contents of their fourth bottle of brandy while the other bottles rolled empty on the flagstone floor below.
“Ah!” Josie said, lumbering to her feet as Dexter ran into the hall. “Mr. Anstruther! Late again! Quick enough to do the deed-” she cackled, nudging Mrs. Lister “-but slow to wet the baby’s head!” She waved the half-empty brandy bottle at him in salute.
“Laura?” Dexter said. “Is she-”
“She’s fine,” Josie said heartily, slapping him on the back so hard Dexter almost fell over. “Dr. Salter is with her now, but he says there are no problems. I did a grand job though I say so myself, and the ladies were splendid! Not a swoon in sight!”
Nat was looking around for Lizzie, but in the chaos of The Old Palace she was nowhere to be seen. He had already called at Chevrons to be told by the breathlessly excited maid that Lady Waterhouse had returned and had ridden out to look for him. Nat rather hoped that Lizzie was here or they would be chasing each other across the county for days.
He saw Alice coming slowly down the stairs toward them, a bundle in her arms. Her face was radiant. She smiled at Miles as though she had been given the sun and the moon and the stars and held out the bundle to Dexter.
“A son for you, Dexter,” she said. “Congratulations.”
Dexter was at her side in a second, drawing aside the swaddling clothes to touch the baby’s face with a reverent finger. His son’s tiny rosebud mouth opened and a loud wail emerged.
Mrs. Elton bustled forward. “Give him to me, Lady Vickery,” she commanded, taking the baby from Alice and bending over to admire him. “The little lamb! My, look at the size of him! Poor Mrs. Anstruther. No wonder she is exhausted!”
Laura and Dexter’s daughter Hattie rushed forward and Dexter swung her up into his arms.
“I’ve got a brother!” Hattie said importantly. “May we go and see Mama now, Papa?”
“Yes,” Dexter said. “Yes, we shall go at once.”
Nat could hear the catch in his voice and felt a rush of emotion. Devil take it, there was something about this childbirth business that quite unmanned him. He looked across at Miles to see if he was suffering the same problem, but Miles was kissing Alice and paying no attention to anything else at all.
Dexter and Hattie set off up the stairs and Josie turned to Nat.
“You’ll be looking for your lady wife, no doubt,” she said. “She’s with Miss Cole. I don’t know how the poor girl would have managed without her. Lady Waterhouse gave her the strength and the spirit to go through with it, I reckon-” She stopped.
Nat looked up and saw that Lizzie was coming down the stairs. Like Alice she was holding a small bundle in her arms and she had a huge smile on her face.
“I have a niece!” she said. She sounded so happy and so proud that Nat felt the emotion rip through him again. “She is the most beautiful baby!” She saw Nat and stopped dead.
There was a long silence. Lizzie’s eyes were enormous, her face suddenly pale. She came hesitantly down the last few steps and Nat went across to meet her. He could see that her eyes were swimming with tears now. He remembered the broken words she had whispered in her fever and the desperate longing for a child that was in her heart. He reached out and touched her cheek with fingers that suddenly shook.
“I hear you were splendid,” he said softly.
“I came back to find you,” Lizzie said. Her voice was shaking, too. She looked down at the bundle in her arms. “I…Somehow I became diverted.” She smiled suddenly, dazzlingly. Nat’s heart lurched with love. “This is Elizabeth,” she said shyly.
“Elizabeth?” Nat said. He felt his heart catch as he looked down into his wife’s face. “Lydia named the baby for you?”
Lizzie nodded. “Elizabeth Laura Alice Cole,” she said.
The whoops from the hall behind them became louder as Josie and Mrs. Lister and the servants started their fifth bottle of brandy and with it a round of elaborate toasts to the babies. Alice came over and took the baby from Lizzie’s arms.
“I will take little Beth back up to her mother and sit with Lydia a while,” Alice said, holding the baby in the crook of her arm. She smiled at Miles.
“You are an expert already,” Miles said, his eyes gleaming as they rested on her and the sleeping child. “Hmm. If you wish us to set up our own nursery, Alice, you need only say the word and I am at your service.”
“Actually…” Alice said, blushing peony-red, “I think I might already-”
Miles caught her and kissed her hard. “Don’t squash the baby!” Alice chided, as she emerged ruffled and even pinker from her husband’s embrace.
Nat grabbed Lizzie’s hand and pulled her through the door into the library. And suddenly it was quiet and it was just the two of them and the rest of the world was shut out.
“Lizzie,” Nat said. His voice sounded rough to his own ears. He closed the distance between them until she was less than a heartbeat away. “You came back.”
“Yes,” Lizzie said. “Nat, I need to tell you-”
“Let me speak first,” Nat said. He felt as though his heart would burst with everything he wanted to say to her, with all the love he had for her. “Please, Lizzie.”
Lizzie waited. Her face was white. Nat could hear her breath coming quick and light.
“I don’t care what’s happened,” Nat said. He felt as though he was teetering on the edge of a precipice, fearful that with a single wrong word she would be lost to him forever. But he had to say what was in his heart. “You came back to me,” he said. “I love you. I don’t care about John Jerrold. I don’t care what happened with him. All I want is you, Lizzie.”
“Nat,” Lizzie said. She sounded shaken to her soul. “Oh, Nat.”
“Don’t say anything,” Nat said, catching her hands and drawing her to him. He could feel them both shaking. “You must understand. I made a terrible mistake in not trusting you with the truth about Tom’s blackmail and I am sorry for it. It was entirely my fault. I was trying to protect you, but instead I drove you away. But you must believe that I never sought revenge through you, Lizzie.”
He gripped her hands tighter. “I want only you and I love you for yourself alone,” he said. “When you were in your fever you spoke of love, Lizzie. You said that you wanted someone who would love you forever and would never leave you nor betray you.” He sought her gaze with his. “I am that man you once spoke of, Lizzie. I am the one that you wanted, and if you trust me I will never hurt you ever again. I swear it on my life.”
“Let me speak now,” Lizzie said. The tears were running down her face, huge tears that plopped onto Laura’s worn carpet, making the colors bright. “Nothing happened with John Jerrold, Nat.” She gulped in a breath. “I only turned to him because I was so unhappy. Then I realized that I couldn’t go through with it, I wasn’t like my mother after all. I could not accept second best because all I wanted was you. The only man I ever loved was you.” She freed herself, resting her palms against his chest and looking up into his face with candid eyes. “I realized then that I had to come back and talk to you,” she said, “and find out the truth about Tom, because I could not throw away the most precious thing I ever had.”
Relief and sheer, blazing joy smashed through Nat and then his arms went about her and he kissed her, pressing feverish kisses across her cheek and brow, until he found her lips at last and she gave a little sigh and melted closer into his arms. And then all was quiet between them for a very long time and not even the sound of the increasingly drunken revels outside the door could penetrate their happiness.
LATER, LYING COCOONED IN their bed in the aftermath of lovemaking and in the hot darkness of the Fortune Folly summer night, they talked. They lay as close as when they had made love. For a while they had both drifted from fulfilment into sleep but they awoke together and Nat held Lizzie with proud possession as well as love.
“I was such a fool not to tell you about Tom’s blackmail,” Nat said. “I only gave into it in the first place to protect Celeste and my parents, and because I could see no way out. I kept it from you because I wanted to protect you from this latest example of Tom’s wickedness and instead I gave him the means to ruin our happiness.”
“I suppose Tom seduced Celeste, the blackguard,” Lizzie said. She was feeling so light and free, so blissful that nothing could touch her happiness now, and yet she still had space in her heart to feel Celeste Waterhouse’s pain. She rested her head on Nat’s chest and felt the warmth of his body and his love envelop her. There were no doubts or fears now. They had banished them forever.
“I could not understand how a man like you could succumb to blackmail,” she said, “but I can see that you had
