And now he was gone again to find transport to take them both back to Elmsworth Manor.
She had fallen asleep in front of him, their conversation only half finished and the gap between them wide with uncertainty.He had not touched her but had stood a good few feet away from the bed. Willa thought of Gretel and her sickness and knew that she had reminded him of that time, when everything was hopeless and his world had changed.
She tried to keep her breathing calm but the big gulps of air she was taking were anything but that. Tears ran down her cheeks, falling on the sheets and darkening the spots where they fell on the cotton.
She could not make herself feel anything except for sadness. The sensual days and nights in London felt like a dream, as if they had happened to someone else, not to her. She felt no wish at all to talk about their baby, safe inside her and hidden, the only part of her that she was certain of.
Perhaps Phillip would not come back. Perhaps he had mounted his horse and left for good, with his bruised face and knuckles. She was too much of a bother, too much hard work, and it was better to sever all ties and return to a life that was easier.
She shook her head and blew her nose.
No, he was too honourable to do that, and therein was the crux of the sadness of it all.
Two days later they were at Elmsworth Manor. The journey home to Hampshire had been a difficult and arduous one but now Willa was finally tucked up in a bedroom just down the hall from Phillip’s.
He had told her that they’d always called it the Rose Room, both for the rose that climbed up the front facade and because during a summer sunset the whole room glowed pink.
When she woke again Phillip was sitting on a chair next to her bed, his long legs stretched out before him.
‘Thank you for bringing me here.’ Her voice was weak.
His head turned and he met her eyes. ‘How do you feel? It was a long journey.’
She smiled at him, seeing his worry. ‘I am tired after the travel but…better, I think. For the first time in ages I feel hungry, which must be a good sign.’
With a fresh nightgown on and her hair brushed Phillip thought that she did indeed look better. She was still far too thin, and the dark circles under her eyes were as easy to see, but her smile looked happier.
‘I will ask the housekeeper to bring you up a meal and tomorrow I shall send for the Elmsworth physician. There may be medicines he could supply that we do not have here.’
She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t want him to examine me. I just want to rest.’
‘Very well.’ He went to stand but she stopped him with a gesture.
‘Could you just stay until I am asleep, for I have nightmares sometimes…?’
He sat back again. ‘You are completely safe here, Wilhelmina. Simon St Claire will never come back, I swear it.’
‘It’s not that…’ she began.
‘Then what is it?’
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she looked at him. ‘I dream I have lost you. I dream you are somewhere…gone.’
His breath caught. ‘I am here and I shall be here until you ask me to go.’
‘I won’t.’
But she was asleep already, in that strange way that she managed now. One moment wide awake and the next in full slumber.
‘You did before,’ he whispered when he was certain she would not hear.
He sat there until the moon was high and the sounds outside were quieter. Then he walked to the window and looked out.
‘Thank you for letting me bring her home.’ Whether it was God he thanked or the land around him or the whisper of ancestors he could always feel at Elmsworth, he did not know.
But Wilhelmina was home with him and she was safe.
His housekeeper came down to see Phillip in his study the next morning just after nine.
