Chapter Nineteen

Marjie sobbed into her pillow.

“I will miss you.” Those words had felt very much like a slap in the face.

He was leaving her behind. Apparently, there would be no declaration of love, no wedding ceremony, no happily ever after. For weeks, Marjie had hovered between resignation in the face of Stanley’s initial indifference and hope at his increasing warmth. She’d read love into every tender moment they’d shared.

“Would you still help him if he didn’t love you?” Philip had asked.

How confidently she’d answered! So certain had she been that Stanley did indeed care for her that she’d brushed aside the possibility that he did not. He might not have loved her as she’d hoped, she had told herself, but his regard would grow. How foolish her conviction seemed now.

Sobs tore through her body. She ought to stop investing so much of herself in the people she cared about. There would be far less disappointment in her life.

“Miss Kendrick?” She recognized her abigail’s voice. “Lord Lampton has asked for you to come to the drawing room.”

Marjie took a shaky breath but did not lift her head from her pillow.

“He is there waiting for you,” Jane said.

“Thank you. Tell him I will be there directly.” Marjie’s voice wavered rather drastically as she spoke, a fact Jane could not have missed.

As soon as Jane’s footsteps faded into silence, Marjie pulled herself to a seated position. She forced several trembling breaths before she felt steady enough to walk across the room to her wash table. She splashed and scrubbed her face with the cold water. It seemed that all she did of late was cry.

A quick glance in the mirror showed her efforts had only minimally restored her appearance. She offered the shrug she’d so nearly perfected during her years with her father. That would be her strategy moving forward, to simply pretend she wasn’t carrying more pain than she felt capable of enduring.

She reached the drawing room only ten minutes after Jane delivered Philip’s message. She had thought his request had been addressed exclusively to herself, but the room was far from empty. Philip stood leaning against the fireplace mantel. Mater sat on the sofa nearby. Stanley occupied an arm chair.

Marjie dropped her gaze the moment she found Stanley. She kept her head lowered and quickly took a seat beside Mater.

“On with it, Philip,” Mater said. “What did Dr. Habbersham say?”

Philip pushed out a breath. “Other than a few bruises, Sorrel wasn’t hurt by her fall.”

Marjie kept her eyes lowered but listened intently.

“What did he say regarding her poor health of late?” Mater asked.

Philip hesitated.

Marjie took only shallow breaths, the tension building inside allowing nothing more.

“Dr. Habbersham believes that both her recent bout of unexplained illness and the difficulty she has had with her balance and the increased pain in her hip are all consequences of—are the results of . . . er—”

Marjie looked up at him, unnerved by his uncharacteristic fumbling. But then the slightest hint of a smile touched his somber expression.

Philip made a noise that sounded to Marjie like a chuckle of disbelief. “It seems Sorrel is increasing.”

Marjie felt her eyes widen in utter disbelief.

Mater sputtered a moment as she attempted to speak. “Good heavens. I had hoped that someday—” Mater shook her head in apparent amazement. “This is the reason for her pain of late?”

Philip nodded. “The doctor says it is not uncommon for women in Sorrel’s condition to experience some discomfort in the joints. With the state of Sorrel’s hip being what it is, he feels this is simply an exaggerated and early version of that complaint.”

“Will she be able to carry a child to full term?” Marjie knew it was rather too intimate a question for an unmarried lady to be posing, but it was the worry that had nagged at her ever since Sorrel’s wedding.

Philip’s face immediately registered his own concern. “That we do not know. The fact that she already struggles to stand and walk is not a good sign. Dr. Habbersham has suggested that she spend the remainder of her time off her feet.”

“She will never agree to that.” Marjie shook her head.

“Sorrel was remarkably accepting of the suggestion,” Philip said. “The doctor did not, thankfully, feel she must remain abed at all times. She will dislike being carried about but will prefer it to being entirely confined.”

“Will doing so increase the chances of a good outcome for the baby?” Mater asked.

“I don’t know,” Philip said. “Dr. Habbersham said it is not only the baby whose fate is uncertain in all of this. He has no way of predicting the impact on Sorrel.”

“But there is some hope of a good outcome.” Mater sounded very guarded in her declaration.

“A glimmer at least.”

Marjie understood what Philip had not said outright. He was not reassured enough to allow himself to feel more than minimally hopeful.

“How is Sorrel reacting to the news?” Stanley spoke for the first time.

“She is very quiet,” Philip said.

Marjie’s stomach dropped. Sorrel was almost never quiet.

“Go sit with your wife, Philip,” Mater said. “These next few months will be difficult for the both of you, and I daresay she could use a little comfort just now.”

Philip nodded and silently left the room. Under normal circumstances, his announcement would have been received with well-wishes and joy. Instead, they were all worried and burdened, unable to allow themselves the slightest bit of excitement.

Quite as if she hadn’t cried her very heart out earlier, Marjie felt hot tears sting the back of her eyes.

“To be overly hopeful is to invite the punishments of God,” Father had so often said. A person was meant to be uncertain and unhappy in life—that was his interpretation of things. Too often he had proven correct. She could not bear it any longer.

She jumped to her feet. “Why must every bit of hope be tinged with loss?”

“Marjie—” Mater’s gentle voice barely penetrated.

“Sorrel does not deserve this, and neither does Philip. They should be celebrating, not—” The words caught on a sob she ruthlessly pressed down. “I cannot bear it.”

Nearly blinded by her tears, Marjie fled from the room. Another blow, she was certain, would break her heart entirely.

***

Philip rarely left Sorrel’s rooms over the next two days. Marjie slipped inside a couple times, though she was careful not to make any inquiries or look the least bit concerned. Sorrel’s coloring was still off, and her appetite had not entirely returned. Under normal circumstances, Sorrel would not have tolerated two days confined to her bed. She, oddly enough, seemed almost content.

“Do we need to reschedule The Gathering?” Marjie asked Philip on the third day after Sorrel’s fall. They, along with Layton and Mater, were closeted in the library, writing letters and sorting through correspondence. They were in the midst of a plot of monumental proportions, which Philip had insisted on dubbing “The Gathering.”

All three of her fellow conspirators looked at her with that expression of surprise everyone around her had worn the past three days whenever she spoke, which had grown increasingly infrequent. She simply felt too heavy for chatter and conversation.

“Sorrel won’t hear of it,” Philip answered. “She insists she’ll keep to the chaise longue Mater suggested be placed with the other chairs under the tents that will be erected for The Gathering.”

Marjie nodded and turned her attention back to the letters she was sorting through and checking against the master list they had created.

“This is a great deal to plan for in a fortnight,” Mater said. “Though I suppose if we waited any longer, the weather would be too cold for this particular style of gathering.”

“And Stanley wouldn’t be here,” Marjie said with a sigh.

All six eyes were trained on her again.

“Why wouldn’t Stanley be here?” Mater asked.

Stanley hadn’t told them?

“What have you heard?” Philip looked concerned and confused. They all did.

“Stanley has received a letter from the army,” Marjie said. “A representative is coming to check on him in less than three weeks.”

Silence followed her revelation.

“Is he well enough that they will call him back?” Mater whispered as though she feared the answer. Thankfully, she had asked Philip—Marjie did not feel equal to the task of responding.

“Physically, I think he would be considered fit enough,” Philip answered. “He certainly is not up for a march, but I saw him ride only three days ago. His seat is not as firm and sure as it once was, but he can manage well enough for the demands of the occupation.”

“But he still seems so unhappy,” Mater said. “Not nearly as much as at first, but—” She shook her head, her eyes focusing somewhere in the distance.

“Why doesn’t Stanley sell his commission?” Layton asked no one in particular. “I feel certain he has no desire to continue with an army career.”

“Do you think he could be convinced to sell out?” Mater asked with the tiniest bit of desperation.

“That would depend on his reasons for not doing so thus far,” Philip said.

Determining Stanley’s reasons for his actions had become a regular undertaking for Marjie. Why hadn’t he left the army? Why had he returned after Napoleon’s exile when so many others had not? Why didn’t he wish her to be with him when he returned?

“One has to wonder,” Layton said, “if Stanley can be trusted not to push himself into something that would do him more harm than is justified.”

Any man willing to rush into almost certain death could not be counted on to consider his own safety.

“Why do you shake your head, Marjie?” Philip asked.

She looked up from her ignored letters.

“Do you not think Stanley will be careful of his well-being?”

“His history does not give me confidence,” Marjie answered quietly.

“Most men were injured at Waterloo,” Philip said. “We can hardly blame him for that.”

“Not Waterloo,” Marjie whispered.

Philip’s gaze became too pointed for comfort. Marjie lowered her eyes again. “Not Waterloo? Orthez, then?”

“Another injury from battle,” Layton insisted.

Marjie shook her head again.

“You do not think he was injured in battle?” Philip sounded entirely confused.

“Not injured in the battle, precisely,” Marjie said. “Stanley volunteered for the forlorn hope. He was injured while undertaking a suicide mission—one that was not required of him, one he actively and willingly volunteered to undertake. A man who would volunteer to die is not one I would consider careful with his own welfare.”

A single beat of silence followed. Then all at once, Mater broke into tears, Layton muttered, “Good heavens,” and Philip snapped to a stand, his chair scraping the ground behind him.

“If you will excuse me,” Philip said through tight lips.

“You are going to seek out our brother?” Layton asked.

Philip nodded.

“I’ll join you.” Layton stood as well.

Philip moved stiffly toward the library door. “What the deuce is going through that boy’s head?” he muttered as both brothers stepped out of the room in search of Stanley.

A very good question—one Marjie could not answer.