Vicar's Daughter to Viscount's Lady (Transformation of the Shelley Sisters 2)

Elliott went to open the door into Arabella’s room and stopped, his hand on the handle. All he had cared about, he realised, was Arabella. He had not worried about the child, only the effect it would have on her if she lost it. The treacherous thought had even flashed into his mind that if she did miscarry, then they could have another. His son. What kind of wretch does that make me? he wondered, resisting the impulse to kick the door panel out of sheer self-disgust. The child she was carrying was his blood, his nephew—somehow he was convinced it was a boy—he should be prepared to do whatever it took to keep it safe.

It was his duty. Elliott fixed a smile on his lips and opened the door. Duty. And what a cold word that is.

Arabella was sitting up in bed, looking relaxed, and he felt his smile relax, too, into something almost genuine. She was such a trouble to him, yet he could not resent her.

‘I am so sorry to cause a fuss,’ she apologised. ‘Doctor Hamilton was very kind and explained that it was quite normal to have those little cramping pains at this time. He says it is my body adjusting itself to the growing baby.’

‘You were not to know, it must have been alarming.’ Elliott sat on the edge of the bed and held her hand. ‘And now you had better stay in bed for the rest of the day, nursing your fictitious bad back.’

‘I suppose I had,’ she agreed ruefully. ‘I will plan what to do with the decoration of this room. I have to admit to becoming very weary of pink and frills, which, when you consider that at the vicarage I had a room half the size of my dressing room here, with faded chintz curtains and a rag rug on the floor, is very ungrateful of me.’ Her mouth thinned as she looked around. ‘I suppose Rafe had a very conventional view of female tastes.’

‘Of some female tastes, certainly,’ Elliott said drily.

‘That is true.’ He saw her give herself a little shake as though to push away an unpleasant memory. Then she frowned; obviously another troubling thought had arrived. Elliott made a conscious effort not to frown too. This marriage business, this being aware of another person’s feelings and moods and fears all the time, was unsettling. He had not realised how much a wife would take over his thoughts.

‘I wonder how Papa is managing without me,’ Arabella said.

‘Doubtless he will hire a housekeeper. He will be able to select one to suit his temperament.’

Arabella chuckled. ‘How very gloomy.’ Elliott watched her face as sadness took her again. He wanted to make it go away, but couldn’t think how to. ‘He wasn’t always like this, you know. When we were little he was pious, of course, and quite strict, but there was laughter. I can remember flowers in the house and Mama singing and reading books that I am certain were not volumes of sermons.’

‘What happened?’

‘She died. She went to visit her sister in London quite unexpectedly, for I can recall Papa was out and when he came back and she had gone he was furious. And then, a few weeks later, he told us she was dead of a fever.’ She frowned. ‘That must be the aunt Lina ran away to—she had found a letter from her, but all that was left in Lina?

??s room was the torn bottom edge. Her name was Clara.’ Arabella bit her lip, deep in memory. ‘Mama said she would send for us to visit our aunt, too, so we must not cry. And there was a carriage outside, but I do not know who was in it.’

‘And your mother’s body was returned home. What a terrible thing for three little girls,’ Elliott said, a suspicion beginning to grow in his mind.

‘No. That was so sad too. Papa told us she had been buried in London. I do not even know where her grave is.’

‘And it was after that your father became stricter, obsessed with sin, especially female sin?’

‘Yes. I suppose her death made him…strange. The responsibility of bringing up three motherless daughters, perhaps.’

‘Or three daughters whose mother had run off with another man?’ Elliott suggested, thinking aloud and not watching his words.

‘Run off?’ Arabella pressed one hand to her mouth as though to shut off the words. ‘Mama left him? Oh, no!’

Chapter Sixteen

The words were out now, he could not take them back. ‘I think she must have run away, don’t you? I imagine you never thought to consider the evidence as an adult, but she left when he was out, there was a carriage waiting for her. If that was your aunt, why not come in and see her nieces? Why leave when your father was away from home and promise that she would send for you? Why did your grief-stricken father not want her body returned home?’

‘But she never sent for us,’ Arabella protested. ‘And she would have done.’

‘How do you know? Would he have let you go to her and another man, do you think? How old were you?’

‘Seven,’ she murmured. ‘No, you are right. I would never have known if she had tried to make contact. Like Meg and Lina now—I am certain they will have written and that he destroyed the letters.

‘He kept us close, I remember that. It seemed an age before we were allowed to go out without Cousin Harriet: she lived with us until I was seventeen.’ She stared at him, eyes wide. ‘Oh, poor Mama. She must have been desperate to have left us.’

Elliott caught her hands, which were clenched in the bedclothes, and stroked until the stiff fingers relaxed into his.

‘How could she bear to leave her own children?’ she wondered and she put her own hand, bringing his with it, to lie over her belly.

Shaken by the emotion he could feel coursing through her, Elliott made himself keep still. ‘I am sorry, Arabella. I should have thought before speculating aloud. I did not mean to upset you.’ And upset her he had—her expression was tragic. ‘She must have been desperate, I agree. And she thought you would be able to join her later.’

‘Mmm.’ She nodded, deep in thought. ‘How will I tell Meg and Lina? If I ever find them. Oh, Elliott, I do miss them so.’