Wedded in White: The Brothers Duke: Book Six

by Felicia Greene

  ‘I have already been the cause of far too much significance!’

  ‘Mr. Weeks, have courage. If you had to guess at the emotional state of Charles Weldon when it comes to Miss Harwood, what would you–’

  ‘–I refuse!’

  ‘Then I shall send you out into the rain, and Miss Harwood will never forgive you.’

  ‘Doris, you can’t tell me who I’ll forgive and who I–’

  ‘He cares deeply for her. For you.’ Isaac let out a long sigh of what sounded very much like exhaustion. ‘If I am allowed to give my opinion–if I am urged to. He cares more for you than for anything else in the world.’

  ‘And his urging you to come here—would his care for Miss Harwood enter into that?’

  ‘I have sworn off assigning any emotional explanation for events. This has shaken me too greatly.’

  ‘Once more, Mr. Weeks. You owe my friend that much.’ Doris frowned. ‘Consider it a way of remedying your actions.’

  ‘There’s no way of remedying my actions.’

  ‘But if there was, this would be a part of it. Tell us.’

  ‘... Yes. Yes it was.’ Isaac paused. ‘I think he would do anything possible to have your good opinion again. Even if he didn’t seem sure of ever having it.’

  This time the silence was much deeper, too raw for embarrassment. Susan slowly sank into the armchair by the fire, Doris moving to her side.

  He cared for her deeply. Cared for her more than anyone else in the world, according to Mr. Weeks–and even if his article had been profoundly wrong to print, the ideas the young journalist had written weren’t wrong in the slightest. He had observed her care for Charles, seen the smallest, most deeply-hidden signs… perhaps he had done the same with Charles.

  ‘I am meant to leave for the Continent tomorrow.’ She spoke softly, almost to herself. ‘My passage on the ship is booked. I have given away all my things.’

  ‘You are only meant to because you have forced yourself into it.’

  ‘Doris…’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘And you, Mr. Weeks?’ Susan looked narrowly at the journalist. ‘Do you have any opinion to offer?’

  ‘I shall endeavour to never have an opinion again.’ Isaac shook his head. ‘But if I am forced to provide one—’

  ‘With my friend here, I believe you are thus constrained.’

  ‘You can go to the Continent and pursue a religious life. It is a noble calling—perhaps the noblest. Infinitely more noble than scrubbing around in the dirt for gossip and making it halfway fit to print.’ Isaac sighed. ‘But your desire for such a life… well, it has to eclipse all else.’

  Susan closed her eyes, sighing. Of all the people she was expecting to give her wise, considered responses to her dilemma, Isaac Weeks had been at the very bottom of the list. This, apparently, was to be a night of surprises.

  She jumped as a knock sounded. Much sharper this time; with the wind and rain, it sounded as if the door was about to be blown off its hinges.

  ‘Oh, Lord.’ Doris tutted. ‘Are we to be interrupted until dawn? When did Twitchall suddenly become such a centre of nocturnal activity?’

  Susan went to open the door, silently consigning any chance of a normal evening to the compost heap. Sighing as she opened it, she blinked as she saw a small boy standing on the threshold. ‘Daniel West? What are you doing here at this hour?’

  ‘I’m sorry miss. I didn’t want to disturb you.’

  ‘Well, you’ve disturbed us now.’ Susan looked kindly at the boy, hoping against hope that he didn’t know how to read. She didn’t need messenger boys reading the article in the newspaper. ‘What’s the matter? Has someone been taken ill?’

  ‘It’s Mr. Weldon.’ The boy shifted uncomfortably. ‘He says–’

  ‘Says what?’

  ‘There’s something terribly wrong with the dog. That’s what he said. His exact words.’

  Susan blinked. Her purpose, bright and clear, fell upon her like lightning.

  ‘The dog? That spaniel?’ Doris looked curiously at Isaac, who shrugged. ‘What else could be wrong with it?’

  ‘I must get my bonnet.’ Susan moved decisively to the hook by the door, taking up her bonnet and tying it. ‘And my cloak. And gloves—Doris, are they by the fire?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re going.’

  ‘Of course I’m going. There’s something wrong with the dog.’

  ‘I hate to be a cynic, Susan—’

  ‘No, you don’t. You positively adore it.’

  ‘All right.’ Doris rolled her eyes with a small smile. ‘Are you sure that this isn’t a ruse?’

  ‘Yes. Completely sure.’ Susan wrapped her cloak around her, adjusting her bonnet with a swift shake of her head.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because he wouldn’t lie about the dog.’ Susan stepped out into the wind, rain stinging her face, the dark swallowing her up. She barely felt the cold, or the rain—it was as if the sun was shining inside her, warming her from head to foot. ‘He’d invent anything else, I think—but he wouldn’t lie about the dog.’

  As the door slammed, her footsteps immediately caught up in the swell of the wind and rain, Doris and Isaac looked cautiously at one another. Isaac moved to the window, trying to catch a glimpse of Susan, but her figure had been swallowed up by the night.

  ‘She looked different.’ He turned to Doris. ‘Very different.’

  ‘Yes.’ Doris smiled. ‘As if she’d realised her purpose in life.’

  The journey to the mill seemed a thousand times longer in the rain and darkness, but Susan managed it. Her feet found the path without needing a lantern; it was as if she was always meant to walk this way. This was her road, to Charles, and the ease with which she did it made her shake her head in rueful recognition as she finally banged on the vast door of the mill.

  Would he hear her? She couldn’t stay for long in this cold. But even as the thought crossed her mind the door opened, Charles’s anxious face just visible in the storm-ravaged light of the moon.

  ‘You’re come here without a lantern?’ His eyes widened with concern. ‘You could have injured yourself.’

  ‘But I didn’t. Is it—’

  ‘It’s by the fire. I tried to make it warmer.’ Charles ushered her inside; Susan bit her lip as his hand brushed against her arm. All of the passion was still there, pent-up, waiting. ‘But it keeps shivering.’

  ‘Is the head hot to the touch?’

  ‘I’m sorry for calling you out here.’ His face was grey in the dim light. ‘I didn’t know who else to–’

  Susan waved away the rest of the phrase with a quick, decisive hand. If they began speaking of everything now, they would never stop–and oh, Lord, she needed time to adjust to the reality of things. To wave goodbye to the life she thought she had wanted. ‘What’s wrong with the dog?’

  ‘I–I don’t know. It’s sweating, panting–it doesn’t want to move. It took one of my coats and made a sort of bed out of it.’

  ‘It… it did?’ Understanding dawned on Susan by degrees. ‘Like a nest?’

  ‘I suppose so. Do dogs do that when they’re injured?’

  Lord, she could laugh. She could kill him. ‘No. Where is she?’

  ‘She?’

  ‘Yes.’ Susan took off her bonnet as she walked into the room, looking about her. ‘Definitely a she.’

  Her footsteps echoed on the floor of the mill as she followed Charles into his study. Closing the door, taking a last look at the great bones of the looms as they stood still in the darkness, Susan turned gratefully towards the glowing hearth.

  The spaniel lay panting on the sad remains of one of Charles’s coat. Susan leant down, running her hand over the dog’s tight, silken belly as she spoke. ‘The first one will come along any minute.’

  ‘The first what?’

  ‘Pup.’

  ‘Pup? But…’ Charles’s face was a picture. ‘I always thought he was–’

  ‘–I think
at this point we can say beyond any reasonable doubt that she’s a she.’

  ‘Yes. But–but I always assumed she was simply fat.’

  ‘As did I. But then, we never bothered to look closer. Her paw took all of our attention.’ Susan held her hand to the dog’s head; she wasn’t hot, although her eyes were clouded with effort. ‘But better late than never, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes.’ Charles’s voice rang with feeling. ‘Better late than never.’

  The words filled Susan’s breast until the tangled ball of sentiment and shame that lay there threatened to shatter. Turning her head away from him, unable to bear the look on his face, she concentrated on the dog as it lay whining.

  ‘We’ll need hot water, and towels.’ She spoke gently, stroking along the dog’s back. ‘Something to clean them as they come.’

  ‘And when will they come?’

  ‘As I said. Any minute now.’

  All they had to do was wait. A simple instruction, really–after all, she had waited for years where Charles was concerned. They knelt by the spaniel as she sweated and panted, a bucket of water steaming on the fire and a great pile of cotton rags sitting next to a pair of thick towels. At first Susan watched the dog carefully, worried that she had missed some unusual complication that would require the services of a more experienced hand than she–but when the first puppy appeared, a tiny, wiggling creature, she breathed a sigh of relief. Clearing the eyes, giving it to Charles to gently dab with a rag, then encouraging it to find the dog’s teat… anyone could do this. If ever there was an example of divine power, this was it.

  She didn’t need a convent to see it. She never had. The oppressive trappings of the dream she had indulged in for so long were drifting away, leaving the scene before her shining in its purity. God was here, here in this draughty room with one puppy after another appearing, and no-one would ever be able to persuade her otherwise.

  Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she found herself drawing closer to Charles. At first they were at least an arm’s length apart; Charles knelt at the head of the spaniel, while she managed the appearance of the puppies. But over time, as the last puppies wiggled and howled their way into the world, they drew close enough for Susan to gently lean her head against his shoulder.

  She felt Charles quiver as she did it. Strange that such a strong man would display such open feeling at the touch of her hair against his coat. Another miracle, if one was inclined to look for them–and tonight, as the rain beat against the windows and the last puppy came out with a twitching nose, she was.

  ‘I think that’s all of them.’ Charles looked carefully at the spaniel, who didn’t seem unduly disturbed by her eventful night. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘She isn’t straining anymore. I think you’re correct.’

  ‘They’re rather lovely, aren’t they?’

  ‘They’re a miracle.’ Susan looked down at the row of tiny creatures, all of them suckling contentedly. The spaniel looked up excitedly at them, as if proud to finally be showing off her greatest work. ‘Truly a miracle.’

  ‘I bow to your superior judgement of miracles.’ Charles’s voice was cautious, but his eyes were full of the same emotion Susan felt flowering in her. Love, love, love by many names and in many guises–everything she felt for him had love at its heart. ‘I have very little experience of them.’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’ Biting her lip, Susan reached for Charles’s hand. He took it immediately, his slight intake of breath as potent a message as any word. ‘Miracles are found in abundance during the course of a normal day, as long as one remembers to pay attention.’

  ‘I am paying attention. I promise.’ Charles’s voice shook. ‘The attention I should have paid all my life.’

  ‘Good.’ Oh, she couldn’t let tears come. She would be entirely fit for nothing. ‘I… I’m glad.’

  ‘Don’t weep.’

  ‘I don’t want to weep. I’m so happy.’

  ‘But you’re weeping anyway.’

  ‘Too much happiness.’ Susan gently shook her head, smiling as the tears trickled down her cheeks. ‘My cup runneth over.’

  Sitting by the fire, Charles’s hand clasped in hers, happiness seemed to rain down from the ceiling and burst forth from the fire. Happiness, contentment–peace. A peace she would never have found across the sea, in the cloistered confines of a nunnery.

  ‘I love you, Susan. More than you will ever know.’

  ‘On the contrary. I know.’ Susan turned, kissing him. ‘I know.’

  ‘And we shall be married as soon as you wish it.’

  ‘Yes.’ Susan laughed, shaking her head as she blushed. ‘But thanks to you, I cannot be wedded in white.’

  THE END

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  Sinful in Scarlet: The Brothers Duke, Book One

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