Nine Months Later…
Louisa settled a tender gaze on Theo, who lay beside her on the canopied four-poster in their bedchamber at Greystone Hall. She had not thought it possible to love her husband more than she had on their wedding day, but he stole another piece of her heart with each passing day.
She leaned in. “Do you know how much I love you?”
He pressed a kiss to her lips before planting another on the forehead of their son, who’d fallen asleep in his mother’s arms while nursing. “If it is anywhere close to the love I feel for you and Nelson, I have a reasonably good idea.” With an endearing grin, he added, “But let that not stop you from telling me as often as you feel inspired to do so. For, as you know, I never tire of hearing your effusions of adoration.”
She laughed as she rose to put Sonny in the cradle the Baldwyns had given them as a wedding gift. The only members of “good society” undaunted by her father’s threats, Sir Steven and Lady Baldwyn called on them weekly to share the latest news and gossip. Louisa, who was starved for company, had come to look forward to their visits. If not for them, she would know naught about her family’s doings—or that her father was gravely ill.
Leaving the baby to sleep, she returned to the bed and snuggled against Theo. “As much as I enjoy these lazy days in bed together, I eagerly await the hour when the midwife clears me to ride Midnight again.”
He chuckled softly and stroked her hair. “And I as eagerly await the day she gives you leave to ride your husband again.”
She smiled against the ruffles fronting his nightshirt. “You and me both, my love. You and me both.”
The ringing of the doorbell drew Louisa from her languor. Pushing up on one elbow, she looked at Theo, who grumbled, “Who the devil could that be?”
“I have not the slightest inkling,” she replied, equally annoyed by the interruption. The Baldwyns were not due until tomorrow, Winnie was away at finishing school, and, owing to Papa’s campaign against them, no one else had called in months. “Should I go down and see?”
“Let Murphy deal with whoever it is.”
The bell did not ring again and, after a few minutes of passionate kissing, the visitor was forgotten—until a light knock sounded upon the bedchamber door.
“Sir, Madam,” the butler called from the hallway. “You have a caller.”
“Who has come?” she inquired.
“It is your sister, Madam—Miss Georgianna Bennet of Craven Castle.”
Excitement fluttered in Louisa’s heart. Since they had returned from Scotland, she had not seen her dearest sister except at Sunday services. But even then, they could not do more than exchange cordial nods.
“How do you suppose she managed to escape the warden?” Theo asked.
“Only one way I can think of.”
Theo set his hand on her arm. “Will you be aggrieved if what you suspect is indeed the case?”
“I should be, I daresay,” she said with a twinge of guilt. “But, terrible as it sounds, I am far more likely to feel relief than bereavement. For with him gone, I will have Mama and Georgie back in my life—and Sonny will have his aunts and grandmother to spoil him.”
“I will go down with you,” Theo offered, “for moral support.”
They got up and dressed quickly. After descending the stairs, they walked together into the parlor. When Louisa saw Georgie standing by the fire, the heartache she had striven to ignore for so many months, nearly tore a hole in her.
“Oh, Georgie.” She rushed to embrace her sister. “How sorely I have missed you!”
As they hugged, Georgie said, “I have missed you just as dearly. I do, however, wish our reunion could have been under more agreeable circumstances.”
Louisa drew back. “If you’ve come, as I suspect, to tell me Papa is dead, you needn’t be so grave.”
Surprise registered on Georgie’s features. “That is precisely why I’ve come…but how did you even know of his illness?”
“The Baldwyns told me,” Louisa explained. “They at least do not treat us like social outcasts.”
“And nobody else shall, either, now that he is gone,” Georgie told her. “Mama would have come with me but for the proprieties of mourning. She did, however, ask me to convey her dearest hope that you will call on her very soon—with your husband and son, of course. For she wishes most ardently to share your joy now that she is free to do so.” Then, as if only just noticing Theo was in the room, she said, “Good morning, Captain. I trust I find you well.”
“You do,” he said, smiling warmly. “You find us all very well, including your nephew. Do you fancy a look at him now that you are here?”
Georgie’s whole face lit up. “Yes, please. For I came with the hope that I would see your little angel. Which of his parents does he favor most, you or my sister?”
“Though Louisa says he favors me,” Theo returned affably, “I believe he resembles her more.”
“Oh, do go and get him,” Georgie cried, “for I do so yearn to hold my precious nephew in my arms.”
As Theo turned to leave, Louisa called after him, “No, my darling, let me go, for the stairs are much easier for me than for you.”
He turned back to her with an accommodating smile. “While that is true, I wish to give you time with your sister without me hovering over you both like a vulture.”
Louisa smiled at him warmly. “You are far from a vulture, my dear, though you are perfectly correct about me needing some time alone with my sister. So, if you are truly willing to go, I shall make no further effort to stop you.”
As he took his leave, Georgie said to Louisa, “I trust he is as good a father as he is a husband.”
Louisa’s heart echoed the smile that spread over her face. “You might say that he has taken to fatherhood the way frosting takes to cake.”
Georgie arched an eyebrow. “So, you are happy with your choice?”
Louisa breathed a sigh of contentment. “I could not be happier if I were in Heaven itself.”
“Oh, I do hope that one day I shall be as happy as you are.”
“I want that, too, sister dear. More than anything else in the world.”
They spent the next twenty minutes discussing all the eligible beaus of Georgie’s acquaintance. All that was, apart from one. For now that Louisa knew of his secret engagement, she would not recommend Lt. Churchill to her sister for the world.
When Theo came back into the room, Georgie raced over to have a look at her nephew. Sonny was in the sling Louisa fashioned so his father could carry him safely while using his cane.
“Oh, what a cherub he is,” Georgie cried as she gazed upon the sleeping infant. “May I hold him?” Without waiting for an answer, she raided the sling and rocked the baby in her arms. “How precious he is! And what a shame Papa never got to see his grandson and heir.”
“That was his own doing,” Theo said with undisguised bitterness.
“I know,” said Georgie, beaming at her nephew, “and more’s the pity.”
“Georgie…,” Louisa started, “tell me the absolute truth. Are you sorry Papa is gone?”
“Why should I be?” When she lifted her gaze to meet her sister’s, Louisa saw anger flickering in Georgie’s pale blue eyes. “Ever since we returned from Scotland, he has kept me under lock and key, presumably to prevent me from following your example. I only learned he was dying when he was too far gone to object to Mama letting me out.”
“I am so sorry, Georgie.” Louisa’s heart ached fiercely for her sister. “Just be grateful he did not force you to marry Cousin Charles in my stead.”
“He would have, I daresay, had not this little bundle of joy come along.” Beaming down at the swaddled babe in her arms, Georgie rocked Sonny gently. “I am sure you can imagine how livid he was when he learned you gave birth to a boy. I jest you not. He all but foamed at the mouth!”
The picture of her father in such a rage over the birth of his grandson made Louisa fume inside. “Of what did he die?”
“A fever of some sort.”
Alarm hooked Louisa’s stomach. “Please tell me it was not a contagious variety.”
“The doctor said not,” Georgie told her. “And, since none of us has displayed any symptoms as yet, I trust his diagnosis was correct.”
A gust of relief swept away Louisa’s worries. So many children perished before their first year, and she did not want the same fate to befall her son. If that should happen—heaven forbid!—she would be grief-stricken to the point of madness. She’d also have to forfeit her father’s estate to Charles, who she was sure would put her mother and sisters out in the cold just to spite her.
Georgie turned to Theo, now seated in a chair by the fire. “Pray, have you had word of Lieutenant Churchill of late?”
Louisa flinched at the mention of her husband’s friend. Much as she wanted to warn her sister off her suspected favorite, Theo had sworn her to secrecy.
“I have, as a matter of fact,” Theo answered more freely than Louisa would have preferred. “While he is in Portsmouth at present, we expect him for an extended visit around Christmastide. May I tell him he can still count you among his friends?”
“Of course.” Georgie’s eyes brightened in a way that suggested her feelings for the Lieutenant were perhaps more invested than she had pretended last year. “For he has done nothing to cause me to bear him ill will. He cannot be blamed if I read more into his attentions than he intended to convey.”
And yet, Lt. Churchill could be blamed for leading Georgie to believe he was unattached when he was not. Oh, how hotly Louisa burned to warn her sister off that scoundrel!
“Take care not to let your romantic sensibilities get the better of you, sister dear.”
Georgie handed Sonny back to Theo before turning a cold glare on her sister. “As I recall, you are the one who allowed her romantic sensibilities to color her judgment.”
Annoyance threaded through Louisa. “Would you have had me do things differently? Marry Charles, suffer never-ending abuse and indignity, and see my family turned out of their home like poor tenants who could not afford their own keep?”
“Of course not.” Georgie’s voice had lost its sharpness. “I am simply reminding you that those who live in glass houses ought not to throw stones. That said, I will acknowledge that by obeying your heart instead of Papa’s demands, you have secured comfort and happiness for all of us.” With a sigh, she added, “I only hope I have the courage to follow your example if and when the opportunity presents itself.”
As did Louisa—provided she set her heart on someone more honorable than Christian Churchill. For despite Georgie’s statements in Bath, Louisa could not believe her sister could ever be made tolerably happy by marrying for material rather than romantic reasons. She simply needed a gentle push in the right direction—together with a subtle word to the wise.
Moving to the bookcase where she kept her romance novels, Louisa took down her copy of Sense and Sensibility and held it out to her sister.
Taking it from her, Georgie eyed the book suspiciously. “What is this for?”
“Read it,” Louisa urged, hoping her sister would draw the intended conclusions. Then, lowering her voice to keep her cooing husband from hearing her hint, she added, “For I daresay you will find it illuminating with regard to a certain gentlemen we both know.”
—THE END—