Wellington Cross (Wellington Cross Series) (46 page)

I wondered about Ethan saying that he thought William was in love
with me.  Could that be true?  He did seem to care about me a lot,
was always doing things to help me, to make me feel better, and to protect
me.  Perhaps it was true.  I didn’t know how I felt about that. 
It was flattering, to be sure, but also sort of worrying.  How was I
supposed to live with someone who loved me but I did not share the same
feelings?  In every conversation we would have, I would be wondering the
meaning behind what he said.  He told me he didn’t expect me to love
him…but he did not say that he wouldn’t love me.

The next day around twilight, an open carriage arrived at Magnolia
Grove.  I looked out the window as Elizabeth descended the carriage
wearing her Sunday best and walked purposefully towards the manor.  I
panicked.  What was she doing here?  Had she found out that Ethan was
here all day yesterday?  Did she somehow find out that my baby was his? 
Surely she didn’t just come over to borrow sugar.

I opened the door to let her inside, and was struck in the face by
Elizabeth’s hand, just as I had been the night of the harvest ball. 
Shocked, I dropped my jaw.  Before I could say anything, she stomped past
me into the house, her face red with fury. 

“Is it true?!” she asked me, practically screaming at me. 

“Is what true?”

“Is Ethan the father of that baby inside of you?”

“Who told you that?”

“I overheard Ethan talking with his mother.  Is it true?”
 

Ethan had told Clarissa?  I had no desire to talk to
Elizabeth about any of this.  “That really isn’t any of your concern,” I
said. 

“Oh, but you’re wrong.  It
is
my concern…you’re having
a liaison with my husband, and you deserve to be punished.”

I politely took her by the elbow and escorted her out of the hall
down into the parlor and closed the door for some privacy.  She was right,
of course, but I had to defend myself.  “Elizabeth, he was my husband
first.  Can you expect me not to love him anymore?” 

“That may be so, but your marriage was dissolved legally, and he
is rightfully mine now.”

“He’s not a piece of property or a slave that you own, Elizabeth.”

“You know what I mean.  He’s my husband now, not yours!”

I was getting angry, but I tried to keep my composure.  “I
realize that, Elizabeth,” I said through gritted teeth.

“So?  Is the baby Ethan’s or not?”

She wanted the truth; I’d give it to her.  “Yes, it is.”

“How dare you try to steal Ethan away from me!  I want you to
stop seeing him.  Clarissa can bring Lillie over here from now on.  I
forbid him to come here anymore.  I don’t want you to talk to him at
church or other social situations, either.” 

I tried to protest.  “You can’t…”

“I can and I have,” she interrupted.  “I told Ethan as much
this morning.  Furthermore, I would like for you to tell Ethan you were
lying, that he is not the father.  That baby of yours will have no rights
to the Wellington name.  One child of yours is enough at Wellington; I’ll
not have another heir to compete with my baby or with Ethan’s attention.”

“You keep talking like that, and I’ll take Lillie away from Ethan
– you wouldn’t want that, would you?  I would blame it all on you. 
Ethan would hate you for that.”

I’d stunned her momentarily.

“Furthermore, I will not lie to Ethan anymore.  I lied to him
once, and that was a mistake I will not repeat.  You cannot tell me what
to do.”

She raised her eyebrows to me.  “I can go to the sheriff and
file a complaint against you, that you are harassing the family.  I could
convince him you were threatening me and my baby, and then you wouldn’t be able
to step foot outside your property line in the direction of Wellington Cross
without getting in trouble.  They might even throw you in jail.”  She
was boiling mad then, as was I.  She continued, “I could also convince the
sheriff that you are a bad influence on Lillie and prevent you from seeing her
again, either.  After all, you abandoned her for a whole year.  You
would have no visitations with her then.  How would you like that?”

Oh, she was really cutting me deep now.  How long could this
threatening go on? I wondered.  I would be devastated if I couldn’t see
Lillie every day.  Who exactly would the sheriff favor in this case? 
The mother, right?  And yet, it was true, I had been absent in her life
for a year, and the judge would, of course, rule to keep her where she’s been
since birth…with her father and his family.  I was doomed.  I’d have
to do a little groveling.

“Fair enough.  You win on that one.  My children mean
more to me than anything; you cannot take them away from me.”

“Then agree to tell Ethan you were lying about him being the
father of your baby.  Tell him it is Mr. Brown’s, after all, and you were
only trying to get him away from me.”

I felt like crying.  I was trapped, once again, by
Elizabeth.  “Please, Elizabeth.  Don’t make me do that.  You
took away my happiness, isn’t that enough?”

“
I
took away
your
happiness?  Isn’t that a
laugh? 
You
took away
mine
when you came back to
Wellington.  Ethan hasn’t looked at me the same way since.  He
ignores me, he never talks to me, he doesn’t sleep in the same room with
me…”  She was near to tears as she fidgeted with her gloves and paced the
room.  “Why couldn’t you have just stayed away?”  She fought back
tears in her eyes.  We were both highly emotional women, in our states of
confinement.

There was a knock on the door, to which I opened.  It was
Catherine.  “Is everything all right?  I heard yelling.”

“Yes.  No.”  I opened the door wide.  “We have a
guest.”

Catherine looked in and saw Elizabeth in the room, whose face had
turned stone cold again.  She had regained her composure.

“This doesn’t concern you,” she said bitterly to Catherine.

“When you’re in the house I’m living in, which I will soon become
mistress of, then it is my concern.  Now, what is this all about?”
Catherine said firmly, standing up to her.

When Elizabeth refused to say anything to Catherine, I chimed
in.  “Elizabeth came here to ask if my baby was Ethan’s.”

Catherine gave me a concerned look, and I could tell she was
reluctant to get in the middle of this.  “What did you tell her?” she
asked me cautiously.

I closed the parlor door and relayed everything to her that had
transpired, much to the dismay of Elizabeth.  “I tell Catherine
everything,” I said to Elizabeth, after her third exaggerated sigh. 

“So you knew that this baby was Ethan’s all along?” Elizabeth
asked Catherine.

“Yes, I did.  I really don’t know what all the fuss is about,
Elizabeth.  Aren’t you the one married to my nephew?  You are the one
with the high honor of being Ethan’s wife.  Don’t you see how much pain
Madeline has been through?  She lost her memory, and then she lost her
husband and her home.  She lost the right to keep her child, Lillie, and
has to share her with her ex-husband’s new wife.  Then she finds out she
is with child and is unmarried.  No matter who the father is, she is still
in a lot of pain here.  Why don’t you show her some mercy?”

“Well, why doesn’t anyone show
me
some mercy?” Elizabeth
said bitterly.  “I lost my father during the war, I was pillaged and
defiled by Yankee soldiers, my mother was thrown down the stairs by a Yankee
and died, my house was destroyed, my brother turned Yankee, and I was homeless. 
Then finally I found someone who cared about me, and we got married and
everything was blissful.  Then she comes along,” she said, pointing at
me.  “And tries to take everything away from me, my new home, my new
husband.  He never looked at me the same again after she came back. 
He never touched me past our wedding night.  Do you know what it’s like to
love someone who doesn’t love you back?  Even after you find out you’re
carrying his child?  The only reason – only reason – he is staying with me
is because of this baby I carry.  So why doesn’t anyone show me a little
pity?”

“You’re right,” Catherine said.  “You’ve both been
hurt.” 

It was good to have Catherine in the room with us as a
mediator.  As soon as she came in and started reasoning with Elizabeth, we
both calmed down a bit.  As angry as I was with Elizabeth, I could see her
point of view and agreed that she had been scorned.  I wondered briefly
about her mentioning a brother.  I didn’t realize she’d had a brother.

“So how do we resolve this?” Catherine asked.

“I only asked that Madeline not speak to Ethan anymore, and that
she tell him she was lying about the baby being his.  If he has two
children by her, I will be out the door in a heartbeat.  He doesn’t care
about me, only about the baby.  I daresay that as soon as the baby is
born, he will try to take it from me and then send me away someplace.”

“I understand how you feel,” I said, “but I told you before, I
will not lie to Ethan anymore.  And just so you know, I still plan to
marry William.  I had not planned on anyone else finding out about Ethan
being the father.  I simply thought he should know the truth.  I was
not trying to coerce him into leave you.”  Well, maybe I was hoping he
would, but I knew Ethan wouldn’t abandon her or his baby.

“You’re still going to marry William?”  Elizabeth was
stunned.

“Yes,” I said quietly.

 “Oh.  Well, in that case, I suppose there is nothing
more for me to say.”  She sashayed past us and left the manor without
speaking another word.

I finally relaxed a bit.  “Thank you for helping me out,
Catherine,” I said. 

“You’re welcome,” she said, squeezing my arm.

Our conversation was halted when we heard the firing of a gunshot,
followed by a bloodcurdling high-pitched scream. 

Catherine and I ran outside and found Elizabeth lying on the
ground beside her carriage, halfway down the drive.  We ran down to her,
not thinking about our own safety.  She was bleeding in her midriff just
above where the baby lay.  I felt for a pulse and found that she was still
alive. 

I ran back to the house and found William.  “Elizabeth has
been shot!” I told him.  “Someone needs to go get Ethan and someone else
should go find Doc Parsons.”

William ran back inside for a shotgun, then came back out and ran
over to the barn to find Jonas.  It was decided that one of the men needed
to stay here in case the person who shot Elizabeth was still around, so Jonas
stayed.  The two men carried Elizabeth into the house and laid her on the
couch in the parlor.  William took off on horseback to summon the doctor,
and that left me and Catherine to go to Wellington Cross to fetch Ethan.
 We took Sambo with us.  Ginny stayed with Jonas and Elizabeth. 
Catherine brought a handgun with us, and we took the carriage which Elizabeth
arrived in back to Wellington Cross.

After reaching the plantation, we found Ethan in the stables, who
agreed to go back to Magnolia Grove with us, taking the same carriage.  He
sat in the back seat with me, and I held his hand on the drive back over. 
He held a shotgun in his other hand.

“I didn’t even know she left the plantation,” he said.  He
seemed to be in a daze.  I explained to him how Elizabeth came to the
house demanding answers about my baby.

“She came over to make a fuss?” Ethan asked, surprised.  I
nodded.  “Is that why your face is red?  Did she slap you
again?”  He gently touched my cheek.

“Yes, but I probably had it coming.”

He frowned sympathetically.  “I’m sorry.”

“She said she heard you tell your mother that my baby was yours.”

He combed his hand through his hair.  “I had no idea she was
listening.  Did you tell her the baby was mine?  What else happened?”

I began to explain to him as best I could, with Catherine’s help,
the conversation that transpired and how Elizabeth felt better that I was still
going to wed William, and so she left. 

“Next thing we knew, we heard a gunshot and her screaming,” I
said. 

I could not imagine who had shot Elizabeth or why.  Could it
have been Jefferson?  Why would he shoot her?  It made no
sense.  Perhaps it was someone seeking shelter or a disgruntled slave
who’d come back for revenge.  Could it have been someone from Elizabeth’s
past?  She said she had a brother who turned Yankee.

We arrived at the manor at the same time as Doc Parsons. 
After greetings were exchanged, the doctor began to examine Elizabeth in the
parlor.  The rest of us paced the entrance hall, not saying a word. 
After a short time, Doc Parsons opened the door and asked if I would come and
assist him.  I agreed and followed him in the room, closing the
door. 

“I’m going to remove the bullet, but I also want to take some of
her blood out first to prevent inflammation.  Do you remember how we did
this during the war?”  I nodded.  He began setting up his surgical
tools on the parlor table, which he moved over next to the sofa.  While he
did that, I went into the hall and retrieved an old blanket from the hidden
storage shelves inside the wall next to the fireplace.  Back in the
parlor, I helped Doc place this blanket under Elizabeth on the couch, and then
I removed Elizabeth’s dress and crinoline.