An American Duchess (27 page)

As Nigel opened the door, she heard the strains of the waltz from the ballroom on the first floor. Of course it was “Three O’Clock in the Morning.” Now it sounded sweet and poignant and full of promise.

Excitement flooded her. She walked to Nigel and she took the champagne from him. She took the wrapper off the cork with one fast tug, then began to work at the wire that held the cork in place.

“I’ll open this. You take off your clothes,” she said.

He raised a brow at her, but undid his bow tie, then his waistcoat. She wriggled the cork, easing it from the bottle. She didn’t like to watch good champagne rush out in a whoosh. Watching it spurt over the floor would break her heart, even though she could just pick up the phone again and order another bottle. It was too many years of having nothing, she supposed.

Nigel undid his cuffs and drew off his shirt. At the sight of his muscular chest, she tugged hard on the cork. It flew out with a pop and the champagne rushed up the neck of the bottle. Quick as she could, she let it flow into the glasses, filling them until they overflowed.

She took a sip of champagne.

He played with his glass, not drinking. She turned on a bedside light, then turned off the overhead light. Gold light caressed the wide V of his torso, his bare shoulders. “Are you ready for my attentions, Zoe? It has only been just over a week since we last tried.”

“I know I’m ready.” She felt ready. She ached inside. “Besides, the past few days, I’ve touched myself while thinking of you.”

He was lifting his champagne to his lips and he coughed and sputtered. She grinned wickedly.

Then he said, “God, Zoe, I love you. Want you. Adore you.”

When they made love, he muttered her name desperately, even as he carefully, attentively brought her to her peak. She gasped and cried out. He shuddered over her, and she held him tight. Then he fell on the bed beside her.

And she smiled and closed her eyes.

* * *

The shouting woke her.

There was no one beside her, but there were grunts, muffled shouts, muttering coming from somewhere in the room. Zoe swallowed her heart down from where it had lodged in her throat.

He was on the couch. Nigel had draped himself over a too short sofa to go to sleep. All because he was too afraid to sleep with her.

She pulled on her robe. And she hurried to him.

She knelt by the couch.

Sweat covered his forehead. Every once in a while, he would thrash or hit out with his hand. She strained to hear what he was saying. Like the first time she’d witnessed his nightmare, on their honeymoon, she couldn’t understand the words.

Maybe if she could, she would know what kept haunting him. Was it one thing—one terrible, traumatic event? Was it many things?

She didn’t care about the danger of touching him, even while his strong arms flailed.

One word came to her, agonized and distinct. “Boy.” Then “Too young...wrong... God, no!” His body racked and heaved, and his shoulders jerked, as if he were being held down and fighting to break free.

She stroked his face. “Nigel, it’s all right. You’re with me. Zoe. The war is over.”

Gently, she spoke to him. It took... Well, it felt like forever. Finally, he stopped moving. He groaned. His eyes flickered open.

“Zoe...God, I’m sorry. I woke you with my nightmares.”

“I don’t mind. I really don’t. I love you.” She gazed into sleepy, troubled blue eyes. “You spoke of a boy. Who was he? What happened to him?”

Nigel’s hand passed over his mouth. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “I don’t remember the dream. I don’t know anything.”

“Was it you?”

He shook his head. “No. No, it was not me.” He wrapped his bare arms around her.

And she was lost—hungry to be touched. His certainty meant he’d lied—he
did
remember his dream. But she didn’t want to fight.

Could she accept him as he was? Filled with secrets and memories he would never share?

She pressed tight to him and hugged him back. They stayed that way as dawn spread over the London sky, creeping around the window blinds. For all that time, he stroked her, and she pressed kisses to his naked chest.

Nigel might hug her so her cheek rested over his heart, but he would never let her closer to his heart than that.

But it didn’t matter.

She’d needed something to wipe away pain. Zoe knew she had it—a goal that had taken root in her heart.

She was going to be the first woman to fly around the world.

 20 

WINTER AT BRIDESWELL

Through January, snow blanketed Brideswell. Ice coated the panes of the windows. The house was heated entirely by fireplaces, and while they had wonderful blazes, cold wrapped around the house and squeezed tighter with each day. Like the other women at Brideswell, Zoe grew accustomed to wearing a heavy shawl. At first she thought she would never survive the months of cold, but Nigel revealed the beauty of Brideswell in the winter to her.

And she was smitten—almost from the first moment he led her outside to a horse-drawn sleigh.

Nigel wore a long wool coat that made his shoulders look impossibly broad. With leather-glove-clad hands, he lifted her into the front seat, wrapped a fur throw around her. He climbed in beside her and picked up the reins. Snow had just fallen, frosting everything in glistening white, and they almost flew over the fields.

This was something new and thrilling. She had been the one to take him flying. He gave her something just as exciting.

She laughed. “There were horse-drawn sleighs in Central Park in New York, but I’ve never been in one. This is wonderful!” She loved the crispness of the air, the unique quiet created by the snow, broken by the jingle of bells.

Nigel turned to her, his eyes soft. “Tell me about your life in New York.”

That startled Zoe. She watched the snow sparkle. “You’ve never asked me about it before.”

His voice was husky. “I should have. I have been too wrapped up in my own problems. Tell me everything.”

She had to be careful—she didn’t want to tell him how poor she had once been. She told him about Broadway and Central Park, the galleries and the snobbish women who ruled Manhattan society. “In the winter, we would go to parties and dinners. But I loved to go ice-skating.”

“I can give you that,” he promised.

That afternoon, he took her ice-skating on the frozen part of the pond. Just to tease him, she pelted him with snowballs.

Through winter, there were dinners, balls—endless entertaining. She began to feel less like a strange outsider and more as if she were visiting friends.

And she and Nigel made love...often. Something had changed. Nigel would rap on her door on unexpected nights.

She loved being under the covers with him, making her bed warm, making them both hot and sweaty.

They would lie in her bed afterward and she would savor the precious time when he held her, stroked her. He would kiss, caress, cradle her until she fell asleep, and then he would leave.

Once she propped up on her elbows and asked, “Why don’t you need your schedule anymore?”

He looked surprised. As if he had never considered why. “Being with you, like this, makes me happy. Before, I was afraid and nervous—I had to gather strength to come to you. Now I see that being with you gives me strength.”

She kissed him hungrily. Lovingly.

After that he made love to her again, leaving them both bathed in sweat and breathless and laughing with pleasure. Then he started to come to her every night. He seemed as if he couldn’t get his fill of her. She didn’t speak of the War. She didn’t try to coax him to spend the night with her. She knew the exact moment he would get up to leave—she could tell by the way his arm stiffened around her, by the way he would let out a soft, sad sigh. It hurt him to leave her, but he still wouldn’t change.

So she would kiss him good-night and let him go.

All through the winter, she made plans for her goal. To fly around the world, she needed an airplane. Finding the perfect one kept Zoe busy for the month of February—she finally purchased one at the end of the month. Nigel was busy with work on the estate—planning work and repairs for spring.

She hadn’t told him her plan, because it would mean she would have to leave him for months.

On the first of March, her airplane was ready for her to bring to Brideswell. She had purchased an old DH-9, used in the Great War. She’d had it refurbished, with a new engine installed.

She took the train, hired a car and traveled to Croydon Airport. There she saw Major Quigley. “Your Grace,” he shouted. He strode over to her, bowed.

For a long time they discussed the mechanics of airplanes, improvements to the engines that they wanted to try. Then she said, “In two months you will be making your attempt to circumnavigate the globe.”

“Aye.” Quigley grinned. “Wish us luck.”

“I do. You’ll have to wish me luck, too. I intend to be the first woman to fly around the world.”

He gaped at her in shock. “Your husband is letting you do this?”

“I am my own person,” she declared. And she knew right then she was going to have to be honest with Nigel. She was supposed to be brave. She’d argued about him keeping secrets. Now she was doing it, and it had to stop.

* * *

As she landed in the field the next morning, her plane rumbling over the rutted ground, rain began to spatter her. Zoe brought the craft to a halt beside her other airplane. She laughed victoriously and raised her hands in the air. She had beaten the rain—she had made the flight from Croydon to Brideswell a lot faster than she’d planned.

She felt damned proud. The engine she’d insisted on installing in the plane was everything she’d dreamed—powerful and elegant.

“Zoe!”

She swung out of the cockpit and Nigel ran across the ground to her. He pointed to the sky behind her. To the masses of black clouds that had pursued her here.

“I know! I beat them. I was certain I would, Nigel.”

“You could have been wrong. You could have been caught by the storm. Damnation, why do you still have to take risks?”

“I’ve flown through storms before. It’s tricky, but I’ve managed each one successfully.” And she would need to know how to handle inclement weather. She might not be able to outrun a storm when she had nothing but ocean beneath her.

In the distance, thunder boomed.

Nigel looked thunderous. “Zoe, you are not to put yourself in danger again.”

After taking her sleigh-riding and skating, after making love to her so tenderly and with so much joy, he was filled with anger again. He wasn’t asking her to be careful. He was commanding her.

“I don’t plan to put myself in danger.” She caressed the side of her airplane. It was painted a bright, vivid red. “She’s gorgeous, isn’t she? I couldn’t wait to bring her home.” She turned to Nigel. “She’s a de Havilland DH-9. British built. This one saw service in 1917 and 1918. A lucky plane—it flew several missions and came back from each one unscathed. I had it refitted with a newer Liberty engine that I had shipped from the States.” Pride filled her heart. She had arranged the modifications herself and she had visited the airfield often to check on the work. She felt like her father—she had a goal, she had employed the right people to see it through, and she had been a stunning success.

She stroked the plane. “I am going to be the first female to fly around the world. I’ve begun working on it—charting out my route. And I’ll have to think about my flight crew—”

“No.”

“What?”

“I forbid this, Zoe.” Nigel crossed his arms over his chest.

“But this is my dream—”

“You expect me to just accept this?” he barked. “How long would this flight take you?”

“Less than six months.”

“I am supposed to let my wife fly away from me for six months?”

“I know it sounds like a long time, but it won’t really be that long.”

“This is ridiculous, Zoe.”

He said it dismissively and his words twisted in her like a knife. “I intend to be the
first
female to circumnavigate the globe. I can do this. You need three things: guts, ability and money. I do have those things, Nigel. And I want to show the world that I do.”

“You are my wife. There is nothing else you need to show the world.”

He really believed that. She saw it in his eyes. “I am more than just a man’s wife.”

She wanted to be known for something she had done, something she’d accomplished.

“Zoe, you could be killed. You could be hit by a storm. Or get lost. The engine could give out. You could crash—” He rubbed his temple. “I’ve seen aeroplane crashes in the War. Seen the fuselage explode. Seen the charred remains. Isn’t it enough that I still let you fly?”

“You do not ‘let’ me do anything. I am going to do this, Nigel. You can’t stop me. I have my own rights.”

“You had no right to plan this without telling me,” he snapped.

“I knew what you would do. Start acting like a father and not like a husband. I’m expected to support your decisions. I turned half my money over to you for your home. I want you to support my chance to make my name in the world, to do something of value.”

“I can’t support this, Zoe. I won’t.” And he stalked away across the field.

 21 

THE CRASH

Zoe went to bed that night fuming. Nigel was not going to stop her. He couldn’t take her dream away. She would never do that to him, and she wouldn’t let him do it to her.

But when she woke up the next morning, she felt queasy. This was the third day, and she knew. She hadn’t had her menstrual period since January, but Dr. Drury had warned her that after the miscarriage she might be irregular.

Beneath her hand, her tummy was still flat, but she knew with bone-deep certainty she was pregnant again. It was women’s intuition, maybe. And as soon as she came to that conclusion, she felt a leap of excitement—and ice-cold fear.

Dr. Drury had told her miscarriages tended to happen in the first three months of a pregnancy. She couldn’t raise Nigel’s hopes only to see them dashed if something went wrong.

She couldn’t bear it. It would devastate him.

They had found some fledgling happiness and she didn’t want to lose that.

She would wait to tell him, wait until it should be safer to do it, when it was more likely she would actually carry the baby until the end. Or she would wait until she began to show—then she would have to tell him.

And she would pray nothing terrible happened.

She got out of bed and started pacing around the room, her hand on her stomach. She wanted to feel happy—and she did—but terror gripped her, too. If she lost the baby, she couldn’t bear such a heartbreaking pain either.

“You also can’t walk around your room, worrying, for months and months.” There was nothing she could do. But wait. And hope. She wouldn’t believe the baby was real until she had passed the first few months of pregnancy—until she was in the clear.

Zoe walked to the window and looked out at the rare and beautiful bright blue sky. “Well, your dream is over for now. You can’t fly around the world now.” It would take at least six months. She couldn’t fly while eight months pregnant. That would be crazy.

She cupped her stomach. Her dream was gone. But—

She was
happy.
Closing her eyes, tears dripped to her cheeks. Another child. She had been blessed. But she looked up at the perfect sky—gorgeous for early March. She ached for just one last flight.

She’d lost her other child....

But she couldn’t believe that flying had had anything to do with that. Her body had betrayed her and flying an airplane had had nothing to do with that. There were village women who worked on their farms until they practically had to give birth in the fields.

One last flight wouldn’t hurt. One more—before she put her dream away and stopped flying for a very long time.

And after she got dressed and had a little breakfast to try to settle her stomach, she went to do it. Julia caught up with her and they walked together along the gravel path. Snow clung in little patches to Brideswell’s lawns.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Julia said.

“It’s the perfect day.” Zoe stretched her arms to the sky, as if she could grab it and climb into it. “Clear blue sky. Soft, puffy clouds kissed by sunlight. This is the kind of morning that begs you to fly.”

“Does it?” Julia strode at her side, dressed in tweeds and sturdy brogues, with a black cloche hat and a peacock feather. “I can’t imagine how you find the bravery to go up there.”

Zoe used to say she did it because it was exciting. And if you never experienced danger, you had never really tasted life. But she knew it hadn’t been bravery or a yearning to do something monumental that made her want to fly around the world. It was as much a desire to run away from sadness and regret and pain.

She kept trying to fly away from everything that hurt her.

Now she was going to stop running away. Nigel had reached out to her. And they were going to have happiness—when the baby was born.

After this one last flight, it would be a year until she could fly again.

She closed her eyes. This new life inside her made her think about the one she’d lost. Made her worry and feel fear. Soaring in the air one more time, feeling strong and in control, would help her push away the fear and the memories. She couldn’t have memories when she was making split-second decisions in the air.

Zoe tipped her face up to the sun. “Once you’re up, you are in such awe, you forget to be afraid. Though I never felt fear in the air without being in a situation that warranted it.” She was putting on a brave face, for her thoughts were on what she couldn’t control. The health of her baby.

“That’s not like me,” Julia said softly. “I’m apprehensive about everything.”

Zoe opened her eyes. “You are not. You
think
you should be.”

Julia frowned, her plucked brows drawing down. “I never thought of it that way before.”

“I hope you aren’t apprehensive about your surgeon. Not about falling in love.”

Julia turned to her. “I’ve made up my mind. I know I have to have him, or I’ll never be happy. I cannot marry for duty. Both Mama and Grandmama are constantly drumming it into my head, but I remember what you said. That I should follow my heart.” Julia looked pensive. “The problem is—I fear my surgeon feels as they do. I fear he will never ask me to marry him, because he believes it is out of the natural order of things.” She sighed. “Why are there men who are so noble and stubborn, and some who have absolutely no morals at all? We should blend them all together and then they would be perfect.”

Zoe sighed. “They might be. But then they would be bland. And we women wouldn’t like that at all.”

Julia laughed. Zoe smiled. They turned around the stables and ahead Zoe saw her brand-new plane. She felt the tingle of excitement to her toes.

“Don’t worry about your surgeon. I’ll convince Nigel to agree to the marriage.”

“Thank you, Zoe. And your aeroplane is gorgeous.”

“The red of my favorite lipstick,” Zoe said, beaming. She didn’t care what Nigel said. Flying around the world was what she’d been born to do. Someday she would do it.

And she was not going to let his family stand in the way of Julia’s happiness.

* * *

Just like the first time Zoe had brought her first plane to Brideswell, Nigel heard the cough and sputter of a motor in the air. But this time it sounded as if it were dying. It would go silent for seconds, roar briefly, then choke away again.

There was something wrong with the damned plane.

Nigel peered through the glass door of his study, but trees blocked his view of the sky. Cursing, he threw open the door and ran out onto the stone terrace.

Then he saw her: the sleek shape of her bright red biplane, emerging from beneath a thick white cloud. Just like the other time she flew in, she was dropping fast. Dropping toward the house. She must be trying to land on the smooth lawn, like she had done before. But as she neared the house, the sputtering ceased. The engine had cut out.

He began to run down the sloping lawn.

He heard the desperate sounds of Zoe trying to make the motor catch again.

But there had to be a point when it was too late.

He stared up at the sky. Wind buffeted the red wings, tossing the plane about. The craft seemed to jiggle through the air, as though held up by an invisible hand that would dash it to the ground. It wasn’t gliding toward the ground; it was twisting and writhing, and there would be no way Zoe could land it safely—

Christ, she was going to clip Brideswell’s roof. It would send her spinning into a crash.

“Zoe, pull up!” he shouted. “Pull up! You’re too low.” God, how could she pull up with no engine?

He was watching his wife slowly spiral into an aeroplane crash, powerless to help her.

By a miracle, the plane lifted a few inches as it soared over the house. Not a miracle, he realized. Somehow Zoe had caught an updraft, likely caused by the gusts of wind striking the stone face of Brideswell. His teeth ground so hard they almost snapped as he watched her landing wheels strike the battlements of the old part of the house.

He expected to see the wheels break off. But they didn’t, thank God.

He heard the engine fire again, and his heart began to beat, but it was a last gasp, like a death rattle. After a moment, the engine went completely, eerily silent.

She was going to crash, goddamn it.

Nigel ran around the house, reaching the front to see the plane give one last writhing fight to stay aloft. Then the nose dropped and the plane streaked toward the lilac bushes massed on the lawn. It went into the group of them, propeller first.

He heard her scream. The fearful, agonized scream of his wife. The weight of the wings forced the plane to overturn.

“Zoe! Zoe!” he shouted.

He ran toward the plane. Realizing one thing—hitting the tree had kept the plane from slamming into the ground, kept the front end from crumpling into the fuselage, kept the fuel from igniting.

He had to get her out. The branches could have ripped into the gas tank and the fuel could be leaking out.

God, had the branches hurt her? Had the crash hurt her?

He had hauled boys out of battle—boys with their legs gone, their faces torn off. He had gone to fallen lads to find them headless.

His brain felt as if it were exploding with horror as he feared what he was going to see when he found Zoe. His precious Zoe—

She was strapped into the cockpit, unconscious and upside down. The plane had been skewered by the strong green branches of the tree, but the weight of it falling had shoved most of them out of the way. She bore some scratches on her face, but she seemed miraculously all right.

She was strapped in, which had saved her life. But now he had to get the buckle undone. He had to do it fast. He could smell fuel. They were one hundred yards from the house. Shouting sounded around him—indistinct.

Goddamn belt. He couldn’t get it free. He tore at it wildly—stupid thing to do. It got him nowhere. He had to work logically, carefully. He didn’t care if the fuel exploded and took him. But he had to save Zoe. He loved her so much.

He pressed close to her, trying to ensure he didn’t hurt her. He couldn’t see where the belt fastened—he could do it only by feel. Forcing his brain to work fast, he remembered how he had done it up in the passenger seat of her other aeroplane.

It released.

He lifted her, drawing her out and putting her over his shoulder. Then he ran. Toward the house.

He waved the shocked, startled, curious, shouting people—his family, the servants—to go back. “The fuel is leaking. It will explode. Get back!”

There was a roar and a great wall of hot air shoved him forward. He fought not to let it throw him to the ground so he wouldn’t hurt Zoe. He stumbled to his knees. There was another sound—of bursting glass as windows on the main floor of the house blew out in the shock wave.

Was anyone hurt in the house?

“Oh, my heavens, is she all right?” It was Julia, dropping to her knees at his side as he laid Zoe on the grass.

He didn’t know. All along, he’d assumed she was unconscious. Gently, he put his hand to her throat. Nothing. Christ, no. No—

No, there. He felt the beat of her pulse.

He met Julia’s terrified eyes. “She’s alive. I don’t know how badly she’s injured. I have to get her inside.” He turned finally to see the devastation behind him. The wood-and-canvas plane was being eaten by flame. The lilacs were on fire, their blackened leaves curling up and floating into the sky.

Men of the estate were running toward it. Some had buckets; others carried brooms and blankets to beat out the flames.

“I have to get her inside. Stay with her while I deal with the fire. We have to fetch the doctor.”

It was then he heard the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. Softly, Zoe’s voice came from below. “Nigel?”

“Zoe. Dear God, Zoe.” He was afraid to move her, and when she struggled to sit up, he put his hand gently on her chest and bent close to her. “Lie still. I’ll get you into the house. Do you hurt anywhere?”

“My face. It stings. My arm—I think I hit a branch as I shielded my face. And my stomach. My stomach hurts. I slammed forward into the controls—”

But the belt had held her in. It had to mean she wasn’t badly hurt. Dear God, it had to.

“My stomach. Oh, God. Oh, Nigel. I forgot— Oh, God, the baby.”

Baby? Was she confused? Delirious and thinking back to the awful night when they’d lost their son?

“I didn’t tell you. You must tell the doctor. I was pregnant again. What if the baby is not okay?”

Her eyes closed, and she fainted with her hands clasped in his.

He’d never felt anything like it. She was pregnant again. She’d flown while pregnant—maybe she had been planning her trip around the world, ignoring his objections.

And so he wouldn’t stop her. She just hadn’t told him. He shook with fear and rage.

Christ, none of that mattered now. He lifted her carefully and carried her into the house.

* * *

Zoe sat up in her bed, propped up by a half dozen pillows in silk cases. Callie had fussed over her, dressing her in a satin nightgown with a feather-trimmed peignoir. It was two days after the crash and she didn’t care what she wore.

Dr. Drury had come to check on her. “Feeling better, Your Grace?”

It was so hard to speak she had to shake her head first. “I lost the baby, Dr. Drury. Today I felt the same gushing sensation. A lot of blood came out.”

“Then I am afraid you probably have lost the child, Your Grace.”

Drury was a direct man. There was no denying the truth. No trying to ease her guilt. “It was the crash, wasn’t it?” she asked, her heart hollow.

“It may have been the shock. It might have been an injury you sustained during the crash. Or it may have been destined to happen anyway.”

“I was so foolish. After the last time, I should have been more careful.”

Tactfully, he said nothing, of course. Then he said, “It may have made no difference.”

“Perhaps my body is not able to bear a child.”

“It is far too early to say that yet. To reassure you, Your Grace, these miscarriages may have no bearing on your ability to have healthy babies—and many of them. I have known women to have several miscarriages, then go on to have three or four children. Or more.”