Wanton Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (47 page)

      
“On the morrow, I expect. She and her maid are taking the Carlisle coach, with the nurse for Constance, of course,” he added dismissively.

      
Beth would never get used to the way the English upper classes distanced themselves from their children practically at birth. What would she do if Derrick insisted upon separating her from her babe? Hiring a wet nurse? The practice was not unknown in America, but Beth's mother and Aunt Barbara had never considered it. Nor had she or her siblings and cousins been raised by servants. She would fight Derrick bitterly if he insisted upon English tradition.

      
“You needn't fear that Bella will spoil the holiday, m'dear,” Bertie said, breaking into her brown study. “I read her a peal before I left London. Family and all that. She understands how things are to be,” he said, red-faced.

      
“You are very sweet to think of me after all the trouble I've caused this family.”

      
“Stuff! Our puritanical old Scots roots needed some pruning, if you ask me. Derrick will learn to appreciate that. Probably has already. I imagine he's riding pell-mell for the Hall even as we speak.”

      
Mid-afternoon of the following day Annabella and her entourage pulled up in a hired coach. As Bertie had assured Beth, her sister-in-law treated her courteously. If it was flummery, Beth did not care as long as they could maintain the veneer of civility sufficiently to get through the holidays. She spent more time with Constance than she did with the child's mother, which suited both women—as well as the little tot—just fine.

      
Christmas day arrived, Derrick did not. For a change, the weather was bright and sunny, as if mocking her misery. Beth had cursed the rain and snow for weeks but now would have welcomed it—any excuse to explain her husband's untimely delay. There was nothing to be done but put a good face on it, pretending that she was not wounded to her very soul by his absence. She walked down the stairs to the tantalizing aroma of roasting Christmas goose and plum pudding.

      
Everyone was gathered in the great hall before a roaring fire, even little Connie with her nurse. The mantel and windows were hung with festive greenery trimmed with red velvet bows. And brightly wrapped gifts were scattered about the hearth. Beth looked at the largest one—her portrait of Derrick, which she'd had framed by the village cabinetmaker and lovingly wrapped herself.

      
Swallowing a lump of utter misery, she managed a smile as she entered the cavernous room. “Merry Christmas, everyone,” Beth said brightly.

      
Annabella smiled tightly and nodded, saying, “The same to you, dear sister.” Then, as Beth proceeded to pick up Connie, she added, “I do not see how you can remain so...limber in your delicate condition. I was quite unable to lift so much as my jewel case when I was as far along as are you.”

      
“We Americans are a hearty lot,” Beth said, winking at Bertie, whom she knew to be embarrassed by any mention of “female matters.”

      
They unwrapped gifts, oohing and aahing over scarves and hair clips and all manner of extraneous things that no one needed but everyone felt obliged to give. If not for the joy of watching little Connie tear into the toys and then cuddle her new doll, Beth would not have been able to make it through the afternoon. As they withdrew to the dining hall for the traditional feast, she cast one last bitter glance at the largest of Derrick's unopened gifts.

      
Perhaps she would burn the painting in the Yule fire that night.

* * * *

      
“I say, Coz, are you there?”

      
The gentle tapping at her studio door caused Beth to put down her brush and rise, bidding Bertie to enter. “I've been so busy that I quite forgot the time.” She had begun work at dawn that morning after spending Christmas night tossing and turning in the big empty bed. By the time the first hint of light gilded the eastern horizon, the idea had become fixed firmly in her head. She had painted through the day, and dusk was descending. Now she wondered if she dared let her friend in on what she was doing.

      
“You have been busy. Mind if I take a peek?” he inquired as he walked over to her easel.

      
“You may be shocked,” she cautioned. She watched as he studied the work. Although only just begun, the sketched-in outlines made the subject matter quite apparent.

      
His eyebrows rose and then he doubled over as a hoarse guffaw of laughter burst forth. Slapping his thigh, he said, “Ain't you the dry boots, Coz! I love it! 'Tis positively smashing!”

      
“I won't sign them, but 'tis possible my identity will be discovered. Are you sure you don't mind that I might bring further disgrace on the family?”

      
“Twas Byron who gave you the idea. Demned good one, if you ask me.”

      
“Since he's been in the suds, all he may wish is that my scandal will distract from his peccadilloes,” Beth replied dubiously.

      
“Painting nudes in a seraglio bath hardly compares with carrying on with one's own half-sister,” Bertie said dryly. “How many paintings do you think to do? I know an art dealer on Berkeley Square who will be all cock-a-whoop to handle the sales.”

* * * *

      
Bertie and Annabella departed for London, leaving Beth to her paints. By the end of January she had completed six, four of which were already with Bertie's dealer. She nervously awaited word about how they were received in London. If nothing else would bring Derrick back to Lynden Hall, this just might. Of course he'd be livid and most probably take away her art supplies. As a precaution, she hid in dusty trunks another dozen freshly stretched canvases, pigments, oil and solvents, along with a complete assortment of brushes.

      
Let him come and try to stop me
. Her bitterness had grown with each passing day since the heartbreak of the holidays. She vowed to leave him after the birth of their child. If it was a girl and not his precious heir, she would take her infant daughter with her to America. Not even the bloody Earl of Lynden could take her child from the power of the Blackthorne family.

      
But what if it was a boy? How could she deprive her son of his birthright? How could she leave her own child behind? The idea tormented her nights as she grew heavy and neared the time for her delivery. The idea of spending her life in this gray wilderness was mind-numbing. The idea of spending her life without Derrick was even worse, but it was his choice to remain in London and banish his scandal-ridden wife to the country.

      
“I've become a vacillating coward,” she murmured to herself as she stood in front of her easel and rubbed her aching back one sunny day in mid-March. In the past she had always worked standing, but that was no longer possible owing to her condition. To keep to the rigorous schedule she'd set herself, she had resorted to using a high kitchen stool, a suggestion of Martha, who was most sympathetic, having carried six children while working in the scullery at Barton Manor.

      
The cook and housekeeper had become her friends—outside of Donita, the only companions she had. The forbidding Lloyd Harris refused to allow his master's recalcitrant wife to leave the grounds. He kept the entire outside staff away from her with the exception of old Miller, the gardener, who, with the approach of spring, was mucking about in the rain, preparing the rose beds. Harris had hired Miller from the village to begin restoring the neglected grounds to their former glory. Beth worked with the gardener, who loved to tell stories about the exploits of “those wild Jamison boys.”

      
How sad that her best insights of Derrick were gleaned from an elderly gardener. But Beth quickly shook off her self-pity, pacing across the studio floor to look out the window. Faint hints of green dusted the rolling hillsides and the short, straggly trees were starting to fatten with buds. The sky itself grew brighter. Spring was indeed coming, and with it, her baby.

      
About to return to a dark and brooding portrait of old Fatima instructing odalisques, Beth paused and squinted down the lane. A coach was approaching! Her first visitor since the holidays.
Could it be Derrick?
 

      
Do not be foolish
, she chided herself. He had been informed explicitly by the physician in London that the child would not be born for several weeks yet. Of course, he could be here because of the seraglio paintings. She walked slowly downstairs with her heart in her throat. When Bertie climbed clumsily from the carriage and assisted Annabella down, Beth did not know whether to feel relief at the appearance of company or disappointment that it was not Derrick.

      
“Heigh ho, we've come to celebrate your success,” Bertie called out cheerfully.

      
“My success?” she echoed.

      
“My, yes,the mysterious artist who signs her work with a black thorn has become the toast of London,” Annabella practically gushed.

      
For a woman who had given her the cut direct when her fate as an Algerine captive became known at Lady Westover's ball, Annabella was behaving oddly. Doubtless she was titillated by her sister-in-law's sudden fame.
      
Smiling, Beth simply said, ”I hoped by using only a symbol taken from my maiden name, I might save the Jamisons embarrassment.”

      
“Even if the truth comes out, 'twill be but a flea bite compared to Byron's latest,” Bertie said with a dismissive shrug.

      
As they walked into the hall Annabella proceeded to detail for Beth the latest scandals involving the lost and brooding George Gordon. Beth identified with his isolation and felt a stab of pity in spite of his sins. Or perhaps because of them. When she could get in a word, she inquired about Connie and was told the child had been left in London with her nurse.

      
Her sister-in-law felt not the slightest concern over being separated from her daughter.
How can she do it?

* * * *

      
It took him a month after he was brought to the house from hospital to be able to walk across his room. After the long confinement in bed, his muscles were weak, and the doctors clucked about his taking a fall and breaking open the stitches in his chest, abdomen and arm. He ignored them, walking supported by his good arm around Peggie's sturdy shoulders.

      
The plucky nurse had saved his life, and in return he intended to fulfill her life's dream—installing her in her own infirmary in the East End, among the poorest of the poor. He'd arranged to purchase a building and sufficient medical supplies for the staff she would hire. In the meanwhile, Peggie nursed him with love-struck devotion. Her infatuation was a bit discomfiting, but she possessed great common sense and experience when it came to convalescence.

      
“There now, 'ow—er, how does that feel?” she said, carefully correcting her speech as she inspected the long pink scar running down his right arm while he flexed the muscles, clenching and unclenching his fist.

      
“Better, much better,” he replied. “Twill be good to be able to write legibly again. The solicitors have been most unhappy about deciphering my scribbling.”

      
He stood up and strode across the library to his desk, where a mountain of papers had been deposited during his disappearance and then the long convalescence after his rescue. He came downstairs now each morning after exercising. Even though busy setting up her infirmary, Peggie had popped in to check on his progress, something she did every day at noon, when he was brought his luncheon tray.

      
“Be certain ye eats—you eat the beef and barley soup. I made it me—myself. 'Tis good for building strength,” she finished, pleased with the turn of phrase.

      
“I shall do so, Peggie,'' he replied with a smile as he rolled down his shirtsleeve.

      
She'd been listening to the servants who worked at the earl's elegant house and wanted to fit in with them. All her life she had striven to rise above the dreadful circumstances of her birth, and now she'd been given an opportunity to learn proper English.

      
Peggie Halloran looked forward to her new project with decidedly mixed emotions. When that wonderful day arrived she would have to bid farewell to the earl. If only he were not so lonely. What must his American wife be like that she never replied to any of his lordship's letters? Peggie had seen how he searched the mail brought into his library each morning, hoping for word from her. Letters from his overseer at the great manor house arrived regularly, but not a single line from the cruel countess.

      
Although he never spoke of his wife, Peggie had listened to servants' gossip since she came to work for the earl. The woman was apparently a libertine, used to the debauchery of the Italians and, even more scandalous, she had actually lived in some heathen seraglio! Whyever had a fine honorable man such as the earl wed such a wanton?

      
She knew that the main reason the earl was so desperate to recover his strength was so that he could ride to Lynden Hall in time for the birth of his heir. Although he never said so, she could tell that he was still in love with his wife. A man as well-favored as he could have his pick of paramours—from the highest ladies of the peerage to the fanciest of the Covent Garden bits-o-muslin.

      
Yet he remained faithful to his Beth.

* * * *