Chapter 11
For the fourth time, Nellie added a column of numbers she’d written in one of the ledgers, then placed her pen down and rubbed her eyes. She’d come up with yet another number for the total. Her efforts were useless today. Nothing seemed to work smoothly.
She didn’t know why. She was past the sickness she’d experienced each morning for the past three months, and she didn’t seem to be as tired as she’d once been. She was sure her body was finally accustomed to the babe that was growing inside her. She rubbed the small bump at her waist and smiled. She was more thankful than she could express because she was going to have a child. It was what she wanted most in life. Especially if she was to live without a husband. At least she would have his child.
She picked up her pen again to add the numbers, then stopped at the knock on the door.
“Yes,” she answered, wondering what the butler could possibly need.
“You have guests, my lady. Your sisters Lady Brianna and Lady Elizabeth. I took the liberty of showing them to the morning room.”
Nellie rose from her chair. “Oh, thank you, Fredericks. Please see to tea and some of the pastries Cook made this morning.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Fredericks left the room, and Nellie went to the morning room nearly at a run. When she reached the room where her sisters were, she opened the door and stepped inside.
“Oh, Nellie,” Brie and Lizzy both said, rushing toward her.
Nellie gave each sister another hug. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“Because we didn’t know until the last minute when we decided,” Brie said reaching for Nellie’s hands and holding them.
“We were going to write,” Lizzy said, “but the news we have is too special. We wanted to tell you in person.”
“Frannie’s engaged!” Nellie said, anticipating her sisters’ news.
“Yes!” they both exclaimed. “Lord Cushing asked Papa for her hand yesterday, and by the time the evening was over last night, all of Society had heard that Frannie and Lord Cushing would marry in the spring.”
“And we need you to help with the wedding, Nellie,” Brie said. “We couldn’t plan a wedding without you.”
“Oh, yes,” Nellie exclaimed, then stopped. “If I’m able.” She couldn’t stop a smile from lifting the corners of her mouth as she lowered her gaze to her waist.
Brie and Lizzy cried out at the same time. “You’re with child! How perfectly marvelous!”
They hugged her for several moments as tears of joy ran down their faces. They’d barely returned to their seats when a maid entered with a tea tray and pastries.
“You can’t imagine how happy we are to hear this, Nellie,” Brie smiled over her tea. “You’ve eliminated a number of our fears.”
“What fears?” Nellie asked.
Her sisters shared a look that told Nellie they weren’t sure how much to say. Lizzy nodded and Brie began.
“Randall visited his club barely a month after you married, and he ran into your husband. He was there with the friends he was with most often before you married.”
Randall was Brie’s husband. Nellie should have known it wouldn’t be long before one or more of her sisters’ husbands ran into Hugh.
“Lord Wythers told Randall he had business to attend to in London, and you didn’t wish to accompany him.”
“Of course, we all knew that was likely,” Lizzy said. “We knew you wouldn’t venture to London if you could stay in the country.”
“How long does he plan to stay in London, Nellie?” Brie asked.
Brie’s question sounded innocent enough, but Nellie knew there was a motive behind her words. It was obvious that someone had seen Hugh more recently, and her sisters wanted assurance that everything was all right between Nellie and her husband.
It was one thing for Hugh to be forced to leave his new wife to visit London on business just four weeks after his marriage. It was another thing entirely for a husband to still be in the City after three months.
When Nellie didn’t answer immediately, Brie rose from her chair and moved to the sofa to sit beside her. “What’s going on, Nellie?” she asked reaching for Nellie’s hand and holding it.
Nellie looked from one sister to the other. She knew that eventually she’d have to explain her marriage arrangement to her family. She was hoping, though, that expecting a child would forestall their questions, and they wouldn’t realize that her husband didn’t live with her. But that wasn’t to be the case.
“Would you like more tea?” Nellie asked, trying to buy time before she had to begin her explanation.
“No,” Lizzy answered. “We’d like to hear why your husband of not even four months is living in London, and his pregnant wife is here in the country.”
“Because that is how we choose to live our lives—separately.”
Her sisters stared at her, wide-eyed. “Surely, you don’t mean that you don’t intend to live together?” Brie asked.
“Actually, we do.”
Nellie pulled away from her sister and rose from the loveseat. She needed to remove herself from the closeness she’d always felt when near her sisters in order to explain what she and Hugh had decided.
She walked to the French windows that opened onto the terrace and looked out onto the garden. Fall flowers were in early bloom, and Nellie wanted to run outside and avoid the conversation with her sisters. But that wasn’t possible.
“This is difficult for me to share,” Nellie said. “I know you will think less of me when you hear it.”
“We won’t,” her sisters assured her.
“We could never think ill of you, Nell. You know that. We love you too much to think anything bad.”
“Nevertheless . . .”
“Did Wythers force himself on you, Nellie? Did he—”
Nellie turned from the French windows and faced her sisters. “No, Brie! No, he would never have done anything so horrible. He’s never been anything but a gentleman.”
Nellie clasped her hands over her growing babe and tried to calm her nerves. It would take all her courage to admit what she needed to. “It wasn’t Lord Wythers’ idea to marry. It was mine,” she lied.
“Yours?” they asked.
“Yes. When I met Lord Wythers, he was desperate to find a bride with a substantial dowry. His father had tired of him living a carefree lifestyle in London and wanted him to settle down.”
“Which he didn’t want to do,” Lizzy said.
Nellie smiled. “No, which he didn’t want to do.”Nellie walked back to the sofa and sat with her sisters. “To encourage him to settle down, his father gave him Red Oaks Estate. He was to manage the estate and live on the profits the estate provided him.”
“Why was that so disagreeable to him?” Brie asked.
“Lord Wythers feels the same about living in the country as I do about living in the City.”
“Oh,” Brie and Lizzy both said on a sigh.
“Yes. Oh,” Nellie said. “And to make matters more disastrous, Lord Wythers is not at all familiar with the running of a country estate.”
“Which you are,” Lizzy said.
“Yes, which I am.” She twisted the fabric of her gown in her fingers as she searched for the right words. “This is the part that you are going to find the most difficult to condone. But I found Lord Wythers’ problem advantageous to what I wanted.”
“What did you want, Nellie?” Brie asked.
“What each of you have,” she admitted. “A husband. Children. A home of my own. But I’ve always been passed over when it comes to the marriage market. I wasn’t blessed with the special looks each of you possess.”
Her sisters both attempted to protest what Nellie had just said. She held up her hand to stop her sisters’ arguments. “You know the truth of it, the same as I do. And so, when I became aware of Lord Wythers’ predicament, I approached him with a solution.”
“What was your solution?” Brie asked.
“That I manage his estate and he live the life he so desperately wanted to live in London.”
Her sisters both stared at her with varying degrees of shock and disbelief.
Nellie concentrated on her sisters’ expressions. She could handle the astonishment and the surprise. She could even excuse their outrage. But she could not live with the pity she saw.
Her sisters had attempted to match her with eligible bachelors in Society from the day Brie married before her older sister. There was a renewed effort each time another sister married. Yet, each attempt ended in failure—and total embarrassment on Nellie’s part. She’d reached the point where she could no longer abide her sisters trying to find her a husband.
“I am happy here,” Nellie said. “Truly, I am. You know how I love living in the country. I have a home of my own. And now I will have a child. I’ve never been happier.”
“Does Lord Wythers know he’s to be a father?” Brie asked.
Nellie lowered her gaze to her lap.
“Oh, Nellie. How can you have his child and not tell him?”
“He’ll know in time,” Nellie said, knowing that her answer was no answer at all. Her sisters looked relieved.
“I’m sure that when he discovers you’re carrying his child, he’ll come back,” Lizzy said.
Nellie shook her head.
“Why? Don’t you think he will care enough to return?”
“Perhaps,” Nellie answered. “But it will not matter. He has given me his word that he will not return.”
“He’s given his word?” Brie asked. “You asked him to give you his word that he would never return?”
“Yes. It’s best that way.”
“How can you say that, Nellie?”
Nellie looked at the shock and disbelief on her sisters’ faces. “Because I cannot go through the pain of him leaving me over and over again.”
Brie’s and Lizzy’s eyes filled with tears that spilled down their cheeks. “Oh, Nellie. How horrible for you,” Brie said.
Nellie tried to smile through the tears she could not stop from filling her eyes. “Don’t feel badly for me. I have more than I ever thought I would. And in time, I’ll have a child. Please, be as happy for me as I am.”
Nellie’s sisters stayed most of the afternoon, and they enjoyed their time together, but Nellie could tell that her news cast a gloomy pallor over their visit.
She stood at the window and watched the carriage carrying her sisters away. She hoped that in time they would understand why she’d made the choices she had. But she doubted they ever would.
They’d never walked in her shoes.
“My lady.”
Nellie turned. “Yes, Fredericks?”
“Another letter has arrived for you.”
The butler approached her, and Nellie took the letter from his outstretched hand. “Thank you, Fredericks.”
Nellie held Hugh’s letter close to her for several moments, then carried it to her room. She paused a moment and ran her fingers over Hugh’s familiar handwriting before walking to the small writing desk near the window and opening the center drawer. She removed a bundle of letters and untied the blue ribbon that held them together, then placed this one with them. She retied the bundle with the blue ribbon, then tenderly placed the stack of unopened letters back inside.
She stared at the growing number of letters for several moments, then she went back down, sat at her desk, and began working on the ledgers.
Only a few tears fell onto the pages of the ledger. An improvement from the rivers of tears that had fallen when the first letter had arrived.