“What are you waiting for, Miss Parker? Wash up, please.”
My God, Mrs. Crescent was having a baby, and Chloe’s mind was in the gutter, even after a scrape in the ice-house with an absolute rake.
Mrs. Crescent started her breathing, and Chloe hustled to the wash table.
“Do put on a pair of latex gloves,” Henry instructed.
“Latex gloves?” The hot water scalded her hands and the soapsuds felt—real. She snapped the gloves on. She whispered to Henry, “When were these invented? Not during the Regency, I’m sure.”
Henry lowered his voice. “If you must know, Miss Parker, it was 1964. Now please come and help Mrs. Crescent relax.”
Relax? Nothing could’ve prepared Chloe for what she saw when she turned around, except gory hospital and crime shows that she never watched because she didn’t have cable.
Chloe rocked back on her boots, reaching behind her for something to lean on. Her hand awkwardly bumped Henry right on his tight ass. Al manners, he pretended nothing happened.
“I offered her a sheet for modesty as they would’ve done in the Regency, but she refused.”
Chloe knew there was no modesty in childbirth. She watched Henry unrol a suede package on the dressing table.
“Obstetric kit.”
It was an obstetric kit from the Regency era. The instruments, tucked in the suede kit with a strip of leather, looked more like pruning shears, great big tongs, some sort of a spatula, and the biggest fishhook she’d ever seen.
One glance would’ve been enough to get anyone—maybe even Grace—to sign on for a life of spinsterhood and celibacy. “You’re not real y going to—”
“To use these? Hardly!” He lowered his voice to a whisper as he pul ed out the wooden forceps. “But this is what the OB or ‘accoucheur’ would’ve used. We’ve come such a long way in just two hundred years. No wonder one in three women died in childbirth.”
“What?! One in three—”
“Uggggggggggh!” Mrs. Crescent’s face contorted into a grimace. Red splotches and sweat covered her face and neck.
Henry handed Chloe a stack of cool, damp washcloths. She hadn’t known that one in three women died during childbirth in the Regency. It was hard to reconcile the gowns and the glitz and the romance with this horrific statistic.
She scissor-stepped over to the bedside and dabbed Mrs. Crescent’s forehead with a washcloth. Her voice wavered. “Just think, Mrs. Crescent, soon you’l be holding your beautiful, healthy, happy baby. Your baby wil know you just by your heartbeat, your voice. It’l look up at you—”
“It’s a wonder you know so much about childbirth!” Mrs. Crescent exhaled deeply, focusing on Chloe’s torn gown barely covered by a hastily buttoned pelisse. “Whatever happened to your gown this time? It’s a fright. An absolute fright! And your hair is down!”
A warm and glowing feeling came over Chloe, just knowing that Mrs. Crescent was stil herself. She brushed Mrs. Crescent’s hair out of her face.
Henry scanned Chloe from her slightly askew amber necklace to her muddied hemline.
Chloe looked away and her eyes fel on her fan and reticule at the washstand. “Mrs. Crescent, you’l be happy to know I remembered my fan and reticule.”
Mrs. Crescent clenched the stiff sheets on her sleigh bed.
Chloe’s knees went wobbly. She couldn’t do this. She wasn’t a nurse and this wasn’t a hospital.
“Time to push again,” Henry said with the utmost calm.
Mrs. Crescent banged her fists on the bed. “Ugh!”
Chloe let go of the wet washrag.
“One, two—” Henry counted, easing Mrs. Crescent into a more comfortable position.
Chloe’s head throbbed and she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t take it anymore. “Henry! We need to get her to a hospital. It’s not real y 1812 here, you know. She needs an epidural—now. Who the hel has a baby without an epidural?”
The cameraman aimed at Chloe. Henry dropped his watch and it dangled from his watch fob.
“Sorry. That was very unladylike.”
Henry looked with affection and sympathy at Mrs. Crescent. “Three. And breathe.”
Mrs. Crescent could breathe, but Chloe couldn’t. She broke out in a sweat.
Henry massaged Mrs. Crescent as he glared at Chloe. “Miss Parker, this is what Mrs. Crescent wants. A natural birth. It’s too late for the epidural now. Please. Get ahold of yourself. You’l upset our rhythm.”
She gulped. She didn’t know Henry could’ve been so—type A.
Mrs. Crescent leaned over and picked up a brown medicine bottle from the night table. “Should she have a dram?”
Henry shook his head. “If you don’t need it, she doesn’t. I just concocted it for fun in my lab.”
Chloe straightened and clenched her Empire waist. “What is it? Maybe I could use it.”
“It’s laudanum, and no, you can’t have any. You don’t have any medical reason.” Henry handed the bottle to a servant. “Take it away.” The servant hid it behind Mrs. Crescent’s dressing-table mirror and then hurried to change Mrs. Crescent’s bed linens.
Mrs. Crescent huffed and puffed. “It’s an opiate.”
Chloe tilted her head. “As in opium?” Great. She had drugged Sebastian with opium.
“Yes.” Henry continued to massage Mrs. Crescent’s back. “It’s used for everything from headaches to liven up an evening in a drawing room. It’s a sort of cure-al .”
Chloe put another cool washrag on Mrs. Crescent’s forehead.
“Look.” Henry reached for a shelf above Mrs. Crescent. He lowered his voice. “We have a mobile phone in case of emergency. An ambulance is at the ready.” The phone glistened in his latex-gloved hand. Without thinking, Chloe took it from him. She squeezed it in her hand, held it close to her chest. If only she could cal Abby. Emma. But knowing she or Henry could cal the ambulance made her feel better, and she put the phone back on the shelf.
Henry’s valet burst into the room. “Ice shards, sir.”
“Set them near Miss Parker. Thank you.”
The valet took one look at Mrs. Crescent and bolted out the door.
“Miss Parker, please give Mrs. Crescent an ice shard—”
Mrs. Crescent opened her dry mouth and Chloe put a piece of ice on her tongue. The ice brought it al back to her. So much swirled around her.
Birthing Abigail. The ice-house. Sebastian. The look on Henry’s face before he rode off.
Henry looked at his watch. “In just a bit, we’l push again.”
The camerawoman readied for another dramatic scene.
Mrs. Crescent pushed, exhaled deeply, until at last the baby crowned.
“My baby!” Mrs. Crescent sweated and squealed with joy.
Chloe’s eyes teared up, remembering her first sight of Abigail’s face. She’d do anything for Abigail. Anything. Even this. Even marry the on-again off-again Sebastian in a fake ceremony.
Henry turned to Chloe with a list of instructions as he supported the baby’s head and eased it into the world. He lowered his voice to a whisper.
“A shoulder is stuck. I need to guide it out. Here. Hold the head.”
Hold the head?! Chloe cradled the baby’s head with her slippery gloved hands.
“Should I cal the ambulance?” Chloe cringed as she watched Henry work the tiny shoulder out.
“We’l be fine. We can do it.”
A split second later he slid the shoulder out and the hot little baby slipped into Chloe’s hands. Her heart throbbed.
Henry swooped in, wiping the baby’s mouth and eyes clean. Then he lifted the baby like a prize for Mrs. Crescent to see. “It’s a girl! A girl, Mrs.
Crescent!” The baby cried.
Chloe would never, ever again romanticize the Regency. Every single love that culminated in marriage would end like this: with natural childbirth.
Because there wasn’t any reliable birth control. The mother would be lucky to survive, and probably become pregnan
t within a year, and every year thereafter. No wonder al of Jane Austen’s novels ended with the wedding!
Mrs. Crescent quivered with happiness and exhaustion. Chloe covered her with a blanket. Mrs. Crescent held her arms out for the baby.
“You’l have her in a minute. Just a minute,” Henry said. “Miss Parker, I need you to hold the baby now.”
Chloe took the baby in her arms. She looked away as Henry cut the umbilical cord.
“Wel done, Miss Parker.” He took the baby from her, and his face beamed. The room seemed to light up. “Go soothe her. Give her water. I’l clean up the baby. Unless you want to, of course.”
Chloe laughed. “I’l let you do that.”
Mrs. Crescent gave Chloe a little squeeze.
“Thank you, Miss Parker. You were wonderful—”
Chloe shook her head. “No—you were. The baby’s perfect. She’s beautiful. It’s the girl you always wanted.” She pul ed off the soiled latex gloves, washed her hands, and poured Mrs. Crescent a glass of water. She couldn’t believe they did it. Without a hospital. Without an epidural. But she’d never want to help with a nineteenth-century birth again, that was for sure.
Henry brought the cleaned and swaddled baby toward Mrs. Crescent. But before he handed her to her mother, for just a moment, he put his arm around Chloe, and she leaned against him. She saw their shadows, the two of them, together, and a tiny profile of a baby reflected on the wal . Then he stepped away and handed the baby to Mrs. Crescent.
Henry stood right near Chloe, their arms brushed up against each other.
“Mrs. Crescent, we need to do a little stitching,” he said. “Please give the baby to Miss Parker for a moment.”
Chloe couldn’t believe it. Stitching? Without painkil ers?
Mrs. Crescent kissed the baby and handed her off to Chloe, who rocked her like an old pro. Because she was an old pro! For the first time in a long time, Chloe knew where she belonged, and that was at home with her own daughter, in the land of cel phones and ambulances, hospitals, painkil ers, computers, and e-mail.
“You look like quite a natural,” Mrs. Crescent said to Chloe. “You’l be a great mum someday.”
The baby’s eyes closed tight, like little crescent moons.
Chloe shot a look at Henry, who had been watching her.
Henry smiled at Mrs. Crescent. “I’ve gotten word that your husband and children are on their way. They’l be here soon.”
Then Henry snapped on a fresh pair of latex gloves and threaded a needle. Chloe’s stomach lurched. She handed the baby to a servant girl behind her. “Excuse me, I need some air.” She lunged for her fan and reticule and ran out.
When she stopped running, she was outside, and breathed the early-morning air in heavily. She col apsed on the steps in front of the semicircular gravel drive, under a lit torch. She fanned herself frantical y. She untied the hospital gown and it fel in a heap at her boots. The clock in the foyer behind her chimed three times.
Someone came and put an arm around Chloe. It was Fiona.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said.
Chloe couldn’t look her in the face. She just stared at her Celtic tattoo. “You lied to me. Just so that you could dance with Sebastian?”
“Sebastian’s a terrible flirt. He danced with me for one dance and he had promised me at least three.”
“What’s your deal, Fiona? Are you after him, too?”
Fiona hung her head. “I wanted to be a contestant. Like you. But I didn’t make the cut.”
That explained a lot, and Chloe had suspected it al along. “I don’t get it, though. Aren’t you engaged?”
“It’s been on and off. We’l figure it out when he gets back.”
“Sebastian’s a lot like you, Fiona. He doesn’t know what he wants.” Chloe waved Fiona off. “Go to bed. It’s late.”
She curtsied and sauntered off. This gave a whole new spin to the issue of finding good hired help.
Chloe sat for a long time, until, off in the distance, on the way to the reflecting pond, she saw something move on the lawn. It was probably a deer.
She opened her silk reticule, slid Henry’s glasses out, and put them on. It looked like some kind of animal out there, al right. Actual y, it looked more like two animals—one of which was humping the other. She looked away.
Even the animals were getting more action than her around here. She buried her head in her arms until she heard a loud moan. She lifted the torch out of the ground and carried it to the edge of the gravel drive. Soon after the moaning stopped, a lantern lit up on the lawn. A lantern? Animals with a lantern?
She squinted through Henry’s glasses and clearly saw a shirtless Sebastian pul ing up his breeches. Grace hopped into her bal gown.
No wonder Sebastian brought up Grace in conversation so much during their time alone. He wasn’t protecting Chloe from her. He was trying to find out as much about Grace as possible.
He was an ass! He was a player!
He was most definitely not Mr. Darcy.
Chloe just stood there. And held the torch.
Where was that laudanum?
Chapter 21
Y ou’re drunk!”
It had taken a few days to find the laudanum, but she managed to find it despite her busy schedule of wedding-gown fittings and trimming her wedding bonnet. Chloe and Sebastian had been caught together in the ice-house, and just like in the Regency era, they were forced to marry. It was to be a rushed wedding on a Tuesday morning.
So, when Chloe poured more than a few drops of laudanum in her tea this morning, it made it taste like sherry.
Mrs. Crescent leaned over in the chaise-and-four to get a whiff of Chloe’s breath.
“I’m not drunk.” Chloe rubbed her forehead under her white bonnet. These carriage rides always undid her updo, but today horse’s hooves seemed to be clomping on her brain. Hungover? Yes. Buzzed? That was earlier this morning. She looked out of the carriage window at the hedge maze, wondering how she’d ever get out of this.
Mrs. Crescent tightened the pink bonnet ribbon under her chin and narrowed her eyes. “Did you get into the sewing-cabinet vodka again?”
“No. No. Just took a drop of that laudanum at dawn to calm my nerves. One tiny drop! As any Regency lady would do under the circumstances.”
Mrs. Crescent slapped her hands on the leather-covered bench. “What? Opium! On your wedding day—”
“This is not my wedding day.”
Chloe looked down at her white pelisse, white muslin wedding gown, and white calfskin pumps. Her wooden trousseau trunk had been fil ed with al sorts of fril s and Belgian-lace gowns, and strapped to the back of the carriage, in anticipation of the honeymoon. Packing that trousseau was an exercise in humility, preparing for a honeymoon that would never happen after a wedding she didn’t want.
She came across Henry’s handkerchief in her washstand drawer, the handkerchief he gave her on her first day at Bridesbridge, and she decided to pack that as wel as her vial of ink that had only just congealed to perfection.
Mrs. Crescent fumbled around in her reticule. “You are getting married today. Here.” She pushed fresh mint leaves into Chloe’s gloved hand.
“Where did you get laudanum?”
Chloe popped the mint leaves into her mouth, then pointed at her closed lips as she chewed. A lady would never talk with her mouth ful . Final y, she swal owed. “I got it from your room. I relieved you of it.”
“You stole it.”
Chloe sat up straight, pinning her shoulders against the upholstered black leather seat back.
“The night you gave birth to Jemma. I added it to my stockpile.” She folded her arms over her bodice.
“Dear Lord! What are you stockpiling?”
The carriage passed the hol yhocks where she and Henry had caught butterflies. The pink flowers swayed in the breeze.
“I’ve been stockpiling things that Grace smuggled onto the show to prove that she planted that condom on me, and
that although I bent a few rules, she broke so many of them.”
Mrs. Crescent grabbed Chloe by the arm, the same arm that Sebastian had grabbed only a few nights ago. “Listen, dear, we’ve been over this a thousand times. You were caught. You have to marry him.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “It’s what would’ve been done in 1812.”
As soon as those drop-front pants came down, the deal was sealed for Chloe because she got caught by the footman, who told. Grace didn’t get caught by anyone—except Chloe.
The carriage, with its wooden wheels, jostled on the crusty road and seemed to punctuate Mrs. Crescent’s words. “Be glad he wants to marry you. Not al Regency girls are so lucky. Anyway, it’s just for the tel y. You’re not real y marrying him. By hook or by crook, this is what we wanted.
We’ve won!” She clapped her gloved hands joyful y.
But she stopped when, in a clearing alongside the road, she saw cameras filming a throng of servants gathered around a—gal ows? A noose swayed, and a girl appeared to be hanging from it. A girl about Abigail’s age. Chloe’s gloved hands shook. “What—what’s going on?” Waves of horror crashed through her.
“It’s a hanging. They’re hanging that orphan girl.” Then she whispered, “A mock hanging. It’s a dummy, not a girl.”
The dummy twisted on the noose in the sunshine and turned toward Chloe, who cringed. “Ugh. That’s horrifying. Why?”
“She stole a loaf of bread.”
Chloe didn’t mean why did they hang her, but why stage a mock hanging at al . “But—wait. That little girl was hanged for stealing bread?”
Mrs. Crescent nodded.
“That seems a little medieval to me.”
“It’s very Regency. Typical Regency.”
“She’s just a schoolgirl.”
“Girls don’t go to school, you know that.”
Chloe did know. Girls weren’t educated. They couldn’t go to Oxford or Cambridge. And ladies couldn’t choose to work. They had to marry. Chloe looked down at her white reticule. A mock hanging on her mock wedding day. How appropriate. The shadow of the girl as she twisted toward Chloe stayed with her long after they’d passed it. And even though the execution wasn’t real, it rattled Chloe to the core.
Definitely Not Mr. Darcy Page 32