The Secret Rose (20 page)

“I begged her,” she ranted, the tears coming afresh. “I told her she couldn’t help.”

“Couldn’t help what?”

“Oh, sir,” she wailed. “What if she becomes ill, too? Oh—”

“Cease, woman!”

Ethan stared at the servant, waiting for her to calm. When he thought she was rational enough to talk, he asked his questions again. “Tell me what I don’t understand. Explain why the sisters at the convent are not able to care for each other, and your mistress had to go.”

Stella twisted the soaked cloth in her hand, then stopped and looked up at him. “It’s the typhoid, sir. Sister Beatrice fears Sister Constance has the typhoid.”

Ethan’s heart skipped a beat, a cold chill raging through his body. “And Miss Langdon went to help? Why in blazes did they send for her?”

“Oh, sir,” Stella sobbed again. “I couldn’t stop her.”

Ethan grabbed his cloak, then raced for the door.

“No! Don’t go. It will do no good. You are too late to stop her.” Stella raced after him with a look of panic on her face. “You will only put yourself in danger.”

Ethan ignored her warning as he ran to the stables to saddle his mount. He could think of nothing except trying to reach Abigail before it was too late, before she reached the convent. But he knew his efforts would be futile. He had lost too much time already.

As he made his way over the unfamiliar ground, he realized her carriage had too much of a head start, and Bundy knew the way better, perhaps even a shorter way to get there.

He kept his eyes focused on the road ahead, praying he would see her carriage, but he didn’t. It wasn’t until he reached the convent that he saw it. But he was too late. She was already inside the walls.

“Don’t go in,” Bundy warned as Ethan dismounted. “She’ll not want you there.”

Ethan gave him a look filled with all the anger and frustration he’d given himself free rein to feel on the ride over. He marched past Bundy and pounded on the oak door as if he intended to break it down.

It didn’t take long for a timid sister to open the heavy barrier a crack, but it was enough for him to push his way inside.

“Where is she?” he bellowed at the sister.

“We have a sickness—”

“I don’t give a damn—” His fingers clenched as he struggled to hold his temper. “I don’t care. Where is she?”

The sister looked at him, and he could see her debate what to do. “Take me to her, or I’ll search every room in the convent until I find her.”

With a quiet nod, she bowed her head and turned to lead him through the quiet hallways. They walked in aggravating slowness down one long dark corridor, then up a narrow flight of stairs, and another, then down a second long corridor, finally coming to a halt in front of a door at the end of the passageway. Without waiting to knock, Ethan threw open the door.

Every muscle in his body froze, his heart falling to the pit of his stomach.

Abigail sat in a rocker at the side of a small bed, cradling a babe in her arms. A babe with hair of spun copper, just like Abigail’s, and deep brown eyes and dimpled cheeks.

Just like Stephen’s.

Abigail clutched Mary Rose close to her, but kept her gaze riveted on Ethan’s towering fury as he stood in the doorway.

Neither of them spoke. There was nothing to say. From the look on his face, he’d already noticed the resemblance to her, and to Stephen. From his dark expression and the clenched fists at his sides, he was as disappointed as she knew he would be.

Mary Rose struggled in her arms, making tiny squealing noises to tell Abigail she was holding her too tight.

“Shh, sweetheart.” She released her grip enough to stop Mary Rose’s squirming, then brushed her coppery red hair from her face. “It’s all right. Go back to sleep.”

Ethan stepped inside the room and closed the door behind him. “This is what you couldn’t tell me.”

At the sound of his voice, Mary Rose leaned forward to peek around Abigail’s arm. She was curious to investigate the stranger with the deep, rich voice more closely. The first male voice she’d ever heard. Her eyes widened in appreciation, an impressive look of approval on her face.

He stepped closer. Mary Rose’s little face tilted upward in awestruck wonder. Abigail was sure that to someone as small as Mary Rose, Ethan must seem like a giant.

“This is where you went each day.”

He said the words more as an accusation than a question that required an answer, so she gave none. What could she say? There were no excuses to make, no point in expecting him to understand, and from the scowl on his face, no hope that he could forgive.

“Does she have the illness?” He watched the babe with the same curiosity as Mary Rose showed him.

“No. She’s just unsettled because she was awakened in the middle of the night.”

“The sister at the door said—”

“The doctor is with Sister Constance now. Sister Beatrice is afraid it may be typhoid.”

“If it is?”

Abigail brushed Mary Rose’s forehead, absently checking for a fever. “Then we will wait. We will know within a fortnight if she contracts it, too.”

He reached down and touched the baby’s forehead, then walked to the window on the other side of the bed. He stood with his back to her.

“What is she called?” he said, lifting back the curtain and staring out into the darkness.

“Mary Rose.”

“Did you name her?”

“Yes.”

“Why that name?”

“Rose has been a family name since my great-great-grandmother, Agnes Rose. Mary just…just seemed right.”

“When was she…” He stilled. “How old is she?”

She could see the anger building in him. “Just ten months.”

He spun around to face her. When he spoke, his voice was harsh, filled with bitterness. “Did Stephen know before he left?”

She lowered her eyes and shook her head. “No.”

“But he knew there was a possibility?”

“Stop it! It won’t do any good to place blame on anyone.”

He looked at little Mary Rose, who still studied him intently, then turned back toward the window. He braced his hands on either side of the only outside opening in the room and hung his head between his arms. “How long did you think you could keep her hidden before she was discovered?”

“Forever! If you would only have left us alone.”

He turned back to the darkness. “You couldn’t have. Someone would have found out eventually.”

She shook her head, refusing to believe he might be right.

“This is what your father meant. This is what he wrote you had that was of the greatest importance belonging to Stephen.”

“He did not know what he was saying. He was sick and didn’t mean his words.”

“Yes, he did.”

She stared at his back, willing him to turn around and look at her, to at least make an effort to understand. But he didn’t say any more. There was nothing more to say. The shock of finding out about Mary Rose was now a bitter, impossible reality.

The chasm of silence widened. She could feel the gulf of disappointment and painful betrayal separate them. What they had shared before, or might have shared in the future, was moot. The feelings developing between them took an almost fatal blow when she let Ethan believe she still loved Stephen. The finality was even more painful now that he saw Mary Rose as proof of the love he thought she and his brother shared.

“What will happen now?” he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper filled with emotion.

“What I said would happen all along. I will stay here where I can care for Mary Rose, and you will go back to your plantation. We will sign the papers that give you possession of the
Abigail Rose,
and I will get possession of Fallen Oaks. We will both have what we want.”

“You expect me to just walk away, now that I know about the child?”

“I never expected you to do anything else.”

“Didn’t you? Well, I expected more from you.”

She wanted to defend herself against his cutting remark with one of her own, but couldn’t. A knock on the door saved her from trying.

Sister Beatrice entered the room. “I came as quickly as I could to tell you the news. The doctor says Sister Constance doesn’t have the typhoid.”

The air caught in Abigail’s throat. The news must have affected Ethan in the same way, for she heard a soft sigh from behind her.

“Thank God,” Abigail whispered, swiping at an errant tear that spilled from her eye. She wouldn’t allow herself to become emotional. She couldn’t afford to. One tear would lead to a flood she wouldn’t be able to stop.

She looked down on Mary Rose, now sleeping soundly in her arms, and kissed her cheek.

“Will Sister Constance be all right?” Abigail asked.

“Yes,” Sister Beatrice said with a smile on her face. “The doctor says she has a severe stomach ailment caused by eating too much warm plum pudding. When she recovers, for penance she will be restricted from entering the kitchen for a month, and will go without sweets for two.”

“Don’t be too hard on her, sister. I’m sure she didn’t mean to frighten us.”

“Perhaps not, but…” The sister looked a little guilty. “I’m sorry I disturbed you needlessly at such an hour, but considering how concerned you are over the babe, I thought you would want to know.”

“Oh, yes. Any time, day or night. I want you to promise you will inform me of anything that affects Mary Rose.”

“That will no longer be necessary, sister,” Ethan said from where he stood by the window. “Mary Rose will come with us tonight.”

Abigail flashed him a desperate look. “No. She has to stay here.”

His stoic expression did not change. The dark look in his eyes did not soften.

The blood swirled in her head, making her dizzy. ”You can’t mean to take her away from here.”

“I can’t leave her,” he answered, ever so softly.

The first wave of fear rushed through her body—even more frightening than her terror that Mary Rose could have the typhoid. “You have no right to her. She’s mine.”

Ethan stopped, giving Sister Beatrice a nod of dismissal, then waited for her to leave the room. “She’s Stephen’s,” he said when they were alone.

“No! She’s mine, and mine alone!”

“I won’t leave her here.”

“You have to. Do you know what it will mean if people find out about her? She’ll be a marked child. An outcast.”

She clutched Mary Rose to her and stared at the man who threatened to take away all she had left in the world.

The expression on his face remained hard, unyielding. The muscles in his jaw bunched in harsh determination, his lips pressed together in resolve, his eyebrows drew together to give him a formidable look.

“She is all I have left, Ethan. Please, leave us be. Go back to your plantation and forget you ever saw her.”

“It’s too late for that, Abigail.”

She shook her head. She was desperate to find a solution. “No. What do you want from me? What can I give to you? I’ll do anything, give you anything, be anything you want, only please, don’t take her away from me.”

“You are offering me your body?”

She hesitated. “If that will make you forget you know of her existence.”

He sucked in his breath, his look turning more hostile.

Abigail felt her cheeks burn hot as she fought the waves of panic that washed over her. How was she to fight him? What could she do to protect Mary Rose from being discovered?

“Please, just leave us.”

He shook his head. “I’ll hold her while you put on your cloak,” he said, leaning down to take the babe from her arms.

“No, Ethan. Please,” she pleaded, pulling Mary Rose closer to her. “What more do I have that you want. It is yours. Anything.”

“There isn’t anything you have that I want, Abigail. Nothing that Stephen hasn’t already had. Now, put on your cloak. We have to go.”

Abigail was unable to move. Her cheeks burned as if she’d been slapped. Ethan took Mary Rose and cradled her as tenderly as if she were his own. He held her as if she might break. “Put on your cloak so we can go.”

Abigail rose on wooden legs to fetch it. She wrapped her cloak around her shoulders, but her hands shook too much to fasten it. She couldn’t think to take care of such mundane details, not when Mary Rose’s future hung by a very thin thread—a thread which Ethan threatened to sever.

“Lay another blanket out on the bed,” he said, pointing to a heavy quilt at the bottom of Mary Rose’s bed.

When Abigail had it spread out, Ethan laid the sleeping babe in the middle. “Here,” he said, turning to fasten her cloak. “You’ll catch your death of cold if you’re not careful.”

She wanted to laugh. Her lips curved upward, belying the sickness she felt at how such humor struck her. “That would solve a multitude of problems. Wouldn’t it, sir?”

“Don’t, Abby.”

“Why? Do you think you are the only one allowed to hurl accusations and insults?”

She turned away from him and wrapped Mary Rose in the second blanket, making sure the babe would stay warm on the ride home.

“I’ll carry her to the carriage,” Ethan said.

“No,” she said, stepping between him and where Mary Rose lay on the bed. “She’s not yours. I’ll carry her.”

He turned on her with lightning speed. “Stop it! Such bitterness will do no one any good. Surely you realize I can’t let Stephen’s child, illegitimate though she may be, stay locked away in a convent.”

“She has not been locked away. She lives where she is loved and cared for. She’s cherished as she will never be in the world in which you intend to thrust her. Who do you think will accept such a child? Your mother? Society? You?”

He blanched.

“Don’t you see? No one wants her but me. Your mother will despise her the minute she knows of her existence. Society will do nothing but condemn her. And you, sir, will be at your island paradise and will have washed your hands of both her and me. Please, Ethan. Just leave her here. At least until we can talk this through.”

He turned away from her and walked to the window. The first faint tinges of sunlight had colored the midnight darkness to a lighter shade of black. He didn’t move. His broad shoulders braced, stiff and unbending, his head stoically high, his hands clasped tightly behind his back.