Ashes in the Wind

by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

  Tears suddenly blurred her vision, and she drew a ragged breath. “Perhaps if I hadn’t been so lenient when Roberta—gave herself—to one of her young boyfriends—”

  Angus looked up in surprise.

  “Oh, yes, I knew she was not—the virgin in Cole’s bed. She told me about her friend, and when she promised never again, I didn’t even tell you. I know many other things about her that give me nothing but pain. But Angus”—she paused until he met her eyes again—“I’m going to remember her as a sweet, beautiful child and try my best to forget the rest.”

  Mrs. Hawthorne moved to Leala’s side and took the now-sobbing woman against her bosom. Angus raised his head briefly as he felt her stare.

  “You too, eh, Tally?” he muttered.

  “I think you’ve let your grief befuddle your mind, Angus.” Mrs. Hawthorne stated bluntly. “I am of a mind that the sooner you get yourself up out of the mud of your wallowing self-pity, the sooner you will begin to enjoy life again. Leala is right. Forget the hurts. You can’t change the past. Get out of your hole and live the rest of your life like it means something.”

  “Why should I, when it doesn’t?” he replied sourly.

  Tally cocked her head to one side and stared down at him. “That’s your choice, Angus. Just don’t blame the rest of us if we don’t agree.”

  “Cole?” Alaina’s plaintive appeal was barely noticeable to anyone but her husband who turned quickly at the soft summons. His eyes widened as he found his wife half crouched against the door holding an arm over her stomach. “Cole, I think it has started.”

  A startled hush fell over the room as Cole bent and lifted his wife into his arms. Briefly he turned and caught Mrs. Hawthorne’s eye.

  “Tally, will you rouse the household for me and inform the servants that Mrs. Latimer’s time has come? They’ll know what to do.”

  Cole mounted the stairs with his tender burden, taking them two at a time, and shouldered open the bedroom door. Running footsteps came behind him, and he half turned to see Leala enter the room and wipe her tears dry.

  “Pull down the covers,” he bade and waited until Leala had hastily complied before placing Alaina gently upon the cool sheets. He yanked off his coat and vest, throwing them aside, then jerked off his cravat and opened his shirt.

  “You’ll be needing fresh linens, Cole,” Leala stated, taking a firm hand in the management of the proceedings. “Where will I find them?”

  “In there.” Cole nodded to the bathing chamber and bent to remove his wife’s shoes and stockings.

  Alaina bit her bottom lip as her belly hardened and contracted, then a moment later a small sigh of relief slipped from her as the pain ebbed. She smiled tenderly at her husband’s concern and reached out to caress his lean cheek.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  Cole caught her fingers and pressed them against his lips. “I find myself suddenly atremble, Alaina. A score and more of babies have I guided into this world, but none frightens me like this one.”

  “You’ll do fine, milord Yankee,” she assured with soft lights of love shining in her eyes. “And what with being a witness to the birth of Gretchen’s babe, if you err,” she teased him with a delicious little grin, “I shall set you aright. We have a child coming into the world, Doctor Latimer, and we’ll bring it in together.” Her gaze became soft and probing as she whispered. “I trust you—beyond anyone else.”

  Thusly fortified, Cole proceeded with the best of his knowledge and his experience, though he could not detach his heart and emotions from the slim girl who labored and strained, silently gritted her teeth at the pain and came through each one to smile reassuringly up at him. While Mrs. Hawthorne and Leala busied themselves about the room in preparation for the birth, he gripped the slender hands, unaware of the sky lightening to a dusty blue or the mantel clock striking an early morning hour.

  As the grinding agony cut through her once again, Alaina caught the twisted spindles of the headboard and bore down as her husband gently directed. Her face contorted in a grimace of victory as she at last felt the baby’s head slide from her, and she panted, relaxing, waiting for another spasm to come so she could push the child completely from her. There was a weak, snuffled cry from a voice she had never heard before, and she thrilled with the knowledge that it came from her firstborn.

  Cole’s hand pressed on her belly, while the other supported the child’s head. “We’re doing fine, Alaina. Bear down hard now. It’s coming.”

  As the pain washed from her with the birth of the child, she heard Aunt Leala’s exhilarated cry.

  “It’s a girl!”

  “She’s beautiful!” Mrs. Hawthorne exclaimed in awe.

  Cole cradled his daughter into his two hands and grinned broadly as he placed her on her mother’s belly.

  He peered questioningly at his wife. “Glynis Lynn Latimer?”

  Alaina raised her hand and hesitantly touched her loudly squalling child, blinking away tears. “After my mother?”

  Cole nodded. “I thought it would be appropriate.”

  “Glynis Lynn Latimer,” Alaina repeated softly. “It has a nice ring to it.”

  Chapter 42

  ANGUS Craighugh had been forgotten by the members of the family, and had been shown to a guest room by the butler who stoically laid out borrowed sleepwear and set Peter to preparing a bath for him. In the quiet, dark solitude of his room, Angus had much to think and ponder on. He had never struck a woman in his life, but just a few hours before, had almost slapped his niece, and she with child. Though at his anxious questions, he had been assured by the butler that Alaina’s time had not come early, he still worried and fretted because, in his own mind, he had caused the onset of her labor. He agonized over that fact as he awaited some word or announcement from the Latimers’ bedchamber. Considering what he deserved, he thought that Cole had been relatively gentle with him and certainly lenient to let him stay in his house.

  In the morning Angus waited in the parlor for the others to wake from their belated slumber and caught the excited whispers of the servants.

  “A girl!” “Small!” “Healthy!” “Mrs. Latimer’s doing well.” “Sleeping!”

  Thank God, Angus thought, clasping his hands tightly together on his knees. He would never have forgiven himself if something had not been right.

  Sensing a presence in the open doorway of the parlor, Angus slowly raised his gaze. A small, slender girl, barely seven or so, in a pert muslin gown, with long, shining dark hair and luminous dark eyes stood against the doorframe timidly watching him.

  Angus blinked and slowly leaned back in his chair. She looked so much like Roberta had when she was a child, it almost startled him. The child sidled around the corner and seated herself in a chair facing him, politely folding her hands and looking at him with those large, beautiful eyes.

  Angus cleared his throat and self-consciously rubbed his short, thick-fingered hands along his trousers. “I don’t remember seeing you here before.”

  Mindy cocked her head wonderingly and slowly grinned. It was a matter of fact that she could say the same about him.

  “I’m—Mrs. Latimer’s uncle,” he clarified his identity.

  Mindy glanced in the direction of the staircase in the hall and scratched her slim nose. Angus sat forward in his chair almost eagerly.

  “Whose little girl are you?”

  A small, oval-framed photograph sat on the round table beside the child’s chair, and she gestured to it, smiling timidly. Angus rose and went to peer more closely at the picture, then raised his brows in wonder. It was a photograph of Alaina and Cole together. He returned to his seat and stared blankly at the girl until a brief moment later, a discreet clearing of the throat brought his attention to the door where Miles had come to stand.

  “Annie was wondering, sir, if you would be wanting to eat now. The others are still sleeping, and it will just be you and the girl.”

  Angus glanced at the child. “Would you care to
join me for breakfast—ah—” He waited expectantly, but Mindy hid a silent giggle behind her hand.

  “Mindy, sir,” Miles supplied the information. “And you’ll not likely get anything from her. She hasn’t talked since the gardener brought her here.”

  “The gardener?”

  “Her uncle, sir, but I’m afraid he’s passed on now. Doctor and Mrs. Latimer have taken the child in. She’s an orphan, sir.”

  Angus rose and extended his hand to the child in an invitation for her to join him. “I had a daughter once.” There was a warmer light in his eyes as he spoke, a spark of life that had been long dead. “She was a beauty, just like you.”

  Mindy walked beside him to the dining room, her small hand tucked comfortably into his. She smiled uncertainly up at the man as he glanced down at her. It was a good beginning for Angus.

  Glynis Lynn spent her first afternoon beneath her father’s fascinated perusal. He had never seen such a beautiful baby girl in all of his years as a doctor. Of course, the fact that she belonged to him could have made him somewhat prejudiced, but he’d still argue the point with anyone.

  He glanced up as Alaina stirred in the bed beside the cradle, and the gray eyes opened slowly to find him smiling at her.

  “She has your nose and mouth,” he stated fondly.

  Alaina’s smile was tender and soft. “How can you tell?”

  Cole came around the cradle and sat on the edge of the bed beside her. “Because it’s my fondest wish that she should have them.”

  “Do you get everything you wish for?”

  “I got you,” he pointed out, as if that ended the argument. “And having you was my most cherished desire.”

  A timid rap sounded at the door, and Cole went to the portal to find Angus sheepishly waiting in the hall.

  “Captain Latimer—uh—Major—Doctor Latimer—”

  “Try Cole,” his host urged.

  “Cole.” Angus nodded and gained a small measure of confidence. “I’ve been thinking for most of the night and day, unable to make heads or tails of it all. Of the money, I mean, and of Roberta and everything else that’s happened since we first met. I began to pray—” He chuckled. “I haven’t done that in a long time, you know. But it seemed to clear my head. I know what a fool I’ve been now, and I just had to apologize for my stupidity and for hurting Alaina. I beg your forgiveness.”

  Cole smiled wryly and extended his hand. He never thought he would be hearing those words from Angus, and clasping hands in new-found friendship somehow made everything right between them for the first time. “Being a fool at times is the whim of man. I fear I’ve suffered much from it myself. How else would we learn to be wise?”

  Angus rubbed his stubbled cheek with the palm of his hand and seemed uncertain once more. “I think—” He paused, then tried again. “I think I’ll go talk to Leala for a bit.”

  Cole nodded in agreement. “Now that is being wise!”

  The Craighughs and Mrs. Hawthorne departed the first week after the delivery of the baby. Angus had left store and all to come after his wife, and Leala smiled as she admitted to herself that it was something rare in the history of their marriage for Angus to put aside the making of money to a later time. Angus was much taken with Mindy, and as he left, he anxiously urged the Latimers to visit soon and bring the child with them.

  After their visit and the birth of Glynis Lynn, the house seemed less gloomy for Alaina, yet when the sweltering days of August came upon them, the sun and hot, dry winds made a virtual oven of the cliff manse. Even the usually unruffled Miles broke into a sweat, but Alaina knew how to deal with the heat. She loosened her bodice, rolled up her sleeves, and went on about her affairs of motherhood and wife.

  In contrast to the hill house, the cottage was cool beneath its towering elms, and more and more Alaina was wont to take Mindy and Glynis and spend her hours of the day near Cole in the shaded rooms. She ordered a thorough cleaning of the place and joined the help in bringing the furnishings to a rich luster or a beauty comparable to its former state. The cottage had a solid feel about it. The floors were thick oak or, as in the kitchen, slabbed stones. Where the hill manor rattled its windows at the slightest breeze and groaned and seemed to creak at the lightest settling of a moth, the cottage was firm and secure, and one could forget the weather outside, be it gale or drenching storm, steaming heat or chilling frost. It had been built with care to last several lifetimes, and Alaina grew attached to its sprawling quietness. She felt more at home in its tasteful decor and subtle elegance than she could ever do in the overly embellished manor on the hill.

  It was during an evening meal that Cole brought up the possibility of moving down to the cottage, now that she had become so well ensconced in it. He had noticed the increasing supply of baby garments and towels and linens, not to mention the several changes of clothes for Alaina in the armoire of the master bedroom upstairs.

  His announcement left Alaina wondering if he had access to her inner thoughts, and she tried to subdue some of her bubbling excitement over the idea as she replied in agreement. “I think that’s a fine idea, milord Yankee.”

  Cole gestured to Mrs. Garth to bring her attention to the fact that he was waiting for her to pour his usual after-dinner brandy. She seemed to have been more startled by his decision than Alaina.

  “Excuse me, sir,” she hastened to apologize and splashed a meager amount of the liquor into the snifter. It had been the doctor himself who had chided her on her penchant for filling his glass close to the brim and now often totally declined, even preferring to sip coffee without additives.

  “Have you given any thought as to what you’ll be doing with this place?” Alaina asked from her chair at the table, which was now close to his.

  “I’ve a thought that it might be made into an acceptable hospital, certainly more worthy than some of the pesthouses I’ve seen.”

  The decanter rattled against the snifter, splashing brandy over the table. Quickly dabbing at it with a cloth, Mrs. Garth blotted the table linen and mumbled an apology before she took herself from the room. Cole peered after her curiously, a wondering brow raised. But he forgot the woman as Alaina, now in the privacy of the dining room, slipped into his lap, winning his complete and immediate attention.

  “Oh, Cole, I think that’s an excellent idea!” she exclaimed eagerly, wrapping her arms about his neck. “And Braegar can help you. Why, the servants and I can start carrying clothes and things down to the cottage tomorrow, and by the end of the week, or a little more, we can be living down there. Then you can have carpenters in here tearing down walls and opening up some of the rooms for wards. In no time you’ll be taking in your first hospital patient.”

  Cole had suddenly lost interest in the subject. The scant layers of petticoat and muslin gown, which she had adopted for wearing in the heat, allowed him to feel the soft woman beneath. Since the birth of their daughter, he had bided his time until the day they could become once again intimate lovers. It was nearing September, a good month and a half since that event, and he was hard pressed to restrain himself. The pressure of her derriere against his loins set the hot blood stirring, warming his desires.

  “Do you realize, madam, how long it’s been since we’ve made love?” He crinkled his brows at her as she turned to gape at him in surprise, taken completely off guard by his sudden change in topics. He toyed with the buttons of her bodice. “I have another excellent idea if you’d be of a mind to hear me out.”

  Alaina leaned against his lightly shirted chest, and her hand strayed within the garment to caress the firm muscles and furry expanse, feeling the heavy thud of his heartbeat. Her breath brushed against his ear. “Could we discuss this more in the privacy of our bedroom, milord Yankee?”

  In the next days they gained a patient for the hospital even before Cole chose to announce his decision to the servants. Rebel Cummings visited with Braegar and, during dinner, listened with apparently meager interest as they discussed the possibility of t
he men combining their skills in such a manner. Then as they were preparing to leave, she suddenly and without warning swooned, conveniently into Cole’s arms. No amount of medical know-how roused her; smelling salts only made her choke and cough and faint dead away again.

  Alaina observed the whole thing rather brittlely as the woman all but wallowed against Cole. She was tempted to give Rebel a good pinch to bring her around, but refrained, being a respected doctor’s wife. Instead, she stood back and watched, unaffected by the furor. Braegar anxiously insisted that Rebel shouldn’t be moved, and a guest room was provided for her. It was not that Alaina was hardhearted or unsympathic to the weaknesses or maladies of others, but she had seen better acting at a Sunday supper with a handful of stiff-necked biddies doing the honors. She didn’t know the woman’s game, but if it was a play for Cole, Alaina was determined to put aside such advances in the best and quickest way possible. A quiet, heart-to-heart talk with Rebel would do for starters if the need came.

  Rebel stayed a course of three days and left after a night of confrontation with Cole Latimer. It seemed she had a tendency to walk about during the wee, tender hours of morning and, in so doing, mistakingly happened into her hosts’ bedchamber shortly after Cole roused Alaina from sleep with warm, ardent kisses. If Rebel had gotten herself lost while making her way through the house, then she was brought sharply to awareness of her whereabouts by the sight of the moonlit figures clasped together on the bed. The naked curve of the man’s back and the silvery limbs entwining him made it all too obvious to her that she had intruded at a most intimate time.