Lady of Sin (11 page)

“You are supposed to be helping, Knightridge,” Laclere said.

“I am left to just wait in ignorance,” Dante said.

“That is not true,” Hampton said. “Pen and Charl take turns coming down and reporting.”

“Only every hour or so. Nor do they tell me anything useful. Maybe it will be Charl next time, though. When she sees Knightridge here, that should at least make for some good theater. Anything is better than this damned waiting.”

Laclere and Hampton chuckled at the idea of Charlotte and Nathaniel engaging in their typical war of words. Nathaniel forced a smile.

If Charlotte came down, he was doomed. When she saw he had invaded on this most private of family affairs, she would give no quarter. She would hang him high and leave him twisting in the wind.

A long, silent hour passed. Nathaniel took Hampton’s place at the chessboard and managed to engage part of Dante’s attention in a match.

He trained his hearing on the house, listening for sounds of a woman coming. Finally an approach was heard. Dante’s gaze snapped to the door.

Nathaniel’s did not. He focused on the chessboard and hoped like hell the messenger would be Penelope.

The door opened to the faint swish of petticoats. The men all stood. Dante rose so abruptly that his clumsy movement caused chess pieces to fall.

“What news, Charl?” Dante said.

Nathaniel inwardly groaned.

She came over to Dante, her face a mask of happy optimism. She gave her brother a kiss. “All is well. The midwife has no concerns, and Dr. Wheeler is confident. It will be some time yet, but you are not to worry in the least.”

Dante appeared reassured, for about five seconds. His gaze turned inward again.

Charlotte watched him carefully. Then she acknowledged Nathaniel’s presence. “Mr. Knightridge, how extraordinary to see you.”

“I was nearby in the county, and decided to call. It was an unfortunate impulse.”

She glanced at her brother. “Your journey to Durham was successful, I trust. Dante, Mr. Knightridge brought a boy to the school. Fleur wrote the recommendation.”

That got Dante’s attention. Charlotte explained Harry’s situation, with no reference to Old John’s lies. Dante quizzed Nathaniel on the progress of the school. Taking up Charlotte’s cue, Nathaniel described matters in lengthy, elaborate detail.

When the topic waned, Charlotte excused herself. “I should return to Fleur. Perhaps you would walk with me to the stairs, Mr. Knightridge, so I can learn more about the journey north.”

Expecting the worst, he left the library with her. He prepared for the wrath he would face once the door closed on their departure.

Instead she sank back against the door and closed her eyes. The mask dropped at once. Exhausted worry dragged her expression.

“You are not well. Let me call Laclere and—”

“I am fine.” She composed herself and straightened. “It is very hard to come down, hour after hour, with no news of progress. Pen and I take turns and dread the clock’s chimes.”

Nathaniel was at a loss for what to say. He had never felt so useless. “Surely Mrs. Duclairc will be fine. Such things are lengthy many times, are they not?”

She walked toward the stairs and he fell into step beside her. “She is getting weak,” she said softly. “She is serene. I cannot bear seeing my brother’s fear, however. Poor Dante.”

“My intrusion is even more inexcusable than I thought. I cannot blame you if you are angry with me. There is no need to upbraid me, although I will not offer any defense if you do.”

She stopped walking.

“I am not angry. Quite the opposite. When the door opened and I saw you in the library, I was relieved that Laclere had sent to London for some friends to hold the vigil with Dante. It sounds as if you did not arrive at Laclere’s request, however.”

“No.”

She cocked her head and raised her eyebrows a fraction. “I hope that you will stay all the same. When this is . . . over, you can explain why you did call. I daresay I will need the distraction.”

“How did you ever bear this four times?” Dante asked.

“I have no idea.” Laclere did not raise his eyes from the book he had taken to the sofa. The others had arrayed themselves on chairs and seats. All pretended to be reading.

“Does it get easier with experience?”

“Not in the least.”

“Hell.”

Neither Charlotte nor Penelope had been down in a long time. Night had fallen. Nathaniel could not ignore the gathering dread that was permeating the house.

“It has been a long while,” Dante said.

“Not so long. Not too long.” Vergil looked up from his book and emphasized the last words.

Nathaniel did not believe him, and doubted Dante did either. It had been four hours since the door closed on Charlotte. Four hours of waiting. Four hours of hell.

He barely knew Fleur Monley, who had married Dante last year. He was sick with worry anyway.

They each had a glass. A good deal of brandy had been imbibed in the silence.

Dante grit his teeth and hurled his book against the wall.

Laclere did not even glance up.

“How long do
you
wait before
you
get worried?” Dante demanded.

“There is no clock to these things. I try not to get worried until I have cause to.”

“Have you ever had cause to?”

Laclere hesitated. “Yes. With Edmund.”

“I do not see why we can’t go up above,” Dante said resentfully.

“No one is forcing us to stay down here.”

“I was told I could not be with her.”

“Oh, you mean up above
in the birthing room
. I have no desire to go there. Nor do Hampton or Knightridge. I am correct, am I not, gentlemen?”

“Not all of you.
Us
. Husbands.”

“You cannot because there is a midwife with very strong arms and a field marshal’s demeanor who says you cannot,” Hampton said.

“He is right, Dante,” Laclere said. “Mrs. Brown and her sisters in trade insist that husbands are unbearable nuisances and also pitifully weak. We are worthless, in short.”

“Well, damn it, if I am paying her fee, I should have some say in things.”

“You think so, do you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“As a man, you should command. As master, you should at least be kept informed.”

“Damned right.”

“Knightridge, pour him more brandy.”

Dante slammed his fist down on the table. “I am going up to see what is happening. Wheeler is in there. He will let me in.”

He strode from the library. Laclere sighed.

“Knightridge, follow him, will you? He will only resent my presence. After the midwife cuts him into shreds, carry the pieces back to us.”

Dante took the stairs two at a time. Nathaniel climbed in his wake. They approached the chamber where Fleur was being kept.

A blond man lounged in a chair near a window at the end of the corridor, reading a newspaper by the light of a lamp on a nearby table.

He looked up with a welcoming smile and pushed his spectacles up his nose. “Thank goodness you are here, Duclairc. Your company will help pass the time.”

“What in hell are you doing out here, Wheeler?” Dante demanded.

“Waiting.” He pointed to the newspaper. “It says that the shares in the Hartlepool line have risen again. Since you will be so rich, I should increase my fees.”

“I do not see why I should pay you any fee. I brought Fleur down to Laclere Park so you could attend, and all you are doing is reading newspapers.”

“There is nothing else to do. Not for anyone. The viscountess is in there copying music, the countess and the baroness are reading books, and your own wife is knitting gray socks.”

Just then a gasping moan penetrated the door.

Wheeler smiled weakly. “Between the labor pains, that is.”

“Things are progressing normally, then?” Nathaniel asked, trying to make it a statement more than a question.

“Certainly.” There had been the slightest hesitation before the reply was given.

Another groan, more frantic, passed through the door.

Dante’s face drained of color. “What is happening, Wheeler?”

Wheeler’s smile fell to something less confident. “The pains came quickly earlier, exhausting her, but have now slowed. She is tired and has lost the strength to aid nature. All will be well, but it will be longer now. It is not unusual with the first children of more mature women. In such cases, one can only wait.” He paused, then added very gently, “However, if we wait too much longer, I will send for the surgeon and consider allowing instruments.”

In other words, things were not really progressing normally at all, Nathaniel thought. Charlotte had intimated as much.

“I am going in,” Dante said.

“Duclairc, it is not done,” Nathaniel said.

“You will not be welcomed. I am barely tolerated,” Wheeler warned.

“I am going in, damn it.” He turned the door handle and made good on his word.

Nathaniel caught a glimpse of the chamber over Dante’s shoulder.

Bianca, Vicountess Laclere, was not copying music. That chore had been abandoned. She sat beside Fleur, wiping her face. The midwife was coaxing Fleur to push with the pains. Fleur looked as spent as someone who had run thirty miles.

Charlotte sat on the other side of the bed, holding Fleur’s hand, whispering something. Like all the women, she wore an apron over her dress.

She looked up just before the door closed behind Dante and Wheeler. Her gaze met Nathaniel’s. He saw the helpless fear in her eyes and his heart clenched.

Dante’s entry brought all of their attention on the doorway. Dr. Wheeler slipped in with him.

Charlotte caught a glimpse of Nathaniel before the door closed. She wanted to run out there to him, and beg him to hold her and take her away. She wanted to lose herself in sensations that spoke of living and hope.

“Dante,” Fleur said with surprise.

The midwife frowned deeply and rose to confront the intruder.

“Let her see him,” Charlotte cried. “She will be better for it.”

Charlotte was exhausted and scared. She knew the midwife was worried, and Bianca’s eyes had glazed with concern many hours ago. Fleur was getting dangerously weak, and it was as if they assisted in her slow death, not the bringing forth of life. The last few hours had been so tense that the air had turned heavy with a horrible anticipation.

Wheeler stepped forward and with a calming gesture told Mrs. Brown to retreat. Bianca moved out of the way and Dante came to Fleur’s side.

“You are not supposed to be here, Dante.” She managed a smile but it looked sleepy.

“I wanted to see you, darling.”

“Mrs. Brown says the child would be born by now if I would put my back into it.”

He glanced over for confirmation. Charlotte nodded.

Another pain racked Fleur. She tried to raise herself up to push. Charlotte and Dante tried to help but before the contraction stopped she collapsed back.

“I am stupidly weak,” she muttered.

“After hours of this, even Laclere would be weak,” Charlotte said.

“You can use my strength, darling.” Dante bent to remove his shoes. “I will sit behind you and support you. Perhaps that will help.”

Mrs. Brown objected. Bianca appeared stunned.

Wheeler considered the matter. “Mrs. Brown, it may help if she is more upright, since she tries to rise anyway,” he said. “She is a woman who might have done better in one of the old birthing chairs.”

“It cannot hurt to try,” Charlotte said. She was desperate for anything that might break the deadly impasse of the last few hours.

Dante did not wait for permission. He sat Fleur up and climbed in behind her. She sank back against his chest.

Another contraction started. Charlotte cringed as she saw it tense through Fleur’s weak body. A guttural groan sounded in the room as Fleur leveraged her body into it.

“Did that help?” Dante asked softly.

“Just having you here helps. But, yes, I was not useless that time.”

Wheeler felt her swollen belly. Mrs. Brown peered beneath the sheet covering Fleur’s bent legs. Midwife and physician looked at each other with wordless communication.

“You may stay, Mr. Duclairc,” Mrs. Brown decreed.

Dante held Fleur as the pains came. Charlotte moved back in the room, useless now that Dante was here. Pen joined her and clutched her shoulder.

Soon there was little rest between the pains. Mrs. Brown disappeared behind the sheet. Wheeler stood behind her and watched.

Bianca mopped Fleur’s face with cool water, and then began wiping Dante’s too. “It will not be long now,” she reassured.

It was not long at all. Fleur knew. A joyful note entered her cries of effort. A new determination lit her eyes. Charlotte silently urged her on and prayed it would be over soon, and safely.

Wheeler announced the baby was coming. With a triumphant, agonized cry, Fleur collapsed against Dante.

“A boy,” the invisible Mrs. Brown announced.

A cry of grateful relief escaped Charlotte before she could catch it. Her body went limp and she hugged Pen for support. She watched through filming eyes as the baby was cleaned and wrapped. Dante’s embrace encompassed Fleur, and supported her arms when the child was given to her.

Husband and wife looked at the little babe, then at each other.

Their expressions stunned Charlotte. Their naked love overwhelmed her emotions. She knew they loved each other, but now she glimpsed the depths normally shown only to each other.

Her brother’s eyes fully revealed his adoration and desire and his promise of endless passion.

She had never seen anything like it in her life.

Not in her entire life.

Something shattered in her. Her tears flowed so violently that the sobs hurt her body. She could not control them and finally gave up the effort.

She cried out her happiness and relief into Pen’s shoulder, but grief and disgraceful envy poured out too.

CHAPTER
NINE

T
he weeping sickened Nathaniel. He stared at the door, sure a tragedy had just transpired on its other side.

It was time for him to slip away and leave this family to its grief.

He had taken two steps when the door opened. Penelope came out, supporting Charlotte in her embrace. Charlotte gasped for breath between her violent sobs.

Penelope pulled the door closed. She looked over at Nathaniel with a helpless expression.

Acknowledged, he had to say something. “I am so sorry. I will never forgive myself for—”

“All is well, I assure you. Wonderfully so. A male child has been born, and it looks as if Fleur will be fine too.”

Charlotte let loose with another outpouring, smothering the sounds in her sister’s shoulder.

Penelope patted her head. “She is very tired. She has been here with Fleur from the start. I am sure the strain has undone her, that is all.”

Charlotte appeared ignorant of his presence, for which he was grateful.

“Mr. Knightridge, do you think you could sit with her? I would like to go down and tell Laclere and Julian. If they heard this weeping—”

“Of course. I would have offered, but I did not think . . .” He did not think Charlotte would appreciate his aid, was what he did not think.

He went to them and Penelope eased Charlotte’s body into his arms.

“I will return soon,” she promised. She hurried to the stairs.

Nathaniel looked down at the dark hair on the head pressed to his frock coat. “There is no need to hurry. I will take care of her,” he said, even though Pen was gone.

Charlotte did not seem to realize she had been transferred. Whatever caused these soul-wrenching sobs, it made the embrace that held her irrelevant.

He could not say the same for himself. She felt very small in his arms, and very weak. He would never have thought Charlotte would break down so completely, for any reason. She cried her eyes out in a way he had never seen a woman do before.

He wished he could think of a way to offer more comfort. Instead he stood there, not daring to move, while her tears stained his coat.

Eventually she began calming down. From the way she tried to stifle the sobs, he guessed that she had realized who held her. She stiffened, as if embarrassed. She battled mightily to collect herself.

“Come and sit.” He turned her in his arms, guided her to the chair where Dr. Wheeler had been, and set her down.

She withdrew a handkerchief from her apron pocket and wiped her eyes. She composed herself with several deep breaths.

“You poor man. Pen should not have thrust me on you.”

“I did not mind.” He had been glad to hold her. Her vulnerability had touched him. “I am just relieved the reason for your tears was not the one I first feared.”

She gazed down at the handkerchief crushed in her little fist. She still seemed very fragile.

He dropped to one knee beside her chair. “Do you want me to call for your maid? Perhaps you should rest in your room.”

She shook her head. “I am tired, that is true, but my loss of composure was not because of that.”

Her gaze remained on her hands and lap. A considering expression entered her eyes, as if she assessed an object far in the distance, trying to identify its form.

“I only understand part of what caused this emotion,” she said. “Mostly I reacted to a happiness that was too sweet and beautiful to be borne. As for the rest of what I experienced, it was not worthy of me, and I am not sure that I ever want to understand it.”

He placed his hand over her fist. “There is no shame in being human. We cannot summon or reject emotions at will.”

Her gaze rose to meet his. No armor protected her. No veil obscured what he saw. She still trembled with the helplessness he had held in his arms, and her soul was in her eyes.

Passion did not interfere with his perceptions this time. He gazed into her tremoring depths and every layer was familiar to him.

He had seen them before, after all.

He was sure now.

Joyful voices came up the stairs. Charlotte glanced in their direction. Nathaniel released her hand and stood. Laclere, Hampton, and Penelope arrived on the landing.

Penelope came over and gave her sister a critical examination. “You are yourself again, I see. Come, we are going to cajole Mrs. Brown into letting us see the baby.”

“I do not trust myself to enter again. If I create another scene, it will disturb the child. I think that I will take a turn outside. It is not too cold and I need some air,” Charlotte said.

“And it is past time that I take my leave,” Nathaniel said. “I have intruded too long.”

“You cannot go now,” Penelope said. “It is too dark. I have told the housekeeper to prepare a room for you.”

“Yes, you must stay,” Charlotte said. “You have not yet told me the reason for your visit, and I want to learn all about your journey to Durham.” She rose and walked to the stairs leading to the upper floor.

He watched her ascend out of sight, wishing now that there were nothing notable to report.

Laclere was at the bedroom door, holding negotiations with his wife and Mrs. Brown. He turned to the rest of them. “We get to peek, no more. Fleur has fallen asleep.”

Penelope hurried over with Julian in tow. Nathaniel waited until they dipped into the chamber, then aimed for the stairs to make himself scarce.

“You do not care for babies?” Laclere asked.

Nathaniel turned. Laclere was still in the doorway.

“It is a family time, Laclere. I will go below.”

“We do not stand on ceremony here, Knightridge. It is true that Charl cannot stand the sight of you, but the rest of us count you as an honored friend. If you suffered in hell with Dante down there, you should at least glimpse his heaven. Come and see his son.”

Feeling a little coerced, but also a little curious, Nathaniel moved closer and peered into the chamber, past Laclere and over Hampton’s shoulder.

Fleur lay under crisply clean bedclothes. She looked like a dozing angel, peaceful and happy, with her long dark hair streaming over the pillow.

Dante sat on the far side of the bed, holding a little wrapped bundle. He had it angled so the baby’s pink face could be seen by the audience that had intruded. Dante did not look at them, however. His gaze was on his wife.

Nathaniel’s chest tightened at the image the new family presented. He understood what Charlotte had meant, about a beauty and sweetness not to be borne. No one could view this and not be moved.

There was a hollow spot within his joy, however. An empty corner in his heart recognized and resented its deprivation as he glimpsed the love and intimacy in that chamber.

He wondered if it had been a similar emotion that Charlotte had experienced and did not want to understand.

The crisp air felt good after so many hours in that chamber. Charlotte inhaled the clarifying cold as she strolled near the stone wall that edged the terrace outside Laclere Park’s drawing room.

She hoped Nathaniel would join her. If he did, she suspected they would have an argument.

He had not ridden here from London on a social call. Something must have happened concerning Harry that he wanted to tell her. If the discovery had been impressive enough to bring him all this way, she suspected it would be news she would not like to hear.

She could use a good argument right now. It would distract her from reflections on what had happened up in that chamber. What she had felt.

She thought she had reconciled herself to being childless, but this birth had reopened that wound. It might not have been any lack in her, of course. Philip’s illness might have played a role the way everyone pretended to assume.

She feared not, however. Her heart had accepted that barrenness might follow her into another marriage should she ever have the inclination to wed again. She thought she had found peace with that. Today, however, she had mourned her unborn children as she never had before.

It was not seeing Fleur’s newborn that had truly undone her, however. Her love for Ambrose had responded to that grief, comforting her, reminding her that she was not really childless in the ways that matter. No, the envy had not been uncontrollable because of the babe. Rather she had been devestated by what she discovered as she watched her brother and Fleur.

She had always been confident that she and Philip had been in love. Not soul-searing love, perhaps. Not highly dramatic passion. But a love just as worthwhile, and, she had always believed, better in the long term. Not dangerous and tumultuous, but peaceful. Contented. Comfortable.

Now she suspected that it had not been love after all. Philip had never looked at her the way Dante did Fleur today. Not even in their most private moments together.

Had he loved her? Really loved her? Or had it been a happy, pleasant affection? Philip had been amiable and polite and . . . passive. Maybe he did not even have it in him to really fall in love.

Maybe she did not either.

A sense of loss shadowed her. A picture that she had painted in her mind had been torn, and she was sorry to see it ruined. She suspected that she would begin reassessing all of the images now, and learning that her life had not been quite what she thought.

She would have preferred to be spared that. Already it was making her feel old and worn and . . . stupid.

“You appear deep in thought.”

She turned at the address. Nathaniel stood near the house. The light from the drawing room backed his tall, dark form.

“Too deep, I am concluding,” she said. “Strange how something as commonplace as the birth of a child can encourage introspection.”

“A commonplace event, but also a momentous one. It is not surprising that you dwell on it, since you played such an important role.”

“It is not the happy event of my nephew’s birth that I contemplate, I am ashamed to say. My thoughts are self-absorbed.”

“Do you wish to be left with them, or do you require some distraction, as you foresaw earlier today?”

“Distraction would be welcome.”

He approached, giving off a magnetic aura that almost had her meeting him halfway. He stood near her differently too. A little closer than in the past. More at ease and familiar, as if what had transpired outside Fleur’s chamber had toppled yet another wall.

He fingered the hem of her mantle. “Are you warm in that?”

“Warm enough.” Warm enough to stay out here. She did not want to return to the house just yet. Her heart was still accommodating what she had experienced today.

“Let us walk in the park,” she suggested. “Laclere will want to celebrate, and I would prefer to avoid him for a short while more.”

“There is very little moon. I do not want you stumbling and hurting yourself.”

“I know every inch on the path we will take. I often walked it alone in the dark when I was a girl.” That was its appeal tonight. She might recapture that girl’s courage and honesty if she again trod her path.

They slipped down the stone stairs and ambled through the garden and out to the broad lawn dotted with trees. They strolled along the left side near the edge of the woods that were home to the estate’s historic ruins.

The stars shone brightly out here, away from the house. They glinted in the velvet blanket of the night.

His warmth at her side, his presence and energy, comforted her, just as it had earlier. Comforting, but not
comfortable
. This man never left her at peace. Her instincts always did a nervous jig when he was nearby. The intrusive stimulation could be annoying, mostly because she possessed no control over it. She had resented the disturbance in the past. It had provoked the impulse to put him in his place, which was distant enough to spare her the sensation.

She understood the reason for that agitation now, and comprehension only made it worse. The silence did not help. Their quiet walk created a tension that demanded release, and not with words.

She sought relief in words anyway. “You came down from London to tell me something, didn’t you?”

“Yes, that was one reason.”

The other reason was in his tone and in the night. It pulled at her like a tightening tether.

“Your news must be important.”

“It seemed so yesterday, but it appears insignificant now.”

She could not imagine how one day would render important news insignficant. She suspected he was trying to be kind after seeing her in emotional shambles. “Since you made the journey, you may as well tell me. You are supposed to be distracting me, remember?”

“I will reveal all, if you insist,” he said. “First, however . . .”

His hand took her arm. He pulled her into an embrace as encompassing as the one outside Fleur’s chamber.

The goal was not comfort this time. His kiss created clamorous pleasures that aroused her whole body. A silent moan of relief sounded in her heart as he took command of her passion, calling it forth with nips on her lips and the firm press of his mouth and, finally, with the intrusive sweep of his tongue.

His ravishing mouth sought her ear, then her neck. The kisses produced delicious excitements. He held her so close that she could feel his strength pressed to her breasts and hips. She encircled his neck with her arms so she would be closer still.