Untamable Rogue (Formerly: A Christmas Baby) (37 page)

“No,” Ash said, “Mama is not up to a slide today,” but Lark started up the stars.

“Larkin Rose Blackburne, I forbid you to slide down that banister. Think of the ba—” Ash regarded the eager listening children. “Larkin, heed me for once.”

Lark faltered in the stairs when a spasm tore through her, but she hated giving in to her husband’s orders. Not that she would slide, or do anything to endanger the babe, but she would climb the stairs if he ordered her not to. “Allow me to be the judge, if you please,” she said, turning to regard Ash as she shook off her discomfort, but when she made to take another step, a new pain cut her, doubling her in half, so she gasped, one hand to her splitting middle, one to her aching back.

“Ash, get her,” she heard Alex say from a distance, but Alex needn’t have bothered, because Ash was there, and Lark felt herself slide into the darkening security of his waiting arms.

“Continue the races,” Ash called back, but Alexandra followed him as he carried Lark up to her bed. When Ash put Lark down, Alex elbowed him from his wife’s side. “Get her some water. Is it her stays, do you think?” She freed Lark’s buttons as she spoke. “They may be too tight.”

Ash returned from the dressing room with a cup of water, feeling his chest clench with fear. “She never wore stays in her life. Is she all right? The babe?”

Alex pulled Lark’s dress free and passed a tiny amethyst vinaigrette bottle beneath Lark’s nose.

Lark roused, coughed, and turned away.

Alex took the cup of water from his frozen hand, held it to his wife’s lips and Lark drank. Ash had never been so grateful for anything.

He and Alex worked together to finish undressing Lark as she moved in and out of consciousness.

When Ash turned with her night-rail in his hand, he saw Alex staring at Lark’s petticoats. “What?” he asked.

Chastity slipped into the room. “The men have the races in hand. What can I do?” She saw the petticoat, looked at Alex. “Her labor has started.”

“Too soon,” Lark said, rousing and drifting away again.

Ash felt his heartbeat treble. “Two months early?”

Alex looked at him, but he needed no word of confirmation.

“No,” he shouted, not certain what he denied. He shook himself, regarded the women. “Tell me that whatever happens, Lark will be safe,” but neither Alex nor Chastity seemed inclined to make him that promise.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

After having borne five babes of her own, Sabrina was sent for, and when she examined Lark, she confirmed their worst fears.

Lark accepted a sip of wine, but a new pain tore into her, and she pushed the glass aside. Afterward, she remained conscious looking as frightened as Ash felt, though he attempted to mask his emotions for her sake.

“Ash,” she said, we must talk.

Chastity, Alexandra and Sabrina rose as one and left the room.

Ash was grateful for the opportunity to touch his wife again. He sat on her bed, took her hand. “Rest,” he said.

“No, there are things I need to say and you need to hear.”

Her words shivered his spine, portended a finality he would not accept. “Lark, do not—”

“Ash, you must listen to me. Let me explain the least of my sins so as to prepare you for the worst of them.”

“The worst? Are you saying you came to me with chil— No, I knew you for a virgin. I felt myself tear your barrier.”

Lark gave him a half-hearted smile, her expression filled with so much yearning Ash swallowed a quick rising sob. She cupped their child, revealed how much she loved the babe in her womb, their babe. “He is yours,” she said.

“Ours. I know.”

“Will you let me speak now?”

Ash sighed and bowed to the inevitable, for she would not be silenced.

“I have done many terrible things for which you will disdain me.”

Ash firmed his jaw for he wanted none of this confession business, but he remembered his mother and her frantic forgiveness, his own peace as a result, and he wanted to give Lark the same peace, to ease her labor, and bring forth their child in safety. “Tell me,” he said.

“There is no need to secure Micah’s guardianship,” she said. “When he was born, I went to the country, found a family to care for him, and signed the parish register naming myself as his mother. I did it so no one could take him from me. Though I lied, in the eyes of the law, I am his mother, and you, as my husband, are his legal guardian.”

Another pain tore through her. “This is bad,” she said riding it out. “The babe coming so soon.” She looked at him with concern. “Do not hate me.”

She would believe herself dying for certain, Ash knew, if he professed his love at this juncture. “Why would I hate you?”

“Because you dislike deceit, of all things.”

“But I like you
above
all things.”

“For the moment,” Lark said. “Remember that I have loved Ashley Briana as my own, tell her so. It matters not that you loved the mother. I love the daughter.
Your
daughter.”

“Oh, Lark no.” Ash took his wife’s hand. “You mistake the matter. I never loved Nora. She was hard, calculating. I— We used each other. I am ashamed to admit it, but ‘tis so. Then, in the way of society, we became betrothed because her inheritance would compliment mine. ‘Twas back when I thought I had one, of course.”

He kissed Lark’s brow, her sweet lips. “I speak true Lark. I considered love a dreadful risk, back then, something to be avoided at all costs, but—”

Another pain. He took her hand. She asked for Alex.

Ash kissed her brow, feeling useless and dismissed, and left to fetch the women.

He sent Gideon, who needed action, for Doctor Buckston, and then he paced and awaited the summon to return to his wife.

Her labor continued all afternoon and into the evening. By then, the ladies were certain there would be no keeping the babe from making its untimely appearance, however dangerous.

Buckston could not be found, either at his residence or his surgery. Every rogue mounted a horse and drove from house to house in all directions to search for the good doctor, all except Ash.

Finally allowed back into his wife’s room, alone with her again, praise be, Ash could hardly bear the sight of her suffering without shouting his frustration. He wanted to take her pain to himself. He wanted to push his fist through a wall, break something, fix
everything
.

Lark roused and saw him, beckoned him close. “Another sin,” she said. “One of many. Go to my dresser and withdraw the packet wrapped in a figured scarf, tied with a gold ribbon.”

Ash did as she requested, despite the seeming foolishness of it, and brought her the packet.

“Open it,” she said.

“Lark this is no time for—”

“Open it.”

To humor her, Ash did as he was told, then he stood staring down at his silver snuffbox and missing leather glove. “I thought I had misplaced these.”

“I took them from you before you played that fateful game of cards with my father. ‘Twas the least of my sins. Soon you will know my worst.”

“Lark stop. No more. It matters not.”

“I am a thief. Thievery is how I supported Micah. Not Da. He would not spare the boy a farthing, so I supported him, in whatever way I could. Your wife is a thief, a liar, and a cheat.”

“A pickpocket, I know. You pinched these the way you pinched my grandfather’s will and the false proof of Ashley Briana’s birth. So be it. See, there is nothing to confess that I do not know, but if you need absolution so much….” Ash shuddered at the finality of the implication, hated to take the step for that reason, but for her peace and safe delivery, he would do anything.

“You are absolved Lark. Now let it go. You did your best for your sister and her son. He is ours now, and safe. You are safe.” He stroked the mound of their child with a possessive hand. “We will see this one safe born as well.”

“Absolved but not forgiven,” Lark said wetting her lips. “Water, please.”

Sabrina had warned that if he gave Lark water, she might be ill, which would do her no good. Ash moistened her lips with a finger, felt such a rush of love, his chest ached, but if he told her now, she would think he was trying to ease her way into eternity.

She about broke his knuckles with her next pain. “I deceived you on our wedding night,” she said between clenched teeth.

“What?” he said, smiling so he would not break down and weep. “You shot me in the arse then slept with another man?”

Lark screamed, a mixture of pain and frustration, Ash suspected.

“No, damn it! Listen to me. You did not
lose
the card game that bound us. Or you should not have lost if— But for me, you would have won, Ash.”

“Certainly n—”

She nodded, and watched as if awaiting his comprehension. Ash wondered how she’d managed it. Why? Why, when she’d not wanted him any more than he’d wanted her? Ah, not for herself. Never for herself.

“You dropped your cards on the floor,” she said. “Remember?” She nodded. “I see you do. Before you could retrieve them, I switched your ace for the two of hearts. Pickpockets are fast and I am the fastest.”

“Tell me why.”

“For a big house and fancy dresses, of course.”

Ash denied her words with a shake of his head. “For Micah,” he said, but Lark’s scream drowned his words and the women came rushing in.

Sabrina began putting a cloth beneath Lark and Alex pushed Ash from the room as Chastity slipped in with blankets. The door shut behind him.

He didn’t know if Lark had heard him or not. He knew she had not cheated for herself. He knew her heart, by God.

To his surprise, he found his grandfather pacing outside Lark’s room.

“It is Christmas Eve,” the tired old man said when their gazes met.

Ash shook his head in incomprehension. “What are you doing here?”

“You invited me for Christmas, remember?”

“Christmas … I forgot.”

“According to our old bargain, if she lost the babe before Christmas, you would fail to meet the stipulation in my will.”

With a roar, Ash gave vent to the pain inside him. “I do not want your blasted money,” he shouted. “I care naught for your bloody will. I want nothing—
God please hear me
—nothing but my wife safe in my arms. I love her. Do you hear me, Grandfather? I love my wife! I want her safe. I want our babe … if Lark is not the cost.” Ash looked to the heavens. “Please let Lark not be the cost.”

He looked back at the broken old man. “From you, Grandfather, I want nothing.” Ash’s ire rose again. “Keep your money. Give it away. If I have to remove my wife and children from this house, so be it. I will gladly pay the price. Any price. Much as my mother loves the Chase, she would pay the price as well to see my wife safe. Even she loves Lark.”

Sabrina slipped from Lark’s bedchamber into the hall. “We can hear you shouting Ash. The whole village can likely hear you.”

Ash turned, focused on Sabrina, and found himself in a place he barely recognized, he was so lost to fury, until he remembered his words to his grandfather. “Did Lark hear me?”