by Jen Yates
Her voice was weak and lost.
Oh God, he could have lost her tonight. The realization slammed into him, almost dropping him to his knees.
Calling on the reserves of strength he knew he’d always find for this woman, he lifted her bodily from the tub to stand on the mat. Her knees buckled.
‘I'm here, Lou,’ he said ‘Hang on to me. Try to stand so I can dry you.’
He was vaguely aware his mother and Granny watched with some sort of horrified awe as he tended to Lou—and she let him—as if they were totally comfortable with each other—naked.
Between one long sweep of the towel down her abdomen and the next, he knew the answer to all the questions pounding through his brain.
Her breasts were fuller, the nipples slightly distended, and her belly—his precious woman was swelling with his child.
Fuck!
What were they going to do now?
He'd better have some ideas by the time her father arrived. Never had he felt the hopelessness of his position more keenly. What could he hope to achieve against the power—the obsessions—of the Earl of Stannesford?
He knew what he wanted—and the impossibility of any of it. Her station in life and her father aside, his Liberty Lou was not free.
Holding her steady while his mother slipped a warm flannel nightgown over her nakedness, he then wrapped her in the blanket he'd had around his shoulders and settled himself back on the stool by the hearth.
Lou in his arms. He’d been longing for just this—but not like this.
Every nerve in his body screamed in protest. He wanted them wrapped together, in the privacy of his bed in the loft, hidden away from the world
From reality.
Safe.
And that dream could well be denied them—ever again.
Once her father got here—dear God—Lord Henry here in the mill house? It was almost beyond his comprehension—as was this whole scenario.
‘Lou,’ he murmured, ‘where were you going? Were you coming to me?’
‘Cold. Make me warm—’
‘Can you wrap another blanket around us, Mama?’
‘Levi, what have you done?’ his mother asked, even as she complied with his request. ‘What is going on?’
He ignored her. His focus was solely on the woman in his arms.
‘Coming to see you. Have to tell you—’
‘Tell me—this?’ His hand found her belly beneath the blanket.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh God, Lou.’
‘Papa’s going to be—very angry.’
***
Chapter 12.
Levi had never seen the earl looking less than immaculate, even when about the estate. Certainly not as if he’d pulled on the first pair of trousers to hand—some sort of lounging trousers perhaps—with a pair of comfortable house slippers on his feet. A thick woolen dressing robe was belted at his waist and a long warm scarf was secured about his neck.
His thick dark hair with the silvery wings stood up in clumps. He'd obviously come straight from his bed.
Philip, craven coward that he was, ushered the scowling peer of the realm into the humble mill house kitchen and vanished into the scullery.
Granny Joan, who’d never held any love for the aristocracy, stayed huddled in her rocking chair and watched from beneath ragged white brows, her sunken mouth pinched tight.
Levi decided it was time he took a leaf or two, at least, from his Granny's book.
He did not attempt to rise, nor did he dip his head in acknowledgement of the earl’s status. All that concerned him was Lou in his arms and he’d not relinquish her.
She’d come to him.
He’d not fail her.
The earl was a looming, swelling presence in the cozy room.
Speechless—with fury, Levi suspected.
No doubt the eruption, when it came, would be concise and decisive. Lord Henry had never been known to mince words—Levi doubted the man had any understanding of subtlety.
Big, intensely masculine, dark and brooding, he was an anomaly—a butterfly fancier, and known to be scrupulously fair, just and—straight.
The Earl of Stannesford also did not bend—for anything.
Levi had buckled before his authority once. Not again.
‘Lord Stannesford, thank you for coming—’
Leave it to Mama, with her innate ladylike breeding, to try and soothe the atmosphere. Levi didn't see how that was to be achieved and had no intention of trying.
‘What are you doing with my daughter, Longfellow?’ Lord Henry interrupted Mama, ignoring all niceties and focusing, as he was wont to, on what he perceived to be the crux of the moment.
With a little whimper, Liberty jerked in his arms and tried to burrow deeper into his chest.
‘Trying to warm her up. Trying to warm us both up.’
Lord Henry's brows almost fused together across his forehead.
‘Liberty!’ he barked. ‘Come. I’ll take you home—and you will explain what is going on.’
Levi continued to run his fingers through her hair, spreading it to dry in the heat from the stove, as he’d been doing for some time.
Lord Henry's blazing eyes followed his every movement.
Levi should’ve dissolved to ash where he sat. Oddly, he recognized his own power in that moment. The earl was unlikely to start a physical tussle over his daughter’s person—and there was something about possession being nine-tenths of the law, he thought wryly to himself.
He wrapped his arms more securely around her.
The earl's jaw clenched.
‘Lou fell in the pond. It's flooded onto the cobbles in the street and the edges are frozen.’
‘Our Levi rescued her and brought her up here to get dry and warm,’ Granny Joan all but snarled from her nest of shawls.
The earl would get no deference from her—and Levi knew he could have no greater champion, but this was a battle he had to fight for himself.
‘I concede she’ll be better cared for at the Hall. There really isn't room here. But, I will be coming with her—to see her safely home.’
‘That's what I'm here for,’ Lord Henry growled. ‘What do you think you can do that I can't?’
‘Love her,’ Levi bit straight back not dropping his gaze one iota.
‘I love my daughter.’ A dark color burned in the man's cheeks. ‘And she has a husband. You will not come to the Hall—nor anywhere near her. Do you understand? I’ll not permit it.’
‘Too late, Papa.’
Liberty suddenly lifted her face from Levi's chest and faced her father. Her voice was merely a hoarse whisper, but her words were clear enough.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I'm pregnant, Papa. I love Levi and I'm carrying his child.’
The dark color suffused Stannesford’s entire countenance and his big hands fisted at his sides.
A soft cry of distress came from Levi's mother, and Granny Joan emitted a sound that could only be described as an unholy cackle, but Levi didn’t take his eyes off the seething man who stood like a rumbling volcano in the middle of the room.
‘Do you understand what you’ve done, Liberty? What shame you bring to our family? Your husband? Have you forgotten you even have a husband? A husband who couldn’t possibly have fathered a child on you? I thought you’d come to care for Justin, enough at least not to shame him in this way. What the devil will this do to him? He would be within his rights to banish you, to desert you. Do you think he can't because of his condition?’
‘Justin sent me to Levi.’
Like the tide rushing back from the sands, all the high color drained from the earl’s face.
‘Justin sent you?’
‘Justin loves me and just wants me to be happy.’
His Liberty Lou’s voice was getting stronger—as if, with the admission of her terrible secret, she’d released some inner reserve of resilience that had been suppressed.
‘Justin has met Levi—and liked
him,’ she added, a little defiantly now, when her father just stood staring helplessly at her.
It was obvious Lord Henry was struggling to comprehend the incomprehensible.
‘Come home—and we’ll discuss this further—’
Suddenly Liberty was wrapped around his torso again and Levi was not about to pry her loose.
‘I’ll bring her,’ he told Lord Henry, ‘and I will be part of any discussions.’
‘You,’ Stannesford snapped, ‘have done quite enough.’
‘Then I want to stay here—with Levi—in the loft.’
‘What?’
The word thundered through the mill house and might have been heard by anyone foolhardy enough to still be lingering in the street below.
‘I no longer answer to you, Papa. I answer to Justin. And he’ll say Levi may visit—and be a part of any discussions on what’s to happen. He might not be able to speak clearly, but he can still make his desires understood—and his mind is not impaired in any way. If anything, his kindness and compassion is more pronounced than ever. Let Levi bring me home or I’ll not come.’
Goddamn, he loved this woman. No high and mighty bloody earl would keep him from her.
***
It had been the longest day of his life. He'd mucked out stables, exercised the horses, pulled all the harness from the tack room, oiled and mended and rehung it and he'd accosted his mother the moment she'd returned from the Hall, only to learn Liberty had woken with a temperature this morning and had not improved during the day.
‘And you, my son?’ Emily asked. ‘You've suffered no ill effect from that freezing water?’
‘I wasn't in there as long as Liberty, Mama. I'm fine.’
How the hell was he to wait till ten o’clock tonight to visit—as per Lord Henry's edict? The nurse, old Nanette, would be sitting with Liberty then and the old woman knew how to keep her counsel.
He followed his mother into the mill house, wanting to hear every snippet of information she had to share about the doings at the Hall.
Mama’s brow was creased with an unaccustomed frown and he knew he’d put it there.
But if he'd been able to change his feelings for Lou, he'd have done it long ago.
‘Lord Henry hasn't dismissed you, has he, Mama?’
‘No, son,’ she said with a concerned smile in his direction. ‘Fortunately, I am too convenient—and Lady Helena wouldn’t let him.’
As soon as their cloaks were hung and they changed their boots for slippers, Rose made a pot of tea. Philip would be up in a minute and then there’d be a family conference, no doubt. Only Edie was missing, since she now lived in the servant’s quarters at the Hall.
‘Is Lady Libby really going to have your baby, Levi?’ Rose asked, her hazel eyes bright with curiosity.
Levi felt his chest swell uncomfortably as he considered his little sister.
‘Yes, sprat,’ he said, his voice a bit husky.
He’d hardly got that fact settled in his own mind. He was to be a father—and his Lou would be the mother of his child.
And she was ill—and she was married. Jesus!
He dropped his head onto his hands.
Lord he was tired. He couldn't remember when he’d slept last, knew his eyes wouldn't close if he lay down.
His mind was a mess of wild plans, desperate hopes, and frantic worry. He'd always managed to keep his private life private—not easy in a village the size of Stannesford, where everyone's business was considered everyone else’s.
That was about to change, he suspected. For himself, he could weather the storm. His shoulders were broad, his skin thick enough—but Lou—
Dear God! Her own kind would likely shun her.
The only solution he could imagine was stealing her away and running, leaving behind everything and everyone they knew and loved and making a new life for themselves, together, where no one knew them.
In the new world perhaps. New Zealand, or America.
Where no one knew or cared that he was the miller’s son and she the daughter of an earl.
For the first time, the horses, the stables and all he’d so far achieved there felt like the proverbial millstone about his neck.
He couldn't just walk away—
Philip’s heavy step on the stairs warned of his arrival.
‘So, what's to happen now?’ he demanded. ‘Has Lord Beastly given you the sack, Mama?’
‘No, Philip—and don't call him that. Lord Henry is a good man—he has to do what is best for his family.’
Philip made an inelegant sound and settled into his usual chair at the table.
‘And that little red headed witch always had you wrapped around her little finger, big brother. You've been thinking with your wrong head—’
‘Philip,’ their mother warned, but Phil had harbored resentment too long, it seemed.
‘It's time things were said, Mama! If Da was here, he’d say it. He,’ he all but snarled, nodding in Levi’s direction, ‘has brought this family into disrepute once too often. Dammit, the pattern was set right back on that day they were swimming—naked—in the lake. He got us both banned from the hall that day. It was just lucky Mama didn't get dismissed right along with us.’
Phil's brown eyes, so like their father’s, blazed with a rare fury. Levi kept his mouth shut. He couldn't refute anything Philip said and he was pretty certain his little brother had not yet spewed all that was festering in his soul. He obviously needed to vent.
He could relate—but for himself, venting would achieve nothing.
A plan of action was what he needed.
‘But that,’ Phil ranted on, ‘was literally child's play to the mess he's brought on us all now. Goddammit, Levi, she's not only bloody Stannesford’s daughter—she's married. And there's no hope of passing the child off as Earnslaw’s. The man's incapable.’
Phil was starting to yell now, his color rising and his arms waving about in agitation.
‘That's enough, Philip,’ Mama said. ‘Levi is likely aware of all you've said—’
‘It's alright, Mama,’ Levi growled. ‘I can fight my own battles. There’s no argument. Everything Phil says is correct. Lou and I—have created a situation that brings shame and scandal to both our families, because—we love each other. That didn't change because she married Lord Earnslaw. Nothing can or will change that. Now I have to work out what to do about it—and all I can tell you at the moment is that—I won't walk away. I can't. I love Lou, and she's carrying my child. I will sacrifice anything for her.’
‘Even us?’ Philip growled.
Chest swelling as he sucked in much-needed air, Levi rose, cut a slab of bread from the loaf on the table, slathered it with butter and jam, and headed for the door.
‘Anything,’ he finally answered, as he shoved his feet into his boots. ‘If you want to release some of that aggravation you're carrying, Phil, I'll be in the stables.’
He almost hoped his brother took up the challenge inherent in that invitation. Punching something held a certain appeal and it was a while since he and his brother had measured themselves against one another.
He was a couple of inches taller than Phil, but his little brother had developed the wide ox-like shoulders of the miller, his back strong and broad, arms bulging with muscle.
He’d welcome the focus required to prevent Phil from pulverizing him and feeding him into the mill.
It was another hour before Philip turned up and Levi had spent the time at the wood stack, axe swinging and wood chips flying.
‘Here, you must be hungry. You didn't stay for dinner.’
Phil handed him two slabs of Granny Joan’s bread wrapped around slices of ham and mustard. As a peace offering it was stellar.
Levi slammed the axe into the chopping block, took the food from his brother and led the way into the warmth of the stables.
It was damned cold out when one stood still, and the light was going. Once inside, he continued up the stairs to the loft, Phillip
hard on his heels, though it seemed he’d lost a little of his earlier fury.
‘What will you do?’ he asked as Levi settled at the table and chewed stolidly at the welcome sustenance of succulent ham and fresh bread.
‘All I know is—Lou is ill and until she starts to improve I can't think beyond it. But—if there was any way we could be together, I’d take it, Phil. I'm sorry.’
‘You should’ve married her in the first place.’
Levi choked on a mouthful of bread.
‘I tried—went and saw Lord Henry and asked for her hand. To say he refused me would be like saying—you were mildly annoyed with me.’
Philip’s eyes widened.
‘You asked Lord Henry for her hand? Really? You always were an honorable fool, Levi. Why the devil didn't you elope with her?’
If only one had second chances at life’s decisions. He’d definitely make a different choice.
‘Something about being an honorable fool, I guess. No use bewailing the facts. It's a mess. A potentially scandalous mess. But I’ll do whatever is best for Lou. Whatever that turns out to be. I may know more after I've been to see her tonight—after I’ve seen Lord Henry—as I expect I will.’
***
Levi had never been more terrified in his life.
Four nights had passed since he’d rescued Lou from the freezing pond and the chill she’d taken had settled into her lungs. Last night she’d scarcely seemed to know he sat at her bedside bathing her brow and praying.
God knows he’d not wanted to leave her, but come the first fingers of dawn Lord Henry had materialized in his daughter’s bedroom, reminding Levi his visits were to be kept secret—a secret known only to Lord and Lady Stannesford, old Nanette and those at the mill house.
The earl’s visage was grim as he stood by his wife looking down at their daughter. To Levi’s consternation, when the man looked at him, tears welled up in his eyes.
‘We—might lose her yet. It’d be the easy way out of a disastrous situation. But—as much as I’m determined to avoid scandal, I don’t wish my daughter dead—but—here’s something to think about. If she were to die—apparently—if you could take her away—to America or somewhere—make a life together, knowing you could never come back, that she’d be as dead to everyone here—would you do it?’