Bound by One Scandalous Night Page 13

  He rushed out and she was alone.

  Something was wrong with the baby! Something terrible. She knew it.

  Another pain hit and she hugged her legs tighter. When it passed she got herself out of the bed and put on her shift.

  The door opened and Sally rushed in. ‘Miss! What is wrong?’

  ‘It hurts! I am afraid I’ll lose it.’ She shook.

  ‘Lose what, miss?’ Sally asked.

  ‘My baby,’ Amelie whispered. ‘My baby.’

  ‘Baby?’ The girl’s eyes grew wide.

  Amelie had forgotten that she’d kept the baby a secret from Sally, who had never questioned why she threw up most mornings.

  Sally recovered quickly. ‘Mr Summerfield is getting a carriage. Let me get you dressed.’

  Sally helped her step into her corset, which she laced very loosely. Next she helped her into her dress.

  ‘I am bleeding, too,’ Amelie said, more to herself than to Sally.

  Sally laced her into her dress and wrapped her in a shawl.

  Edmund rushed in as Sally was packing the clothes she’d so recently unpacked. ‘Leave the bags, Sally. We’ll get them later. There should be a coach downstairs by the time we get there.’

  He picked up Amelie and carried her down the stairs and out the door to a waiting hackney coach.

  Chapter Eleven

  They soon reached Grosvenor Street and Edmund jumped out of the coach to sound the knocker. Someone should be awake. If not, he’d bang at the door until they roused.

  Matheson, the butler, dressed in a banyan, opened the door.

  ‘What is this?’ he cried, then saw it was Edmund.

  ‘Quick,’ Edmund said. ‘Miss Glenville is ill.’ He forgot she was Mrs Summerfield now.

  ‘What should I do?’ Matheson asked.

  ‘Pay the coachman.’ He handed Matheson a purse of coins. ‘I’ll carry her inside.’

  With Sally’s help, he gathered Amelie into his arms again and carried her through the door.

  The butler and Sally were right behind him.

  ‘Wake Lady Northdon,’ Edmund ordered. ‘And my sister. Tell them Amelie is here and needs them.’

  ‘I’ll find Mrs Glenville,’ Sally said, bounding up the stairs.

  By the time he’d carried Amelie to her bedchamber, Lady Northdon rushed in behind him. ‘What has happened?’

  Edmund laid her on the bed.

  ‘I’m having pains, Maman,’ Amelie cried. ‘In my belly. And I am bleeding.’

  ‘Mon Dieu!’ Her mother exclaimed. ‘We must send for the physician.’

  ‘I’ll attend to it,’ Matheson said.

  ‘An accoucheur,’ Edmund clarified.

  The butler’s brows rose.

  ‘Rapidement, s’il vous plait!’ Amelie’s mother lapsed into French.

  Matheson hurried off.

  Lord Northdon appeared at the doorway. ‘My God.’ He swung to Edmund. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Papa! It is not because of Edmund!’ Amelie cried. ‘It is the baby!’

  Edmund was not so certain. They’d made love three times. Had that caused the harm?

  Her brother and Tess rushed down the stairs to Amelie’s room. ‘Sally said something is wrong with Amelie’s baby.’

  Lord Northdon inclined his head to Edmund. ‘He’s done something. I am certain of it.’

  Glenville took his father by the arm. ‘Control yourself, Papa. Can you not see how distraught Edmund is? Accusations are not going to help. Let us stay out of the way.’

  ‘Oui,’ his mother said. ‘We must get her undressed. Tess, come help.’ She turned to Edmund. ‘You go, too. We will take care of her.’

  ‘I am staying,’ Edmund said.

  ‘Come with us,’ Glenville said.

  ‘Yes,’ Tess agreed. ‘Go with Marc and his father. We will keep you informed.’

  ‘I am staying,’ he said.

  ‘This is no place for a man,’ Tess said.

  ‘It is my place,’ he countered.

  ‘Amelie will not wish you to stay,’ Lady Northdon insisted.

  ‘He—can—stay,’ Amelie managed, talking through another pain.

  * * *

  Sally dared to speak up, although she usually did not when Lord or Lady Northdon was around. ‘Mrs Bayliss might be able to help her. She knows of such things. Shall I wake her, ma’am?’

  ‘Oui! Oui! Bring Mrs Bayliss,’ Lady Northdon said.

  Sally heard Mrs Bayliss, the housekeeper, say she used to accompany her mother, a midwife, on her calls. She’d seen dozens of births before she was even fifteen years old, she’d said. One of the other maids also told Sally that midwives knew how to get rid of babies before anyone knew of their existence, but Sally could not bring herself to ask Mrs Bayliss about that.

  She hurried below stairs, where Mrs Bayliss and Mr Matheson had their rooms.

  She knocked on Mrs Bayliss’s door. ‘Wake up, Mrs Bayliss! Lady Northdon needs you!’

  She heard the housekeeper moving in the room. ‘I am coming.’ She opened the door, dressed in her nightdress and a wrap. ‘For goodness’ sake! What is it, Sally? Why does her ladyship need me at this hour?’

  Sally took a gulp of air. ‘It is Miss Glenville—Mrs Summerfield, I mean—she—she is having a baby, only it is too soon to have the baby!’

  Mrs Bayliss gaped. ‘She is what?’

  ‘She is having a baby!’ Sally repeated. ‘Please come and help her.’

  ‘Where is she? Did she not leave with her husband?’

  ‘He brought her back,’ Sally explained. ‘Oh, please, just go to her.’

  The housekeeper retied the sash of her wrapper. ‘Yes. Yes. Indeed.’ As they rushed to the stairs, she added, ‘Fetch some towels and linens, Sally. Lots of them.’

  * * *

  ‘Merci, merci!’ cried Lady Northdon when Mrs Bayliss appeared.

  Thank goodness, thought Edmund, because none of them had a clue what to do to help Amelie.

  ‘Let me see her.’ The housekeeper went straight to Amelie’s bed. ‘What are you feeling, miss?’

  ‘Pain,’ answered Amelie. ‘In my belly. And my back. It feels wrong! Something is wrong!’

  ‘Let me touch you.’ Mrs Bayliss put her hand on Amelie’s abdomen. ‘You are not far along?’

  ‘A little over three months.’ A day before Waterloo.

  Sally came in, carrying several towels. She handed them to Mrs Bayliss and helped her place them under Amelie.

  Afterwards Mrs Bayliss told Sally to bring some tea for Amelie. Sally nodded and left the room.

  ‘What is wrong with her?’ Tess asked.

  ‘A miscarriage, likely,’ Mrs Bayliss said quietly.

  ‘What is to be done?’ Tess wrung her hands.

  Mrs Bayliss patted Tess’s hands. ‘Nothing but waiting and hoping, dear.’

  The women stood around Amelie’s bed, but Edmund waited in a corner of the room, fighting memories of another room, another woman surrounded in just such a way.

  His mother. Dying. Her baby born dead.

  Not again, he prayed as time ticked by.

  Sally brought the tea, but sipping it made Amelie throw it up again.

  Edmund had seen men pierced through with bayonets. Shot in the chest from musket fire. He’d seen cannon balls take off a man’s head, but, somehow, watching Amelie seize up with pain, over and over, seemed more difficult to endure.

  ‘The pain. It is worse.’ she moaned.

  She sat up and clutched her abdomen, keening in agony, a sound that only brought back his mother’s cries from so many years ago. Amelie lay back down again, gripping her mother’s hand, her arm trembling.

 
‘Oh, dear. There it is,’ said Mrs Bayliss, her voice sorrowful.

  ‘Non. Je prie, non.’ Her mother’s voice was anguished.

  Amelie half sat up again. When she collapsed back on the bed, she did not stir.

  Edmund stopped breathing. ‘Is she—?’

  ‘She’s lost the baby, sir.’ Mrs Bayliss quickly pulled the towels from beneath Amelie and folded them into a bundle.

  Amelie rose onto her elbows. ‘I’ve lost the baby?’

  The baby! But not Amelie. She was alive.

  Her voice became more strident. ‘I’ve lost the baby?’ She reached for the bundle, which the housekeeper pulled away.

  ‘There is nothing for you to see, miss,’ Mrs Bayliss said. She gestured for Sally to follow her. They left the room.

  ‘Maman!’ Amelie cried.

  Her mother sat on the bed and hugged her daughter, comforting her as if she were a small child.

  Tess also put an arm around Amelie, murmuring to her that she would be all right.

  She was alive, Edmund said a prayer of thanksgiving for that. But nothing was right. There was no baby. Nothing to connect them together.

  No family.

  He walked out of the room and leaned against the wall.

  From an open door to another bedchamber, he heard Lord Northdon’s voice. ‘Why the devil could she not have lost the baby yesterday? Now it is too late.’

  Was the man glad the baby was gone? Edmund could not bear it. He thought of the little girl in Hyde Park. Now he’d never smell the sweet scent of his own baby. He’d never feel his own baby’s chubby arms around his neck. Lord Northdon thought this a good thing?

  He closed his eyes and let his grief turn to anger.

  He stepped into the doorway. Lord Northdon and Glenville turned to him.

  ‘It is unfortunate that your daughter’s miscarriage did not come at a more acceptable time for you, sir.’ Edmund bowed and walked away before he could no longer resist the temptation to put his fist into Lord Northdon’s face. He continued down the stairs to the hall and stepped out into the chilly night air.

  Why had this happened this night? Edmund could think of only one reason. He’d made love to her. Lord Northdon was correct on one score. Edmund was to blame.

  A carriage entered the street and stopped in front of the town house. Matheson stepped out, followed by the doctor.

  The butler only gave him a fleeting glance before leading the doctor into the house and taking the physician’s greatcoat and hat.

  ‘Come with me,’ Matheson said to the doctor. ‘I will take you to Lady Northdon and her daughter.’

  Edmund went below stairs in search of Mrs Bayliss to let her know the accoucheur had arrived.

  He found her in the kitchen with one of the maids.

  ‘Carry on, Kitty,’ Mrs Bayliss said. ‘Add one cup for the doctor and I will be down shortly to bring the tea upstairs.’ She glanced at Edmund. ‘I expect you’d rather have brandy.’

  ‘You have the right of it,’ he said.

  She touched his arm, a look of sympathy on her face. ‘These things happen sometimes, sir.’ She dried her hands on the apron she’d donned and bustled off to Amelie’s room.

  Edmund walked slower. When he reached the floor where Amelie’s bedchamber was located, her father, the doctor and Mrs Bayliss were all deep in conversation.

  ‘You are confident she expelled all the tissue?’ he heard the doctor ask.

  ‘Oh, yes, sir,’ Mrs Bayliss assured him. ‘I’ve seen many of these untimely deliveries. I know what to expect.’

  ‘I’ll just look in on her, then,’ the doctor said.

  ‘This way.’ Mrs Bayliss knocked on the door and opened it. ‘The accoucheur, Dr Croft.’

  Edmund followed the man in to the room. The accoucheur turned to him with haughty eyebrows raised. ‘You cannot march in here, sir. Who are you?’

  Edmund glared at him. ‘The lady’s husband.’

  Lady Northdon and Tess were still at Amelie’s bedside. Amelie appeared to take no notice of the doctor’s entrance. Or Edmund’s.

  ‘This is Dr Croft to see you, Amelie,’ her mother said gently. ‘He will want to examine you.’

  Dr Croft examined Amelie without her seeming to care.

  ‘All looks well,’ he said. ‘But contact me immediately if she develops a fever.’

  While the doctor spoke to Lady Northdon and Tess, Edmund kept his eyes on Amelie, who now lay on clean linens and wore a clean nightdress. Her gaze drifted over to him and paused for a moment before she turned her head away.

  ‘Let us go to the drawing room to talk about this,’ Lady Northdon said. ‘Will you bring refreshment, Mrs Bayliss?’

  ‘Yes, m’lady,’ the housekeeper said.

  Lady Northdon looked at Tess. ‘You will stay with her?’ She did not address Edmund.

  ‘Of course I will.’ Tess rearranged Amelie’s bedcovers. She kissed her on the head. ‘Close your eyes and try to sleep, Amelie.’

  As soon as the room had cleared, Tess glanced over at Edmund. ‘How unforeseen,’ she commented.

  He nodded. ‘My father-in-law reckons it happened a day too late.’

  ‘Did he say that?’ She sounded surprised.

  He wondered if Tess felt the same. He wondered if she blamed him, too.

  There was merit in what Lord Northdon had said, after all. But if it had happened one day earlier and Amelie then had refused to marry him, Edmund would feel no relief.

  A knock sounded on the door and Tess answered it. Tess took a small tray from whoever it was and carried it over to Edmund. ‘I gather you ordered this?’

  A decanter of brandy and two glasses. He said a silent thank you to Mrs Bayliss.

  ‘You should sit, Edmund,’ Tess said.

  There was a chair right next to him. He lowered himself in it and poured the brandy into a glass. ‘May I offer you some?’ He lifted the glass to her.

  She took it from his hand and drank the whole. ‘Thank you.’ She peered down at him as he poured more brandy into the glass. ‘How are you faring, Edmund?’

  ‘Me?’ He lifted his face to hers. ‘This did not happen to me. It happened to Amelie.’

  She returned a sceptical look. ‘Still it must affect you.’

  It was eviscerating him, but he could not speak of it.

  She walked back to Amelie and sat in a chair beside the bed. Edmund drank his brandy in his dark corner.

  When the glass was empty again, he spoke. ‘Would you do me a service, Tess?’

  ‘If I am able,’ she responded.

  ‘Leave Amelie to me.’

  She whirled around and looked about to protest.

  ‘I will sit with her. I promise to alert you or her mother if she has any difficulty at all, but I want to be the one to sit with her.’

  ‘Oh, Edmund.’ Tess sighed. ‘Do you think that is wise? I am perfectly happy to sit by her side all night, if need be.’

  ‘I am her husband,’ he said more firmly. ‘I need to be with her.’

  She smiled at him—a little sadly. ‘Yes, of course! I am unused to this change. It has not yet been a whole day.’

  He returned her gaze. ‘And yet so much has happened...’

  * * *

  Amelie opened her eyes to daylight. It took her a moment to realise she was in her room and a moment longer to remember what had happened. She squeezed her eyes shut again and rolled over, curling up in the bed and trying not to feel the emptiness inside.

  Now that there was no baby.

  She heard a rustling and opened her eyes again, resting her head on one arm.

  In a chair near her bed sat Edmund, legs stretched out before him, his coat and waistcoat open, his shirt half out of his trouser
s. His face was shadowed with a dark beard but seemed pinched with worry. He shifted in the chair again, then stilled. Watching the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest and listening to the soft hum of his breathing was comforting.

  Had he been at her side all night? He certainly looked as if he’d spent the night in a chair, but why had her mother not found him a bed?

  She remembered that her mother and Tess had stood at her side during her awful ordeal. She also remembered Edmund standing in the corner, refusing to leave.

  Blinking against tears that threatened to sting her eyes, she gazed at him. Much easier to think of him than the pain and the loss.

  Had it been her fault? She’d wanted the lovemaking. Had that caused her baby to die?

  He shifted again, startling her.

  Did he blame her? She’d told him there was no harm in making love, but she did not really know.

  He suddenly took a deep breath, and his eyes opened into narrow slits. They widened and he sat up straight in the chair. ‘Amelie. How are you feeling?’

  How was she feeling?

  Numb. Best she stay numb. To feel anything seemed too risky.

  ‘I am better,’ she finally said.

  He leaned towards her, ‘What can I do for you? Do you need anything?’

  She shook her head. ‘Would my mother not give you a bed?’

  ‘I did not ask for one.’

  She remembered the commotion she’d caused. How he carried her inside and set the house into an uproar. ‘I’ve caused everyone so much trouble.’

  He pushed his chair closer to her. ‘Not so very much.’

  ‘I lost the baby.’ Her voice cracked. ‘I am so sorry.’

  ‘It happened,’ he said carefully. ‘We simply go on from here.’

  But how? she thought.

  ‘We could not have foreseen this, Amelie.’

  ‘Yes, but...’ She could not finish her thought. It had been the wedding that had caused it. Or rather, her desire for the marital bed. Did he comprehend? It would not have happened if they had not married—if they’d not made love.

  She moved in the bed and became aware she was bleeding still. It frightened her. She did not know how to tell Edmund about it, either. Such a womanly thing. But urgent.