Текст книги "Truce"
Автор книги: R. L. Mathewson
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“None of my friends wanted to have anything to do with me, which left me on my own. It wasn’t a good place to be in a school full of spoiled boys with nothing better to do then make each other miserable. Every day for about two years I was beat up, my books were stolen, my classwork trashed, my room ransacked and soaked in vinegar. They made a game of making my life a living hell.”
“Robert, I’m-”
But he didn’t give her a chance to apologize. That wasn’t the reason why he was telling her this story, he realized.
“When I was fourteen, I’d had enough and started to fight back. I wasn’t much of a fighter, but I was angry, so goddamn angry all the time that my temper soon became unpredictable. One day they’d pushed me too far and I snapped, really snapped. I flipped out in the middle of class and threw a desk through a window.”
“What happened next?”
The headmaster had beaten him within an inch of his life, but he wasn’t going to tell his wife that. So instead he told her the only part that mattered to him. “I was given a choice by my instructor, fix the desk or pack my bags. I actually packed my bags and was ready to leave when I found the parting gift the other boys had placed in my bag.”
“What was it?” Elizabeth asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“A lemon,” Robert simply said, remembering the rage that he’d damn near gave into the moment that he found the fruit stuffed in his bag.
He’d wanted to tear the school apart, to beat the hell out of every boy that had taunted him, to make their lives a living hell the way they had made his, but he couldn’t do that if he let them win, he’d realized.
“I decided not to let them win. I wasn’t going to let them push me out, because I’d realized that James was right. Every morning before class and every evening after class I walked down to the village and worked with John, who was the town carpenter, to fix the desk that I’d destroyed. When it became obvious that the desk was beyond repair, he taught me how to make one from scratch.”
“I didn’t think that I’d enjoy it, but I did. I loved it. Long after the desk was done, I kept showing up and he never told me to leave. It kept me focused and probably kept me out of a lot of trouble. I still got into fights, but not as many and whenever John heard that I’d been in a fight he worked me until I could barely walk back to the school. He helped keep me in line and gave me something to look forward to each day.”
“It sounds like he was a good man,” Elizabeth said around a small sniffle.
“He was,” Robert agreed, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
He held her in his arms for a long time. When the fire started to die out and she hadn’t said anything, he realized that she must have fallen asleep in his arms. Carefully, he adjusted her in his arms and picked her up. He carried her to the bed and gently lay her down. Before he could manage to stand up, she grabbed his hand and gave it a gentle tug.
Not one to argue with his wife, he climbed in bed with her and curled up behind her when she shifted onto her side. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her tightly against him.
“I’m sorry, Robert, for what I did to you,” she said, taking him by surprise as she said the words that he’d been waiting half his life to hear. But instead of yelling at her or rubbing her apology in her face like he’d always imagined he would at this moment, he pressed a kiss to the back of her neck and said the words that would set them both free.
“I’m sorry too, minx.”
Chapter 31
Boston Harbor
7 Weeks later……
“Ah, Robert?”
“Shhhh, not while I’m praying,” he said, momentarily losing his place before he started again, “thank you for letting us survive that trip from hell. Thank you for ignoring my prayers for a quick death when I didn’t think that I’d be able to survive another day of starvation,” he said, making her roll her eyes in annoyance.
“You were given three full meals a day just like everyone else,” she pointed out, not bothering to mention the fact that, on most days, he’d received second helpings. She sat down on a bench near their luggage, wondering just how much longer he was going to keep this up.
“I’m sorry for all the cursing that my wife forced me to do while I was on that boat,” he continued, ignoring her even as he amused her. “As you know, she’s been such a bad influence on me. Thank you for pulling me from near death and somehow giving me the strength to survive.”
“Near death?” she asked, frowning. “When were you near death?”
“When was I near death?” he asked in stunned disbelief as he opened his eyes so that he could glare at her. “How could you forget all those times that I could barely move? When I struggled to find the will to live so that I wouldn’t leave you a young widow? Did my struggle for survival mean nothing to you?” he demanded in outrage, terrifying the people that were forced to walk past him to get to the docks and making her wrack her brain as she struggled to figure out what he was talking about.
“Do you mean those few times when you had a touch of seasickness?” she asked, unable to think of anything else that he could be talking about since he’d been the picture of health during the majority of the trip.
“A touch?” he repeated in disbelief. “I nearly died!”
“Because you were forced to miss breakfast a few times?” she asked, trying her best not to laugh or smile, but he looked so adorable just then that she admittedly didn’t put up much of a struggle.
“It was hell! Pure hell!” he snapped, shocking several of the women trying to rush past him.
“Try having seasickness every morning and night,” she said dryly as she stood up and gestured for several dockworkers to help them with their luggage.
“That makes my ordeal worse!” he said, coming to his feet so that he could offer her his arm. “I needed my strength so that I could tend to you and keep you alive.”
“The peppermint tea did that,” she said with a shrug.
His gasp of outrage was simply too adorable. “You ungrateful brat! After everything I did for you to ensure your survival and this is how you repay me? With your mockery?”
She opened her mouth to tease him when the reminder that she hadn’t had a chance to have her peppermint tea this morning hit her with the force of a battering ram. “Robert?” was all she had to say.
“Damn it!” he snapped, all humor leaving his face as he scooped her up in his arms and quickly carried her over to a stack of crates where she’d have some privacy.
As soon as he stepped behind the crates, he put her down on her feet and helped her kneel at the edge of the dock. He held onto her hips so that she wouldn’t have to worry about falling into the water as she was sick for the first time in a week. When she was done, she sat back against Robert, who wrapped his arms around her and murmured sweet endearments as they waited for the nausea to pass.
“I’m fine,” she said a few minutes later, panting slightly as she did her best to give him a reassuring smile when they both knew that she wasn’t.
“The hell you are,” Robert practically snarled as he helped her to her feet. As soon as she was standing up, albeit a bit wobbly, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her back towards the dockworkers waiting by their luggage.
“I can walk,” she said even though she wasn’t entirely sure that was true.
“You’re not walking.”
“People are staring,” she pointed out quietly, embarrassed by all the attention.
“Then let them stare. You’re not walking!” he snapped, sounding angry, but she knew that he wasn’t mad at her.
Robert was terrified that there was something seriously wrong with her. She’d been ill during most of the trip, sometimes too sick to leave the bed. When she wasn’t sick she was exhausted, sleeping away most of the morning and falling asleep at night before the sun even had a chance to set. The ship’s doctor hadn’t helped matters when he’d tried to restrict her to their room for most of the trip.
The doctor had examined her multiple times at Robert’s request and each time he’d claimed different reasons for her illness. The last suggestion had Robert throwing the man out of their room and on his ass. He still wouldn’t tell her what the doctor said, but the way she caught him watching her sometimes let her know that it was bad.
Whenever she asked him what the doctor said, he would smile and reassure her that it was nothing. Then he would do whatever it took to distract her. They’d walk the deck of the ship, play cards, read, and reminisce about the old days until it was time to go to bed. Then he would make love to her tenderly as though he was savoring their time together, which only frightened her more.
“Take us to the finest hotel,” he demanded as soon as they were within speaking distance of the men waiting by their luggage.
“I thought we were going straight home?” she asked, feeling slightly disappointed that she’d have to wait another day to see her new home even though the prospect of spending the next few hours in a coach didn’t really appeal to her.
“Shhh, minx, it’s fine,” he said, shifting her in his arms so that he could hold her closer. “Everything will be fine.”
---
“Well? What’s wrong with her?” Robert demanded in a hushed whisper as he looked up from his sleeping wife to the elderly doctor that looked confused and somewhat amused.
“You say that two different doctors have examined her in the past two months?” the doctor asked as he adjusted Elizabeth’s nightgown and pulled the covers up and tucked her in.
“Yes,” Robert bit out, doing his damndest to keep a rein on his temper, but it was difficult right now when he was scared out of his mind that he was going to lose his minx.
“Remind me what they diagnosed her with again,” the doctor said with a patient smile as he sat down on the edge of the bed by Elizabeth’s side.
Praying that he could get through this without grabbing the elderly doctor by his shoulders and demanding that he fix his wife, Robert took a deep breath before he answered. “The first doctor said that she’d miscarried our child. The second doctor told me a combination of things. Sometimes he said that it was all in her head, that she was just doing it for attention. Then he would say that she had liver damage, the flu, migraines even though she never once complained of a headache and the last time,” he started to say when his voice broke, “the last time he said that she most likely had cancer.”
“I see,” the doctor murmured, reaching up and pulling the covers back that he’d just adjusted. “How did he explain the weight gain?” he asked, placing his hand over the slight curve of Elizabeth’s stomach that was becoming more noticeable with each passing day.
“He said it was from her overeating to compensate for her illness.”
“I see,” the doctor said, his lips twitching as he gestured to Elizabeth’s chest. “And have you noticed a difference there?”
God, yes…..
Her breasts appeared to be bigger and a hell of a lot more sensitive. He’d actually made her come just from licking her nipples last week. It had turned him on so much that he’d-The doctor chuckled, bringing his focus back where it should be. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” he said as he pulled the covers back up.
“Do you know what’s wrong with her?” he asked, desperate for an answer. He really didn’t know what he’d do without her. He didn’t want to live without her. He-
“Your wife is pregnant.”
–was going to be sick.
“W-what?’ his asked, trying to make sense of what he’d just heard as his head began to spin and his legs stopped working.
With a chuckle, the doctor helped him sit down in the chair next to the bed. Then without a word, he gave Robert’s shoulders a gentle push that had him bending forward as he struggled to take in his next breath.
“If I had to guess, I would say that your wife is around four months along,” the doctor calmly explained.
Robert shook his head as he struggled to grasp what was going on. “No,” he said, forcing himself to breathe, “that’s impossible. She lost the baby two months ago.”
“I’ve been doing this for over fifty years, young man, and I can tell you without any doubt that your wife is indeed pregnant.”
“She bled,” Robert said, moving to sit up, but a fresh wave of dizziness had him dropping his head right back where it was.
“Mmmhmm, some women do that early on. It doesn’t mean that she lost the baby. Has she bled since?”
“No,” he said numbly as he did his best to wrap his mind around what the doctor was saying.
“What was the reason the doctor gave for the lack of bleeding?” the doctor asked, thankfully giving him something else to focus on.
“He said that it took months for a woman’s natural rhythm to return.”
The doctor released a snort of amusement. “That’s a first.”
“I should bring her back to London,” he said numbly even as he realized that he couldn’t afford the passage back for both of them.
Well, that wasn’t completely true. He could afford third class passenger tickets, but he didn’t like the idea of his wife being forced to share a room with strangers. He also didn’t like the idea of his wife being forced to rest on those hard cots that the third class accommodations were famous for. There was no way in hell that he was sending his pregnant wife back to London by herself.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the doctor said even though it hadn’t been a real possibility for them. “She’s obviously having a tough time with this pregnancy. I also wouldn’t recommend placing her on a ship where the passengers could carry God only knows what diseases. It’s not good for her or the baby.”
“Oh my God,” he muttered as dread crawled up his spine when he realized that he’d done just that.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about her being sick,” the doctor said, obviously reading his mind. “She looks very healthy to me, just tired. Make sure she gets plenty of rest.”
“I will,” Robert promised, turning his head so that he could look at his minx. “I’ll take good care of her.”
Chapter 32
Bridgewater, Massachusetts
“So, what do you think?”
“What do I think?” Elizabeth repeated numbly as she slowly turned around, taking in the large room covered in dust, cobwebs, the peeling wallpaper, dull floorboards, covered furniture and ruined rugs.
“I know it’s not much,” Robert began, but she didn’t let him get far before she was throwing herself in his arms.
“I love it!” she said, giggling excitedly as she wrapped her arms around his neck and covered his face in kisses.
“Are you sure?” he asked, sounding pleased as he wrapped his arms around her and stopped her kissing assault by pressing a swift kiss against her lips.
“I’m sure,” she said, grinning hugely as she wrapped her legs around his waist.
“It’s going to take a lot of work.”
“I know,” she said, sighing with pleasure as she looked around the large sitting room, already running ideas through her head.
“We’re going to have to do most of the work ourselves,” he explained, giving her an apologetic look.
“Can I be in charge?” she asked teasingly. She truly didn’t mind getting her hands dirty, especially if it meant that they had a home of their own, but also because she knew that he was embarrassed that he couldn’t afford a houseful of servants.
“Yes, minx,” he said, pressing a quick kiss against her lips as he turned them around and headed through the open door that led to the dinning room that needed just as much work, if not more, as the sitting room.
“I asked Higgings this morning if he could find us a live-in maid,” he announced, surprising her as he walked over to the windows that were covered in ratty old curtains that were definitely going to have to go.
“Can we afford that?” she asked, nibbling on her bottom lip as guilt once again surfaced.
Thanks to her, Robert was forced to support two extra people on a limited income. If her father had given her a dowry, things wouldn’t be so bad, but he hadn’t. They were left completely dependent on the money Robert had raised from selling all of his investments before they’d left London and the money he had left over after buying this house and fixing it.
For a moment she thought about writing her father for help, but then she remembered the morning when they’d left. He’d pleaded with her not to leave, begged her, offered her anything and everything that she could ever want and when none of that had worked, he’d yelled at her. He told her that if she left that she was on her own. He wouldn’t help her.
Robert’s parents had pretty much said the same thing as they’d tried to talk him out of leaving. He tried to explain things to them, but they wouldn’t listen. They didn’t seem to realize how unhappy Robert was living in England, something that she had understood since that night in the orangery. All they saw was their youngest son leaving everything behind and taking a woman with him that they believed would destroy his life.
Everyone in their family was terrified that this marriage was going to ruin their lives and, no matter what they said or did, they couldn’t convince them otherwise. So Robert and Elizabeth had stopped trying and instead made the best of their goodbyes. She’d squeezed her father tightly, kissed her mother’s pale cheek, hugged the life out of Mary and Anthony and chased down her nephews for enough kisses to last a lifetime. She’d even had a chance to say to goodbye to Heather.
Unfortunately.
Just as they’d been preparing to leave, Heather arrived home in an extravagant coach, the first of many purchases that Heather had made with her newfound inheritance. When she’d stepped out of her coach, covered from head to toe in silk and jewels with James by her side, Elizabeth realized that her sister had made another major change in her life.
She’d married James.
Apparently the will had been more lenient for Heather. As long as she married a respectable man, the inheritance was hers. There was no request for a title, for Heather to remain chaste before the wedding, or a proper wedding. James apparently had discovered that the morning that he’d waited in her father’s office for her marriage to Robert to be annulled. Once he realized that he would only get the inheritance if he married Heather, he did everything he could to make that happen.
Not that she suspected Heather had put up much of a fight. James was handsome and titled. They were married by special license and after a very short honeymoon, they decided to come home and announce their good news, which coincided with her and Robert’s goodbyes. Even though it had turned her stomach to see Heather enjoying the inheritance that should have done some good in this world, she was happy that Robert had a chance to say goodbye to his brother.
Unfortunately, James hadn’t felt the same way. He’d walked right past Robert as though he hadn’t seen or heard him. He did stop to give her a brief hug and wish her luck, but then he was back by his wife’s side and that was it. Seeing the hurt expression on Robert’s face had nearly destroyed her. She tried to call James back, but Robert simply shook his head and helped her into the carriage that took them to the ship.
“Yes, minx,” he said, pressing a kiss to the tip of her nose as he turned to survey the rest of the room, “we can afford a live-in maid.”
“And the baby?” she asked, voicing the fears that had taken root as soon as Robert had told her the wonderful news.
“Will no doubt be spoiled,” he said with a smile as he carried her towards what appeared to be the kitchen door, but a loud knock from the front door had him pausing mid-step.
With a frown, he carefully placed her on her feet, took her hand in his and led her towards the front entrance where a formidable looking woman in her fifties stood waiting, looking around the foyer with a look of determination that actually frightened her a little. She reminded Elizabeth of her old nanny, Mrs. Mathers, who had run the nursery like a general.
“Can I help you?” Robert asked as they stepped into the small foyer.
“Are you Mr. Bradford?” the woman asked as she looked them both over.
“Yes, and you are?”
“Mrs. Brown, your new maid,” she announced with a nod as she reached down and picked up the bag that Elizabeth hadn’t noticed until now. “I assume my room is off the kitchen?” she asked, already heading that way.
“May I ask who sent you?” Robert asked as they moved to follow after the woman, who’d apparently decided that the job was hers.
“My son-in-law, Mr. Higgings. The pay is less than I would have liked, but I suppose it will have to do,” she said, pausing to look at the tattered curtains in the dining room and with a shake of her head, she continued on to the kitchen. “Now, I don’t have any references, but you don’t really need them.”
“We don’t?” Robert said dryly, sounding amused.
Mrs. Brown simply shook her head as she paused just inside the kitchen so that she could survey the room. “No, you don’t. The only thing that you need to know is that I’m a hard worker, raised ten children, five of them my sister’s. I know how to cook, clean, run a household, and I’d wager my skills with children will come in handy soon enough. As long as you pay me my wages on time, respect my privacy, allow me to have every other Sunday and Wednesday off and remember to keep your hands to yourself, Mr. Bradford, I think we’ll get along just fine” she announced, testing a door to the right and when it opened she peered inside the room, nodded and walked inside, shutting the door behind her and leaving Elizabeth shaking with uncontrollable laughter.
“Did…did she just imply what I think she just did?” Robert asked, looking torn between amusement and horror.
Unable to answer, she was forced to reach out and grip the table or take the chance of falling flat on her bottom.
“Why are you laughing, minx? You should be going in there and defending my honor!” he said with mock outrage as he swept her up into his arms and headed for the door.
“Where are we going?” she asked when she could manage to talk again.
“To find a bedroom so that you can make up for your lack of loyalty to me,” he said, smiling that carefree smile that had started to appear since they’d left London.
“Because I wouldn’t attack an old woman for you?” she asked, trying not to smile.
“Yes,” he said without pause as he opened the first door that they came across and walked inside, kicking the door closed behind them as he set her on her feet. Biting back a smile, she moved away from him, loving the playful grin that tugged at his lips.
“Now,” he said, stalking after her as he reached down and undid his pants, “let’s see if we can’t find a way for you make this betrayal up to me, shall we?”
---
“Out,” Mrs. Brown simply said, ignoring his glare as she continued to point towards the door.
“But-”
She stubbornly shook her head. “You were warned, Mr. Bradford,” she said while his minx stuck her tongue at him from across the room and away from Mrs. Brown’s stern gaze.
“But, she-” he said, starting to point at his wife, but Mrs. Brown wasn’t listening.
“I told you that you could stay in the house as long as you didn’t interfere with our work,” she said firmly, still pointing towards the door.
“This is my house, woman,” he bit out, deciding that the woman simply needed to be reminded, but apparently she didn’t give a damn whose house it was, because she just kept pointing as she said, “Out.”
So he decided to try a different tactic, one that he hadn’t used since they were children. “She started it!” he said accusingly as he pointed towards Elizabeth, who apparently remembered this little ploy because she let out a heartfelt sob, the same one that used to work on his parents and end with him sent to his room without pudding.
Finally, the damn woman dropped her arm. She folded her hands in front of her as she looked up at him, her expression stern. “Mr. Bradford, it wasn’t Mrs. Bradford that I caught pinning you up against the wall and kissing you senseless when I returned from getting another bucket of soapy water,” she said, reminding him of his offense and making it damn difficult not to smile.
“I was just trying to clean,” Elizabeth said softly, adding a pathetic sniffle at the end that had him biting back another smile and Mrs. Brown’s eyes narrowing on him.
“Why are you taking her side?” Robert demanded, loving the mischievous smile that his minx was sending his way. “She’s the one that started it! She attacked me!” he said, slapping a hand against his chest and making sure to look properly wounded. “I was minding my own business, taking down the wallpaper like you’d asked when she grabbed me from behind and manhandled me!”
With a small sigh, Mrs. Brown looked over her shoulder at his minx, who was smart enough to wipe that smile off her face and let her chin tremble as she made a show of picking up her brush from the bucket of soapy water and return to washing the floor, adding a little sniffle here and there as she worked.
The woman was screwing him over and clearly enjoying herself, he realized with a grin. His minx was wonderful, he thought with a sigh as he took a step to go to her, but Mrs. Brown wasn’t having any of that.
With that damn finger pointed back towards the door, she said, “Out.”
Knowing that the woman probably wouldn’t leave the room again so that he could have a chance to kiss his minx, he decided that perhaps it was best to head out to the barn and set up his shop.
“Fine, I’m going,” he said, heading for the door, pausing only long enough to send his minx a wink, “but you’ll pay for this later.”
