Always the Widow by Emily E.K. Murdoch

Chapter Nine

The looking glass in the hall of Lenskeyn House showed a woman who had, if possible, grown since she had last examined her reflection.

Two months left before she would meet her little miracle.

“Now then, my lady, please stay still.”

Her maid’s voice was stern, and Elizabeth’s smile disappeared. “Yes, Holland.”

Her demure reply did not warm the cold expression on the servant’s face as she adjusted Elizabeth’s bonnet.

These were Howard servants, those chosen by her late husband and then her mother-in-law. None had been chosen for their loyalty to her.

That would change over time. But not yet. She had to be careful not to be seen as too excited to throw off the shackles of the Howard family, especially while living in their house.

Well. One of their houses.

“There,” said Holland stiffly. “You look lovely.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Thank you.”

Whose wild idea had it been to go to the theater?She certainly had not mentioned it, but from memory, it had not been Jacob either. The idea had just sprung up between them in one of their many conversations, an idea to give them time together and crucially, in a way, society could not critique.

Who would blame her for wanting to go to the theater?

True, the reviews were terrible—but Elizabeth was starting to get bored being kept indoors, never seeing anyone, never doing anything.

It would only get worse when she went into confinement.

Jacob made every day she saw him so memorable, so full of joy and laughter. Their numerous visits to Sydney Gardens. That carriage ride when they had got caught in the rain. Playing cards late into the night when she could not sleep, Jacob entertaining her with snippets of gossip.

It was wild. She was a widow. The last thing she should be doing was being joyful, and the idea that she was smiling because of another gentleman…

Elizabeth swallowed and pulled the ribbon on her bonnet tighter. She would always be a widow. Marriage would only complicate her already complex life.

Her child may need a father, but she wanted Jacob, and she could not have him. She would remain the Widow Howard for the rest of her days.

“The Widow Howard!” Jacob had laughed only a few days ago. “Goodness, what a title!”

And she had laughed, but behind the laughter had been sorrow. Yes, what a title indeed.

What she would give to become Lady Westray.

Elizabeth swallowed. She would have to be careful this evening. That irritating Mrs. Bryant, of all people, had spotted them together. That was probably why she had started to encourage Jacob to visit Lenskeyn House. The planning had not been overly different, and Elizabeth told herself she only kept Jacob’s visits from most of the servants to reduce their duties.

Why did he make her feel this way—and why was she so sure she needed to keep this part of her heart secret?

“And when will Lord Westray’s carriage arrive?”

Elizabeth was pulled from her thoughts to face the rather stern-looking maid, who had evidently decided to see her mistress off.

Had she guessed?Had all the servants assumed their mistress had rather un-widowlike affection for the dashing young gentleman who turned up at Lenskeyn House at least twice a week?

“Perhaps another ten minutes or so,” she said after glancing at the grandfather clock. “You may go, Holland. I am sure you have more interesting things to do than wait with me.”

“I suppose Lord Westray will take care of you then, my lady,” Holland said with just a hint of a sneer and turned on her heels before Elizabeth could say anything—shooting her mistress a scornful look before closing the door.

Elizabeth sank slowly into a chair, legs suddenly unable to support her weight.

Well, it was not as though it was a surprise.She knew what most of her servants thought of her. How many gossiped about her in the kitchens? Shared their predictions of what their mistress was up to, making a fool of herself with that gentleman who was already engaged to another?

Bile crept up her throat, and guilt streamed through her veins.

Jacob made her feel alive, and not just that encounter in her bedchamber.

Elizabeth swallowed. Perhaps she was seeing things that were not there. She was drawn to him like a moth to a flame, and it could all end in flames.

“You are a widow, Elizabeth,” she murmured quietly. “A widow with child. You should be concentrating on your baby, not some gentleman.”

But he wasn’t just some gentleman, was he?She moved to the window overlooking the long drive. Jacob was the father of the child who stirred within her, and for that, she simply could not stay away.

True, his return to her life with a fiancée in tow had certainly been a shock.Elizabeth smiled wanly at her reflection in the window as the darkening evening showed no sign of an approaching carriage.

Miss Sophia Worsley was, from all she had heard, a lovely woman. But Jacob was still pursuing her, there was no doubt about that.

“I never wished to stop seeing you. I would have wanted…more of you. More often. When Elmore…before he died.”

It had been an unguarded moment, revealing his heart, and it made hers sing.

Jacob was not in love with Miss Worsley. It was impossible to lie to herself any longer. If Jacob told her this evening, or any evening, that he ended his engagement with Miss Worsley, her heart would leap. If he went further, told her he wished to marry her…

Well, Elizabeth would say yes, gossips be damned.

The very thought of Jacob declaring his love was thrilling, quickening her heart as their son or daughter quickened within her. As her child grew, so did her feelings for Jacob Westray.

There! Out of the darkness came a pinprick of light, growing larger until the sound of the carriage reached Elizabeth’s ears. It had felt like forever, waiting for him, and now he was finally here.

She threw open the door as Jacob stepped out of the carriage before it came to a stop.

“Only a tiny bit late,” he said with a smile. “I have no excuse at all, and therefore you do not have to forgive me. Would you like a hand up?”

Elizabeth nodded, not trusting her mouth. There was something so wild, so untamed about Jacob. He was a perfect gentleman, of course, he knew all the niceties and rules of society, but still…

“Goodness, that child of ours—yours,” Jacob amended hastily, “is certainly growing!”

Elizabeth shook her head as he almost had to lift her into the carriage. “I will certainly be pleased when this little one enters the world. The sooner they can learn to walk for themselves, the better!”

She fell against the cushion of the carriage and tried to catch her breath. Everything was exhausting these days, and any sort of exertion made it difficult for her lungs to catch the air she needed.

Jacob jumped up and sat opposite her. “I shall have to bring a winch next time!”

“You shall not!” Elizabeth could not help but smile. “You will not need to, anyway. Soon I will not even be able to move!”

They laughed together as the carriage started to move, rocking gently as it made its way back down the drive and onto the road to Bath.

“So,” she said as lightly as she could. “Obligatory question about your wedding planning?”

Why did it hurt so much—why did she force herself to do it every time, reminding herself forcefully he was not hers?

Jacob made a face in the darkness. “Obligatory answer. ’Tis going, let us say that. I cannot possibly summon up the interest in lace and doilies and how many gowns one bride needs, so let’s not even dwell on it.”

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, Elizabeth soaking in his presence like a warm bath. Just being close to him soothed her soul.

What was she going to do when he wed and become the official property of Miss Worsley—the new Lady Westray?

“I suppose you will get married again one day,” Jacob said suddenly into the silence. “With your own wedding to plan.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I am a widow, remember.”

The carriage lurched as they turned a corner, horse hooves clattering into the night air.

Elizabeth swallowed. She had to say this, make it clear to him. “Many widows never remarry Jacob, particularly those with children. Society expects a woman’s loyalty to be to her descendants.”

Jacob frowned. “You really think you will never marry again? You will remain the widow forever?”

“Yes.”

Jacob grinned.

She fought to keep control of her expression. What she would not give for him to keep speaking softly to her, in that voice, using her name…

“You think I want any other man to be the father of our child?”

Her words had been spoken instinctively, and Elizabeth saw the effect they had on him. Jacob moved to sit beside her, his hands inches from hers. If the carriage rocked slightly, she could pretend to be steadying herself, she could reach out and…

She lifted her gaze to his and swallowed. Jacob was looking at her with some sort of fierce pride, as though he would kiss her at any moment.

The carriage stopped.

“Theater, m’lord!” The driver’s voice rang out into the silence.

Elizabeth sighed, her head falling.

“It appears we are here,” whispered Jacob. “Damnit. Right. The theater.”

If it had been Elizabeth’s driver, she would have instructed him to drive around the town once more—anything to give herself and Jacob just a little more time together, without the stares of society.

But this was Jacob’s carriage, and as he helped her down to the pavement, she watched the heads turn and whispers start.

“That is surely not Westray’s betrothed—Miss Worsley?”

“Don’t be daft. You think he would bring a heavily pregnant fiancée here? No, that’s…is that the Widow Howard?”

“Scandalous, I call it. And that poor Miss Worsley, where is she?”

Elizabeth held her head up high as she waited for Jacob to give some final instructions to his driver.

Murmurs grew. If they suspected only half of the truth, they would be even more outraged.

“Are you quite well?”

Elizabeth jumped at the closeness of Jacob’s voice. She nodded, not permitting her voice to speak. She did not trust it. She did not trust herself.

Her judgment had disappeared when she had met Jacob Beauvale. What did she think she was doing here?

The play disappeared into the fogs of her mind when they took their seats. It was of mediocre quality, and she could not concentrate anyway. All she could think of was the gentleman beside her. The gentleman who was not hers, and yet had more of a claim to her than any other man living.

If only this could be her life.

The final curtain was falling before Elizabeth knew it. The last act, in particular, had been impossible to watch as heads in the audience turned to stare. It appeared her life was far more entertaining than the stage.

Heat rose across her face, and the heaviness of her bump grew with each step as they started to leave the theater.

“And there she is! I had never believed Mrs. Bryant, but—”

“Right here, in public! The nerve of that woman, and after poor Elmore has only been in his grave a few—”

“What the dowager countess thinks of it all, I dread to—”

All she wanted was to be home.This had been a mistake. Elizabeth would not permit any more excursions in public with Jacob. She should never have allowed it in the first place.

“So, what did you think of the play?” Jacob asked as he offered his hand to her.

Elizabeth blinked. Somehow, they had made it to the outside of the theater, and there, a charger waiting to rescue her, was Jacob’s carriage.

She took his hand gratefully as she attempted to step into it. “Well, I admit I—arrgh!”

Utterly unable to keep her balance as she had lifted a leg to enter the carriage, she had started to tilt backward. Panic rushed through her as gravity took hold, and Elizabeth would have crashed to the ground and undoubtedly broken her back if a strong arm had not grabbed her and brought her close.

Jacob.He had caught her, saved her from severe harm, and where his hand touched her, Elizabeth could feel her skin burn.

She wanted him. She wanted him to touch her all over, but that was an impossible wish and one she would never utter. How could she?

“Careful,” he said as she clung to him. “You may do yourself an injury.”

Elizabeth was thankfully saved from responding by Jacob’s driver stepping beside her.

“Let me help, m’lady, m’lordship. I can get you in,” he said jovially.

She was soon in the carriage, heart frantically beating. Mere seconds later, Jacob joined her, and the carriage rattled away from the theater.

Breath slowing, Elizabeth smiled as her child squirmed inside her. It appeared that little Westray had not enjoyed the almost tumble either.

“You are smiling,” said Jacob from the seat opposite. “I would have thought an almost catastrophic fall would have wiped that smile from your face!”

“Come here,” she said quietly.

He looked confused as he moved in the carriage to sit beside her, and he frowned as she took his hand in hers—but his eyes widened in an expression of wonder as she placed it on her stomach.

Their child kicked again, and a look of divine contentment washed over its father. “I can…I can feel them. Our baby.”

Elizabeth swallowed. This was all wrong, and yet so right. She was falling in love with the one man in the world she could not have.

Jacob belonged to Miss Worsley. After the scandal of her previously broken engagement, she was hardly about to allow her second to fall apart. Miss Worsley would become Lady Westray.

It was reckless to be seen with Jacob. She knew that. She was already breaking so many rules. Perhaps there were a few more she could break.

Swallowing and keeping his voice low, Jacob whispered, “Elizabeth. Lizzy, I am…I’m falling in love with you.”

There they were, the words she had thought he would never say. Affection for him rushed through her, but even as she whispered, “I know,” she could not bring herself to reciprocate.

She mustn’t. Once she did that, the line was crossed—one they could never retreat behind. That would be it. The end of their…was this friendship?

The carriage bumped and turned a corner, sliding Jacob into her, and pushing her into the corner of the carriage.

“I do apologize,” Jacob began. “The carriage—”

His arms had been put out to prevent him from crushing her, and Elizabeth acted instinctively, without thought. She wanted to feel him, wanted the sensation of him around her. She took his hands and put them around her waist.

The kiss started slowly, almost innocently. He was reverential, and it was only when Elizabeth moaned in his mouth that they became fiercer, more passionate, until they were utterly lost in either other.

When they finally broke apart, Jacob grinned. “We may have met in…well, strange circumstances—”

Elizabeth laughed. “Strange?”

“I wish I were not marrying Miss Worsley.”

His words echoed in the small carriage. Elizabeth swallowed down her request, the hope that had immediately risen in her mind: that he would break the engagement. How could she put into words her desire for him? How could she ask a gentleman to upturn his life for her because of one night half a year ago?

The carriage came to a stop, and Elizabeth saw the front door of Lenskeyn House through the window.

If only she had the courage to ask Jacob to leave Miss Worsley. It was all wrong. The scandal, the shame of it all—and what if he did not? It was all very well to say one wished an engagement was at an end, but in whose power was that? His own!

“You were about to say something,” Jacob murmured, not taking his eyes away.

Elizabeth blushed. “I know.”

He leaned forward to kiss her again, and she welcomed it, welcomed him, the father of her child, the one gentleman who had ever looked on her with kindness.

But eventually, she had to break the kiss. This could not continue. “I must go in.”

“Alone?” Jacob breathed.

Elizabeth nodded. “Yes. Yes, alone.”