Box Set: The ArringtonTrilogy (40 page)

By the time we finally made it to the border
of Virginia, I was weak and drained. Thankfully Patrick was able to
secure us a hotel room for a few days.

“We need to stop and rest. You need to stay
in bed and catch up on your sleep. You look so worn,” he said,
stroking my cheek.

Without any hesitation, I climbed into the
bed and motioned for Patrick to come lie beside me.

In all the weeks we traveled, though we
rested side by side, we hadn’t had a moment to be intimate. I
needed Patrick to love me, and I needed to feel his tender touch
again.

I nearly melted in his embrace, and my heart
fluttered madly in my chest as he kissed me with the same fervor as
when we first became lovers.

“I have missed kissing you,” he murmured
between hot kisses to my neck.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, if Patrick
craved me the way I desired him to. I asked him in a soft whisper
to love me fully.

For the first time, we consummated our
long-awaited love. It was everything I longed for, imagined,
dreamed it could be, and I still couldn’t believe it was real.

~ ~ ~

Rejuvenated and refreshed after three days of
much needed-rest and rekindling our passion, Patrick and I got back
to our journey north. In our days in bed, resting and loving one
another, Patrick was also able to divulge sporadic details of the
reasons for his animosity toward our father, stemming from earlier
years when Daddy had abandoned him right after Charlotte died. It
wasn’t easy for Patrick to speak of, yet I persisted. I needed to
understand the reasons he felt the need to seek such vengeance
against Daddy.

We were lying side by side in bed, listening
to the raindrops dance on the tin roof of the hotel room. I took
his hand and lifted it up to mine and intertwined our fingers. I
nervously asked him to explain. I listened attentively, my gaze
fixed on the ceiling as my mind tried to follow the unhappy
story.

“After your mum died you were whisked away,
and I never got to see you or hold you. I had no idea where you had
gone, and Father wouldn’t tell me. Only days after her death,
Father left. I hadn’t imagined he was never coming back. He took
you with him and never said goodbye. It was difficult enough to
have lost Charlotte, the woman who had become such a good friend to
me after my mother died. I never resented her, though she stole
Father’s heart when my own mother was dying.

“I was left to fend for myself. Father had
stopped paying the bills, and soon I was forced out onto the
streets. Nowhere to go, I joined the Royal Navy. When I came to
America, along with Adam and his family, I planned to confront
Father someday. I hadn’t planned it this way. In the back of my
mind, I was even hoping for a reunion of sorts. I wanted to forgive
him. That’s why I came to Sutton Hall after so many years. He
needed to explain, to ask for my forgiveness. He should have.
Obviously, he had no regrets. Not for abandoning me or hurting my
mother. I knew then I had to do something to destroy him. And if
that meant destroying his new family and the grand home he held so
dear, then that’s what I would set out to do. I joined the
Confederate Navy under cover. I was a spy for the Union, just to
get even with him.”

Patrick turned onto his side, facing me. “Do
you understand some of my pain, my motives? I don’t want you to
mistrust me in any way. This hasn’t turned out the way I
expected.”

He held me, placing kisses on my warm cheek.
“Instead of having the satisfaction of hurting my father as I had
planned, I fell in love and have forsaken everything I once
believed in. But I have no regrets. None at all.”

I was relieved to learn what was behind
Patrick’s hatred for our father, yet pained to learn how much
suffering Daddy had caused him. It was difficult to imagine
Patrick’s sad boyish innocence, and I did all I could so to make
his dejection go away. I caressed his face, and whispered that I
loved him and I would never leave him. Again, I reminded him that I
was born to be his alone.

He clutched desperately onto me as if for
dear life and said, “If you leave this earth before me, I don’t
know what I will do or how I will go on. I’ve never felt this kind
of love before - the kind that has taken hold of my heart - and if
it let go, I would shatter to pieces and be broken forever.”

One week dragged into another, and we found
only a glimmer of hope that we might finally make it to New York
City by the end of my ninth month. We were half a day away. I was
nothing but skin and bones; all my meager nourishment went to the
baby I carried. Weak and tired, I was determined to use my last
ounce of energy to carry on and do what it took to make it to Adam
Higgins’s place.

“Adam will remember you as the baby born to
Charlotte and Thomas,” Patrick said the last night we cuddled by
the campfire. “You are my sister, nothing more. Do you understand
what I’m saying, Amelia?”

I was nearly asleep; my lids were growing too
heavy to keep open. The baby was doing flips inside me, causing
mild cramping. That had been happening on and off for a week.

“You and I will have to remain siblings. We
will tell them a lie - that you are a widow and carry the baby of
your late husband. It means we cannot sleep together or show signs
of anything but brotherly and sisterly affection. For awhile,
anyway. Perhaps, in time, I can reveal to Adam the entire truth.
Maybe he will understand. But for now we keep our love and passion
for one another a secret. All right?”

I nodded in understanding. I reluctantly
agreed to maintain a platonic relationship with him until the time
came when it was safe to do otherwise.

I tried to rest that night. It was warm
outside; the summer heat permeated even the low hills surrounding
New York City. I noticed Patrick sleeping as I tossed and turned on
the hard ground, desperately trying to get comfortable. The
abdominal cramps kept me from falling asleep. I hadn’t a wink of
sleep all night, and when morning broke, I was too exhausted and
uncomfortable to rise. Patrick had the horse packed up for our last
day of travel and came to lift me.

“I can’t ride today,” I groaned, lying on the
ground, trying to breathe through the pain of the cramps.

“What is it, Amelia?” he asked as he wiped
the sweat from my brow with his cool hand.

“I don’t feel well. Can’t we stay here for
the day?” I begged.

“We have to move. What do you think it
is?”

I moaned in pain, unsure what it was. Patrick
wasted no time. He placed me on the horse and held me close as we
raced to the city.

“It’s becoming unbearable,” I cried after a
few hours. The gripping cramps were intense, coming and going and
getting stronger as each hour passed.

“You must be ready to have the baby,” Patrick
said, when he stopped the horse along the river for a brief rest
and water. Patrick offered me a cheese sandwich we had packed from
our last stop in a small town, but I refused. I was too sick to
even look at the sandwich.

“I am estimating that we are an hour
away.”

I was lying by the river’s edge, trying to
cope with the agony, when suddenly a warm gush of water came out of
me.

“Oh, God!” I gasped and then another intense
cramp came. “We have to hurry, Patrick. The baby is coming
today!”

I had never seen panic in Patrick’s face
before. “Just hold on. Hold on until we reach Adam’s. His wife was
trained as a nurse before they were married. She will deliver the
baby. Just hold on!”

The next hour or so I believe I cried the
entire time. I was slumped over and it was difficult for Patrick to
steer the horse and hold me up at the same time. I had an
overwhelming desire to push, and I begged Patrick to stop the horse
and let me lie down, even if it was on the dirty streets of the
largest city in America. “Please, Patrick,” I moaned, “I cannot
stand it.”

“A few more blocks and we’re there,” he
assured me, and sure enough, we arrived, only to have me slump off
the horse and into Patrick’s trembling arms. He carried me up the
brick stairs and pounded on the doors, shouting for someone to
come, until it flew open.

“Patrick Arrington! What are you doing here?”
Adam Higgins exclaimed.

“I will explain later. Amelia, my sister,
she’s about to have a baby. Fetch Betsy, please!”

Patrick rushed me in and followed Adam to the
nearest bedroom, where I lay on the bed moaning in pain. I was
cold, but sweating, and shaking uncontrollably. I threw my head
back against the pillows, gripped the blankets and shrieked at the
top of my lungs. Betsy, Adam’s wife, dashed in.

“I need to push!”

Betsy ordered the men to leave the room. “I
need to examine her.”

She hurried to undress me with the help of a
maid, and after washing up, felt inside me where the baby was. I
closed my eyes, screaming in pain. “Please stop!”

“I’m sorry it hurts. Bear with it for a
minute,” she said, then said something to the maid. She removed her
delicate hand and hastily redressed me.

“What is it?” I asked in a panic. I sensed
something was wrong by her frightened expression.

“We need to get you to the hospital. Your
baby is turned the wrong way.”

Patrick flew in. “Adam is fetching the
carriage,” he informed Betsy. He came and took me in his arms and
tried to comfort me, trying desperately not to let me see how truly
frightened he was.

“Am I going to die, Patrick? Die just like my
mother?” I sobbed. Perhaps my visions of dying in childbirth were
all true. I was going to be punished for my sins after all, I now
believed. Patrick and I wouldn’t live happily ever after.

Patrick would not allow me to say such a
thing.

“You will not die like Charlotte. Remember
everything we spoke of? God put us together. You were made for me,”
he held me close, disregarding the witnesses who stood around us.
Betsy and Adam looked at one another, confused, then awkwardly
interrupted.

“We must get her to the hospital now. Take
her to the carriage.”

I clung onto Patrick as if for the last time.
I believe I passed out in pain at one point; I only vaguely
remember the last moments before they took me into the operating
room.

I was being wheeled down a long corridor and
Patrick walked briskly along, holding my hand, telling me over and
over that he loved me and begging me not to leave him. It took two
large doctors to pry Patrick from me. I extended my hand, still
reaching and calling for him until the nurse put a cloth over my
mouth and nose. The room began to spin. Patrick’s fretful voice
faded away. All went silent and black.

I slowly came out of a weighty fog, my head
heavy, my body in pain as I woke in the bedroom room of Adam’s home
and cried out for Patrick. I blinked the sleep from my eyes.

“Patrick is out in the hall,” Betsy said,
holding my hand. “Stay calm; you don‘t want to tear your stitches.
Here, sip on some tea.”

I sipped slowly, grimacing through the pain
as I tried to sit up. When my parched lips were soothed, I dropped
my head back, closed my eyes, and asked about my baby.

“She is just fine. Sleeping soundly over in
the cradle.”

“She? I have a daughter?” I choked and opened
my eyes. The small wooden cradle sat at the edge of the bed.

“You had a difficult surgery, Amelia. You
nearly died.” She placed a cool cloth on my head. “The baby was
breech. You had what is called a caesarean section.”

“Is that why I’m in so much pain?” I
groaned.

“There is more,” she said softly and
carefully sat beside me, still holding my hand in hers.

“I had a baby once. A son. Tragically, he was
stillborn. That’s the cradle we had made for him. I am no longer
able to have children. I bled too much after the birth. They had to
do a hysterectomy.”

“What is that?” I naively asked and wondered
what this had to do with me.

“It’s a procedure to stop the bleeding after
birth. However, it makes a woman barren.” She gazed down at me with
tear-filled eyes. “You were bleeding uncontrollably. You would have
died otherwise.”

Patrick appeared in the room and came to
console me. Betsy slipped out of the room, giving us some
privacy.

“You have a healthy baby girl. You won’t need
any more babies. She is all we need, you and I. It was meant to be,
my darling, for God has given us a most precious gift.”

He ever so carefully lifted the tiny baby,
who was swaddled in a lovely blue knit blanket, and handed her to
me.

“She is so beautiful. Perfect in every way.
We are so fortunate,” Patrick said, his voice choked with
happiness.

I gazed down at the baby. She was perfect! I
unwrapped her to count ten tiny fingers and toes and delicately
touched her button nose in disbelief.

“Can you think of a name for her?” he asked
through his beaming smile.

“I want to name her Lillian. She is the image
of my favorite doll. But she is no doll, she is real. She is a real
baby. My baby.”

“Our baby, Amelia. She is our baby.”

~ ~ ~

It took many weeks for me to heal after
surgery. I was bedridden and in pain most of the time. Then I
seemed to slip into an overwhelming depression that became part of
my everyday life. I felt sad and happy at the same time, unable to
fight the endless aches and lethargy that came over me.

Patrick and I settled into the Higgins’s
home, welcomed without question by Patrick’s lifelong best friend.
We were safe and out of the dangerous crossfire of the war.

Adam first looked at me with a bewildered
stare. Later, Patrick explained that to Adam, it was like looking
at a ghost.