by Jo Beverley
He could surely make one visit without ruining everything. He needed to see Rosa, who clearly liked to tease, and who was swelling with their child.
He rode into the village of Waltham Green on a damp winter’s day, and asked for Pate’s Cottage. It turned out to be a simple place, built of gray stone. Doubtless in summer the garden had been a bit more lively, but he’d rather his beloved was in grander quarters. A mansion. A palace, even.
He smiled. Rosa wouldn’t want a palace. He knew what Rosa wanted, and was working to get it for her. Everything she desired.
Everything.
Stripping off his gloves, he walked down the path to knock at the door, but then heard her laughing voice from the back.
She had company?
Jealousy stirred. He went around, then paused to drink in the sight. Rosa, his Rosa, beautifully rounded and laughing, was dragging a ribbon for a playful young cat. She was so engaged, he managed to creep up on her and swoop her into his arms.
She shrieked, then gasped, “Brand!”
“Don’t faint on me again!” he said hastily, frightened by his own folly.
“Then don’t leap on me like that!” But she glowed with health and welcome, and her arms were around his neck. “What are you doing here? I thought we weren’t supposed to—”
He kissed her quickly, then lingered. Then realizing they were in the open, he stopped, stepping back toward the concealment of the building. “There’s self-control, and then there’s bloody martyrdom. How are you?”
He could see, though. Perfect fruit, and now she was truly ripe.
“Well. Very well.” Tears shone. “It’s been so long. Sometimes… I didn’t realize what it would be like, being so long.”
“I know.” He slid her slowly to her feet, but kept his arms around her, drinking in her beauty. “I’ve longed for a portrait. I’d even have treasured that damned mask.”
She slid her hand into a pocket and pulled something out. She showed it, and he recognized a miniature done of him about five years ago.
“Lord Rothgar gave it to me. He has been very kind, but he still frightens me sometimes. Oh, he hasn’t done anything. It’s just the way he is!”
“I know, love. He’s the man you’d want by your side in trouble, though.”
“No, he isn’t. You are.”
He grinned. “True enough.” He held her back slightly, taking in every detail—a deep green gown and brown shawl which both suited her healthy skin and glossy hair. “I feel like a starving man faced with a feast. Inclined to gobble, but wanting to make it last and last.”
“It will last. If we want it to.”
He supposed it was reasonable that she have doubts after all this time. He was glad he’d come. Letters weren’t enough. “I want it to,” he said, rubbing chilly noses with her. “The baby feels strange. Like a ball between us.”
“I’ve had more time to get used to it.” She pulled away a little, holding hands. “Come in out of the cold. Or do you have a horse to attend to?”
“I left it at the inn.” They strolled hand in hand into the cottage, where he found Millie huddled in shawls, but willing to make them tea. They waited in the small and simple parlor scattered with books and needlework. Her room, shaped by her. He picked up a white cotton garment and said, “Will it really be this small?”
“So they say.” With a rueful smile, she put her hand on her abdomen. “It already feels bigger than that.”
It was strange to sit and talk when he wanted nothing more than to carry her to a bed and love her for days. But this was right. They’d never spoken of it, but he didn’t think he misread her. They’d wait.
For the moment he was content to watch her, and catch up in person with months of life. With whole lives. They’d shared so little. When the black-and-white cat leaped onto his lap to be stroked, however, he was glad of the contact.
It wasn’t enough. As soon as they’d finished their tea, he pushed the cat off his lap and held out his hand, praying she’d not balk. With a smile, she came and sat on his lap, wound her arms around his neck, and kissed him.
Hearts don’t break, especially with joy. Their first real kiss, and he could have wept with the perfection of it. This was certainly enough for now, especially as it went on and on. Then she broke free and put his hand against her belly. He felt a little bounce.
“By heaven,” he said, grinning at her. “It’s a miracle.”
She laughed and shook her head. “And you a farming man.”
“Very well, then, wench. I’ll think of you as just a mare with a foal.”
Laughing, they fell into another lingering kiss, then rested entwined, savoring mere togetherness after an eternity of separation.
He stayed only the one night, however, and at the inn, for he shouldn’t be here at all. Over the next months they made do with planned casual encounters in nearby towns. And letters. What a collection of letters they both had by now.
Their year was passing and it should be enough, but it wasn’t. At times, slogging away at work that had lost its savor, he felt like tearing the world apart to be with her. He fought the impulse. This was simply the price to be paid for a perfect future.
For everything.
And he was beginning to hope that he could truly give her everything, have everything. If only sluggish time would pass.
He plunged back into work, finding some escape there, and also preparing for the changes to come. Then he received the message he’d been waiting for.
The end at last, and the beginning.
Rosamunde collapsed back in the birthing stool. Brand’s arms came around her from behind. Despite the midwife’s protests, he’d refused to stay out of this womanly affair.
She was glad of it, and found the strength to grin at his disheveled, frantic state. “Relax,” she gasped. “Mare with a foal. Remember?”
“I worry about my favorite mares, too, you know.” He wiped a damp cloth over her face just before the next push started.
Recovering from that, feeling the baby huge between her legs, she muttered, “Only ‘favorite,’ am I?”
“Only,” he said, and kissed her cheek. Her scarred cheek. He had a way of doing that which during the past few months had turned the marks into a blessing. But then the next push caught her and her body dragged her into ferocious effort.
“Ah-ha!” declared the midwife, smiling up at her. “Here we are!”
Rosamunde looked down and saw the miracle of her baby’s head, dark and sticky, before the next push swallowed her. Half-conscious and dazed from the effort, she felt the baby slide free and reached down. “My baby!”
By then, the child was loosely wrapped. “A daughter,” the midwife said cheerfully and placed the bundle in Rosamunde’s arms. Brand’s arms came around them both, his head resting next to hers.
“As beautiful as her mother,” he whispered, touching the trace of dark hair, kissing Rosamunde’s cheek at the same time. “Was that as terrible as it looked?”
“It was wonderful,” she murmured, adoring her perfect, miraculous daughter.
“You’re deluded, love.”
“No. Pity poor males who cannot do that.”
She heard him laugh and knew he didn’t believe her, but it was true. A dangerous ecstasy, but ecstasy all the same. And such a naturally powerful thing. If enemies burst in now, she felt as if she had power and to spare to fight or flee, to defend her young.
The midwife reminded her to put the rooting baby to the breast, and in moment she was gasping under a new sensation. Not entirely pleasant, but satisfying all the same. The baby obviously agreed, for she went limp with contentment.
Time passed and all was well. Rosamunde ignored everyone, even Brand, as they cleaned her and moved her. Eventually, in the big comfortable bed, she looked at him. “The idea was that you take the baby away now.”
He was sitting on the mattress, still in disordered shirtsleeves, hair tumbling loose. With a wry smile, he said, “I’ve g
uessed. You’re not letting the baby out of your sight for a moment.”
“I’m sorry, Brand. I can’t. Anyway,” she said, looking down and stroking the baby’s fuzz of hair, “I want to feed her. All the time. I’m sorry.” Tears ached in her eyes. Hadn’t she always known it was too much?
Instead of showing anger, he laughed. “After going through that with you, I’d not leave her with strangers either. I’ll come up with another plan. Trust me?”
She still didn’t see how it could work, but she meant it when she said, “Always. And with everything.” She was beginning, almost, to believe in the Malloren motto.
A week later, he returned with a wet nurse. When she protested, he sent the young woman to wait in the kitchen. “I think I can work this, love, but you won’t be able to be with Jenny all the time, and you’ll want her to be fed. We were always going to need a trustworthy wet nurse anyway, if only for appearances. Jenny can’t be known to be yours, so someone has to be feeding her.”
Her baby was sleeping in a cradle by the window, and she had an urge to rush over protectively. She didn’t want any other woman feeding her child.
“Trust me, Rosa.”
She fought a battle and won. “What’s going to happen?”
Only when he smiled did she realize that he’d seen her struggle. She held out her hand, and he came to her. “We’re going to go forward much as before. We only need to separate at the last moment, so Jenny appears to arrive separately. Coincidence can happen.”
“Can that woman be trusted?”
“I think so. She’s a genuinely good girl abandoned by a lover. She’ll do anything to keep her baby and earn a living. I judge her to be honest and intelligent.”
Trust, she reminded herself. She had him bring the wet nurse, Edie Onslow, back in. Only eighteen, poor thing, and frightened, but daring to hope, just as she had. She was clean, and seemed healthy. As Brand said, she was intelligent and seemed honest. An instinct to cling to her baby, to protect her from strangers, still burned within Rosamunde, but she couldn’t not try this.
For Brand. For herself.
For everything.
The next day, they set off for Rothgar Towers, an anonymous family with wet nurse and baby. A few miles from their destination, the party split, with Edie and a groom going ahead with two babies, while Brand and Rosamunde took a circuitous route.
Despite logic, Rosamunde watched with fear as her baby disappeared. He gathered her into his arms. “I know, love, but trust me. We’ll be back together within hours.”
It went perfectly, and in the huge, awe-inspiring abbey, feeding Jenny was easily arranged. Spending time with her was even easier, for Rosamunde was now betrothed to Lord Brand Malloren. It was her duty to get to know his child.
Time together was now permitted, too, though by silent accord, they restrained themselves to kisses. Heated kisses. Heated touches. But nothing more for now.
Safely strolling on the moonlit terrace, she said, “It is going to work, isn’t it? Thank you, Brand.”
His fingers twined with hers. “I’m arranging my own paradise, too.”
“Everything,” she murmured.
“More?”
Startled by memory into heat, she laughed at him. “Don’t!”
“There’s nothing more you want?”
Home, she thought, but suppressed it. That she could not have, neither Wenscote nor the dales. Her life would be here with him and their child, and that was more than she’d ever thought possible.
Weakly, something escaped. “Is it possible that we be married from my parents’ home?”
It seemed a terrible thing to ask, but he said, “Where else?”
“But Brand, it’s so far. Three or four days’ journey! Just for a wedding?”
“Just? If you wish,” he said extravagantly, “we’ll marry on the moon!”
She looked at the huge full moon. “Even with the Mallorens, that is not possible, you foolish man.”
“Hmmm. Is that a challenge?”
She pulled his face to hers. “I do love you, even without the moon. All I want is to marry you in Wensley Church with my family around me.”
And truly, it would be enough. To visit. To see her family again. To introduce them to Jenny. And then she would settle to this strange life in the south.
Strange.
Terrifying.
A small threatening cloud on her horizon.
Her first ordeal had been their betrothal ball. Brand said they need not have such grandeur if she didn’t want, but she was determined to be part of his life. In cosmetics, powder, and fabulous silk, she had braved it and survived it, with him at her side.
With him at her side, she could brave all of this.
Now, through days of smaller celebrations with neighbors and tenants, her nerves were steadying, and she was grateful to have faced the challenge. She could do this. She could live this life, and country people were not so different all in all.
Tomorrow, however, they were moving to London. It was apparently essential that she be presented to the King and Queen at the Queen’s drawing room. In this, she was given no choice. Apparently, now they had begun to make grand gestures, this one was essential.
“As if the King cares!” she snapped a week later, quaking in her absurd gown. “And why do I have to dress in eight-foot-wide panniers?”
Brand, tricked out in unusually glittering finery, just fanned her, endlessly tolerant. “Never question court protocol. It just is. Chin up, Rosa. It’s just the King and Queen.”
She stared at him in disbelief, but then suddenly, it was something she could do. She didn’t have to like it, but she could do it. Chin up, she accompanied him into the magnificent room and managed her court curtsy perfectly.
There. Done. But then the King, instead of moving to the next person, paused to talk to Brand about farming matters. What was worse, he then bombarded her with questions about Yorkshire, her stud, and even her cousin. She’d heard he loved new information, but she felt like a prisoner of the Inquisition.
She flashed a glare at the marquess, well aware who must have alerted the King to her interests. The marquess merely bowed. Answering a royal question about climate, she remembered the maid Gertie, and was threatened by an attack of the giggles. He knows the King as well as I know Mr. Baines the butcher! It was clearly true. The young king treated Lord Rothgar as one of his closest confidants, and Brand as family.
Giggles wavered into panic. She couldn’t do this after all. She couldn’t live like this, talking to the King, spending hours in stuffy over-perfumed rooms in absurd dresses, crushed by protocol and artificial expectations.
The King’s concerned face began to waver in front of her eyes.
She came to in an anteroom with her stupid panniers sticking up in all directions, and Brand hovering by the chaise on which she lay. “Are you all right? Don’t worry, it’s not that unusual to faint at these damn things.”
But did many women faint, she wondered, from the horrifying fear that some things are impossible, even for the man they love beyond reason?
“What is it, Rosa?” He hunkered down beside her, strange in brocade and jewels.
I want to go home. I don’t like it here.
A moment later, to her horror, she realized she’d said it.
“Home?” he said, with amazing calm. “To the dales? To Wenscote?”
“Wenscote isn’t my home anymore.”
He took her hand. “It can be, Rosa. I can lease it for us if you want.”
She struggled up. “Lease it? What? Why?”
“Why? Because it’s lovely. Doctor Nantwich has taken a devil of a time to make up his mind. I think he quite fancied being the country squire. His wife, however, absolutely refuses to leave her family and the civilized life in Scarborough. Finally, she’s worn him down. I received his letter today.”
“But what use is Wenscote to you? You have two fine estates here in the south. We’ll live at one of those.”
“Not unless you want to. They’ve always been investments to me. I’ve lived a gypsy life, traveling from place to place. I’d be happy to settle at Wenscote and begin to put down roots.”
She shook her head. “No! I’ll have no more sacrifice. We will live where you want. This,”—she gestured around—“this is your world.”
He burst out laughing. “Oh love, I’m sorry, but even Bey would dissolve into laughter at that. I’ve always hated this sort of thing.” He took both her hands. “I like Wensleydale. I loved Wenscote at first sight. Perhaps in time we can break the settlement and buy it. If not, we can live there for many years. I want it. Trust me?”
Tears were streaming down her face. She must look a mess. “I’m not sure I can about this. You are too generous. You can’t really want to live in the isolation of the dales. What of your work?”
“I’ve hired new people. I’ll still keep an eye on things and travel a bit, but I’m tired of that life. I’m telling you the truth. I want to put down roots. At Wenscote. You spoke once of the force of sudden love. It was like that for me, before I even knew that Wenscote was your home. We arrived, I looked around, and fell in love.”
“I see,” she said, struggling to make sense of it. “You only wanted me for my garden.”
“And your stud, and your land, and your sheep, and, always, for you.”
Searching his face, she whispered, “It’s so perfect, it feels wrong.”
“Everything? At last?”
Her heart ached, but with joy. “Yes. Everything.” She put her trembling hand to his cheek. “Thank you.”
He kissed her palm. “Not quite everything. But that will come, my love, on our wedding night.”
Epilogue
Lord and Lady Brand Malloren escaped their wedding feast and rode up the dale to Wenscote. They talked and laughed about the strange mix of weathered dalesfolk and perfumed southerners, and how well everyone had behaved.
Rosamunde was astonished at how perfectly everything was going.