In the Arms of an Earl (38 page)

“No, no, miss. You mustn’t lift heavy things in your condition.” She clucked her tongue at Jane, shaking her head.

The doctor looked up sharply before returning his attention to Mr. Wilson.

“Joseph, how is your leg? May I have a look at it, please?”

Joseph didn’t move, and the doctor motioned to Jane. She set his bag on a chair and opened it, assisting him in the old way when she was an earnest young girl, eager to bring some spiritual help to the needy while the doctor saw to their physical wounds.

“No medicine for him, Jane, I’m afraid,” the doctor said under his breath. He smiled at the patient’s wife. “His color is good, Mrs. Wilson. Have you wheeled him outside into the fresh air, as I instructed?”

She shrugged her thin shoulders. Jane noticed the frayed patches at her elbows, the dingy lace at her throat. Her hair hung carelessly down her head, with thick gray tendrils wound through it. “He won’t go outside. I’ve tried, but he’s too heavy to push in that chair.”

“Nonsense.” The doctor’s eyes grew steely. “We can’t leave him to rot in the corner, Mrs. Wilson. I’ve told you to ignore his protests and bring him out. Drag him if you must. He has to start living again, sooner or later.” He peered down at the man’s slack face. “Do you hear me, Joseph? There’s no need for you to sit indoors like this. You need to get outside.”

“What for?” Mr. Wilson’s voice was a breathy whisper. Jane wondered if she’d imagined that he’d spoken, because his lips hadn’t seemed to move.

“Eh? What’s that?” The doctor bent closer, and Mrs. Wilson and Jane leaned forward, as if the man were about to utter a great revelation.

“I said, what for? Ain’t got my leg no more.” His voice grew stronger as he spoke. Mrs. Wilson clutched her chest.

“He ain’t spoke in so long, Doctor,” she said, her sallow skin appearing ghoul-like in the semi-darkness of the room. “Ye got ’im to speak.” She hurried back to the pot and ladled out a bowl of thick, brown soup. “Try an’ have a bit of this, Joseph.” She held out a spoon laden with vegetables and soggy pieces of meat, but he remained quiet, his eyes staring straight ahead.

The doctor pursed his lips. “You must eat, Joseph. You must keep up your strength.”

He indicated the wife should try again, but Jane stepped around him and placed her hand lightly on his shoulder. He startled but didn’t speak.

“Do you still feel your leg, Mr. Wilson?”

The doctor shook his head slightly at her but looked interested when the patient lifted his head. After a long moment, he nodded. She pulled up a chair beside him and resumed stroking his grimy hand, the unwashed skin like dry paper beneath her fingers.

“How did you lose your leg?”

“My cart had an upset. I was pinned.” He stared at her intently. “When I woke up, the doctor told me he had to take it.” Two large, glistening tears slipped down his hollow cheeks, darkening his unshaven face in matching trails. “They don’t believe me,” his voice dropped to a whisper for Jane’s ears only, “but I still feel it.” He looked scared, as if she would think him insane. She nodded encouragingly. He took an unsteady breath, his fingers tightening on the arms of his chair. “I can feel it sometimes. It hurts.” He looked at the doctor, almost defiantly. “It’s there, sir. I can’t see it, but I know it’s there.”

“Those feelings are very real.” Jane squeezed his hand. “But they will gradually go away, lessen a bit.”

“How do you know?” His gaze flickered at her form, taking in both sets of her limbs.

“My…my husband lost his hand in the war.” She kept her tone soft. A sudden, sharp image of Frederick, writhing in unconscious agony, came to her mind. She choked back a sob, startling the doctor and Mrs. Wilson, but Joseph gave her an encouraging nod. “He feels it, too. Sometimes it hurts, very badly, and sometimes, he imagines it is still a part of him. He feels his fingers—his fingernails—everything.”

“How does he cope?” Joseph asked.

“He takes laudanum. And spirits, too, I’m afraid.” She brushed a strand of hair from her eyes, surprised to feel her cheek damp with tears. “He used it to dull the pain, but it didn’t help.”

“What does help?” His eyes strained in the firelight to see her clearly.

Mrs. Wilson stood beside her, wringing her hands in her apron. Jane took the woman’s hand and placed it gently over her husband’s.

“Time, and…love.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Jane found her mother in the kitchen garden, a basket tucked over one arm, into which she dropped various sprigs of aromatic herbs. “Come to help me, have you?” she asked, her voice brisk. She handed Jane a pair of shears. “My back aches from stooping. You cut, and I’ll hold the basket.”

Jane worked beside her, grateful there was no need for conversation. Her mother had been silent on the subject of Frederick, which, at first, had struck Jane as curious, but she was relieved not to dwell on the past. She could barely breathe from the constant ache in her chest, but the anticipation of her baby’s arrival took up the majority of her thoughts.

“Trevor! Mind the honeybee, or he’ll sting you good and proper.”

Jane caught the cook’s little grandson before he tumbled to the ground, his legs tangled in some trailing ivy. As she freed him, she caught a whiff of raspberries on his breath and held his plump hand a moment longer than she needed to. He pulled away and skipped toward a more interesting patch of raspberries, which he immediately tucked into with great relish.

A rare smile touched Jane’s lips, and for the first time since arriving in Hartleigh two weeks before, she did not frown it away. Mamma noticed and nudged her arm.

“Do not hope for a boy, Jane. Boys are a handful. I was blessed with all girls.”

Even with the passing of so many years, Mamma carefully avoided looking at the ivy-covered grave of her only son, who’d died in infancy. Instinctively, Jane pressed a light hand to her middle, her fingers working the fabric of her dress. The thrumming movements had increased of late, especially at night, when she lay awake, wide-eyed and staring at the moon outside her window.

“I wonder if it’s a boy or girl,” she said, her voice so quiet Mamma leaned closer. Her mother squeezed her hand.

“You will find out soon enough.” She straightened and regarded Jane with an almost amused look. “Fancy you turning out to be the stubborn one.” She shook her head slowly, a smile broadening her face. “I am proud of you, Jane.”

Jane had to prevent her jaw from dropping open. “You are proud of me?”

She nodded. “I sent you away in hopes you’d spread your wings a little—not be so prim and fussy.” She laughed, though her humor quickly faded. “I wanted you to be more like Amelia and Rosalind. Enjoying balls and having fun. I never wanted you to be so serious, though your father will indulge all of his daughters’ whims and provide books instead of ribbons and dancing lessons.”

Jane waited for her mother to continue, fascinated with their conversation. It was perhaps the most they had ever spoken to each other. Mamma fanned her face with a bunch of basil, their cool green scent floating on the air.

“You spread your wings, all right. You caught yourself a husband.” She patted Jane’s cheek. “I don’t care what happened between you and…and the colonel, Jane. But I do know you will be all right, whatever happens.”

She turned away abruptly, calling to Trevor to watch his step before he tumbled headfirst into a hole the gardener had dug. Jane wanted to thank her for saying what she had, but Mamma had effectively ended the conversation. Her heart a little lighter, Jane knelt to pick some sweet woodruff for her father’s tea.

His boots were suddenly in front of her, and she smiled up at him. Her smile faded at his stricken look. He clutched a letter and held it out to her wordlessly. Frozen, although she knew not why she should be terrified, she waited for her mother, who hurried over.

“What is it, Mr. Brooke? What has made you hold your tongue?” Her hands flew to her mouth, and she gasped from between her fingers. “Is it Amelia? Has Amelia…?”

“No, no, my dear,” he said quickly. “The girls are all well. It’s about…Colonel Blakeney.”

Since she’d come home, her parents had referred to Frederick with his old army rank. As if saying
his lordship
was too painful a reminder of the life Jane had lost.

“Mr. Shelbourne sends distressing news from London.” His voice cracked, and he gave a half-turn away from her, shielding his eyes with one hand.

A low roaring sound filled Jane’s ears. Frederick was dead. He had died alone, of a terrible illness, and she had not been there. Her knees buckled, and her mother pulled her into her arms. She felt her hands on her head and back, but there was no comfort to be found. It was as if she had ceased to exist, that the sun on her face a moment ago had vanished forever.

“Good heavens, Mr. Brooke,” Mamma whispered fiercely. “Loosen your tongue. What is the news? Will you wait until a tree grows beneath your feet and leaves sprout from your ears?”

His arms shaking, he held the paper between both hands, as if it would fly away on the next breath of wind. “He’s gone and married another.”

“Who has married another? What are you talking about?”

Jane closed her eyes, lulled by the rapid rise and fall of her mother’s bosom. Her spirit seemed to abandon her body and hover over the garden. She was aware of the overbearing sweetness of her mother’s sachet and the buzz of bees near the raspberries. She imagined she was walking through a field of flowers, trailing her fingers above the puffy heads of mustard and Queen Anne’s lace, while the sun beat down on her head.

Her father cleared his throat before reading from the letter. “‘F. Blakeney married Alice, the dowager Countess of Falconbury, two weeks ago.’”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Jane sat on the bank of the pond, throwing pieces of stale bread at the ducks in a haphazard manner. Three ducks swam away, and a sense of loss and misery overcame her. She swiped a tear off her grimy cheek and stared at the smudge left behind on her fingers.

Had she bathed the day before? She was too tired to think. She leaned her head forward onto her bent knees, her long hair falling freely into her face. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d brushed it. Mamma had offered to help but had given up when Jane ordered her away.

Two weeks had passed since her brother-in-law’s letter came. Rosalind had written a tear-streaked letter to Jane, but she hadn’t read it. There had been no contact from Frederick, save a trunk of her clothes and other possessions, which had arrived without a message or letter of any kind. She hadn’t even bothered to open it, afraid the sight of her wedding clothes, items he had personally chosen for her, would bring on another fit of exhausting tears. The housemaid had discreetly moved it into a closet at her mother’s insistence. She half expected a letter from his solicitor notifying her of the dissolution of their marriage, but nothing was forthcoming.

Doctor Adams had visited, but she had refused to see him. She’d heard her father’s and the doctor’s low voices downstairs but took no interest in anything they had to say.

She covered her dry eyes with the ends of her shawl. She’d cried so much the past few days she had no tears left. Deep inside her foggy mind lay the idea she had to rouse herself from her melancholia.

Another life depended on her.

Her baby moved within her, the merest butterfly kicks and bubbles deep inside her belly that announced his or her presence. Already, her breasts had swelled. Her limbs were heavy, and it was hard to get out of bed in the morning, but she did it because she must. Just as she ate at meals and put one foot before the other when she walked downstairs, although it took all her strength and force of will to do so.

Footsteps crunched on the gravel path behind her. With a heavy sigh, her father sat beside her. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. She looked up briefly, knowing he studied her to gauge the depth of her misery. His already lined face looked older from the recent stress in their lives. A twinge of guilt flattened her sensitive nerves.

It was her fault. All of it. Frederick’s leaving, her parents’ sick looks of worry…

She swallowed a painful lump of silent sobs lodged deeply in her throat. Her father indicated the pond with a nod.

“How many ducklings are left?”

Her lip trembled, but she steadied it, grateful he could discuss something as mundane as ducks. “Five. The fox must’ve taken another one last night.” It was the most she’d spoken in a week.

He shook his head. “Cursed creature! But it is only nature.” They sat in silence for a moment, and he squeezed her arm again. “Lady Simpson invited us to tea tomorrow. You always liked her. Perhaps we can ride over there.”

His voice rose in an encouraging tone, but she couldn’t match his enthusiasm.

“I don’t think so, Papa,” she murmured. The mother duck pushed her babies along, settling them in their nest of reeds. One got away, and the mother squawked at it until it returned.

“That Mr. Wilson you helped a few weeks ago—he sent a basket of eggs and a note.” He continued as if she hung on his words. “Very polite and thankful for your help. He is getting about, he says, and it’s because of you.”

“How kind.” The ducks disappeared behind the thick curtain of green rushes, and the pond was still.

“You need to get away from here, my dear. Find some…amusement.” He cleared his throat, and the pressure of his arm around her shoulders increased. “Besides, you need to keep up your strength, and your spirits.”