An American Duchess (23 page)

She awoke again in the morning, woke to another gray day. She woke knowing the pain of grief. The dry, raw throat. The listless, heavy beat of her heart. The weight of pain shoving down on her shoulders.

It would kill her, this grief. Kill her unless she fought it.

 18 

BRIDESWELL AT CHRISTMAS

The house smelled of the tart, fresh scent of pine. Preparations for Christmas at Brideswell had begun.

Zoe went downstairs, wearing a long tweed skirt, a cardigan, a scarf around her bobbed hair. She had thrown herself into Christmas decorating. The busywork ensured she had less time to think.

It had been more than three weeks since her miscarriage. She believed she’d stopped bleeding—it was two days since she’d seen spots. She no longer felt physical pain. But every moment she wished it hadn’t happened. Wished she was having Christmas with the gift of a baby growing inside her.

Nigel had insisted she be treated like a delicate patient, but she could not stand lying in bed any longer. If she behaved like an invalid, she had nothing to do but
think.

Arms crossed over her chest, Zoe walked from room to room, watching dark green garlands of pine boughs and holly be hoisted up by the maids and footmen and secured over doorways and windows. Maids giggled as they saw mistletoe go up over doorways in the drawing room.

An enormous tree had been brought into the main hallway—the top of it stood higher than the railings of the gallery, so it could be reached from there to be decorated. In a vast flurry of movement, servants hurried about with ribbons and garlands and wreaths and boxes of ornaments wrapped in tissue.

Every moment Zoe was filled with a yearning to smile and cry. She walked to the window and traced the condensation running down the panes.

Outside the windows, snow blanketed the lawns and the gardens. Snow had fallen heavily all week. It made the trees look as if they’d been iced in white marzipan.

If only she could be standing here hoping to one day look out and see their son playing in the snow.

She thought of Nigel launching boats for his nephews. She could imagine him laughing as his son tossed snow at him.

Her heart twisted in her chest and tears came, as if they’d been wrung out of her heart. Quickly she brushed them away. The ache in her heart was terrible—she couldn’t stand it anymore. Once she was sure she could control her tears, she turned away from the window.

She walked around the tree, assessing it. Since electric lighting had been installed at her direction, the tree would be decorated with lights that could be plugged in. No doubt it would shock the dowager and her mother-in-law, but it would be beautiful.

Planning the tree had felt good. Productive. Maids began to hang the glass balls on the tree—Zoe took some and helped, pointing where some should be moved.

But the moment she pictured her son holding up an ornament, wanting to put it on the tree “by self,” as she used to demand, she knew she must do something else.

She left the maids to the tree and hurried away. She found Julia in the dining room, giving directions. One of the maids squealed and Zoe turned. A garland of evergreen boughs tumbled from the doorway and fell to the floor. The girl was covering her hair and her cap with her hands, trembling on the top of a step stool.

She got down with shaky legs.

Zoe scooped up the end of the garland, held it above her head and began to march up the steps. The maid gasped and grasped the side of the stool. “No, Your Grace. You mustn’t do that.”

Julia rushed over and reached for the garland. “We’ll have the footmen put these up. Zoe, you shouldn’t be up there.”

“Please don’t fuss over me.” Zoe sighed. “I really don’t want it. It’s not that I’ve not appreciated everyone’s kindness and concern. It’s just that I do not want to be considered fragile any longer.”

“But, Zoe, Nigel will have my head if I don’t take care of you,” Julia protested.

“Nigel refuses to see that I need to do something other than lie in a bed.” Though she might want to lie in a bed if she could do it in Nigel’s arms. But that did not happen. He hadn’t come to her and held—just simply held—her since she’d lost the baby.

Frustrated, she tramped down the steps, her heels clattering on them. She handed the garland to one of the young footmen—Ben, a local farmer’s son. Zoe waved it away and remained standing, but still the new young parlor maid, Gladys, brought the silver tea tray for her.

Obviously she was supposed to sit and drink tea and watch the world, not take part in it. These were Nigel’s instructions to the staff.

She couldn’t
stand
doing that.

She knew Nigel had been the one to insist she be fussed over. Why didn’t he listen to her?

“You really should sit and rest.” Julia removed the lid off a box, took out a delicate glass-ball ornament and began to thread a ribbon through the loop to hang it. “When is your mother to arrive?”

“In two days.” Zoe held in a shudder. She wasn’t ready for Mother’s visit. When she had telephoned to tell Mother about the miscarriage, Mother had howled over the phone. It hadn’t helped. But to take care of Zoe, Annabelle Gifford was determined to come and be with her over Christmas. Mother was sailing on a more southerly route, then traveling by train.

“Are you all right, Zoe?”

“No. I know it is going to be terrible with Mother. She will fuss. She will talk about it all the time. I want to move on.”

“We will keep her occupied. There are so many things to do at Christmas—collecting the Yule log, caroling, games, exchanging gifts....”

Again that awful thought came to Zoe: it would have been so sweet to have welcomed Christmas knowing that for the next one, they would have a baby.

Her heart squeezed so tight she couldn’t draw breath. She didn’t want anyone to know. Zoe couldn’t bear being ushered up to her room. She couldn’t bear Nigel insisting that she rest. She couldn’t argue with him—that was the problem. She couldn’t have sharp words with him, because he looked so grim and haunted and unhappy.

But if he kept pushing her—if he kept insisting she do nothing, she was going to snap and she was going to fight with him.

And she didn’t want that. The thought of it was like a fifty-pound weight crushing her heart.

Julia frowned at Zoe’s silence. “I’ve been trying to think of a gift for Nigel. I can’t think of one.”

No one knew enough of what was in Nigel’s heart, Zoe saw, to know what kind of present he would like.

But she shook her head. “Perhaps something lighthearted. A jazz recording. Something that will make him forget, even for a little while; something to make him smile. When I look at him, I know he’s remembering. All the time—” She broke off.

That, she hadn’t meant to say out loud. She couldn’t even bear to think it.

“Zoe, I—”

“He can’t forget the War. I know he won’t be able to—to put this behind him. He barely speaks to me....” She took a deep breath. “But I know when I look at him that is what he is thinking of.”

“Oh, Zoe, I’m so sorry.”

That was what tormented her. They had been slowly building happiness between them—the joy of the baby, the time they had waltzed on their honeymoon, their intimacy. When he looked at her now, he wasn’t thinking of kissing her, of being intimate, of learning to fly. He must be thinking of how much he’d lost.

It was what she thought of when she looked at him—she thought of how she wanted to be happy with him, how she wished they were celebrating a baby coming, how she wished there wasn’t so much pain in his eyes. When their eyes met, that was what they shared now—deep, hard pain.

* * *

In the late afternoon, as the sun dipped and long blue shadows fell over the snow, Zoe put on heavier walking shoes, a wool cloche hat, a long coat, a long skirt and woolen stockings—Julia had insisted she needed all these things to walk outdoors in the winter.

She was going to slip out through the French doors onto the west terrace when she heard someone clear his throat behind her and she jumped. “Where are you going?” asked a commanding, masculine voice. “It is freezing outside and the walks are slippery.
You
are not to go outdoors.”

Zoe spun around. Her husband stood there. “I have to go outdoors. I want to see—to go to our son’s grave. I haven’t even seen it yet. I’ve rested and rested and I can’t stand it anymore.”

He didn’t come closer to her. Instead, he paced on the rug, near the fireplace and its roaring fire. But despite fires, Brideswell always felt as if the walls were breathing cold on her.

“I know you have not seen it yet, but now is not the right time. It’s the coldest day of December so far, and we’ve had snow, then rain, and now everything has frozen solid.” Nigel raked back his hair. “Zoe, you look pale and tired. It is too early for you to be up and about.”

“I’m pale because I’ve been kept in my room like the madwoman in
Jane Eyre.
Every time I’ve tried to do anything, someone stops me.”

“Everyone is worried about you.”

“I am worried about me most of all. I feel so different. It is as if I barely remember the woman I was only one month ago.”

He flinched. She saw how different he looked. That was one thing with him avoiding her—the changes she saw in him were not incremental to her. “I feel empty and lost,” she said.
I’m sure you do, too. I know you do. I hear you cry, even though you lock your door to me now.
“I’m afraid to feel like this. I don’t want to be this empty, sorrowful person. I don’t want to look at you and think only of our loss. I keep thinking there must be a way to go back.”

“There is not, Zoe. I know.”

“I can’t erase what happened, but I can’t live as if I’m dead. And I can’t fight the emptiness and pain unless I begin to do things. Deep inside, I feel too tired to try to do anything. My body feels heavy and weak. But I don’t want to become a listless, useless female who does nothing but drape her body on the couch. If I have nothing but my thoughts and my pain, I will go mad.”

He jerked his head up. “All right. But I do not want you walking on your own. I will take you to our son’s—our son’s marker.”

She waited while he dressed in a long wool coat, a scarf—his “muffler”—a tall hat and leather gloves. They went out the front door, and Nigel took her hand and tucked it in the crook of his arm.

They were going to see the grave of their baby and she couldn’t talk about it. “You collect the Yule log tomorrow, don’t you?” she asked. “On Christmas Eve day. Julia told me you light the log and it is supposed to burn all through Christmas. And at night, there is caroling and the midnight mass. I intend to do all these things tomorrow.”

“No, you will not. It will be too tiring.”

“I am fine, Nigel. I’m strong. And I want to be a part of your traditions.”
I want to be a part of your life.
They walked to the quaint stone chapel that had been built for Nigel’s mother. Beyond it was a little churchyard, covered in a blanket of shiny, frozen snow. Dollops of snow sat on the ornate stone marker.

Flowers sat in a stone vase at the headstone—a bouquet of roses from Brideswell’s greenhouses in spring colors of yellow and pink and unique gold. They were fresh, and a white ribbon held them together.

She hurried forward and almost lost her balance. But Nigel was there and he caught her, putting his arm around her waist, and when she skidded again, he had to draw her against his chest to keep her upright. Her cheek brushed the wool of his coat. He smelled of Brideswell—pine, smoke, eternity—and he also smelled like Nigel.

His touch left her breathless. She had longed for this—just to touch him and hold him. Zoe didn’t straighten and regain her balance. She let her body relax against his, and she let her cheek feel the beat of his heart, muffled by his coat.

If only—

Sorrow welled up, and she couldn’t turn and look at the piece of cold stone that marked the little boy who had never had a chance to live.

What was she going to do? Drown in pain? She was so afraid—losing her brother and losing Richmond had been awful. But this was a pain that seemed to have seeped even deeper into her heart and her soul.

“I want to do Christmas things,” she said defiantly. “I want to walk through the village and sing carols and drink rum punch and mulled wine and get drunk so I can’t think. But, oh, God, Nigel, I can’t think of Christmas without thinking of a little boy who would one day be excited to have a stocking and to open his presents.”

“I know.”

“I feel so trapped—trapped between wanting to do nothing but hurt and wanting to break free. I can’t stand feeling so
trapped.
”

“I know, Zoe. Look at you—you’re freezing and you’re shivering.”

It wasn’t the winter air making her cold. “I can’t hide in bed forever. Whether you like it or not.”

“No. In battle, there were so many men I couldn’t save. And I couldn’t save our son. But I
will
take care of you.”

She was about to protest again, but then she did the worst thing possible—she sniffled and sneezed.

* * *

Nigel picked Zoe up into his arms, against her protests, and carried her back toward the house. She felt so light in his arms. She’d lost weight. She had been so slender before; she’d had no weight to lose. It was proof the loss had hurt her, and she did need his protection and care.

The day had been cloudy after rain, and the small amount of sunlight was fading. The dampness in the air shot through his skin. It must be freezing her.

Zoe. Darling Zoe.

He’d dreamed of a good Christmas—his first Christmas with Zoe, looking forward to the birth of their baby. He’d pictured taking her caroling, walking at her side and singing. He’d imagined rolling up his shirtsleeves to help fetch the Yule log. He’d imagined Christmas Eve with the tree twinkling and a roaring blaze in the fireplace and Zoe in his arms. Both of them talking of the things their child would grow to enjoy—the excitement of gifts, crackers, sweets.

This was pain like he had never known. The only way he could survive it was to think of Zoe—to help her, take care of her.

Now when he looked at the tree, the decorations, he felt stabbing grief.

He had been afraid to touch her—she’d looked so ill after the miscarriage. He had been afraid to kiss her, because she had to be so heartbroken. He had wanted to both leave her alone and give her privacy, but also hover over her and give her everything she needed.