and was shown into a small parlour leading off the Blue Drawing-room. His mind wandered over the difference in their stations in life. She had been born a daughter of the nobility, he the bastard child of one of the Rawlings family of Twickenham. She had married an Italian nobleman and had lived a wild and dangerous life. He had qualified as an apothecary and had found his excitement through working with Sir John Fielding. At that moment John realized with a horrible clarity that he could never offer Elizabeth the life to which she had been used and that he may as well leave now.
There was a noise in the doorway and John, turning, saw that the woman who filled his thoughts was standing there. He rose and bowed.
‘Madam.’
She walked towards him, smiling her delicious smile. ‘Sir,’ she replied.
And then John looked at her properly and his heart plummeted before it rose again and started to beat wildly in his chest.
She laughed then, throwing her head back and chuckling.
‘Don’t look so shocked,’ she said. ‘As you can see, my dear, I am quite definitely with child.’
Four
John stood gaping at her, hardly able to take in what Elizabeth had just said to him. Then he realized several things simultaneously. Firstly that judging by the stage of her pregnancy — probably about four months in his professional opinion — he was undoubtedly the father. Secondly that she was dangerously old to be carrying a child. And thirdly, and most happily, that this event would surely draw them closer together once more. He cleared his throat and spoke.
‘Elizabeth, my dear. I had no idea. Why did you not tell me before?’
She gave a careless laugh and sat down, motioning him to do likewise. ‘I did not want to bother you with it.’
He leant across the distance between them and took her hand. ‘That was wrong of you. It is my child as well. You should have written straight away.’
‘Well, I didn’t. In fact it went through my head to say nothing until after the birth. But then I thought how upset you would be and I changed my mind.’
‘And thank God you did,’ John answered fervently. He knelt down in front of her. ‘My darling, is there anything I can do to help?’
She burst out laughing and he saw then that the forthcoming child had not changed her at all, that she was still as wild and free as she had always been.
‘I think you’ve done that already, my friend,’ she said, and laid a careless hand on her rounding.
John decided to match her mood. ‘And very pleasurable it was too,’ he said, and gave his lopsided grin.
She changed the subject. ‘What time is it?’
John looked at his watch. ‘Just gone three o’clock.’
‘Then we shall have an early dinner. And now if you would be so good as to escort me I should like to walk in the gardens. I have forbidden myself riding — though only temporarily, I might add — so walking is my only form of exercise.’
He stood up, brushing at his knees, thinking to himself that she really was the most extraordinary woman he had ever met. Where the majority of her sex would be moaning and grumbling over an unwanted pregnancy she was treating the whole thing with immense sang froid. As they walked together out into the formally laid-out grounds with stunning views as far as the eye could see, he decided to challenge her. Leaning close to her he asked a question.
‘Tell me, do you want to have this baby?’
Her lovely topaz eyes, on a level with his own, looked into his with a direct gaze.
‘Yes, of course I do. You know that my son died, killed by that wretched group of young men who called themselves The Angels?’
‘You have told me the story often.’
‘Well, now that I can feel life growing inside me once more I long for the day when I can hold the child in my arms.’
John stopped walking. ‘Elizabeth, will you marry me? I cannot bear the idea of our child being born a bastard.’
‘Rather than a proposal you could have said that you love me desperately and have thought of no-one else in the months we have been apart.’
‘Stop playing games with me,’ the Apothecary said, very slightly irritable. ‘You know I love you and you know how much. And if you don’t you should. Besides, if you remember, I asked you to be my wife a long while ago.’
‘Yes, I do remember,’ she answered, her whole manner changing. ‘And I know it is not just to give our child a name. But, my own dear John, I cannot say yes. I no longer wish for married life.’
‘Not even for the sake of the child?’
‘No, not even then.’
It was useless to argue further. John realized that if he wanted peace and harmony between them he must content himself with the fact that his second child would be born a bastasd. But then, he reflected, he had been illegitimate and had not had too bad a life of it. In fact, all things considered, it had been relatively happy if one discounted the tragedy of Emilia’s end and the time when he had gone on the run. He sighed, and Elizabeth, mistaking the cause of it, took his hand and held it firmly.
‘It is not that I don’t love you in return, my friend. It is just that I love my freedom more.’
‘And will you allow me to see my child? Am I to have access to her?’
‘Or him.’ Elizabeth said with a smile. ‘Of course. You will be free to come and go as you please. As you always have been.’
‘You have no wish to give the baby to me to bring up?’
She looked fractionally annoyed. ‘No, no wish at all. This child will comfort me in my old age and give meaning and direction to my declining years.’
‘I’m sure it will,’ John answered, just a trifle sadly. ‘Tell me, when is it due?’
‘In February. It will come with the early lambs.’
‘And may I be here?’
Elizabeth squeezed his hand. ‘Of course. Please consider this house your second home.’
John gave up. There was no arguing with her. Most of the women he had known would face the thought of bringing a bastard into the world with shame and humility. Yet here was Elizabeth talking in the most rational way of bringing up her son or daughter by herself, regardless of gossip. The Apothecary had to come to terms with the fact that the Marchesa was entirely different from every one of his other acquaintances; that she stood alone.
They dined early and John, studying her, thought how this late pregnancy had enhanced her, rounded out her tendency to boniness, softened the contours of her face. Even the savage scar that ran down her cheek from her eye to her mouth seemed to have lost its cruelty and appeared like a gentle line.
‘You are very beautiful,’ he said down the length of the table and regardless of the hovering servants.
‘In your eyes perhaps.’
‘No, truly.’ He was longing to tell her that forthcoming motherhood became her but did not like to mention it in the presence of the footmen waiting at table. Instead he said conversationally, ‘Tell me, are you acquainted with Lady Sidmouth at all?’
‘Yes, I know the old besom. Why?’
John rolled his eyes in the direction of the footmen and Elizabeth said, ‘Thank you, Faulkener. You may tell the servants to withdraw. If you could return in a quarter of an hour or so that would be splendid.’
As soon as the room had cleared John got up and took his chair to sit beside her, taking her fingers in his hand and kissing each one individually.
‘I love you,’ he said.
She stroked his hair. ‘And I love you. But you do understand that we cannot be together. Our lives are too
