Always the Widow by Emily E.K. Murdoch

Chapter Five

The loud banging simply would not stop, but Elizabeth did not stir.

Thoughts of who it could be tried to surface in her mind. Exhaustion kept them at bay.

Turning to a colder part of her pillow, she kept her eyes tightly shut as her head throbbed. What was it: five days? Five short days since she and Jacob had discovered each other in this very bed.

In some ways, it was like it had never happened.

She had cried when writing the letter. It had taken every ounce of her self-control, but she knew if she did not write it the following day, she would never have the strength.

She had to keep him safe.Lord knew what would happen if Elmore had found out, and somehow, he would have found out. Eyes still shut, Elizabeth tightened her grip around her blanket.

The banging downstairs continued, echoing the throbbing in her temples. The argument of just a few hours ago pounded in her mind, too, repeating itself over and over, so the insults Elmore had hurled at her resonated in her soul. Just in case they had not hurt the first time.

Whoever it was banging at the door downstairs was not welcome, and she saw no reason to awaken.

It would not be Elmore. He had stormed out of the house, saying he would stay with one of his whores for the week. He would not be coming back here so soon—although Elizabeth thought, wickedly, as she tried desperately to fall back to sleep, it certainly was his style. Loud shouts, urgent banging, right in the middle of the night. Did these people have nowhere better to be?

The headache plaguing her increased after another five minutes, and Elizabeth pulled another pillow over her head in an attempt to block out the continuous noise.

Then it stopped. Instead, it was replaced with muttering and raised voices downstairs.

She sighed heavily. Linscott had let whoever it was in, then, and now they would be stuck with attempting to pay off someone in the middle of the night—which was surely what all this commotion was about.

Footsteps fell on the stairs, and Elizabeth screwed her eyes. Please don’t come in here. I do not wish to deal with another—

A gentle knock on the door. “My lady?”

Elizabeth sighed. Why did one have servants if they could not deal with these petty matters?

“Please go away,” she murmured softly from underneath the pillow. “I have a headache.”

“I am so sorry, my lady,” came the voice of her lady’s maid, Holland, “but I must come in.”

“No, you do not,” began Elizabeth, but it was too late. The door was open, letting a stream of light into the room.

Unable to ignore the world any longer, Elizabeth sat up to glare at her maid. “Well, really, Holland. I do not believe I could have made myself more clear that I did not wish—”

Her voice broke off. Even in the little candlelight pouring in from the landing, she could see Holland was crying. Tears glistened in the light, and in the silence, there was a sob.

“What is wrong?” Elizabeth said. “Tell me. What has happened?”

“Y-You…you need to come downstairs,” her lady’s maid choked.

Her heart softened. It was not like Holland to become emotional; she was typically a stalwart of strength, both for the undermaids in their trials and tribulations and, at times, for her mistress when Elizabeth let her guard down and her tongue loose.

Something must have happened then. An accident? The servants, one of them, must be hurt.

Well, there was no one else here to take charge. Holland would hardly have the courage to creep into the male servant quarters and wake the butler.

“Who is hurt?” she asked, rising from the bed, fingers scrabbling to find her dressing gown in the murky gloom. “Not yourself, clearly. Abigail? Hannah?”

But it appeared Holland was now wholly overcome. As she tried to speak, only sobs were uttered, and she shook her head in distress.

Elizabeth could not help but feel pity for the poor thing. “Sit,” she instructed, pointing at her bed. “Wait here for me. I will go downstairs and deal with this.”

If she had known, as she crept down the stairs as silently as she could, that she would be met with a gentleman in the hallway, twirling his top hat around in his hands, she would have probably attempted to make herself more presentable.

A quick glance told her the grandfather clock had only struck two o’clock a few minutes ago. What was going on?

“Yes?” she said as icily as she could manage. Why had her servants permitted this utter stranger to enter her home?

The man was obviously aware of the impertinence, and a flush brushed his cheeks as he said with evident discomfort, “Mrs. Howard? Miss Elizabeth Sandringham, as was?”

Curiosity now crept into Elizabeth’s heart. Why would a man—she would not call him a gentleman, his coat was too worn—turn up in the middle of the night and ask after her, using her maiden name?

She nodded. If only she were not in her nightclothes! “And who are you?”

Her question was ignored.

A sense of terrible foreboding hit her, almost as though she had walked into a wall.

Elmore.Of course, this had something to do with him. Something had happened to him.

Only her husband could storm out of his own house after insulting his wife and then expect her to rescue him in the dead of night.

She knew the answer, of course. It was the type of idiocy and the danger of it that she needed to inquire about, not whether it had happened—but the man said nothing. His gaze had shifted away.

Elizabeth turned and saw that the entire household was standing behind her, watching this strange exchange for themselves. Two maids, Linscott the butler, Mrs. Shaw her housekeeper, the boot boy…

“Thank you all for ascertaining whether I am well,” she said with a gracious incline of her head—at least, the best she could do with this continuing headache. “You may all go back upstairs and to bed. I can manage this, I assure you.”

The younger servants nodded with relief, but it took a reassuring nod to send Mrs. Shaw away. Linscott made no movement at all.

“Well?” she said, turning back to look at the stranger. “What trouble has he got himself into now?”

The man hesitated. He was probably in his mid-forties, and the more Elizabeth examined him, she realized she should not have diminished him. Though frayed, his coat was of good fabric, and he held himself with the confidence of a man in good repute.

Trade, then. An honorable one.

“The worst trouble, my lady,” he said gruffly. “I… Elmore Howard is dead.”

The words were spoken, and they were heard. Elizabeth blinked. They did not make any sense.

Dead? Elmore was not dead. He couldn’t be.She had been arguing with him but a few hours ago. Husbands who argued with their wives did not die before they could return and make good—or in Elmore’s case, start the whole damned thing up again.

“Dead?” she whispered.

The man nodded, discomfort on his face. “Yes.”

Elizabeth wished there was a chair she could gracefully lower herself into, not because her legs felt weak, but because she felt it was somehow expected.

Elmore was dead.“How?”

The overwhelming feeling of sadness was yet to come. Would it ever arrive? Would she ever genuinely mourn the loss of a gentleman who only sought to injure her with his words, who kept his affection for his whores and his money for the card table?

There was an emotion stirring in her, growing in strength, but she could not tell what it was.

“I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” said the man quickly. “And if I had known any other way to tell you, I—”

“There are few things you can say which will shock me about Elmore,” Elizabeth said wearily, shock unguarding her tongue. “Was he with his whore?”

The man’s mouth dropped, and he took an actual step back.

Elizabeth smiled. “The world is indeed a most complicated place, Mr…?”

“Tuft, my lady.”

“Mr. Tuft,” she repeated. “I am afraid I do not have the time—nay, I would not have time in the whole of the world—to explain it to you. Suffice to say we have no secrets. So, how…how did he die?”

Mr. Tuft swallowed. “You…you truly have no secrets, my lady?”

Elizabeth’s heart sank. It was truly shameful, then. “Please, Mr. Tuft. I just wish to know the truth.”

The man swallowed again, evidently weighing up her words. Then, “D-Drug den, my lady. Opium, they tell me.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes slowly. What an idiot Elmore was—had been. Of all the degenerate things he could tangle himself up in, of all the scandalous ways to die, his was one of the worst.

She opened her eyes. Mr. Tuft was still standing before her, top hat twirling around.

“And you are?”

He swelled with personal pride. “Nothing to do with that kind of establishment, I can assure you, my lady! No, I am the owner of Tufts and Cuffs, the tailors. The…the other place opened up opposite my shop a year ago, and it has been nothing but trouble, I can tell you! They left him outside. I brought him in a hack.”

Only in that moment did Elizabeth realize what she was feeling. Her husband’s body was outside in a hackney cab, and it was relief, not sadness, that filled her heart.

Elmore was dead.And that meant no loss of joy, no removal of happiness from her life.

No, it was freedom this news brought her. No more covering up for his shortfalls, his debts. Her jewelry—the little she had left—was now her own. No threatening letters would come to her door, no duels in the night necessitating Doctor Sanders being called.

It was as though she had been sleeping for the last five years, waiting for her life to start again. And now it could.

Just when she had found Jacob, who had given her a glimpse into the life she should have had…

“Th-Thank you, Mr. Tuft,” she said into the silence, seeing he was waiting for her to speak. “I…I suppose we will have to bring him inside. I do not believe I will be strong enough to help you with—”

“Allow me, my lady.” Linscott swept past her and nodded at Mr. Tuft. “I am able to help, sir.”

Elizabeth glanced at Mr. Tuft. What did he want? He could have kept Elmore’s body, gone to the gossips and the press in the morning, made a small fortune with the story. Was he even now about to sell the tale, make a little money for his tailor’s shop?

Mr. Tuft smiled. “You won’t know this but…but your mother was kind to me once, my lady.”

“My—my mother?”

He nodded. “Mrs. Sandringham. She was a lovely woman, I must say. I married her lady’s maid twenty years ago or so, and your mother encouraged a few gentlemen to patronize my establishment. She was good to us both when my dear wife was alive, so when I saw your husband…a chance to do a good turn. You understand?”

She did. This was not a man looking to make money from another’s unfortunate situation. There were, it appeared, still good people in the world if only she could find them.

Elizabeth reached forward and did something scandalous by society’s terms. She took him by the hand.

“Thank you,” she said, looking straight into his eyes. “You…you do me a great service, Mr. Tuft. I shall never forget it.”

“Well, now,” the man said with an embarrassed smile. “I still consider myself in the debt of the Sandringham ladies, you understand. Anything I can do, for you, anything at all—”

“Is the driver still waiting in the hack?” The butler’s question cut across the effusions of their visitor, and Mr. Tuft looked around hastily.

“Yes, we better bring the body inside.”

It was only a few minutes later when Elmore’s body was carried past her, but still Elizabeth felt nothing but relief. There was nothing to rejoice here, yet nothing to mourn. A blaggard had died, signing his own death sentence when he had walked into that place.

“Thank you,” she said aloud. “As you can imagine, I now have much to do. If you would excuse me…”

Mr. Tuft bowed. “Of course. Anything I can ever do for you, one of your boys will find me. Mr. Linscott knows me. You can ask him.”

Elizabeth inclined her head as the man left, shutting the door behind him.

She closed her eyes. When her parents had died, there had been servants who had understood these things, solicitors called, coroners. What was she to do?

Her aching head made thinking almost impossible, and the temptation to go to bed and just leave it all for tomorrow.

“Madam?”

Elizabeth opened her eyes to see her butler looking serious. “Yes, Linscott?”

“Would you like me to take care of this?” He looked at her with distinct concern.

“Yes, thank you,” she said gratefully. “Yes, that would be ideal, Linscott. I…I do not believe I can do anything more tonight.”

“I shall inform you of my progress in the morning,” he said quietly. “Now, I would advise you to bed.”

Elizabeth hardly knew how she traversed the stairs, but by the time she reached her bedchamber, Holland was no longer there. She sat on the empty bed.

Elmore was dead. He was dead and gone, and she was free—free to marry another.

Foolish woman, she scolded herself silently. It was understandable to feel relief that the bane of her life was now removed, but to be thinking of matrimony already!

She could not help it. Jacob’s face swam into her mind’s eye, that mischievous way he smiled, making her stomach flutter.

No, she should not think of such things. She should sleep. She would need it.

The next thing she knew was the sound of curtains being opened and blinding light entering the room.

“Good morning,” said Holland. She still had a blocked nose from all her crying. “I am sorry to wake you so abruptly, but…but the coroner is downstairs. He wants to see you, m’lady.”

Elizabeth opened her eyes as a wave of nausea rocked her body. “Tell…tell him I will be with him in a moment.”

Holland looked terrible. Her red nose matched her red eyes perfectly. “I-I can’t believe Elmore’s gone!”

Bursting into tears, she rushed out of the room. Elizabeth stared after her with complete astonishment until the truth sunk in.

To think, Elmore even had a few conquests stashed away in their home, her own servants. Evidence, as if she needed more, that she was better off without him. They all were.

Elizabeth hardly knew when she ate or slept in the following week, which passed wildly and rapidly, every day full of paperwork, meetings, signing things which were placed in front of her and written in such garbled legal language she could not understand.

She certainly could barely keep any food down. Everyone kept telling her it was grief.

“I was just the same,” the dowager countess of Lenskeyn and Elmore’s mother had said, handkerchief always in her hand as she sniffed. “When I lost my dear husband, you know.”

Elizabeth had kept her face straight. She had heard the rumors of the thirteenth Earl of Lenskeyn, even if the dowager did not know it. Like father, like son.

Besides, she did not feel bereaved. She felt free. Lighthearted, almost. As though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and she never had to carry it again.

Another week later, and the last hurdle was reached. The funeral.

It passed by in a haze of nonsense. Gentleman after gentleman at the front of the church shared their stories of Elmore. Elizabeth did not recognize the man they described. He had been cheerful, entertaining, and loyal—almost to a fault.

That had not been her husband.

The only two family members beside her who had attended the funeral were invited back to her home—Elmore’s house, really, but it was hers now. The dowager countess had sobbed into her handkerchief all the way in the carriage, which had made Elizabeth feel guilty for her dry eyes.

The Earl of Lenskeyn, on the other hand, had been silent. When they sat together, the three of them in the drawing room, she examined him closely under the guise of offering him a cup of tea.

It was the first time they had met. Albemarle Howard, the Earl of Lenskeyn, had lived abroad for the last ten years or so, and he was a wild one with few manners to speak of. Still, Elizabeth liked him. He said what he thought.

“I am off,” he said abruptly after ten minutes of awkward silence. “I have no wish to dwell on this anymore. Your good health, Mrs. Howard, and if there is anything I can do—”

And naturally, she said all the right things about not needing anything, and if she needed any help, she would call on him.

Only when the door was shut behind him did she realize this would leave her alone with her mother-in-law.

“You are holding up so well,” the dowager said as Elizabeth entered the room again. “I must say, you control your emotions very well. A true Howard.”

Elizabeth nodded politely as she sat down. Well, she was hardly going to admit to Elmore’s mother that it was easy to keep calm when you had no desire to see your husband alive again.

“And still off your food, I see,” the older woman continued with an approving nod. “Not surprising. The loss of Elmore is very great, I know.”

Once again, Elizabeth bit her tongue. She had said almost nothing today, but she would not upset the dowager. She had adored her youngest son, despite her elder son and four daughters—none of whom, Elizabeth could not help but notice, had attended the funeral.

No, his mother had not seen any of Elmore’s faults—but then, neither had Elizabeth when she had first met him. She had been so sure, as he had courted her all those years ago, that he would be a wonderful husband.

And where had that led? To a scandalous death, thankfully hushed up, in an opium den—not that she would ever admit such an ending to his mother.

“Yes,” she said aloud. “Yes, I have been feeling unwell.”

The dowager nodded. “’Tis to be expected, of course. I remember when my husband died…”

Elizabeth attempted to listen as her mother-in-law droned on. Unwell? She had certainly been nauseous, but she had managed to eat a little.

Then her eyes widened as something suddenly struck her. Her flux. It had never come.

What was the date today? The fourteenth of—no. It hadn’t come, and more, she seemed to have missed one.

And she had been nauseous. Every morning. Some afternoons, too.

Was it possible that…

“—a matchmaker is the only solution, I fear,” the dowager countess rumbled on. “Albemarle is a stubborn mule, worse than his father—in the best way, of course. But he needs to wed. The line needs an heir, and he has shown absolutely no interest in marriage at all. Why, when I hinted to him…”

Elizabeth was not listening. How could she be when the most startling thoughts were making her heart flutter and her shoulders tense.

Was she…was she with child?She would have to speak to a doctor to be sure, but the symptoms…they were just like she had always heard.

A jolt lurched her stomach. If she was with child, Elmore had not graced her bedchamber in weeks. Months.

And that could only mean one thing. If there was a child, and she was sure she was, then…it was Jacob’s. Jacob’s baby.

Elizabeth’s breath caught in her throat. The thought was scandalous, but it could just possibly be true.

She glanced at the dowager, who was still speaking. The matriarch of the Howard family, she was desperate for an heir. How disappointed she had been when month after month, Elizabeth had not fallen pregnant with Elmore’s child.

Conceiving had been impossible, and Elizabeth knew society had considered her barren for a few years. She had started to believe it herself.

“I am barren. There…there would be no child.”

Perhaps, after all these years, it had not been her fault at all. Perhaps it was Elmore who could not father a child. No bastards had ever come knocking on their door with their mothers, after all, and he had done plenty to create them.

“—quite well, my dear?”

Elizabeth jumped. “Quite well—that is, as well as can be expected.”

The dowager nodded approvingly. “I shall leave you be. You probably wish to cry and have been holding in the tears for love of me, which is very kind of you. I shall send you a book in a few days which I think…”

Elizabeth could not concentrate. She could not tell the elder woman that there may be an heir for the Howard line after all—not before she saw the doctor.

And what then?She would never admit that the baby was not Elmore’s—bring scandal down on herself and the whole family name?

No. She would raise the child as Elmore’s son or daughter, part of his legacy. Even if he did not deserve it.