A Brooding Beauty

by Eaton, Jillian

  “Nothing to worry about?” he repeated in a strained voice. “She has been up there for four hours!”

  “Having a child takes time, Marcus,” Lord Melbourne drawled from the bar. “Have a drink or three. It will calm your nerves.”

  “The Duke no longer drinks –” Josephine began.

  “I no longer drink –” Marcus started to say.

  They cut each other off and exchanged a brief smile. It was well known – at least among their close knit circle of friends, which Lord Melbourne had just recently joined courtesy of his engagement to Grace – that Marcus had sworn off spirits the moment Catherine came back into his life.

  Lord Melbourne shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said as he raised his glass to take another sip.

  Josephine used that opportunity to study Lord Melbourne beneath her exceedingly long lashes. She had only met the man once before, and her opinion now was much the same as it had been then – she didn’t like the Earl of Terraview. Not at all. Oh, on paper he was splendid: wealthy, well pedigreed, and there was no denying his physical appeal. But in person… Well, there was something quite off about the man. He was too aloof. Too detached. Too stiff in the upper lip. Not to mention the small fact that he was engaged to her best friend. Josephine could quite simply not figure out what Grace saw in the man or, if she was being brutally honest, what he saw in her. Grace was beautiful and sweet and charmingly clumsy, all traits which made her perfect for someone – if that someone was not Lord Melbourne.

  “Yes, well,” she said finally. “I shall return to the parlor and leave you men to it. Hold tight,” she advised Marcus, her violet eyes sparkling with sympathy. “Catherine is strong and she has done this once before.”

  The mere mention of Marcus’ beloved one year old daughter Elizabeth who was playing outside under the close supervision of Hannah brought a flicker of relief to his features. “Yes,” he sighed. “Of course she has. Of course. Thank you, Josephine,” he said meaningfully.

  “You are quite welcome,” she smiled. Leaving the study she shut the door quietly behind her and leaned up against it. It had not escaped her attention that Lord Melbourne had not inquired – not once – as to Grace’s whereabouts or well being. The man was cold as a dead fish. He was not suited to lick Grace’s shoes, let alone be her husband. Something had to be done, Josephine decided then and there. And she was just the person to do it.

  Two hours later, her pink cheeks flushed even brighter than usual and her red hair is wild disarray, Margaret appeared at the top of the stairs to announce the arrival of Marcus’ and Catherine’s newest child, a beautiful blond haired, blue eyed girl that looked just like her mother.

  “A girl! Another girl!” Marcus bellowed before he rushed up the stairs to be with his wife and newborn daughter.

  “Unfortunate it wasn’t a boy,” Lord Melbourne remarked.

  “Have they picked out a name?” Grace inquired.

  “Sarah,” said Margaret. Sinking down on the bottom step of the stairs in an exhausted slump, she stretched her arms above her head and released a jaw cracking yawn. “And Abigail.”

  “They picked out two names?” Josephine frowned. “That’s rather odd, isn’t it?”

  “Not two names,” Margaret corrected. “Two babies.”

  “Two babies?” Grace squealed. Leaping forward, she caught her toe on the rug Marcus had been pacing earlier in the day and went sprawling headfirst. Faster than anyone could blink Lord Melbourne reached out, caught her around her waist, and pulled her upright before he returned to slouching against the wall. “But you only said one name to Marcus,” she said, now rather breathless.

  Margaret smiled. “Yes, well, Catherine wanted it to be a surprise.”

  Upstairs in the quiet solitude of a charming bedroom with blue walls and yellow curtains, a very surprised – and very elated – Marcus stood over the crib of his two newborn daughters. His wife was sleeping in the room right across the hall, thoroughly exhausted but happy beyond measure. Just as Marcus turned to go be by her side, he felt a tiny tug on his trouser.

  “And what do we have here?” he said, bending down to scoop up his now eldest daughter. Elizabeth smiled at him, revealing her brand new front tooth. He kissed her round cheeks and nuzzled her tuft of blond hair. She pointed at the crib and correctly interpreting her desire to meet her two new siblings, Marcus brought her over to where they peacefully slept.

  Elizabeth gazed down at Sarah and Abigail, her blue eyes bright with interest, before she looked back up at her father and puffed out her cheeks. Shifting her to his hip, Marcus began to rock her back and forth. “Do you want me to tell you a fairytale, love?” he asked. Elizabeth gurgled and cooed, which Marcus decided to take as a definite ‘yes’.

  “Well,” he began softly, so as not to wake the sleeping newborns or their mother, “it started when a handsome prince met a beautiful princess. They fell in love and were soon married, but the handsome prince was foolish and left the beautiful princess to search for gold…”

  The sun was setting by the time Marcus got to the end of his tale. Elizabeth was sound asleep, her head resting against his shoulder, her tiny fingers curled around his neck. He kissed her brow and went back to the crib to check on the twins one more time. Abigail – or was it Sarah? He wasn’t quite sure – stared up at him with eyes the color of sapphires.

  “Would you like me to finish the story?” he asked.

  She blinked owlishly at him.

  Marcus smiled tenderly. A surge of love swept through him, love for his wife, love for his three beautiful children, and love for the new life they had given him. A life filled with joy and laughter. A life meant to be lived.

  “I would like to hear the end of the story,” said Catherine. Appearing in the doorway dressed in a loose fitting robe with her hair unbound and swept across one shoulder, she went to her husband. Marcus pulled her tightly against him and she curled into the crook of his shoulder, resting her head over his heart. Together they gazed down upon their sleeping children. Overwhelmed by the poignant sweetness of the moment, Marcus felt his eyes fill with tears.

  “They all lived happily ever after,” he said huskily, pressing his lips to Catherine’s temple.

  And they did.

  Read on for a preview of A Ravishing Redhead the next novella in the Wedded Women Quartet!

  Please enjoy a sneak peek at chapter one of A Ravishing Redhead, the next novella in the Wedded Women Quartet!

  Available on Kindle May 1st, 2012

  Chapter One

  Margaret had been married to her husband for eight months, sixteen days, and – if her calculations were correct, which they almost always were – approximately two and a half hours. During those seven months, sixteen days and (approximately) two and a half hours she had seen her husband a total of one time. At their wedding, no less, where he had arrived drunk, slurred his vows, and sealed her fate with a sloppy kiss that had landed on her left earlobe instead of her lips.

  She did not blame him for imbibing in a bit too much whisky before walking down the aisle. She would have gladly gotten drunk herself had it not been for the watchful eye of her mother. But Nettie Combs, knowing full well the willful nature of her eldest daughter, had kept Margaret under lock and key until it was time for the ceremony to begin.

  Lady Combs had been carefully planning the ‘wedding of the season’ (as it was now referred to since no one else of importance had gotten married since that fateful November day) since the engagement had been announced and she had been determined not to let anything – or anyone – ruin it.

  “Well you certainly got what you wanted, Mother,” said Margaret to no one in particular, for no one in particular was around. “I am wed to a Duke, and your grandchildren shall one day carry titles higher than your own. I hope you are very happy, for I am not, and I fear I never will be.”

  Rolling over onto her stomach, she swatted at a piece of grass that threatened to tickle her nose and dropped her head onto one lan
ky arm. Overhead the summer sun beat down unmercifully and she wished she had not forgotten her bonnet. Now her freckles would be blatantly obvious, when before they had only shown in certain light, and her red hair would turn even redder – though how that was possible, she had no idea; she just knew it would because that is what her mother always said – and she would look like a heathen. A tall, freckle faced, red haired heathen.

  “Oh who the bloody hell cares,” she grumbled, for it was true. No one but the servants saw her, and since they had not yet complained about her new habit of wearing boys clothing she highly doubted they would raise a fuss over a few freckles.

  Since her wedding Margaret had been more or less stranded at Heathridge, a five hundred acre ramshackle estate that belonged to her new husband. She did not mind her isolated surroundings so much as she did the boredom that came with them. There was nothing to do, no one to talk to. No mischief to make. Her three closest friends had stayed for as long as they could after the wedding, but they all had their own lives to get back to. Catherine was busy raising three children and expecting her fourth, Josie was touring the continent with her lover, and Grace was preparing for her own wedding to the very ill suited – in Margaret’s opinion – Lord Melbourne.

  “I could wither away and die here and no one would notice,” she sighed dramatically. Flopping over onto her back, she shaded her mismatched eyes against the sun and chewed down on her bottom lip. What she needed was a new adventure. Something to occupy the hours between breakfast and dinner. A new horse to train, perhaps.

  For a moment Margaret’s entire face lit up, until she remembered her husband had run off with every cent of her rather extensive dowry right after dumping her at his rotting excuse of an estate. She still did not know if he had intentionally stranded her without a penny to her name, or if the thought had simply not occurred to him to set up an allowance for his new wife before he took off for the unknown, but either way the result was the same. Until he returned, or by some miracle her parents decided to come and rescue her, she was stuck. She couldn’t even escape if she wanted to, for the carriage house was devoid of a carriage and the barn held nothing but horses so old their backs sagged nearly to the ground.

  She had attempted to hire someone to take her to London, but no one within a twenty mile radius would supply a service without money up front due to her husband’s unpaid debts.

  “I am a poor Duchess,” Margaret sighed. Tipping her head to the side she arched an eyebrow at the sheep grazing next to her. “Have you ever heard of a poor Duchess? No? Well, me either. But no use crying over spilt milk, I suppose. Stiff upper lip, best foot forward and all that. Here we go.”

  Springing to her feet she wiped her grass stained palms on the sides of the brown breeches one of the stable boys had given her and straightened out her white linen shirt. It belonged to her husband, the only thing she had of his, since he had forgotten to give her a ring, and was nearly three sizes too big. The long hem line helped distract from the fact that her breeches – while in otherwise good condition – ended just below her knees. Had it not been for her shock of fiery red hair that tumbled nearly to her waist and her narrow, pixie like face that could never be confused for anything but female, Margaret might have passed for a boy, something she would not have minded in the least.

  It was an inescapable fact that men had better luck than women. Why, just look at her husband – eight months ago he had been broke and destitute; now he was rich as a lark and off traveling the world spending her dowry while she was stuck in his downtrodden estate. Not fair at all, that.

  Giving the sheep an absent pat on its furry head, Margaret skipped down the side of the hill and half walked, half ran the rest of the way to Heathridge.

  In better hands the fifty seven room estate must have been nothing short of magnificent, but time and neglect had taken its toll. Paint was peeling from the window trim. Large chunks of plaster were missing from the walls. Even the grass surrounding the estate was overgrown and filled with weeds after the gardener had quit and there had been no money to replace him. The inside of the mansion was no better than the outside, with dingy floors, dusty tapestries, and an overpowering smell of mold on rainy days.

  Flushed and perspiring slightly, Margaret slowed to a more dignified walk just short of the front steps. They spiraled out from the main door, but even they were chipped on the edges and grass had begun to grow between the granite cracks.

  Hastings, the butler/footman/occasional head cook met her just inside the door with a cool glass of lemon water. A portly man in his early fifties, he had loyally served the Heathridge family for thirty years and had not received a salary for the last five of them. Still he stayed on, mostly in part because he had no where else to go, and no family to speak of.

  “Here you are, Lady Winter,” he said, extending the glass out to Margaret.

  She took it and drank thirstily, hiccupped, and set the glass aside on a dusty table. “I have told you not to call me that,” she reminded him sternly.

  “It is your name,” he said.

  “No, it is my husband’s name. And we both know I am hardly a Lady, so why bother with all the fuss? Call me Margaret if you must, Maggie if you want, and never, ever,” she paused to shudder, “address me as Duchess.”

  The hint of a smile appeared beneath Hastings’ rather impressive salt and pepper moustache. “As you wish, Lady Winter.”

  Margaret threw her hands up in the air. “Egags, why do I bother? What time is dinner tonight, Hastings?”

  “Half past five o’ clock, Lady Winter.”

  She shot him a narrowed eyed glance. “I have time for a ride, then?”

  “If you wish.”

  “Ha!” she cried triumphantly. “You didn’t do it that time.”

  “Do what, Lady Winter?”

  Her shoulders slumped. “I give up. If I am not back in time for dinner, start without me.”

  “Certainly not,” said Hastings, looking aghast that she would dare suggest such a thing.

  Margaret rolled her eyes. “There are five people living here besides myself, Hastings. Why should you all have to wait if I am running late? Just keep a plate warm and I will eat when I return.” Turning on her heel, she trotted down the steps before Hastings could argue with her, and went directly to the stables.

  Destroyed by a fire and rebuilt recently, it was the only building on the property that had not fallen into a state of disrepair and Margaret was determined to keep it that way. She called each horse by name as she strolled into the barn and one by one they popped their heads over their stall doors to greet her with warm nickers of affection.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked, pausing to scratch Poppy, a dark palomino, under her chin. In her younger years Poppy had plowed the fields that now lay fallow behind the main house, but now she had more gray hairs on her face than brown and walked with a slight limp. Her sweet nature made her one of Margaret’s favorites, and she often spoiled the mare with carrots and apples stolen from the kitchen.

  Hay was piled neatly at the end of the barn. Filling a wheelbarrow with the sweet smelling dried grass, she fed each horse in turn and when they were all nibbling at their hay exchanged the wheelbarrow for a large bucket of oats. She soaked Poppy’s grain for the old draft mare had little teeth left to chew with, and opened up all of the stalls to let the horses out into their evening grazing pasture when they were finished eating. They filed past her one by one, too used to their daily routine to raise a fuss, and she followed them out to swing the gate closed behind them.

  Now came the not so pleasant part, but it had to be done, and after scooping her hair up underneath a floppy hat and rolling up her shirt sleeves, Margaret fetched another wheelbarrow and began mucking out the stalls.

  It was hard labor, but she enjoyed the simple quietness of it. A wry smile captured her lips as she remembered how her muscles had screamed in protest when she had first taken over care of the entire stables, but now her arms were strong a
nd easily capable of dumping manure and hauling pails of water to and from the stalls.

  She was on her second to last stall when an unfamiliar whinny rang through the air. Still holding her pitchfork, Margaret poked her head out of the entrance of the barn and watched with interest as a gleaming bay approached. She was so entranced by the horse’s fine build and elegant way of moving that she didn’t even notice the rider until he dropped to the ground in front of her and placed the horse’s reins in her hands.

  “Here,” he said, not looking at her. “Cool him out and groom him.”

  Margaret bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Oh, she noticed the rider now all right, although he certainly did not notice her. “Would you have me feed him as well?” she asked, deliberately speaking in a low voice.

  “Yes, of course,” the rider said in a short, clipped tone. “And have him tacked again in an hour. I will not be staying here long.”

  “Might I ask why?”

  The rider turned and leveled dark green eyes at her. Margaret held her breath, waiting for him to recognize her, but he merely reached in his pocket and tossed her two coins which she reached out to catch automatically. “Cool him out, groom him, and feed him. I will be back in an hour.”

  Without another word he walked away towards the house. Margaret stared after him in wordless disbelief, certain at any moment he was going to turn around and come back. When the front door slammed behind him, she shook her head.

  “Can you believe that?” she asked the bay. The horse regarded her stoic silence. “Yes well,” she continued, grunting a bit as she loosened the bay’s tight cinch, “you have to be loyal to him. You’re his horse. But I’m just his wife, and I don’t like him a’ tall.”