The Official Essex Sisters Companion Guide (37 page)

It turned out that Annabel was tired because she was carrying a child.

“I’ve never seen someone sleep so much,” Tess kept saying, as Annabel dozed off over tea, while sewing a stitch in her embroidery, at an hour when most of the
ton
were just considering the possibility of going out to the theater for the evening.

“It feels good,” Annabel said, sleepily. “You wait until it happens to you.”

Then she looked at the growing smile on Tess’s face and sat straight up. “Oh, Tess!”

And Tess broke into laughter.

“You’re happy now,” Annabel said sometime later. “How will you feel when you grow as bulky and round as I am?”

Tess patted the hard drum of Annabel’s growing tummy. “I shall take you as my model,” she said. “You haven’t made a single complaint about gaining weight.”

“I love it,” Annabel said with satisfaction. If she could be pregnant all the time, she would be. True, her ankles had thickened, and her arms were plump. Her breasts were double their former selves. She took to wearing the kind of corsets that old women wear, just to keep everything in place. She felt utterly
un
desirable, and she adored the sensation.

“Perhaps you’re carrying twins,” Josie suggested when she came to visit. Bramble Hill, one of Lucius’s country houses, was only an hour by carriage from Rafe’s estate, so they saw Rafe, Josie, and Gregory frequently.

Imogen was off in London with Griselda, living a dazzlingly fashionable life. She wrote frequently, including copies of
Bell’s Weekly Messenger
, which provided fawning descriptions of her every gown.

She and Mayne were the couple
par excellence
, necessary at every party in order to declare it a success. They were scandalous, beautiful, and unutterably fashionable.

“The midwife doesn’t think it’s twins,” Annabel said, patting her tummy lovingly. “He thinks it’s merely a big baby. Ewan is a large man, you know.”

She prided herself on saying little phrases like that, just to demonstrate to Tess that the demise of her marriage didn’t bother her any longer. It had been five months, after all. She certainly should have been able to put Ewan from her mind.

“It must be a boy,” Tess said. Neither she nor Josie could stop staring at Annabel’s belly. They were curled on Annabel’s bed just as they always had, but it was as if they’d invited a stranger to join them, one that they couldn’t stop watching.

“Have you told Ewan yet?” Josie demanded. Josie had slowly taken over the role of defender of Ewan. Why, no one knew.

“No, I haven’t,” Annabel said. “And I don’t intend to.”

“I’m having trouble controlling Gregory,” Josie reported. “He thinks Ewan should be informed about the baby.”

“He doesn’t think that,” Annabel observed. “You do, and what you think, Gregory thinks. The poor boy hasn’t had an independent thought in months.”

“That’s not true!” Josie protested. “You aren’t around to see it, but Gregory is insufferably independent. For one thing, he’s still singing lauds up on Rafe’s roof in the morning. And for another, we quarrel all the time. He has terrible taste in literature.”

“Well, maintain enough control to keep him from telling Ewan, would you?” Annabel asked.

“I just think that Ewan should—”

“I know,” Annabel said, tired at the thought. “He should know that I’m carrying his child. But Josie, think about it. Please. My life is so comfortable, since Tess kindly allows me to live with her.”

“
Allows you!
” Tess said, taking Annabel’s hand. “It’s my pleasure! And Lucius’s too. We adore having you with us.”

Annabel smiled at her thankfully.

“Yes, your life is comfortable,” Josie said, “but still Ewan should know that you’re having a child. It’s not fair.”

“He may have a fit of concern about his possible heir. Men do.” Although, to do Ewan justice, Annabel had never heard him mention an heir, only the possibility that they would have children.

She shrugged that memory away. “What if he makes me go back to Scotland and raise the baby there? With our marriage in such a desperate state, it would be awful.”

“I see that,” Josie said, after a moment. “But why shouldn’t you merely inform him that you are raising the child here? That way, he knows of the child, and you stay with Tess.”

“Life isn’t always so simple,” Tess put in. “Annabel’s baby may be the next earl. Ardmore would be well within his rights to demand that the child be wet nursed in Scotland, if Annabel refuses to return to his house.”

Annabel shivered at the thought of a wet nurse. “Never!” she said.

“I’ll impress silence on Gregory again,” Josie said. “But I have to tell you that he’s turning into a little Father Armailhac. He keeps babbling about children being a blessing, and Ewan being cheated of his blessing.”

“Ardmore deserves to be cheated,” Tess said. She hadn’t forgiven Annabel’s husband one iota. In fact, as the months wore on with no news from Ewan, she grew sterner.

And as for Annabel . . . she just loved him. With a bone-deep, aching love that didn’t seem to be going anywhere, even after the months of silence.

Her hope was gone, that was true. She had foolishly nurtured the fantasy that he would write. That he would come to himself and think of her. That he was merely grieving for Rosy in a solitary way, and that—

But too many months had passed. Summer had faded into fall while she slept, and now fall was turning into winter.

There had been no word from Ewan, even though she knew that Gregory received regular letters. Yet Ewan never even sent word through Gregory.

A hello, a mere courtesy, would have been nice, she thought forlornly.

She looked up to find Tess staring at her hands. She was pleating the sheet again. Hastily she dropped it.

“Don’t even think about him!” Tess said fiercely.

“I’m not,” Annabel said. “How is the dancing practice going, Josie?”

“It’s the most annoying thing,” Josie said, with the readiness of a sixteen-year-old to discuss herself at any moment. “I simply can’t dance. I don’t understand it!” She looked stunned.

Annabel laughed. “What do you mean, you can’t dance? I thought you were just having trouble counting the beats in your head?”

“I’m terrible,” Josie pronounced. “Monsieur Flibbert despairs of me. And here’s the worst of it—Gregory is flawless!”

“That
is
a cruel twist of fate,” Tess said, grinning. Gregory and Josie were just apart enough in age so that she wished to govern him in everything, and he wished for the same of her.

“He glides about the floor as if he knew instinctively what to do next,” Josie said, her mouth turning down at the corners. “Whereas I try to think about what’s coming next, and I get twisted up, and then I panic—and then it’s all over and Monsieur Flibbert is shrieking again.”

Annabel let Josie’s complaints fade out of her mind. If Ewan meant to save their marriage, thought to take her back to Scotland, he would have come for her by now.

She had imagined him coming so many times. There had been days when the mere sound of a coach in the drive leading to Bramble House had set her heart thumping.

These days, she didn’t pay attention. By this time of year, snow must be coming on in the Highlands and traveling wasn’t practical, anyway.

He would have come, if he wanted her. The whole question of
wanting
. . . She had long ago admitted to herself that she would have returned to Scotland with him, had he asked, even knowing that he felt only desire.

She would have gambled on her love and his desire being enough to carry them through a marriage.

But now she wasn’t even desirable. And ironically, although it felt as if her tie to Ewan was broken, the fact still made her happy. All her extra flesh felt safe and warm. She no longer dreamed of ruffians grabbing her and pressing themselves against her.

She was a
mother
now. Men bowed or doffed their caps respectfully. They didn’t look at her with desire.

What’s more, their wives didn’t look at her with the hidden fear that she might dally with their husbands. They crowded around and told her stories of births and predicted her child’s gender and even patted her tummy.

Even if Ewan had wanted to resume their marriage on the basis of the one thing they had shared—desire—it wouldn’t work.

So the marriage was truly over, and it was time that she accepted that. Certainly, her family thought she had made great strides in forgetting Ewan.

Lucius had obtained a vast sum of money from Ewan, again sent without a word to her. She could have the baby and return to a brilliant life in London.

The last time Imogen visited, she had great plans. “You can leave the child—or not,” she had amended, seeing Annabel’s face. “You can bring the child and its nurse to London. And you and I will
reign
over London. We will give parties that people will cry, beg, and plead to attend. We will be kind to all the women who are less fortunate than
ourselves, and cruel to all the men. I will keep Mayne, of course, and you must take a cicisbeo as well.”

Annabel had smiled weakly.

But now she thought that perhaps she would have to take a lover at some point. Just so that there was some other memory, some other image, to intervene between her and her dreams of Ewan.

Sometimes it felt as if the pain actually increased rather than lessening. Who knew that love was so uncomfortable? She had parroted it, without understanding what she was saying.

Love wasn’t just uncomfortable. It was burning, grievous pain.

She found she was pleating the sheets again and looked up. Tess was smiling wryly at her. Josie had hopped off the bed and was inspecting a pink spot on her chin.

“It’ll take time, darling,” Tess said softly. Even though she loathed Ewan, she never underestimated the depth of Annabel’s feelings for him.

“Of course,” Annabel said, summoning up a smile. “It’s already much better.” Liar, she thought to herself.

Liar.

Harvesting was over. The barns were full to their rafters with sweet-smelling hay and piles of grain. October left, taking with it the last of the golden leaves hanging on the lime trees to the side of Ardmore Castle.

The firs turned darker and looked more sturdy, as if they’d spent the summer thickening and bracing themselves against the howling winds that would come from the north.

One day Father Armailhac searched him out in his study. Ewan had hardly seen him in weeks.

After he deeded a plot of land to the three monks and their Benedictine order, they spent most of their time there, supervising the building of a monastery, dealing with the legalities of it all. Since the Catholic Relief Bill, it was certainly possible to be a monk in Scotland, but it still wasn’t easy.

But now building had stopped for the winter, and his three monks had returned home like wintering birds.

Armailhac poked his head in the door, his gentle inquiring face covered with a smile. “May I enter, Ewan?”

He had been sitting, staring out the window. The sky was a pearly gray color that made him think, irrationally, of Annabel.

Who the hell was he kidding? Everything made him think of Annabel: the last few red leaves hanging on to a lone chestnut reminded him of her hair; the chicken at dinner the night before reminded him of their picnic; in the last few weeks their bedchamber had stopped being a mere bed and had become a haunt of ghosts.

“Of course,” he said, rising and leading the old man to a comfortable seat by the stove. They had stoves going in every room, fighting off the winter that was already putting its chilly fingers on the stone floors.

Father Armailhac took his time, settling down in the chair with a rug over his lap, accepting a glass of whiskey (recovered from a nearby farm, although Mac despaired of the port ever returning to excellence).

“What can I do for you?” Ewan asked, controlling his own restlessness.

“I want to talk to you about Rosy,” Father Armailhac said, his quiet eyes resting on Ewan’s face. “And about your wife.”

His
wife
. . . It seemed so odd to hear someone say that.

All the castle servants had tacitly lapsed into silence on the subject of Annabel. No one ever mentioned her name or even indicated she had existed, although there were days when he longed just for the sound of her name.

“Speaking of Rosy,” Ewan said, choosing the easier of the two. “I had a letter from Gregory yesterday and he sends his best. He has engaged in a study of Plutarch with Josie. I think I shall write to Rafe and request that he get him enrolled in Eton. We neglected him shamefully, allowing Uncle Tobin to tutor him since his nurse left.”

“I think Tobin enjoyed the exercise, and Gregory certainly learned a great deal from him. He reads Latin and Greek fluently, you know.”

“Yes, I suppose,” Ewan said, getting up and striding about the room. He felt like a caged lion these days, trapped by the lack of physical exercise. He had grown accustomed to it, to the oblivion and deep sleep brought on by exhausted muscles. Without constant exercise, the days stretched into hours of thought.

“Does Gregory say anything of Annabel in this letter?”

“Nothing. He has never said a word.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?” Father Armailhac said, sipping his whiskey as if he were considering a philosophical problem.

“No. I asked him to say nothing to Annabel.”

“But you didn’t ask him to say nothing of Annabel to
you
, did you?”

“The two follow,” Ewan said impatiently. “I know nothing of Annabel, Father. I’m sorry if you were hoping for news of her.”

“I was hoping for news of you,” he said serenely, looking at the fire, not at him. “How are you feeling about Rosy’s death now?”

Ewan grasped the change of conversation with gratitude; anything so as not to talk of Annabel. “I feel less—less reproach,” he admitted. “I think about her often, of course.”

“She is happier where she is,” Father Armailhac said.

“I suppose I have come to believe that.”