The Flame and the Flower (11 page)

She put the dishes away and dragged out the wooden tub for her bath. Watching her, Aunt Fanny picked up another sweet tart from the table and stuffed a great part of it into her large mouth. Heather shuddered, wondering how the woman could eat so much. It seemed her aunt's favorite pastime.

She wished the woman would go to bed as Uncle John had done. She would prefer to bathe in peace. But her aunt wasn't budging, so Heather filled the tub and tested the water. It was pleasantly hot. She unfastened her dress and let it slide from her shoulders down to the floor.

She stood before the hearth, totally unclad, her smooth skin glowing in the light of the fire, and her slender body was clearly sithouetted in its glow. Her breasts rose heavier now and were taut, and there was a slight rounding curve to her abdomen.

Suddenly Aunt Fanny choked on the tart she was swallowing. With a strangled cry she leapt from her chair, alarming her niece who whirled around to look at her. The woman's eyes were wide, staring at her in horror, and her face had gone from beet red to ashen gray. Aunt Fanny charged across the room toward her and Heather cringed away, thinking her aunt had gone mad. She was seized viciously by the arms.

"Who are you breeding by, missy? What jackal have you hooked yourself to?" the woman screeched.

Cold, dreaded shock seized Heather's every nerve. Her eyes grew very wide and her face very pale. In her innocence she had not thought of this. As she had lain under Captain Birmingham and struggled with him, she had not considered the consequences of his act. She had reasoned her failure to come sick at her normal times to be because she was so upset with everything that had happened to her. But now she knew differently. She was going to have a baby—a baby by that scoundrel of a sea captain. That cad! Madman! Lunatic! Oh God, she thought, why? Why?

Livid with rage, Aunt Fanny shook Heather until her head threatened to snap off.

"Who is it? Who's the bloody toad?" she cried. Her hands tightened around Heather's arms until it brought an outcry of pain from the girl's lips. "Tell me or by me God I'll wring it out of you!"

Heather found it impossible to think. She was dulled, senseless with shock.

"Please—oh, please let me go," she murmured in confusion.

A look of enlightenment crossed Aunt Fanny's face, and she shoved Heather into a nearby chair. "Henry—that's who it is, ain't it? Your uncle said he was sweet on you, and now I know the reason. He's the father of the babe. If he thinks he'll ruin my good name in the village and go flitting off clean, he thinks wrong. I told you if you ever sinned, you'd be found to reckon with and now you're going to wed Henry. The filthy good-for-nothing! He'll pay for it, he will!"

Slowly some sense seeped through Heather's trauma. She became aware of what her aunt was saying, of Henry's name spoken. Shivering and addled, she forced herself to some semblance of awareness. Whatever she did, she could not let Henry take the blame. She could not hurt him like that and have him despise her more. Trembling, she picked up her gown from the floor and pulled it to her naked body.

"It wasn't Henry," she said softly.

Her aunt swung round. "Eh? What you say, girl?"

Heather sat unmoving, staring into the fire. "It wasn't Henry," she repeated.

"And who was it if it weren't the cobbler?" the woman questioned fiercely,

"It was a sea captain from the colonies," Heather sighed listlessly, dropping her cheek against the tall, crude back of the chair she sat in. The flames from the fire illuminated her small face. "His men found me and took me to him and he forced himself upon me. God's truth."

What did it matter now if she told of the defilement she had suffered in the hands of that man? Everyone would know in a few months of her pregnancy unless her aunt decided to keep her at the cottage and not allow her to go into the village. Even then, how would they explain the baby's presence after the child was born?

Her aunt's brow knitted in confusion. "What are you saying? Found you when? Where was this?"

Heather could not bring herself to tell the woman of William's death. "I was lost from your brother and the Yankee seamen found me," she murmured, still staring into the crackling fire. "They gave me to their captain for his pleasure, and he wouldn't let me go. It was only through my threat to shoot his man that I gained my freedom. I came here straightaway."

"How did you get lost from William?"

Heather closed her eyes. "We went—to a fair—and somehow we became separated. I didn't tell you before because I couldn't see the need. It's the Yankee's child I carry, not Henry's. But the man won't marry me. He's one who takes and does what he pleases and he won't be pleased to marry me."

The frown was wiped away from Aunt Fanny's face, and a slow menacing smile replaced it. "We'll see about that. Now, tell me, didn't your pa have a friend who be magistrate judge in London? Lord Hampton was his name, weren't it? And didn't he control the investigation of all the ships suspected of smuggling?"

Again confusion swept over Heather. Her thoughts were too muddled to grant her any explanation for her aunt's questioning. She answered hesitantly.

"Yes, Lord Hampton did and still does as far as I know. But why—"

The smile deepened. "Ne'er you mind with the reasons. I want to know more of Lord Hampton. Did he know you and was he very good friends with your pa?"

A frown touched Heather's smooth brow. "Lord Hampton was one of my father's closest friends. He used to come to our home often. He's known me since I was a baby."

"Well, all you need know right now, missy, is that he is going to help you get wed," Aunt Fanny said, a cold, calculating expression on her face. "Now get your bath and go to bed. We're going to London tomorrow, and we'll be having to rise early so we won't be missin' the coach going through the village. It won't do to go in a cart when we'll be callin' on Lord Hampton. Now hurry with you."

Heather got to her feet with an effort, completely baffled by her aunt. Why the woman wanted to know about Lord Hampton she didn't know, but Aunt Fanny was a master schemer of devious plans, and it wouldn't do to question her. Obediently Heather slid into the wooden tub, feeling a heaviness in her lower abdomen as though she were just now with child, and all the time before, unscathed.

There was no doubt whatsoever in her mind that she was breeding. She should have expected just such as this from the Yankee bull. Strong, potent, full-blooded, he had done a man's due with an ease she found maddening. How was it when a great many men sweated over their mates month after month with little to show for it, that she had to have the misfortune to be taken to bed by such a virile male being.

Oooohh, he is abominable! She cried inwardly and added, quivering,
He is a devil
.

A stifled cry came from her lips, and she shuddered more violently, realizing what it would mean to her if he were forced to marry her. Her soul and life would be lost, married to the blackguard. She would be damned.

But at least the child would have a name and perhaps some good would come of that.

Her thoughts strayed to the unborn child. He was destined to be dark-haired, with both his parents being so, and he would likely be handsome if he took after his father. Poor child, it would be better if he were born ugly than to be a handsome scoundrel like his sire.

But what if the child were a girl? It would be a great blow to the man's confidence if such a thing happened, great manly beast that he was. If she married him, Heather thought venomously, she would pray for a girl.

Before she finished bathing Heather heard her uncle begin to stir in the other room where Aunt Fanny had gone when leaving her. Their muffled voices had come to her as she bathed. The woman would never have waited until morning to tell him of Heather's predicament.

Heather rose from the tub and clutched the towel over her bosom just as her uncle came from the tiny room. He appeared to have aged ten years.

"Heather, girl, I have to speak with you, please."

She blushed crimson, hugging the towel to cover her nakedness. He seemed not to notice that she was without clothes.

"Heather, are you tellin' the truth? Was it this Yankee who planted his seed in you?"

"Why do you ask?" she inquired cautiously, fearfully.

John Simmons rubbed his brow with a shaking hand. "Heather—Heather, did William ever touch you? Did he ever hurt you in any way, girl?"

Now Heather knew why her uncle had watched her so closely after she returned from London. He knew William, and had been worried about her. She could do nothing but reassure him now.

"No, Uncle, he didn't hurt me. We became separated at the fair. You see, there was a fair and I wanted to go, and he was kind enough to take me. But I got lost and couldn't find him. That's when these men found me and took me to their captain. The Yankee is the father."

A sigh of relief escaped the man, and a small, quivery smile crossed his face. "I thought—never mind. Just say I worried about you, but now we must find the man who be the sire, and this time I won't fail you. Me brother's child, I cannot fail again."

Heather managed a smile for her uncle. She couldn't tell him it would do no good to go to London to talk with Captain Birmingham because the man would not marry her. She was silent.

When they reached London, they took up lodging at an inn. Uncle John immediately sent a message to Lord Hampton asking to be granted an appointment and the next day was received by the man in his home. Heather and her aunt remained behind at the inn to await the outcome of the meeting. Heather dared not ask what they were about, but she was more than curious. When Uncle John came back, he went directly into conference with his wife. It seemed to Heather that whatever they were planning, it was going well because her uncle was in better spirits than when he had left.

She was told to go to bed early that night after her uncle had taken it upon himself to reassure her that Lord Hampton would be helping to solve their problem.

"He's only to see we're telling the truth and he will do what he must. And your Yankee won't be refusing to wed you lest he wants to lose everything he has and be thrown into prison."

Heather didn't understand anything. They couldn't put a man into prison because he refused to marry a woman he had gotten in the family way. There were too many bastards walking around for that to be so. No, they were going to threaten him with something else, and she could only think of the consequences to herself if he were forced into marriage. Her life would be pure hell and no other word would do so well to describe it. But she had no voice in the matter. They had taken it out of her hands. And she could not think which was worse, being married to the devil or having to raise a bastard child.

It was almost midnight of that same night when she was awakened rudely from a sound sleep by Aunt Fanny's large, insistent hands shaking her.

"Get up, you evil chit. Your uncle wants to speak with you."

Heather sat up groggily and looked at her aunt who stood beside the bed, holding a lighted candle high above her head.

"Hurry with you. We've naught all night."

Her aunt whirled into the shadows and left the room and Heather stared after her for a moment, blinking away sleep. Reluctantly she pushed the covers from herself. Her white body gleamed in the blackness and her hair, falling to below her waist, was lost in darkness. For the first time in many weeks she had slept without dreaming. The pitter-patter of rain on the windows had lulled her troubled thoughts to a peaceful quietness and she had curled into the downy softness of the bed and drifted into sweet oblivion. Her unwillingness to hasten from the bed now was understandable. But she must obey her aunt or suffer the consequences.

She slid drowsily from the cozy warmth and picked up her aunt's old dress and pulled it over her head. She didn't bother fastening it. In another moment she would just be taking it off again. She had an idea why they wanted to speak with her. She was well prepared to hear them say that Captain Birmingham had refused to be coerced into marriage. It would come as no surprise. They could have saved themselves a trip to London if they had asked her about the man. It would not take them long to tell her what he had said.

At her first timid rap on the door across the hail it was flung open by her aunt. The woman motioned her in with a hateful glower. As she moved into the room she was aware of its darkness. A small fire glowed in the hearth and only one candle burned on the table where her uncle and another man were sitting, quaffing ale from pewter tankards. The rest of the room was obscure and shadows were deep. She came closer cautiously to see whom the visitor might be and saw that he was no stranger but an old friend of the family, Lord Hampton.

With a cry of relief, Heather flew gratefully into the arms he held open to her.

"Heather!" he choked. "My little Heather."

She clung to him and sobs flooded from the bottom of her soul to be softened against his shoulder. Second to her father, this man was the one she had loved most from childhood. He had been exceedingly kind to her and was more of an uncle than her own. He and his wife had wanted her to live with them after her father had died, but Aunt Fanny had insisted that she live with her only kinsfolk.

"It's been long since last I saw you, child," he murmured, pulling her from him so he could see her better. His kindly blue eyes twinkled at her. "I remember when you were but a tiny tot and you would crawl up on my knee, looking for sweets." He grinned widely as he lifted her exquisite chin. "And now look at you, a portrait of beauty. Never have I seen such fairness before, never. You are even more lovely than your mother, beauty that she was. It's a pity I never had sons for you to marry. I would have enjoyed you in the family. Since I have no daughters either, perhaps I can say you are mine."