Hester curled against Jessica’s side and held on tightly. Cocooned in the counterpane of Jess’s bed in the guest room, she was still so cold.
Jess’s hand stroked over her head while whispering soft words of comfort. It seemed almost as if they were children again and Jess was providing the sense of safety and love Hester had only ever felt with her.
She ached everywhere. A bone-deep ache that stripped all the strength from her limbs. Her child was gone. Her husband as well. And she couldn’t feel anything but dead inside. It amazed her to sense her breath blowing past her lips. She would have thought such signs of life were beyond her.
“It was Edward at the last,” she whispered.
Her sister fell silent.
“He came into my room as the man I’d come to hate and fear. Wild eyed and brandishing that pistol. I felt such relief to see him. I thought, ‘Finally, the pain and sorrow will end.’ I thought he would be merciful and free me from it.”
Jess’s arms tightened around her. “You mustn’t think of it anymore.”
Hester tried to swallow, but her mouth and throat were too dry. “I begged him. ‘Please. Take my life. The babe is gone from me … Please. Let me go.’ And then it was Edward standing there. I could see it in his eyes. They were so bleak. He saw what he’d done when he wasn’t himself.”
“Hester. Shh … You need your r-rest.”
The telltale break in her Jess’s voice echoed through her. “But he didn’t spare me this agony. To the end he was selfish and thought only of himself. And yet I miss him. The man he used to be. The man I married. You do remember him, don’t you, Jess?” Her head tilted back to look up at her sister’s face. “You do recall the way he was long ago?”
Jess nodded, her eyes and nose red from tears.
“What does it mean?” Hester asked, lowering her chin. “That I am happy he’s gone, yet I am so sad … equally?”
A long stretch of silence ensued, then, “I suppose, perhaps, you miss the promise of what could have been, while at the same time you are grateful that what it was instead is over.”
“Perhaps.” Hester burrowed closer, seeking more of her sister’s warmth. “What do I d-do now? How do I g-go on?”
“One day at a time. You rise, you eat, you bathe, and you talk to the few people you can tolerate while feeling so wretched. Over time, it hurts a little less. Then a little less. And so on.” Jess ran her fingers through Hester’s unbound hair. “Until one morning, you will awake and realize the pain is only a memory. It will always be with you, but it will eventually lack the power to cripple you.”
Tears burned Hester’s eyes, then wet the bodice of Jess’s gown. Jess had climbed into bed with Hester fully dressed, offering the connection Hester needed before she even comprehended that she needed it.
“I suppose I should be happy,” Hester whispered, “that I am no longer increasing with my dead husband’s child, but I can’t be happy about it. It hurts too much.”
A sob broke the hush in the room, a raw sound of pain too fresh to manage. It clawed through Hester’s numbness and ripped into her vitals, tearing her apart. “I wanted that baby, Jess. I wanted my baby …”
Jess began to rock her back and forth, words spilling out in a frantic attempt to soothe. “There will be others. Someday, you will have the happiness you deserve. Someday, you will have it all, and everything that transpired to get you to that place of contentment will make sense to you.”
“Don’t say such things!” She couldn’t even contemplate another pregnancy. It seemed like such a betrayal of the child she’d lost. As if babes were replaceable. Interchangeable.
“No matter what happens, I will be with you.” Jess’s lips pressed to her forehead. “We will make it through together. I love you.”
Hester closed her eyes, certain Jess was the only one who could say such a thing. Even the Lord Himself had abandoned her.
Alistair entered his home, weary to his soul. Jessica’s pain was his own, and his heart was heavy with the sadness and horror that presently shadowed her life.
He handed his hat and gloves to the waiting butler.
“Her Grace awaits you in your study, my lord,” Clemmons announced.
Glancing at the long case clock, Alistair noted the lateness of the hour. It was nearly one in the morning. “How long has she been waiting?”
“Nearly four hours now, my lord.”
Clearly the news she carried was not good. Steeling himself for the worst, Alistair went to the study and found his mother reading on the settee. Her feet were tucked up beside her, and her lap was covered with a thin blanket. A fire roared in the hearth. A candelabrum on the table at her shoulder illuminated the pages in front of her and gilded her dark beauty.
She looked up. “Alistair.”
“Mother.” He rounded his desk and shrugged out of his coat. “What’s wrong?”
Her gaze raked over him. “Perhaps I should ask the same of you.”
“The day has been endless, and the evening even longer.” He sank into his chair with a tired exhalation. “What do you require of me?”
“Must I always want something from you?”
He stared at her, noting the hints of strain around her eyes and mouth, signs he’d most recently cataloged on Lady Regmont—the signs of a woman in a troubled marriage. Signs he would never see on Jessica’s face because he would die before he caused her such sorrow.
When he didn’t answer, Louisa pushed the blanket aside and swung her legs over the edge of the settee. She clasped her hands in her lap and rolled her shoulders back. “I likely deserve your wariness and suspicion. I was so focused on what I was feeling that I did not pay enough attention to what you were feeling. I am so tremendously sorry for that. I’ve wronged you for many years.”
Alistair’s heartbeat sped up, confusion warring with disbelief. As a boy, he’d wanted to hear such words from her more than he had wanted anything else.
“I came to tell you,” she went on, “I wish you happy. It does my heart good to see you well loved and admired. I did see it. I also felt it. She esteems the ground you walk upon.”
“As I do for her.” He rubbed the spot over his chest that ached for Jessica. “And her regard will never alter or diminish. She knows the worst there is to know about me, yet she loves me in spite of my mistakes. No … I would say perhaps she loves me because of them; because of how they’ve shaped me.”
“It’s a wondrous gift to be loved unconditionally. It is my failing that I didn’t do the same, my son.” She stood. “I want you to know that I will support you and your choice to the last. I’ll hold her in my heart as you do.”
His fingertips stroked over the smooth lacquered top of his desk. By God, he was exhausted. He wanted Jess beside him, close to his heart. He needed to hold her and comfort her and find his own peace with her. “It means a great deal that you came to me, Mother. That you waited for my return. That you give me your blessing. Thank you.”
Louisa nodded. “I love you, Alistair. I will endeavor to show you how much, and pray that one day there will no longer be any reticence or mistrust between us.”
“I should like that.”
His mother rounded the desk. She bent and pressed her lips to his cheek.
He caught her wrist before she straightened, holding her close to gauge her reaction. Had she truly come, repentant and guileless, with warm sentiment? Or had she already been given the news he was about to share with her, freeing her to give her blessing with mitigated risk?
“You will be a grandmother,” he said quietly.
She froze and her breath caught, then her eyes widened and filled with startled joy. “Alistair—”
So, she hadn’t known. The warmth of her acceptance and blessing spread through him. “Not mine. As you likely surmised, Jessica is barren. But Emmaline … Albert saw to his duty after all. Perhaps not a boy I could name as my heir, but regardless of gender, you will at least have the joy of a grandchild.”
A tremulous smile banished the melancholy reflected in Louisa’s blue eyes—irises that were so like his.
Alistair smiled back.