Page 2 of Trusting Miss Austen (Miss Austen #3)

The rest of the morning passed in a daze. I tried talking to Max, but he said that he needed time to consider ‘the situation’ and to think. So I deemed it wise to let him alone.

In the late afternoon, I couldn’t wait any longer and went to his study. He was writing a letter. From the rapid pace of his quill and the hunch of his shoulders, I deduced it was about ‘the situation’. But to whom was he writing that could help us?

I stood in the doorway, watching him, and eventually couldn’t stand the suspense. ‘Who are you writing to, dearest?’ I enquired.

‘My lawyer’ came the curt response.

His lawyer! The back of my neck prickled.

‘W-why?’

Max stopped writing and glanced at me. ‘I am inviting him to stay with us. I need his expertise on a certain matter.’

‘More unexpected guests,’ I muttered nervously .

‘Fliss, please come in and sit down. We need to discuss something.’

The serious way Max was looking at me suggested I was not going to like what he was about to say.

‘Ah.’ I edged backwards. ‘ Can it wait? I need to go and talk to Cook and make sure we have enough food to feed everyone.’

‘It cannot, I’m afraid,’ said Max seriously, his countenance grim.

Dutifully, I entered the room and sunk onto the sofa.

Max joined me and held my hands. Then he kissed me on both cheeks, which worried me greatly. He was not an unaffectionate man, but for him to be so overly demonstrative in the middle of the day meant he was about to drop a cannonball on me.

‘Dearest’, he began, ‘I have considered the best thing to do for Lucy—’

‘Isn’t that for her parents to decide?’ I interrupted.

‘Seraphina doesn’t want to involve Tobias. She hasn’t told him the real reason why they’ve come to Derbyshire. She thinks he would either hunt Dorian down and invite him to a duel or stab him forthwith without even giving him the courtesy of accepting the invitation.’

It was not out of the question. I knew Tobias to be hot-headed and wholly capable of doing such a thing. It was what I had been worried about with Max—was still worried about, in fact, as he was so dour-faced.

‘So in the absence of a male protector, I am stepping in,’ he continued.

‘Surely you’re not going to invite him to a duel?’ I whispered. Is that why he needs his lawyer—to update his will? ‘Darling, I know you learned fencing when you were younger, but you haven’t picked up a sword in years ...’

Max’s lips twisted into a rueful smile. ‘No, I am not going to duel with him. Perish the thought. As much as I despise Dorian right now, I have no wish to kill him and face the gallows.’

I tightened my grip on his hands. ‘I am glad to hear it.’

‘No, I have another way to help Lucy ...’

He fell silent, and I waited, my feeling of dread increasing by the minute.

Max looked at our joined hands and seemed to be steeling himself to speak. ‘Darling, are you very against having a child?’ he murmured.

‘Why?’ I asked somewhat sharply, as I had grasped where this conversation was leading.

‘I know you do not want to go through childbirth. But what if you did not have to give birth? Would you be wholly against raising Lucy’s child as our own?’

I gazed into Max’s eyes and saw there was a beseeching element in their depths.

‘You have already made up your mind,’ I said in surprise. ‘You want the child.’

‘I feel it is our duty to help—’

‘But this is going beyond the call of duty! Do you blame me so much that you deem it my punishment?’

‘I do not blame you. Of course I don’t,’ said Max earnestly. ‘But don’t you see? This is a chance to have our own family, for me to have an heir.’

I narrowed my eyes at the word ‘heir’. ‘This is Seraphina’s doing. She has put that idea in your head.’

Max shrugged and did not deny it. ‘What she says makes sense. I do need an heir.’

‘You are presuming it will be a boy. What if it’s a girl?’

Max’s eyes softened. ‘Then she will have a sizeable dowry and be the most eligible young lady in England.’

He rubbed the back of my hand with his thumb. ‘I have seen how you are with Lucy. You would make a kind and caring mother, Fliss.’

Tears pricked my eyes. ‘Do you think so?’

Max nodded. ‘I know so. You haven’t had an easy time of it, growing up without a mother. But at least you had a loving father. Imagine how Lucy’s child will fare if he or she has neither.’

I extracted one of my hands from Max’s to swipe at my watering eyes. Oh, he is tugging on my heartstrings now! ‘I doubt Seraphina will cast out her first grandchild.’

‘Fliss, she is talking of sending Lucy to a nunnery and the child, when it is born, being given away. There is no guarantee that it will end up with kind or loving parents.’

I gaped at him. ‘But that’s monstrous!’

‘Seraphina is being pragmatic. She has four other children to think of—two of them girls who are not far from marriageable age. You know what the consequences are for them if this scandal becomes known.’

‘B-but can she not pass it off as one of her own?’

Max shook his head, and his lips tightened. ‘She doesn’t want Tobias to ever know about this. Lucy is his little girl, and he dotes on her. If he finds out Dorian Hart has ruined her life, he is likely to do something very stupid. And again, Seraphina is thinking of the welfare of her other children and herself. If Tobias is hanged, they are all done for.’

‘But to not tell her husband! And for you not to tell your own brother!’ I cried. ‘It seems so wrong.’

‘Fliss, you haven’t seen Tobias in a temper. I have not told you this, but there was an incident in London before they were married. One of Seraphina’s previous suitors attended the same ball, and the man provoked Tobias into a jealous rage. He spotted him walking along the street afterwards and tried to run him over with his curricle. Fortunately, Seraphina managed to grab hold of the reins at the last minute and halt the horses.’

‘Gracious!’

‘Yes, so you can see why Seraphina is reluctant to tell him about Dorian. ’

I glanced over at the letter Max had been penning in haste.

‘So why do you need your lawyer?’

‘I need him to draw up a formal contract that states we are the child’s official guardians and also add some other clauses about inheritance if it is a boy. Seraphina has agreed to it on Lucy’s behalf.’

I balked at that arrangement. ‘She doesn’t even get a say in what happens?’

Max’s eyebrows flicked briefly. ‘Lucy has a say, but she will come to see that it is impossible for her to keep the child even if she wants it. If she and her family are to remain favourable in society, she will have to give it up. And it is the best decision for everyone, including the child, if we raise it.’

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. But is it the best decision for me?

‘Can I at least think about it?’

Max patted my hand reassuringly. ‘Of course, but you won’t have too long. As soon as Mr Chadwick arrives, we’ll all sit down and discuss the particulars of what is to happen before and after the birth. It all has to be conducted in utmost secrecy too so no one besides us must know.’

Oh dear Lord! This was moving fast. Too fast.

In the space of less than a day, I was now confronted with being the mother of Dorian Hart’s child. How was this happening?

***

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 was standing 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. But burning 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. I must write 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”.’

‘I know this is a shocking turn of events, Fliss. But the fewer people who know, the better.’

‘I want to tell Jane,’ I said bluntly. ‘It is unthinkable for me to keep such a thing from her. She will be objective and is discretion itself. I would have written to her immediately but for you saying that we shouldn’t tell anyone.’

Max stared at me thoughtfully for what felt like a decade.

‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘But please impress upon her that the information is being given in the strictest confidence. And do not, for the love of God, mention it to Seraphina.’

I nodded in relief and kissed his hand emphatically. ‘Thank you! I will write to her this instant to catch the morning post!’

‘Very well.’

Decision made, Max rolled over, intending to get another hour’s shut-eye before breakfast, while I donned my wrap and flew down the stairs to the parlour.

Now that I had permission to tell Jane, I had to compose a good letter. But where to begin? And what to say?

I dipped my quill in the ink and began.

Dear Jane,

Thank you for your latest letter. I am glad to hear your new novel is progressing well and that our trip to the castle inspired you so greatly despite the unfortunate circumstances we found ourselves in. But my life has taken an even stranger turn of late.

I paused and took a deep breath.

Oh, Jane! Something so bad terrible unusual has happened. Max initially told me I couldn’t say anything. But I simply cannot keep this from you, my dearest friend, and he has relented. What I am about to tell you must be kept in the strictest confidence . You must tell no one, not even Cassie. Here it is. Oh, I can hardly write it for tearing up. Our dear Lucy is in a delicate condition, and Dorian Hart is the father!

I informed her how it had happened (but not as in much detail as Lucinda had given me) and that her mother blamed me heartily.

Now after some discussion with Seraphina I was not privy to, Max has decided it is best if we raise the child as our own as he wants an heir! He has written to his lawyer, and the man is on his way to Derbyshire to draw up a formal guardianship contract for us to sign, which will make it all official.

Jane, I am quaking and wretched about it all and have hardly slept a wink. I keep having nightmares about a crying baby that has Dorian’s face! Tell me in your calm, collected manner that we are doing the right thing and this is not the disaster it appears to be. You know my feelings about motherhood, but Max fears that if we do not raise the child, it will face the derision of society and endure a miserable life!

There now, you know it all and will no doubt be immensely shocked—for that I am very sorry. But please, please do not delay in writing back and giving me your sound and soothing counsel. I need it as I have never done before.

Love your friend

(and soon to be a mama?),

Flissy