Paul Marchand’s expression begged Stewart’s indulgence. “Our daughter’s wet nurse waits for us aboard ship. There is nothing now to delay our return to America.”
Thomas stepped back from the carriage. “Godspeed. I trust your voyage will be a pleasant one. You go to Pennsylvania, do you not?”
“Yes. Our home is in Philadelphia. Good day, sir.” He shut the carriage door, gave Thomas a brief smile before he turned his full attention to his wife.
Stewart withheld his shudder. No doubt Mary’s bastard child would be raised in the wilderness. He shrugged mentally, thinking it made no difference to him. He was rid of the brat she had cradled in her belly when he married her. The next time she was with child, it would be his issue. The lies he told the Marchands about Mary were of no importance when weighed against his own future with his wife. What happiness could he and Mary have together if he must bear the constant reminder of another love? Better that he had arranged for the baby to go with the Marchands. The money they supplied would pay for Jenny McKee’s silence and provide him with a measure of security. Well-satisfied with his solution to a problem that had plagued him since his marriage to Mary Kilmartin, Thomas lifted his hand in salute as the carriage pulled away.
“I can’t say that I liked him overmuch,” Michaeline said, raising her voice so that she could be heard over the baby’s cries. “I could not help but notice how pleased he was to give us the child, as if he could not bear the sight of her. He did not seem a very loving man.”
Paul’s assessment was very much the same as his wife’s. “We must not judge him harshly, dear. He did his best for the mother of our child, taking her in when the village shunned her, and offering her some hope. After all, without Thomas Stewart we would not have this vociferous bit of humanity.” He laughed as their daughter found Michaeline’s finger and began sucking on the tip.
Michaeline’s attention was immediately diverted. “What shall we name her, Paul? Now that she is truly ours, I find that at last I can concentrate on the christening of her.”
Paul regarded the rapt attention on Michaeline’s face, and love welled within him. During fifteen years of marriage he had never felt any lessening of the emotion that had prompted his proposal. Michaeline’s faith in him had never wavered, though he believed he had sorely tested it. She stood by him when he announced they would seek their fortune in the New World. She left her family and her friends, the comfortable life she knew in Paris, and followed him without question. When he proposed leaving Montreal to settle in Philadelphia, she packed her trunks without demur. And when he really did achieve success as a shipping merchant, she smiled wisely, as if she had known all along what he had not.
It had fallen in his power to give Michaeline everything save the one thing he thought she wanted most. Paul leaned back in his seat, resting his head against the thickly padded cushion. A happy smile touched the wide curve of his mouth. Now he had given her that, too. He looked out the carriage window and noted with satisfaction that the sun had asserted itself, dawning with a clear brilliance that seemed to bode well of the future. “We shall call her Aurora,” he said.
“Aurora. The goddess of dawn. Yes, it’s perfect. Listen! I think she approves!”
Paul listened and heard only blessed silence. It did indeed seem as if Aurora was well pleased with her name. She had fallen asleep with an expression on her perfect little face that Paul chose to interpret as contentment.
Thomas Stewart’s brief acquaintance with contentment and complacency was shattered as he opened the door to his wife’s bedchamber and heard the unmistakable cry of an infant. His shock was a tangible thing as he took in the scene laid out before him. Mary was sitting up in bed, pillows propped at her back, nestling a child to her breast. The babe quieted the moment Mary guided the seeking mouth to her nipple. Mary winced, then giggled, as the child began to suck greedily.
Thomas’s mouth gaped and he blinked rapidly, waiting for the world to right itself. It was the warning light in Jenny’s sharp eyes that kept him from screaming his outrage. He remembered himself in time and was smiling genially when Mary’s attention turned from the child to him.
“It’s a girl, Thomas,” Mary said softly. “We have a little girl. Come see her. She’s beautiful.”
Thomas held his tongue as he approached the bed. He decided not to remind her thathehad nothing but the offspring of a whore and a libertine. It would be his pleasure to tell Mary that once Jenny McKee was gone. He stared at the child, cursing her in his mind, and offered no comment on the tiny red face or the thick hair as black as her father’s soul. “And you, Mary? How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine, Thomas. A little tired perhaps.”
Jenny spoke before Thomas could respond. “And no wonder,” she said in mothering tones. “It was a difficult birth, and you need to rest. Let me put the babe in her crib. You’ve no milk for her now, and she’s gone to sleep.” Jenny ignored Mary’s instinctive protest and took the infant. From the corner of her eye she watched Thomas place a kiss on his wife’s brow, then take his leave. She turned from the crib and noted that exhaustion was taking its toll on Mary. “I’ll have a word with your husband,” she said as Mary’s lids fluttered, then closed. “Call if you have need of anything.”
Mary smiled dreamily and was deeply asleep before Jenny left the room.
Jenny found Thomas Stewart in his study, pouring himself a large measure of whiskey. She bit her tongue, knowing better than to mention that the evils of drink had been the subject of the vicar’s sermon this Sunday past.
“What is the explanation for this business?” Stewart demanded harshly when the midwife closed the study door behind her.
“I should think it would be obvious. Your wife has given birth to twins.”
“You knew she carried two!” he accused, wagging a thin finger at Jenny.
“I assure you that I did not. Mary herself hasn’t the knowledge of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I say. Mary does not realize she delivered two girls. She fainted when I told her the child was dead. She did not recover until the second girl was born, and she has no recollection of the lost time. She thinks I mistook the condition of the first child.” At Stewart’s dark look Jenny raised her chin stubbornly. “There was no denying the existence of the babe. That one came out squalling.”
“Damn!” There was nothing that could be done. All his plans were for naught. He wanted to raise his fist at the heavens for playing him this trick. He knocked back his drink in one swallow and placed the glass heavily on the desktop. Turning away from Jenny, he fumbled with the middle desk drawer and extracted the money pouch that contained her payment. With a contemptuous flick of his wrist, Stewart tossed the leather bag in her direction. “As per our agreement, madam, though I do not think you carried out your instructions.”
Jenny’s brow wrinkled, and hackles rose at the nape of her neck. “What would you have had me do? Smother the second-born?” When Stewart made no reply, she gasped, realizing that he had expected her to do just that. Jenny McKee shivered and fled the room, running as if the hounds of hell were after her. For all his pious ways, Thomas Stewart, vicar of Glen Eden, was a godless man.
Chapter 1
April 1742
Shannon Kilmartin made a deep curtsy, bowing her head so low that slender tendrils of coal black hair could be seen against the nape of her neck. She paused, as if waiting for approval to rise, and she thought: This is how I will make my bow when I am summoned to court. The absurdity of her thought did not strike her then. It was not the time to reflect that it was hardly likely she would ever be the subject of such an honor. Nor was it appropriate to remember she could hardly present herself wearing a gown that had once belonged to her mother and was sadly out of fashion. The daydream continued and she smiled to herself as she imagined how the king’s courtiers would vie for the opportunity to escort her after she received her monarch’s approval. Responding to a voice only she could hear, she rose gracefully, smiling at her reflection in the glass. She gave her head a spritely toss and held out her hand to her imaginary partner. He, quite naturally, was the most handsome of all the king’s lords, and he swept Shannon onto the ballroom floor as the king permitted them the privilege of leading the first dance.
