Joan Wolf (8 page)

Her eyes looked enormous in her pale face. “Yes,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Her hand tightened for a minute on his arm. “Rob, I’m so frightened.”

   He knew it wasn’t childbirth that terrified her but the result of it. “It will be all right,” he said soothingly. “Even if it’s a boy, and the spitting image of Macdonald, we’ll brazen it out together. Now let me help you into bed and I’ll ring for your maid.”

For a brief moment her lips rested against his hand. “You’re so good to me.”

“Of course I am,” he replied reasonably. “I love you. Now for God’s sake will you get into bed! It’s freezing out here!” And with a shaken laugh she obeyed.

Frances’s daughter was born six hours later. She was six pounds, a very decent weight for a seven-month baby. She had downy hair and her eyes were blue. Frances took one look at her and tears of relief and tenderness slid down her face. “She’s beautiful,” she whispered.

Robert was staring, fascinated. “She’s so tiny.”‘ Gently he touched the baby’s fingers and the infant looked at him, a comer of her mouth flaring up. “She smiled at me!” He sounded genuinely delighted. Frances looked at him.

“I don’t deserve you, Rob,” she said humbly.

“Maybe not,” he grinned at her, “but you’ve got me. Forever.”

Chapter Ten

If love for love thou wilt na gie

At least be pity to me shown

—
ROBERT
BURNS

Eighteen months later Lord Robert Sedburgh, his wife, and his daughter paid a rare visit to London. The occasion was an exhibit by Douglas Macdonald at the Royal Academy. Frances had been delighted when she heard the news from Douglas, and had immediately asked Robert if they could go up to London to see it. He had not really wanted to go; he had repeatedly found reasons why a stay in London would be impossible. But now he looked at the eager face of his wife and relented. This time, he could see, she really wanted to go. They brought the baby, who had been named Helen, after Frances’s mother, with them.

   The Earl of Aysgarth had a house in Berkeley Square, which he had opened and staffed for the use of his son and daughter-in-law. They planned to stay for at least a month. It was not London that Robert had been avoiding for all these months but the Macdonalds, specifically Douglas and Charlie. He did not care to have Frances reminded of Ian. However, it was inevitable that they meet at some time, he realized, and so he was the one who proposed the longer visit.

They had been in town for two days when Frances wrote to tell Douglas they had arrived. He came immediately. She heard his voice as she was coming down the main stairs, and went herself into the front hall to welcome him.

“Douglas! How marvelous to see you. We’re so excited about your exhibition. Come into the drawing room and tell me about it.” She drew his arm through hers and began to walk him down the hall. Over her shoulder she said to the butler, “Bring some sherry, Matthews.”

Douglas was regarding her with an expression that Frances barely noticed, she was so accustomed to seeing it in the eyes of men when they looked at her. She smiled warmly and sat down. “Tell me all about it,” she repeated. “I made Robert bring me to London as soon as I heard. Imagine. The Royal Academy!”

Douglas blinked and abruptly sat down. After a moment’s silence he began to do as she requested. When he had finished the tale and had promised to escort them himself to see the paintings he asked courteously, “But how is the baby, Frances? She must be walking by now.”

Frances grinned. “She’s been walking for eight months, Douglas! And she’s fine. You can see for yourself. We brought her with us.” She rang the bell.

Douglas smiled a little painfully. “Oh, good.”

The butler came in. “Matthews, will you ask Nurse to bring Miss Helen down to the drawing room, please?”

“Yes, my lady.” The butler nodded magisterially and withdrew. In ten minutes a stout middle-aged woman appeared holding a little girl by the hand.

“Thank you. Nurse,” Frances said. “I’ll bring her back to the nursery later.’’ The little girl ran to Frances and immediately climbed up into her lap, staring with huge gray eyes at the strange man sitting in her mother’s drawing room.

“This is Mr. Macdonald, Nell,” Frances said. “He is a good friend of Mama’s. Will you say hello?”

“Hello,” the little girl said gravely, staring at Douglas with the relentless gaze of childhood. She was a beautiful child. She had hair of dark gold and eyes the deep gray of a northern loch.

“Hello, Nell,” Douglas replied equally solemnly. “I am very glad to meet you.”

Nell considered this in silence for a few minutes, then got off Frances’s lap and went over to him. “What that?”

Douglas looked ruefully at his finger. “A paint stain,” he admitted. “I like to paint, Nell.” Nell looked incredulous and he smiled. “I know it isn’t a very grown-up thing to do but I like it.”

The child’s eye was caught by an ornament on a table over on the far side of the room and she toddled toward it determinedly. “She looks like your father, Frances,” he said.

“Yes,” she agreed. “So everyone says.” Nell had reached the ornament. She picked it up.

“Mama!” she said excitedly. “A horsie!”

   “Yes, love, I see. Bring it here carefully and we’ll look at it.” Frances smiled at the child who grinned back, her small face lighting up in a way that made her suddenly resemble unmistakably the man who was her father.

Douglas’s breath rasped in his throat. Frances was still smiling lovingly at Nell, who was coming toward her carefully holding the horse. She turned briefly to say something to Douglas and when she saw the appalled recognition in his eyes her own face sobered. “Is it as obvious as that?” she asked out of a constricted throat.

He looked from the child to her. “No,” he said after a minute. “She really doesn’t look like him at all. It’s the smile.”

Her face never changed. “I know.”

“Only someone who knew him very well would ever see it.” For some reason he couldn’t bring himself to say Ian’s name. “God, Frances! I had no idea.”

“Thank you, sweetie,” she said to her daughter. “Yes, look at his mane and his tail. Just like a real horse. Sit down here and you can play with him. It’s bronze,” she said to Douglas as if answering a question of his. “It won’t break.”

“Frances!”

“Yes?” She spoke almost absently.

“Does Robert know?” He was surprised to see a flame of anger in her eyes.

“What do you take me for, Douglas? Of course he knows. He married me anyway.”

Douglas stared at her for a minute and then his mouth took on a grim look. “Of course,” he said, “I asked the wrong question. I should have asked does Ian know?”

Her eyes fell away from his to rest on the bright curls of her daughter. “No,” she said shortly. “And I don’t want him to know.”

“Why did you let him go, Frances?” His eyes too were on the child, playing so happily with her new find.

To Douglas she told the truth. “Because I wanted him to stay for me. Not for anything else. Just for me.”

He nodded slowly, as if her answer made perfect sense, as, to him, it did. “He is still in South America,” he volunteered, giving her the information she longed for but would never ask for. “I wrote, of course, to tell him about your marriage. I hear from him periodically.”

“I understand that the republicans were badly beaten,” she said in a stiff voice.

He stared at her in surprise. He had never before known Frances to concern herself about foreign affairs, and the news from Venezuela was not easily come by. “Yes,” he said. “Bolivar is presently in New Granada, in Cartagena to be precise. Ian is with him. They are determined to convince New Granada to assist them in a new effort to liberate Venezuela.”

Frances’s face was shadowed. “I see,” she said quietly.

There was the sound of a step in the hall, and the door opened. “Papa!” Nell cried, her face vivid with joy. She ran toward Robert Sedburgh, her arms held out.

“Nell!” the tall blond man laughed back and swung her up into his arms. “How is my girl?”

She giggled delightedly as he held her over his head, then he sat her in the crook of his arm and crossed the room. Frances watched him come, her eyes warm with tenderness. “Rob, you remember Douglas MacDonald,” she said.

   “Of course.” He put Nell down and went to shake hands with Douglas. “We are looking forward to seeing your exhibit,” he said courteously. “In fact, it is the main reason for our visit to London.”

“I am flattered,” returned Douglas. “And very pleased.”

Robert sat down and Nell immediately climbed up his legs, clutching her horse. “Look, Papa!” she said urgently. He bent his head to the child and Frances said mournfully, “Deserted again.”

Robert laughed at her. “You’re an old story,” he said. “I’m a treat.”

But she shook her head. “Nell has been Papa’s girl virtually since she was born,” she explained to Douglas. “She only puts up with me until she can get her hands on him. She’s a true female, I’m afraid.”

 At this point a very serious look descended over Nell’s face. “Oh dear,” said Frances comically, jumping up. “I think it’s time to remove her upstairs. I know that look.”

Robert handed her over with alacrity. “By all means,” he said definitely, and both he and Douglas watched as she carried the little girl out of the room. Then Robert turned to Douglas. He had not missed the shadow on Frances’s face when he came in.

“Frances looks well,” Douglas said. He hesitated. “She looks happy,” he added finally.

“I think she is.” Robert’s blue eyes stared at Douglas with a straight, uncompromising look. “Were you talking to her about Macdonald?” he asked steadily.

Douglas, thrown off balance by such a direct approach, answered truthfully. “Yes.”

   The clear blue gaze kindled. “I thought so. She didn’t look happy when I came in the door.” He leaned forward in his chair.  “The less Frances hears about or is reminded of him, the better it will be for her. I don’t want her upset. She is my wife and I can keep her safe and happy so long as he stays away. He is still in South America I take it.”

“Yes,” said Douglas briefly.

“He would do himself no good by coming back.”

“I think he knows that.” Douglas rose. “You have nothing to worry about. Lord Robert. Frances is, as you said, your wife. That is not a commitment she would ever take lightly.”

After Douglas had left Robert sat staring into the fire with a preoccupied face. He looked like a man wrestling with a major problem.

The Sedburghs went to the theater that night, and their box was besieged at the intermissions. Robert could scarcely see his wife for the masculine heads clustered around her.

“You’re a lucky dog, Rob,” said Henry Faringdon in his ear. “For the past two years I’ve been telling myself that nobody could be as beautiful as I remembered Frances Stewart. And now here she is, and my memory seems dull in comparison.”

Robert looked at him almost remotely. “Yes,” he said. “And how have you been, Henry?”

Their conversation was halted by Frances, who had risen and come across to them. “Good evening. Lady Robert,” said Mr. Faringdon reverently. She gave him her hand and Robert said, “London must have been dull without you, my love.”

   She cast him a glance of amusement mingled with irritation, “I think the next act is about to start,” she said pointedly, and they finally managed to clear out their box.               —

Frances’s maid was brushing her hair that evening when the connecting door between their bedrooms opened and Robert came in. He was still in his evening shirt, which he had opened at the neck. He sat down in a rose velvet chair, leaned back, and regarded his wife thoughtfully.

The maid was vigorously pulling the brush through her thick hair, which glistened in the firelight. She wore a green velvet robe the color of her eyes. She looked at Robert in the mirror and said to her maid, “That will be all, Mary, thank you. You may go to bed now.”

“Yes, my lady.” The maid discreetly retired, closing the bedroom door quietly behind her.

Frances smiled at her husband. “A busy day,” she said lightly.

He did not smile back. “Yes,” he agreed. “It was.” She didn’t say anything and after a moment he went on, “I think half of London has remained bachelors because of you.”

She regarded him steadily. “Is that what is bothering you, Rob?”

“No,” he said. “I’m not such a fool as to be jealous of your popularity.” There was a note of anger in his voice and, hearing it, she rose and went to stand at the foot of the bed so that she was directly facing him.

“Then what is the matter?” she asked quietly. “You’ve been strange all evening.”

“Have I?” he laughed harshly. Then, as if the words were wrenched out of him against his will, he brought it out. “Tell me, Frances, what would you do if Ian Macdonald came back?”

“What would I do?” She stared at him in amazement. “Good God, Rob, you don’t think I’d betray you? After all you’ve done ...”

He swore, something he never did. “I don’t want you to stay with me out of gratitude!” The note of anger she had heard in his voice a moment before had reappeared, and mixed with it now was an audible strain of bitterness.

Frances was deadly serious. She had never seen him like this before, and she was suddenly certain that the whole future of her marriage depended on how she handled this moment. Her eyes flickered quickly to the bed beside her. He saw the look. “Oh, I have no right to complain. I know that. You’ve never refused me. You’re always warm and loving.” He stood up and went to poke at the fire. “Forget what I said.” He leaned his shoulders against the mantel and looked at her out of eyes that were wary and guarded against hurt.

“I can’t forget it,” she said. Robert was right. This was not a problem that could be settled by going to bed. It required words. The right words. From her. She took a breath and said to him what she had never said before. “How could I leave you, Rob? I love you.”

The sudden harsh intake of his breath betrayed him. He took an involuntary step toward her and then stopped. “You don’t have to say that.”