Lady Disdain

by Michelle Morrison

  “Perfect,” he breathed. She thought he meant the brandy and he did not disabuse her of the idea as she climbed to her feet and fetched two cups. Though his awareness had occurred as suddenly and naturally as waking up, it was still a momentous realization. He’d never been in love before. Not like this, not where he knew that not a day would go by without her being the first thing he thought about upon waking and the last thing before falling asleep. And how he wanted to make sure that when she slept, it was in his arms. Every night. All in all, it made him feel a bit lightheaded.

  She handed him his cup and he was glad to see she’d been generous in her portions. He took an initial slug just to feel the soothing burn, then resolved to sip the rest. He wanted to concentrate on what she was going to say, because he knew it was going to be monumentally significant.

  Chapter Nine

  Sarah took a gulp of the brandy and willed herself not to cough. She’d had the bottle for four years and only brought it out in times of the direst need. Today definitely qualified. And if she was going to tell Sam her story, she would need all the courage she could muster. She took another sip and then a deep breath. Sam looked at her expectantly and there was a wealth of compassion in his eyes. Compassion and…something else. Something new. Something that made her heart pound faster than normal.

  She shook her head to clear it of such thoughts. She needed to concentrate as she told her story. The story she’d not told another soul.

  “There was a man at the park the other day,” she began.

  He nodded shortly. He’d asked her about Peter that day.

  “His name is Peter Greene. We grew up together.”

  “Where?”

  “Aylsebury Vale. In Buckinghamshire. We were childhood friends. We played together, kept each other’s confidences. Peter had always dreamed of joining the army. His father bought him a commission and he went to India. When he came back, he wasn’t the same. His parents thought he’d been a commissary officer, but he had volunteered for the front lines. He was…different when I first saw him. He had seen, and I suppose done things that haunted him.”

  Sam nodded in understanding, rolling the glass idly between his hands.

  “His first night back he had a, well I suppose you would call it an attack. I stayed with him until it passed.” She stared past Sam’s shoulder, seeing again that evening with the gaiety of the party behind them so at odds with the terror and panic Peter was suffering just a few yards away. Rousing herself, she told Sam how she’d convinced Peter to share his experiences with her, how she’d brought her dog on walks with him so Peter could tell him the things he couldn’t bear to tell her.

  She paused to take another sip of brandy before describing how Peter had kissed her, how the halcyon summer days had slipped by, how she’d thought herself so in love with him that she didn’t hesitate to give herself to him. She was immersed in the memory, but for the first time she felt removed from it. As a result she was able to focus on Sam’s reaction as well. She saw his fingers tighten on his glass but when she glanced at his face, he forced the tense muscles of his face to soften into a small smile of encouragement. There was no judgement in his gaze and she relaxed slightly.

  “I assumed we would marry, of course. We’d been friends since we were children. My family is not noble, but we are established gentry and related, as you know, to the Chalcrofts. There was no reason to suspect I would not be a suitable bride. His father was only a baronet, not so very high above us. But he said he couldn’t marry me. Or anyone, I think he said, but then he admitted his father had plans for him.”

  “He turned you down because you couldn’t elevate his family?” he asked incredulously, his blue eyes flashing with indignant fire.

  “I don’t think that was his primary reason, though he said it was his father’s.”

  “Did he tell his father what he did to you?” Sam said sharply, standing and clenching his fists. He looked ready to pummel something and Sarah smiled that he was so indignant on her behalf.

  She shook her head and caught his hand, tugging until he sat again.

  “Let me finish,” she said gently.

  “I apologize.” He reached for the brandy and splashed more in each of their cups.

  When he was settled, she continued. “I think he was still greatly shaken by the war. I believe I helped him, of course, but perhaps there were things he’d never been able to tell me, terrible things that prevented him emotionally from being able to be—” her voice cracked, but she forced herself to finish. “To be a father.”

  “Didn’t he consider that before he—wait! Do you mean to tell me…did you become pregnant?”

  She nodded, her inner gaze looking back six years to that grassy meadow where she’d met Peter Greene for the last time until three days ago.

  After their initial kiss that day, she’d stopped him as he’d moved to unbutton her gown.

  “What’s wrong?” he’d asked. “Oh bother, is it that time already?”

  “No, it’s not that. Peter, wait!” she said when he resumed trying to undress her. “I must ask you something.”

  “You know I find you beautiful,” he said, nuzzling her neck until she finally pushed him away.

  “Peter, we are going to be married, aren’t we?”

  That brought him up cold. “Someday,” he finally said, hesitantly

  “Well, we need to make it someday soon,” she said with a joyful smile. “Because we’re going to have a baby. Everyone knows we’ve been courting since you came home. A short betrothal will raise no eyebrows and it won’t be the first eight-month baby in Aylesbury.”

  She took his hands and gazed up at him with all the love in her heart. She felt the tremors in his hands before she realized his whole body was shaking.

  “What’s wrong Peter? I admit, I am a bit nervous as well, but it was to be expected with all of our ‘afternoon walks’.”

  “I can’t,” he said, his voice a dry rasp. “I can’t be a father. I can’t bring a baby into this world. If you knew what I’d—oh God!” he cried, flinging her hands away. He turned to the nearest tree and bashed his head against it.

  “Peter! Stop! What are you doing? Why are you saying this? We can’t take it back! I’m pregnant. Don’t you understand?”

  “We’ll give it away. Find a family to take it in.”

  “I’m not giving away our child!” she cried hoarsely.

  “I can’t—I won’t,” he stammered. Then, “My father—”

  “But if you told him—“

  “I can’t marry you, Sarah,” he said, his despair crystallizing. “I can’t. And even if I could, my father would never allow it. He hopes to marry me off to a woman with a title. Someone who will aid his social climbing aspirations.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Sam cursed through his teeth, surging to his feet again, too full of ire to sit still. “Goddamn son of a bitch. But—“

  Sarah held up her hand to stop him. “That’s not why I…broke down today.” She took another sip of brandy.

  Sam paced back and forth to expel some energy. Then he sat back down yet again, clearly prepared for the worst.

  “I wandered the woods after Peter left. I was so distraught, I didn’t know what to do. How would I tell my parents? I was their only child. They would be devastated.” She remembered how terrified she’d been—not just of the darkening woods, but of the future which only this morning had seemed so bright and yet now felt as terrifying as the wild animals she imagined were lurking behind every tree.

  “It started to rain. I’d walked much further than I’d realized. A priest from the next shire over found me.” She smiled, remembering Father Gregory rooting around in the woods for truffles, his brown robes blending into the forest. He was the first priest she’d ever met, having been raised in the Anglican church and she had no idea how to address him. She had stared at him mutely, knowing her horror was evident in her face.

  “Are you alright?” he’d asked in a low melodio
us voice.

  “I—he—“ she’d choked, the tears streaming down her face.

  “Come, sit down, child,” he said, gesturing to a moss-covered stump. He rummaged in his basket and withdrew a stone bottle of ale that he handed to her. “Drink.”

  She shuddered at the taste but he urged her to drink a little more before handing her a chunk of dark bread.

  “I’m not hungry,” she gasped.

  “I know. Take a bite anyway. You look thoroughly done in.”

  She nibbled a bit and he nodded approvingly.

  “Are you lost?” he finally asked.

  “I—I suppose so. I hadn’t really thought about it, but—“ she glanced around. “I have no idea where I am.”

  “You’re in the woods just east of Lower Hartwell. Where did you mean to go?”

  “Oh! I…I live near Aylesbury Vale.”

  “You’ve had a good long walk then. There’s no need to cry. I’ll see you safely home.”

  “That’s not why I was crying,” she burst out.

  “No?” he asked and she realized he already knew that. “What can upset such a lovely young lady on such a beautiful summer day?”

  She burst out crying again and though he was a stranger and a priest who would surely judge her for her sins, she found herself unburdening her story to him. He patted her consolingly on the back as she told him about Peter, about the baby, and about him claiming he could not marry her. She couldn’t seem to stop the words from pouring out. When she was done, she felt exhausted and a bit amazed that she’d so readily confessed her shame to this priest.

  Father Gregory sat silently for several long moments and she braced herself for a sermon on sins and pride, knowing she deserved it and yet dreading it nonetheless. And yet nothing in his expression indicated judgment. When he spoke, his tone was thoughtful.

  “And you say he spent several years in the Army?”

  She nodded, bending over to wipe her nose unceremoniously on the hem of her skirt.

  He sat in quiet contemplation a while longer, nodding now and then to himself.

  “We shall have to inform your parents, of course,” he said gently.

  This brought on a spate of new tears as she considered how devastated her parents would be. They’d assumed Peter would marry her as well, though they’d had no idea that marriage would become a necessity.

  “They’ll be so ashamed. I’m ruined. I shan’t be able to show my face in public again!”

  He nodded some more. “As for that, let’s take one step at a time. First, let’s tell your parents. They may have some ideas you’ve not been able to consider.”

  “They won’t! They’ll despise me—“

  “Let’s reserve judgment on that front. They may yet surprise you. However, if they do not have any ideas for this delicate situation, I may be able to help.”

  “How could you possibly help?” she’d cried. And then, “Forgive me. I’m not myself.”

  “Of course you’re not,” he said, patting her hand.

  “I’m such a horrible person! I knew better. I should have—“

  He shook his head. “You are simply young and in love. And perhaps a tad naive, but there is certainly nothing evil in that.”

  At the surprised look on Sam’s face, Sarah nodded. “Yes, I’d been expecting fire and brimstone as well. But Father Gregory was different. He took me back to my parent’s house and helped me explain everything. My mother reacted much as I’d expected. She grew faint and then looked at me as though she didn’t recognize me. I knew she could not believe a daughter she had raised would have acted so improperly. My father wanted to call out Peter—“

  “Damn right,” Sam interjected.

  She shook her head. “The scandal would have been even worse. And my father was not—there’s no way he would have survived such a thing. No, Father Gregory convinced them to keep me at home and act like nothing had happened. I was to conceal my pregnancy for as long as possible and once I could hide it no longer, they were to send me to his care. Lower Hartwell is a much poorer, smaller village. There is scarcely any interaction between it and Aylesbury Vale. He would put out that I was his widowed sister, come to keep house for him.”

  “Is that what you did?” he asked, scarcely believing that such a plan would work.

  She nodded. “I was scarcely showing, but my parents didn’t want anyone to suspect, so they sent me off several months before the baby was to have been born. They…well I suppose they just couldn’t reconcile what had happened to who they thought I was. I’d never caused them trouble, always behaved exactly as I should.”

  “It’s not like you killed someone,” Sam said scathingly.

  She smiled. “I may as well have for the scandal that would have ensued if word got out. My parents wouldn’t have been able to show their faces. Their position in Aylesbury Vale was so important to them. They rarely traveled to London for the season. Their church and their friends was everything to them.”

  “But you were their daughter!” Sam protested.

  She smiled sadly. It was nothing she hadn’t thought time and again. Her parents were who they were and she’d had to let go of her disappointment long ago or suffer miserably every day.

  She took a sip of brandy and continued her story. “I helped Father Gregory feed the poor in the area. His was the first charity kitchen I’d ever heard about.” She smiled grimly. “I was terribly ignorant of the plight of many of England’s poor before then.”

  “I imagine it was quite a shock,” Sam said.

  She laughed humorlessly. “After Peter’s pronouncement, nothing seemed to shock me. But yes, it did take some getting used to, the idea that a child might go to bed hungry because their parent didn’t earn enough to feed them. I realized just how sheltered a life I had lived up until then. It made me feel terribly guilty.”

  Sam opened his mouth to speak but she forestalled him. “Let me finish while I have the courage,” she pleaded. He nodded shortly. “I worked there for three months until—“ her voice cracked again and she waited a moment, collecting herself.

  “The reason I knew how to deliver Mrs. Sampson’s baby is because my baby was also breech. The midwife—she was so kind. She worked so hard. She had me in every conceivable position. She fed me herbal teas. She even—she even reached inside me trying to turn the baby. But in the end—“

  Sarah broke off, suddenly pulled to that sweltering tiny room where she had spent so many hours laboring. The midwife had been so calm and so reassuring. She talked Sarah through each contraction, urging her not to push as long as possible. She had counseled and cajoled, encouraged and pleaded endlessly. Eventually, however, Sarah’s body had taken over and she had pushed for all she was worth. Even now she didn’t know how long it actually took; it could have been an hour, it could have been all night. All she remembered was how quiet the midwife became when the pressure finally released and the babe was out. Sarah had waited for the tell-tale cry but she didn’t hear anything. She tried to push herself to her elbows but she was simply exhausted and fell back against the sweat-soaked sheets.

  “My baby,” she’d mumbled through dry lips.

  The midwife was hunched over the baby, chafing its feet, rubbing its back. After several minutes, she wrapped it gently in a blanket but she did not bring it to Sarah.

  “What’s wrong?” she cried. “Why won’t you bring it to me?”

  The midwife turned then, a sorrowful expression on her lined face. She brought the tiny bundle to Sarah. “The child is with God now,” she said gently.

  “What? No!” Sarah tore back the blanket and looked down at the perfect little face searching for movement but it was still and peaceful, waxy pale like a porcelain doll with perfect little lashes against rounded cheeks. She could not believe that after all that work, all that pain, after everything she’d been through the baby was—

  “It happens sometimes when the babe comes backwards,” the midwife said sadly and tucked the blanket back
over the babe’s face before tending to Sarah.

  With a visible start, Sarah pulled herself back to the present. Samuel was looking at her with a look of intense grief. She forced herself to smile reassuringly. It had been five years ago, after all, though the ache was always there, waiting to be recognized.

  “The rest you know. Father Gregory asked if I wanted to help a fellow monk establish an organization in The Mint. When Brother Joshua died so suddenly, I stayed on. There was nowhere else for me to go and it felt good to be helping people. I learned how to cook for a hundred people. I began learning the healing arts. We could never keep a doctor longer than a few months.

  “But I was never able to deliver babies. When Eleanor arrived, she was fascinated with childbirth and she became such a good midwife. She can even handle the ones that don’t end well, but I’ve never been able to do it.”

  “Until today,” he reminded her, reaching out a hand to her. She took it and clung to it like a lifeline.

  “Thank you for helping me,” she said.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You did,” she insisted. “You kept me…present. You helped me focus.”

  “You were amazing. You are amazing, Sarah.”

  Tears filled her eyes but did not spill over. “I’m not—“

  “Shh,” he said, and gently pulled her to her feet. He stepped closer until he was only inches away. He could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest as she clutched his hand tightly. He tilted her chin up with his other hand and waited until her eyelids fluttered open.

  “You are amazing and strong and beautiful. God, you’re so beautiful.”

  Her lips parted on a sigh and he slowly lowered his head, touching her mouth with his own in a kiss that was infinite in its slowness and tenderness.