The Danbury Scandals (35 page)

She knelt down
beside Maryanne and took her hand, gripping it tightly. ‘When you were so good
to me in Brussels, I realised how wrong I had been. I could not banish it from
my mind, so I told Richard and he told me to make a clean breast of it. I came
here to tell Mark what I was going to do. Maryanne, can you ever forgive me?’

‘If Adam... No,
I will not think such thoughts,’ Maryanne added, as the doctor arrived. He
knelt to pull open Adam’s coat and revealed a shirt soaked in blood; it seemed
to give the lie to Robert’s statement that her husband was still alive.

‘Come away,’
Caroline said, helping her to rise. ‘He is in good hands now.’

She allowed
herself to be led to the window, where they sat in silence, watching the
doctor, aided by Robert, administer to his patients. When he had almost
finished Maryanne murmured her excuses and hurried over to kneel beside her
husband and take his hand.

‘I have done
all that can be done,’ the doctor said. ‘Now all we can do is pray.’

‘But he will
live?’ Maryanne asked.

‘With careful
nursing.’ He turned to address two menservants who had arrived with a
stretcher. ‘I think it is safe to move His Grace now.’

It was a moment
or two before she realised he was referring to Adam and not Mark. She smiled
and reluctantly released Adam’s hand, so that he could be put on the stretcher
and taken upstairs to one of the few rooms which were still properly furnished.
She followed and stood waiting as the men put him to bed and left the room.

‘Adam,’ she
whispered, taking his hand and raising it to her cheek. ‘Everything is going to
be all right. You are going to get well.’ She thought she felt his grip tighten
and went on, ‘Adam, can you hear me?’

She watched his
face, almost afraid to hope, then she let her breath out in a long sigh of
relief when his brown eyes opened and a quirk of a smile appeared.

‘I hear,’ he
whispered. He was in a great deal of pain and the morphia the doctor had given
him was making him drowsy, but he had the strength to tug on her hand and draw
her towards him. ‘I do not suppose you will ever be a dutiful wife,’ he added.

‘Would you love
me half as much if I were?’

‘Now, there’s a
question!’

Outside, they
could hear the sound of cheering, as the estate workers, the villagers and a
now redundant troop of militia crowded on the drive in front of the house below
the bedroom. ‘Tell them they can have their grazing land,’ he went on, though
speaking was an effort. ‘And find Robert...’

‘He is here. So
is Caroline. There is nothing for you to worry about, nothing at all.’

‘Come nearer.’

She bent over
to kiss him. It was the gentlest of kisses, a foretaste of all the joy to come,
and she was overwhelmed with happiness. It would, she knew, be a slow process,
his return to full health, but there was no doubt in her mind that it would
happen, because they had so much to look forward to, so much to do, so many
friends wishing them well. Now instead of following him she would be beside
him, always.

A fire burned
in the bedroom grate, casting a pink glow over the polished furniture and the
silk-draped cradle. Beside it, Adam shifted his gaze from the study of the
little miracle it contained to his wife. Motherhood had made her even more
beautiful; she glowed with contentment. But inside she was just the same as she
had always been: a girl in love, a girl prepared to go through fire and water
to stay at the side of the man she adored. And now she had been doubly blessed.

She smiled.
‘Pick him up, he is not made of eggshells.’

‘Him?’

‘James, Marquis
of Beckford.’

He laughed and
lifted the child, ignoring the nurse twittering in the background. ‘James.’ He
smiled as he laid the child in her arms and watched as she prepared to feed
him. ‘James Louis.’

It was a little
over three months since the library at Beckford Hall had been the scene of so
much greed and hate, and yet out of it had come an unshakeable love, a love
which had spread to everyone around them.

From his
sick-bed, Adam had been able to direct his representatives to repair the
ravages his half-brother had caused on the estate, to restore the villagers’
grazing land and to make sure their wages were sufficient to support them.
Since his recovery he had refurnished Beckford Hall for
Madame
Saint-Pierre, and she lived there now, adored by the servants and the
villagers. The law had taken care of Mark’s crime; Adam had spoken on his
behalf and he had not paid the ultimate penalty. Instead he had been sent to
one of the penal colonies and would never return.

‘Thank you,
Betty,’ Maryanne said, trying not to smile in the face of the girl’s
disapproval that she was feeding her infant herself. ‘I will send for you when
I need you.’

Betty, who
could not accustom herself to the unconventional ways of the Duke and Duchess,
looked as though she was about to protest, but changed her mind and, clucking
disapproval at parents who employed nursemaids and then looked after the
children themselves, bobbed a curtsy and left.

Maryanne
reached across the baby’s head and put her hand into Adam’s. He smiled as he
put her palm to his lips.

Outside, the
old house, reflecting the light of the setting sun, seemed to glow with a life
of its own, as if the happiness of its inmates extended to the bricks and
mortar. The ancient cedars, tall and strong, cast long shadows across a home no
scandal could touch because inside there was trust and hope and an abiding
love.