Jo Beverley - [Rogue ] (39 page)

She would give anything to have him here. She could trust him.

A part of her mind looked down and laughed.

She at least had Arabella Hurstman, though that lady for once looked flustered almost to panic. She settled eventually, however, and sat reading aloud from the works of Mr. Wordsworth:

"...Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;

Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,

And even with something of a mother's mind,

And no unworthy aim,

The homely nurse does all she can

To make her foster child, her inmate man,

Forget the glories he hath known,

And that imperial palace whence he came...

Then, exhausting that slim volume, she progressed desperately on to the poems of Sir Walter Scott:

"...Before their eyes the wizard lay,

As if he had not been dead a day;

His hoary beard in silver roll'd,

He seemed some seventy winters old..."

Part of Eleanor's mind wandered through ancient castles with Sir Walter's hero, then the sudden force of a push made Eleanor gasp and come sharply back to reality. Miss Hurstman stopped reading and stood, clutching the volume to her chest.

"Good, me dear!" encouraged Mrs. Stongelly cheerfully. "Soon now. Go with it. Rest when you can. There's no hurry with a first. No hurry at all..."

The reassuring murmur of the midwife was the music of life as Eleanor was overwhelmed. She pushed with her body and then rested, pushed and then rested. Had she ever had an existence other than these whirlwind of forces?

"Is it not born yet?" she gasped, collapsing limply upon a moment of calm.

"No, my dear." The midwife laughed, giving her a sip of wine. "You'll know well enough when it is. Now move on your side, dear, and hook your leg over me shoulder so..."

Eleanor followed every instruction as she followed her body's guidance. And she certainly did know well enough when the baby was born. She felt the baby bulge between her legs. She felt it coining out—first the head, slowly and big, so big; then the rest with a slippery, satisfying rush.

Then the waves were all over and she was on a peaceful shore...

A cry.

Eleanor looked down to see her child on the bed, the dark cord still running from the baby's body into herself. The child looked up with big, dark, wondering eyes. Eleanor reached hungrily, not tired any more. "My baby," she said. "My baby..."

"A lovely girl, see?" said Mrs. Stongelly with a wide smile as she wrapped a blanket loosely around the child. "Move gently onto your back now, Mama..." Then she gave the baby to Eleanor.

Eleanor looked into her daughter's eyes. "Oh, you beautiful one." This was worth even the night at her brother's. "And there won't even be any fighting over the Delaney heir, my sweet. Aren't we a clever pair?"

Miss Hurstman exchanged a look with the midwife, who just smiled indulgently. "They're always the same, ma'am."

When the cord was cut Mrs. Stongelly took the babe from Eleanor for a moment and gave her to Miss Hurstman to hold. She too found herself whispering all sorts of nonsense to the wide-eyed mite. She was almost reluctant to return the child to her mother.

"Such a sweet child," she said, holding her close. "And you did so well, Eleanor."

"Indeed she did," said the midwife. "I find the ladies often give me trouble. They fight it. No, you did very well, ma'am. The baby is as healthy as they come. Keep her warm and feed her yourself and you've as good a chance of her thriving as any."

She took the child from Miss Hurstman and showed Eleanor how to put her to the breast. The baby sucked immediately.

"Ah, the sweet!" said the midwife with satisfaction. "Now she's set. Keep her close and warm and feed her when she wants it. Get your rest and drink plenty." With that she sat in a chair by the fire and appeared to snooze.

Miss Hurstman sat on the edge of the bed and watched the baby suck. "I have never seen any of this before, Eleanor," she said with unusual softness. "Thank you."

Eleanor smiled up at her. "I'm glad you were here and that you bullied me so. To think I could have hurt this precious." Her hand gently stroked the soft golden down on the baby's head. "I just wish..."

"That your husband had been here. He would have been here with you, wouldn't he? No going off to a cockfight, waiting for word."

Eleanor didn't answer. Tiredness was at last beginning to creep over her and she couldn't face the thought of Nicholas. She saw the child's soft mouth had slipped moistly from her breast and that her daughter was asleep. She let Miss Hurstman take the tiny bundle to the cradle by the fire and suffered a careful examination by the midwife. Then she lay down to sink into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Chapter 14

When Eleanor woke the next day she was in a different world, or so it seemed to her.

She no longer carried a child; she was a mother.

The waiting was over and she had a purpose for the rest of her life.

Immediately she thought of Nicholas. Would she ever see him again? It was as if she could think clearly about it for the first time.

It had been nearly five months. She trusted Lord Stainbridge's instincts and did not believe her husband was dead. That left no easy explanation, however, for the fact he had not even tried to contact her.

She could only think that some new endeavor had caught his errant fancy and he had again decided his family could wait while he saved the world. Perhaps he had decided for some quixotic reason that it would be better she should believe him dead. Did he think she would marry again?

No, she would not do that. She resolved however, for her sanity's sake, to behave from this day as if she was a widow. She could not even clearly bring his face to mind any more, and here, where they had never been together, there was nothing to summon him for her. She wished she had a portrait and yet suspected she was better off without.

When Miss Hurstman came in with the breakfast tray she was very pleased by her young friend's spirit. "I feared at one point you might be the kind of simpleton who would slip from the world once you had done your duty by the child. What are you to name her? We need to call her something."

Eleanor pushed down an instinct to call the babe Niccola and said, "Arabel."

Miss Hurstman went pink. "That is extraordinarily kind, and you must let me stand godmother. I will see she grows up with spirit."

"That would be wonderful. You are going to stay, aren't you?"

If possible, Miss Hurstman went even pinker, and there was a hint of moistness in the wrinkles at the corner of her eyes. "Yes, if you can put up with me. But I will keep up my cottage in case you don't need me anymore."

In case Nicholas should return, she meant, and they both knew it. Eleanor merely gave a sad smile.

"Besides," said the older lady briskly, "you'll eventually want to take up your life in Society again, and I can't abide that circus."

It was clearly a directive. "Yes, ma'am," said Eleanor meekly.

Miss Hurstman eyed her sternly. "Humph. I see you are a minx now you are yourself again. Did you show this face to your husband, I wonder?"

Eleanor felt wistful. "I hardly know. There was so little time, and I was so anxious about so many things." She chuckled. "Probably as well. He would likely have beaten me."

Miss Hurstman stiffened. "You would have given as good as you got were he so foolish, I'll be bound."

"Of course she would," said Nicholas.

He was leaning against the door frame.

There was a smile on his lips that warmed his eyes, but there was also a great deal of watchfulness.

He made no move to come any closer.

Eleanor felt as if she might faint. She couldn't seem to say a thing.

Miss Hurstman gave her a concerned look and opened her mouth to address the returning reprobate. Then she thought better of it and swept out of the room, pushing him into it and shutting the door as she went.

He grinned at this maneuver, but then the amusement died and he looked at his wife and child solemnly. "Eleanor?"

Eleanor swallowed. Her vocal chords seemed to have frozen. He looked the same, or the same as he had when she'd first met him.

Tanned again.

Tired, maybe.

She held out a hand.

He came over and took it. Real warm flesh, a little roughened, touched hers and convinced her he was real. He sat on the edge of the bed and waited for her to speak. His eyes moved from her face to the child in the cradle nearby.

"It's a daughter," she said eventually. It came out hoarsely and seemed an inadequate thing to say.

"Yes, I know. The servants were keen to congratulate me. Thank you for making up a covering story."

Eleanor lowered her eyes and took up a study of their hands—his firm and brown, hers softer and pale. She remembered once thinking his was a hand to depend on. "I had to say something," she murmured.

His thumb circled mesmerically against her skin. "I'm sorry if I gave you a shock," he said. "It was obvious the staff expected me to bound upstairs to see you. It would have caused comment if I'd asked to be formally announced." The thumb circled three more times. "You have only to say and I'll leave."

She looked up then. "No. This is your home."

"This is your home, yours alone if you want it so. My home is where you are, if you will let it be so."

They seemed to Eleanor to be talking in slow motion, with long gaps, but she could not alter it any more than she'd been able to alter the tempo of the birth. Perhaps this too must just be gone through.

"We are a family. But..."

"But I have a lot of explaining to do," he completed. "You are generous, as always." He studied her quizzically. "Do you not feel any temptation to throw a fit?"

"You know it's not in my nature. Do men like to hold babies? You may if you wish."

Without hesitation, and with a surprising amount of confidence, he lifted the tiny bundle from the cradle. Arabel yawned and opened her big dark eyes. She and Nicholas looked at one another intently.

"Do you think so?" he said at last, as if in response to a comment. "But if you had put off your arrival for a day or two I could have attended your birth properly. Beware, young lady. If you're saucy, I'll marry you off to a prosy old duke when you are but sixteen."

Eleanor watched this with a small glow of happiness that swelled inside her until it was likely to light up the room.

She kept her tone casual, however, as she said, "Miss Hurstman would have something to say to that. She's to be Arabel's godmother and has pledged to bring her up in a spirit of independence."

"Heaven help us all," he commented with a wry smile.

The baby was trying to suck at his jacket buttons, so he handed her over. Eleanor was too concerned with accomplishing the strange task of feeding her child to be self-conscious about his presence. When Arabel was sucking happily and Eleanor had time to consider the matter she found she was not at all embarrassed. It felt so right that Nicholas be watching.

"Are you well?" he asked after a while. "You look it."

"Very. It was an easy birth and I was only woken once last night to feed her. I'm told that won't last." Now she felt able to speak. "Where have you come from?"

"London," he said. He read the look in her eyes and smiled ruefully. "Don't be angry. I'll give you the whole tale, but this doesn't seem the time. It's rather complicated."

She shook her head. "Have you ever done anything that isn't?"

He was too wise to attempt an answer to that, and so they sat in silence, watching the child feed. With a shiver of disquiet Eleanor knew he hadn't lost any of his power over her. At a word she would lay her heart at his feet without even hearing his story. She was deeply grateful that he was making no particular attempt to charm her, making no demands upon her.