***
A significant part of me was resigned to my fate. In truth, I did blame myself for Lucinda’s predicament, so it seemed right that God should deem raising her child as a fitting punishment. But there was a smaller more selfish part of me that was resentful about being forced into motherhood. It was difficult to imagine myself in that role. I knew nothing about babies and even less about caring for one.
What if I did not hold it properly and dropped it?
What if it cried constantly, and I could not comfort it?
What if it hated me on sight?
All this discussion about Dorian brought his attempts at seduction to light again, for I had been struggling on and off with nightmares since I had arrived home—nightmares in which I was running down a candlelit hallway in my nightgown with something or someone chasing me. I would awaken gasping and drenched in sweat. Yet the nightmares had recently subsided, and I had thought myself free of them.
But the night after the talk with Max, I had another bad dream. This one, however, was entirely different. I wasstanding by a cradle, looking down at a squalling child. But as I reached out to pick it up, its face morphed into Dorian’s. Wearing only a nappy, he lay there smirking at me and drawled, ‘You have vexed me exceedingly, Felicityyy.’
I woke up in a cold sweat, shaking from head to foot.
I knew what the dream meant. As Mr Smith-Withers had commented at the castle, the Hart bloodline was very strong. So there was a good chance that if it was a boy, it would grow up to be the spitting image of his father. And what if he turned out to be a ‘bad egg’? There was no assurance Max would be able to remedy his wayward streak, even if he taught him right from wrong and set a good example. The child could be so problematic and distressing that he could drive us both into an early grave!
Suffice to say, I was very reluctant to agree to this secret plan that was being concocted. And there was also something else that Max did not know about.
One afternoon, a couple of weeks after arriving home from Bath, Max had gone out for a ride. I was in the parlour, reading. Bertram had knocked and said a letter had arrived for me. I thought it might be from Jane, but it wasn’t her handwriting. ‘Mrs Felicity Fitzroy’ was written in swirling capitals, which made me wary; and after opening it and seeing the address, I was right to be.
Hartmoor Castle
30 June 1799
Dear Felicity,
Or ‘Mrs Fitzroy’, as you insist on being called. Well played, I must congratulate you on your successful escape. At first, I wasn’t sure how you had done it as the window in the kitchen was too small, and you weren’t in the dungeon. I know every secret passage in the castle, and I was exceedingly vexed as to how you had managed it. But the more I questioned Maurice, the more flustered he became, so I assumed he had had something to do with it. When I threatened to fire him, he relented and told me about the passage in the dungeon that led to the inn. Outwitted by my own butler, who would have thought it?
I can forgive him for helping a damsel in distress, but his disloyalty writing to my brother about the inheritance plan is unforgivable. Suffice to say, I am going to make his life difficult ...
I’d paused reading at that point with heart palpitations. Poor Maurice, he was only trying to do the right thing! I wasn’t sure exactly what Dorian meant by making his life ‘difficult’, but I hoped the letter I’d given him could counteract that. (As well as thanking Maurice profusely for his hospitality, I’d written that if he ever found himself out of work to please contact me and had signed it ‘your friend Felicity’.)
The rest of Dorian’s letter had been grandiose declarations of his ‘affection’—about how he wished I had stayed as he was missing our lively conversations and some sordid allusion to making love in flowery language, which made me shudder and feel ill.
I’d immediately sought out Bertram and told him that if he received any more letters with my name written in capitals to please not give them to me but discreetly burn them in the kitchen fire. ‘Take this one and do so forthwith,’ I added.
He’d looked rather surprised at the request but nodded dutifully and said, ‘Very good, Mrs Fitzroy.’ Then he had gone off with the letter.
I suppose I should have felt some guilt at obliterating Dorian’s letters without reading them, but in truth, all I felt was relief. I had not asked for him to write to me, and knowing him, he was doing it to stir up trouble between Max and me.
Little did Dorian know that he had sowed the seed of a much bigger problem—one that was about to upend my entire life in exactly seven months’ time. Butburning his correspondence was something within my control at least!
It also pained me greatly that I was not able to write to Jane about what was going on. Max had used the words ‘utmost secrecy’, so I was stymied in asking her for counsel. But it annoyed me that I could not. She was my oldest friend, and I trusted her implicitly. Surely she should be privy to such a momentous decision? After all, she had been there with me at the castle, so she would understand the circumstances. And apart from that, I needed her steady guidance and loving support.
Several restless nights later, I lay in the early morning light, listening to Max snoring softly beside me as if he did not have a care in the world, and thought I might go mad.
Shifting over to him, I pressed my cheek against his warm back. Eventually, there was a grunt, and he turned over and gathered me into his arms as he usually did.
‘Good morning, my love,’ he mumbled sleepily, giving me a kiss on the forehead. ‘You are awake early.’
I dove right in. ‘Max, I need to write to Jane about what is happening. Imustwrite to her for my own sanity.’
Max rubbed the sleep from his eyes and yawned, but I knew he had heard what I had said. I waited. Eventually, he looked at me in the dim light and took in my haggard countenance with a frown.
‘Are you not sleeping?’
I shook my head. ‘Not since we found out about “the situation”.’
