nicholas cocked his head at the unexpected question. When he thought he understood the doctor’s intent, he stiffened. “It was not a love match, if that’s what you are asking. I assure you, however, I hold my wife in the greatest respect and esteem.”

  “Never inferred ye did not. However, in such cases, the wife is bound to feel she has failed in her duty.” Nicholas flinched and the doctor nodded. “Aye, I can see she’s talked of it to ye. Some husbands, in such cases, can be quite brutal—” he held up a hand when Nicholas would interrupt “—not that I’m suggesting ye would. What I mean is, even when the husband is understanding, the wife often feels her failure strongly, as strongly as she feels grief for the child. The two feed on each other.”

  “What are you trying to say, Doctor?”

  “That each time she sees ye, Lord Englemere, she’s remembering her failure, and thinking again of the child she lost. Having ye here is, ye might say, a constant reproach. ’Twould be better, I think, were ye to leave without her.”

  “Leave her? But surely my place is here with her.”

  “Not if your presence will prolong her pain.”

  “Would it not be better to stay and divert her from that pain?”

  “Divert Miss Sarah when her mind’s set?” The doctor sighed. “Change the course of the Thames as easy, I’m thinking. Understand now, ’tis miracles she’s used to making. Half a dozen times she’s saved her family from the workhouse. Why, she was scarce sixteen the first time. Her poor papa, God rest his soul, tried to auction off some land the girls’ grandmama had left them for dowries. A rare foiter it was, and whispered about the county what a shame for the lasses to be left penniless. But not for yer wife to stand by and do naught.”

  The doctor shook his head and laughed. “No, what must that halich do, but ride to the auction and tell the crowd did they buy the land, she went with it, for without dowry she was as good as ruined anyway!”

  “Wait!” Nicholas had been listening impatiently, but a vivid memory shocked him alert. “This auction—did it take place seven years ago, near the village of Picton?”

  “Aye, that would be the place.”

  “But I was there,” Nicholas burst out. “The land marches with a corner of Stoneacres, and my father had sent me with a sealed bid. I saw a girl ride up on a lathered horse…and talk the buyers out of bidding! That was Sarah?”

  “Aye. Ye did not recognize her?”

  “I never saw her up close.” Nicholas gazed out the window, watching in his mind’s eye as a tall girl in a faded cotton dress, hair hidden under a chip straw bonnet, climbed the stile. Bracing herself, she confronted the curious, gawking buyers like a warrior defending the ramparts.

  “What a Trojan she was. I was too far away to hear every word, but she convinced them. When the auctioneer insisted on proceeding, not a single man bid. The caller was furious, and stormed over for my father’s offer.” Nicholas smiled. “I tore it to pieces in front of him. What a risk she took!”

  “Aye. Right fearless she was—’twas the talk of the neighborhood, some holding as ’tweren’t fitting for a well-bred lass to put herself forward so. Most, though, thought her resourceful, and uncommon brave.”

  “Yes. She’s surely that.”

  “So ye see, my lord, having done the near-impossible, ’tis powerful hard for her to accept she’s failed in this. ’Twill take time for her to forgive herself and go on.”

  “You truly think it better if I just abandon her here? I tell you, Doctor, that flies in the face of both duty and inclination.”

  “Let’s just say ’twould make the lady easier in her mind. ’Tis not the body that worries me, ’tis her spirits.”

  Nicholas sighed heavily. Every instinct told him to stay, and he wanted desperately to help soothe the grief he’d seen in her eyes and felt in her anguished body. But if the doctor, who had known Sarah much longer than he, felt he should not remain…

  Defeated, he said, “I suppose I must leave, then.”

  The doctor nodded. “Don’t be fretting yerself, my lord. Yer lady wife is resilient, in body and spirit. Give her but some time, and she’ll come back, and I daresay present ye with a brace of sons ere long.”

  “Sons I would have, but ’tis Sarah that concerns me now. Thank you for your advice, Doctor.”

  As he was mounting the stairs, another memory recurred, and his hand clenched on the balustrade. He saw a second rider galloping up ventre à terre on a lathered horse…reining in at the fence rail…leaping from the saddle and pulling the girl down. From his gestures, and the murmurs of the dispersing crowd, Nicholas had surmised the newcomer was a brother giving the girl a thundering scold. Until she threw herself in the lad’s arms and kissed him passionately. He’d chuckled, thinking the young lovers would soon be making use of that dowry.

  He didn’t chuckle now. After leading the girl apart, the young man came to thank him for destroying his bid. The handsome youth’s skin was fairer, his hair a lighter ash. Still, Nicholas had no doubt the grateful suitor had been St. John Sandiford.

  Surely the captain would visit his mother before returning to the army—and Sarah would be here, just a few hours’ ride away. When he heard of her tragedy, would he ride ventre à terre to her, as he’d ridden to her rescue that day long ago? Would Sarah welcome his comfort?

  Another image flashed in his head: Sarah sitting in his garden, weeping over a gold signet ring.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nicholas sat at the desk in his London libr
ary, his eyes on a book but his thoughts back at Stoneacres. Three weeks after his return, he still felt uneasy and displaced.

  Sarah had been so cool and distant when he went to see her after the doctor left, her face a blank mask, her manner that of the ice maiden they’d once joked about. He might have thought her angry with him for some unknown misdeed, had it not been for the stark agony in her eyes.

  An agony that called to him to discard the doctor’s advice and take her in his arms. To nurse her back to health, then to ride and joke and laugh with her, warm her in his bed, until the misery faded and she began to forget.

  But when he took her hand, she drew back, as if anticipating a blow. Shocked, he merely stood there while she slowly pulled her fingers free.

  She wouldn’t look at him. Her voice as distant and impersonal as her manner, she stared at some point beyond him and said, politely as if to a stranger, that she was sorry to have been such a burden and she would try to make it up by tending Stoneacres until a new manager arrived. Of course, she had no desire to tie him to an invalid in the dull fastness of the country—he must return to London as planned. She wished him a safe journey. Pleading fatigue, she leaned back upon her bed.

  He sat with her after dinner, but his one-sided conversation lagged and finally died out altogether. She lay silently, her eyes fixed straight ahead, and never once looked at him.

  There was no need for words. Her rigid body and averted eyes said only too eloquently, “I don’t want you here.”

  So the next morning he left. She was sitting, motionless and silent, a book on her lap, in the window seat that overlooked the drive when he came to say goodbye. She turned her face to take his kiss on her cheek instead of her lips. As he rode away, he saw her there still, silhouetted against the light of the opened window. She didn’t wave.

  Almost, he could have been angry with her, except the look of numb misery had intensified, rather than diminished with the passing hours. To his dismay, she was retreating ever further into some private world of grief.

  Why could she not have accepted the comfort he wanted so badly to give? It was his loss, too. Surely she could not believe he would reproach her. And if, in the raw grip of grief, she couldn’t yet bear the thought of conceiving another child who might expose her to similar pain, did she not imagine he could understand that, too? Did she think him so unfeeling he could not restrain himself until she was ready? Why must she reject him?

  As Lydia had.

  But then, ’twas not the same. Lydia left him for spending too little time with her. In her frantic search for frivolity, she had ever needed to be the center of attention. Sarah, so much stronger and more independent, chose to bear her burden of grief and pain alone. Or at least, without his help.

  Would she let Sandiford mourn with her? As well he might, since until Sarah delivered sons the captain had forsworn any claim on her.

  The captain’s lands marched with Wellingford, not so very far from Stoneacres. Was he there even now, holding her weeping against that broad, blue-coated shoulder, as Nicholas had held her the morning after she lost the babe?

  He slammed the book shut. Stop it, he told himself furiously. You’ll drive yourself mad.

  With a sigh, he jumped up and paced to the window. The dull gray fog swirling outside matched the restlessness within. When he’d first returned, still smarting from Sarah’s cold dismissal, he’d contemplated seeking out Chloe. The briefest of reflections revealed he now found the idea of bedding Chloe—or indeed any other woman—distasteful.

  He sat down straightaway to pen a cordial farewell note. Charging his secretary to deliver it personally, along with a handsome sum of cash, he dismissed Chloe from his life with no regrets.

  Nicholas traced a raindrop’s pattern along the window glass. He could look up Hal, or perhaps go work off his fit of the dismals at Jackson’s. Invitations to an assortment of dinners, routs and musicales sat heaped on his correspondence tray, but he could muster no enthusiasm for any of them. Perhaps he would dine at his club.

  Nicholas smiled grimly. In the inscrutable way servants have, the household had learned of his loss, and upon his return, Glendenning had expressed the sympathy of the entire staff.

  Though the starchy butler would probably have choked before allowing any sign of emotion to cross his face in the presence of outsiders, when he saw his master had returned without the mistress, he unbent enough to express surprise, and then shock when he discovered Nicholas meant to leave Sarah in the country for some weeks. The butler’s clear disapproval had speedily been conveyed throughout the household. He could dine at home without fearing the horrors of burnt roast and cold potatoes, but did Glendenning not pride himself on his standards, Nicholas half suspected such might be his fare.

  ’Twas bad enough, he thought sourly, to have one’s wife send one away, without then having to suffer one’s household treating one like an insensitive boor.

  No, his club didn’t appeal. What he needed was Sarah. He’d given her almost a month of doctor-recommended solitude. Perhaps he should go to Stoneacres and fetch her.

  The idea brought a rush of excitement, as quickly dashed. What would he do, should he arrive and find that look of cool reproach still on her face? A stabbing pain lanced through him at the thought. No, having been so definitely dismissed, he’d not return unbidden.

  Then a happy idea broke through his despondency. Sarah seemed to find solace in the country—why should not he? Not at Stoneacres, if she didn’t want him, but at the Hall. He could, he hoped, count on a warm welcome from his mother. More than that, Mama had lost two babes herself. Mayhap she would know what he could do to reach Sarah.

  The idea touched some chill, aching spot in his heart and warmed it. Feeling better than he’d felt in three weeks, he decided to depart on the morrow.

  “Nicky, darling, how wonderful to see you!” Emerging from his embrace, the dowager held him at arm’s length, her lovely eyes scanning his face. “Where is Sarah? Is something wrong? I thought you said she was recovering.”

  “She is, as far as I know.” He released her hands and paced past the tapestry frame to the morning room window.

  His mother seated herself on the brocade sofa and patted the place beside her. “Come, Nicky, and tell me what is troubling you.”

  He laughed shortly and ran a hand through his hair, disordering the carefully brushed locks. “Is it so obvious? I expect it is to everyone. I’m afraid my care-for-nothing society image is in the process of being ruined.”

  She raised an eyebrow at the bitter edge in his tone and paused, as if uncertain how to continue. “Is it the loss of the child? As I wrote in my note, I was so sorry to hear of it.”

  He acknowledged her sympathy with a nod. “Partly, though it’s difficult to grieve over what was scarce more than an idea. Sarah had been breeding for but a few months. No, it’s Sarah herself who concerns me.”

  She handed him a sherry and he took a sip, struggling for the right words. “She’s always handled everything with consummate composure. Even Findlay, and he’s as nasty a business as I’d ever care to meet. I expected the baby’s loss would disappoint her. I was disappointed myself. But she was much more than that—she was devastated.”

  “Oh, Nicky,” the dowager said, a catch in her voice. “My son, no pain in life approaches the loss of a child!” She patted his hand, remembered sorrow in her eyes. “Sarah will grieve—’tis only natural. A mother must, whether she loses her child at two, or twenty, or before birth.”

  “’Tis more than that.” Nicholas paced to the fireplace and held out his hands to the flames. He dreaded broaching the rest of his dilemma, truly didn’t know how to begin. His mother waited patiently. Sighing, he turned to her.

  “Sarah’s taken this ridiculous idea in her head that she failed me. That our marriage brought her every advantage, and she had but one boon to offer me—an heir. And she has failed to provide it.”

  “Ah—” his mother nodded “—well, in simpl
e terms, ’tis true. You married for an heir, and she to rescue her family. Not an uncommon bargain, but a bargain nonetheless. My marriage to your father was a love match, so I can’t pretend to know how Sarah feels, but I think I can imagine.”

  “When I reached Stoneacres that first night, she was lying alone in her chamber, her face to the wall. She wouldn’t even look at me.” Staring into the fire, he felt a pang of remembered anguish. “She said I’d needed only one thing from her, a son. She apologized for being such—and these are her words—a ‘sorry bargain’ of a wife.

  “Lord, Mama!” The words burst from him. “She was in such pain, and I didn’t know what to say! ‘Quite, my dear, but I hold you in respect and esteem’?” He kicked savagely at a log on the grate, sending sparks flying. “Paltry, don’t you think, in the face of her grief?”

  “So you came back to London,” his mother said softly.

  “No! Did you think I just abandoned her for the diversions of the city? Mayhap you do, since even my own butler seems to believe that. Well, it’s not true—rather the opposite. She sent me away, Mama.”

  When his mother made no comment, he continued, “She even got the doctor, an old stick of a Scotsman who’s known her practically all her life, to add his bit. Insinuated I might chide her for failing in her duty, the impertinent sawbones! Well, I set him straight. He seemed to believe me, but said Sarah couldn’t accept or forgive herself, yet.” He drew a ragged breath. “He said just looking at me shamed her. That I should give her time to grieve, and heal.”

  “Poor child,” the dowager murmured. “His advice sounds sensible, Nicholas. She probably just needs time.”

  “But it’s been nearly a month! How much longer can she need?” He leaned his hands on the hearth, focusing on his own signet ring winking in the firelight. “She’s my wife, Mama. If she’s distressed, I should be with her.”

  “From what I know of Sarah, she’d not want you to stay out of duty.”

  Nicholas smiled wryly. “You’ll not let me off so easily, will you? All right, I admit it. I miss her, Mama. True, the household runs smoothly enough, but ’tis somehow…different without her. And I don’t mean only Glendenning’s disapproval.”