A Timeless Romance Anthology: European Collection (12 page)

G.G. Vandagriff is the author of seventeen books, including six Regency romances. The most recent of these is
Lord Trowbridge’s Angel
, where Melissa and Lord Oaksey make their first appearance. Coming in mid-November 2013 is
The Baron and the Bluestocking.
She loves the Regency period with all its absurd eccentricities.

Vandagriff is at home with historical fiction, her novel,
The Last Waltz: A Novel of Love and War,
having received the Whitney Award for Best Historical Novel of 2009. Her other works include a genealogical mystery series, women’s fiction, suspense, and two non-fiction offerings. Visit her online at
http://ggvandagriff.com

Vandagriff studied writing at Stanford University and received her master’s degree from George Washington University. She and her husband, David, have three children and four grandchildren.

Her favorite indulgence is travel, and she goes to Florence every year to stimulate her creativity. And eat gelato!

by Michele Paige Holmes

Chapter One

Northern England—1760

Ethan Moorleigh wore a path over the hall rug. Seven paces, sharp turn. Seven paces, back again.

Lucky seven.
His hands clenched at his sides. He wasn’t usually a man given to superstition, but just now he was in need of luck, or heaven’s blessings— a miracle.

“Please God,” he said aloud for what was surely the hundredth time over the past eighteen hours. He didn’t often pray, but he promised he would from this day forth if God would grant him this one wish. He’d pray, give more to the Church— build a new chapel if that’s what was required. Anything for this one favor.

Please save Mary.

He didn’t ask for the child’s life to be spared as well. For a man known to breed misfortune as he did, that was too much to hope for. He’d feared for weeks that all would not go well as he’d watched Mary grow weary, as he’d seen the stress that carrying the babe was causing her.

And now she’d grown so weak she couldn’t even cry out in her suffering. The past hour had been silent— worse even than the screams of agony that had preceded it.

Ethan stopped before the door, resting his forehead against the polished wood, listening for any sign of life from the other side. He’d stayed with Mary as long as he could, finally kissing her gently when the midwife shooed him from the room, telling him that men had no business at a birthing.

He’d thought that maybe if he stayed he might somehow help, might see Mary through the event he’d worried over for months, since the bittersweet morning she’d rolled to face him in bed and whispered, “Ethan, we’re going to have a child.”

He’d been half asleep and certain at first that he was dreaming. But her fingers tickling across his had chest fully wakened him. He’d captured her hand, stilling the movement as he raised his head, looking in her eyes. “A child?”

She’d laughed. “Is it so impossible to believe? You’ve scarce let me out of this bed the past six months.”

“Now I’ll have to keep you in it another nine.” He’d kissed her then, long and slow and luxurious as most of their kisses were. From the first night of their marriage, Mary had made it clear that she adored him.

For years, she’d lingered in her cousin’s shadow, always near when Ethan came to visit. He’d scarcely noticed her, busy as he’d been, carrying on in his father’s footsteps as he maintained his numerous holdings and accumulated enough wealth to care for them.

But Mary had noticed him. And unlike the other women in the province who thought him cursed, or a murderer, or both, she hadn’t avoided him as if he were the reaper himself. She’d made a point to welcome him in Stuart’s home, and she’d made it clear that she had no qualms about marrying a man who’d already had two wives, both of whom had suffered untimely deaths.

Ethan’s throat constricted when he thought of her courage and the unwavering love and devotion she’d shown him— a previously broken man.

Mary had healed him. She loved him, and he returned that love with more fervor than he’d thought possible. He couldn’t let anything happen to her. The kiss he’d given Mary just before the midwife sent him away yesterday morning would not be their last.

Ethan banged on the door. “Mary? Are you well, Mary?” He’d brought this upon her, and he was the one who ought to see her through it. The devil take anyone who told him otherwise.

No reply came. He tried the handle— locked. Alarmed, he pounded harder, demanding entrance. He shoved his shoulder to the door, but the solid wood didn’t budge. He turned away, intent on retrieving an axe to break down the door, when it suddenly swung open.

The midwife stood before him, her ashen face a sharp contrast to her bloody apron. “They are dead.” Her red-rimmed eyes were wide with fright.

Ethan pushed past her to the bedside, to Mary’s still body. He knelt and touched her hand, already cold. Her face wasn’t peaceful, but troubled. She’d died in agony.

He turned to look at the midwife. “How long— why didn’t you call me? I should have been with her!”

He fell forward, his cheek against Mary’s silent chest, struggling for breath. All the hurt he’d felt before— after Clara’s accident and Abigail’s drowning— paled against this pain. He pressed his lips to her hand. “I’m so sorry. My sweet Mary.”

Tears fell, and he had no care who saw. Behind him he heard steps and turned to see Stuart, whom he’d sent for when Mary’s labor had begun. Ethan looked at his friend, the man who had trusted him with his cousin’s life. “I’m so sorry.”

Stuart’s look was grim, but he placed a comforting hand on Ethan’s shoulder.

Ethan bent his head as more tears fell. This could not be happening. Not to Mary.
Not my Mary.

A tiny cry pierced the air, and his head jerked up. He’d given no thought to the infant. Hadn’t the midwife said—

He met the woman’s large, frightened eyes; she glanced from Ethan to Stuart and back again.

Stuart ran around to the end of the bed, to the cradle. In shock, Ethan watched as he lifted the baby. It cried again.

“It lives.” The midwife’s voice was astonished. “Impossible. She was—”

“She is very much alive. In spite of your poor care.” Stuart’s tone was scathing. “I shall personally see that you never deliver another child.” He carried the squirming bundle to Ethan. “Your daughter.”

Ethan reached out and took the child. He looked at its face, hoping to feel something—  some instinctive parental joy. None came. Only numbness and disbelief, his scarred heart growing cold already. His gaze slid back to the bed, to Mary.

 He had no love to give their child. 

Chapter Two

England—1763

“Dear Lord,” Amelia began. “Most humbly I thank thee for thy bounties, for the good sisters who care for me, for this abbey, for the vows I am shortly to take. Help me be ready— oh— ooh!” Unable to stand it any longer, Amelia pushed off the side of her cot and bent to rub her knees, frozen with cold from the hard floor.

Shivering, she continued her prayer silently.
Help me be grateful, Lord. And to understand why we cannot have rugs beside our beds.

As soon as the blasphemous thought left her mind, she felt guilty— but not so much that she was willing to make her knees suffer again. After jerking the scratchy wool blanket from her bed, Amelia dropped it to the floor and knelt once more, hands clasped in front of her, penitent for her unruly thoughts.

 “Help me be good, Lord. Forgive my selfish thoughts and desires. Help me be ready.” She stayed there some time, arms wrapped around herself in an attempt at warmth as she contemplated all that being ready entailed. Though she’d had many years to prepare for her final vows, now that the time was upon her, she didn’t feel as certain about taking them as she ought.

The idea of sharing this uncertainty with the abbess or any of the other sisters was too awful, so she turned instead to God. He knew her heart, and surely He would calm it.
And my chattering teeth.

As if Amelia’s thoughts had been overheard by the abbess, her voice rang loudly through the hall. “You cannot simply remove her.”

Amelia ended her prayer but remained on her knees, listening, her curiosity more than piqued at the elderly matron being up and about and agitated at this time of night.

“This is her home. This is what she knows,” the abbess continued.

“She’ll have another home now. And I most certainly can remove her. It was I who brought her here to begin with.”

Stuart!
Amelia’s eyes flew open as she recognized the second voice— her half-brother’s. She’d not seen him in nearly three years, since the day he’d come to tell her their cousin Mary had died in childbirth. Before that, it had been a two-year stretch— since that lonely day he’d first deposited her here for safekeeping on her thirteenth birthday.

Amelia quickly bowed her head again. “Dear Lord, whatever misfortune has befallen Stuart, please bless him and any who suffer. Be thou with them in their time of sorrow.”

“Amelia.” Light slanted across the floor into her dark room. Amelia looked over her shoulder at Stuart standing in the open doorway, silhouetted in lantern light. The abbess’s aged hand swayed, the light swinging behind him. Stuart stepped into the tiny room.

The abbess followed. “You
cannot
do this.” She nodded toward Amelia. “Look at her. See how ready she is. This is the life she knows. You are the one who brought her to it. Removing her now would be most cruel.”

“I cannot see how.” Stuart glanced around the bare room, distaste evident in his face. “She won’t be leaving much,” he muttered, half under his breath, but Amelia heard it all the same. She doubted the abbess had, near deaf as the old woman was.

Amelia rose, shoving the blanket beneath the cot so the abbess wouldn’t see her weakness, and addressed her brother. “What has happened?” No doubt it was something dreadful to bring him this far, this late at night.

“Nothing, my dear Amelia.” His face broke into a smile, and he stepped toward her, clasping her hands. “Only that you are needed elsewhere.”

Though she’d overheard their conversation in the hall, his words still took her by surprise. Stuart wanted her to leave. A thrill of fear shivered down her spine as she recalled his words when he’d first brought her here.

The world is an evil place, Amelia— especially for a woman. I promised your mother that I would keep you safe, and safe you’ll be here. This will be a good life for you, one filled with peace.

He’d been right, mostly. The sisters were kind, and she was surrounded with goodness— music and prayers and devotions. Peace had been harder to achieve. She was still striving for that, on calming her spirit, curbing her curiosity about all that lay outside the abbey walls, and in being satisfied with the life of quiet service chosen for her.

Chosen for me.
That’s it.
That
is my problem. Stuart chose this life for me. I didn’t.
The revelation was startling in its simplicity, yet she sensed that in it lay the peace she’d so yearned for.
All I must do is choose for myself.
Which, it appeared, was the opportunity presented to her this very moment.