Page 69 of The Lost Lord
“How can I help?”
Edward regarded him for a moment. “Go with the footman, bring back the doctor as fast as you can. He’s more likely to hasten for a baron than to a servant, and I dare not leave Harper’s side.”
An agonized cry from upstairs punctuated his point.
“I’ll get Viola, too,” Richard offered.
“Good thinking. Her sister will be a great comfort.” Edward spoke over his shoulder as he flew back upstairs. As Richard tugged on his half boots, an anxious maid passed by with a kettle of water to be heated on the stove. It splashed onto Richard’s pants leg.
“Begging your pardon,” she gasped.
“Not to worry,” he replied reassuringly. “Tis only water and wool. Let me assist you.” He plucked the canister from her and carried it down the steps into the kitchen, where the scullery maid was poking the fire back to life. Richard placed the metal on the stove and dashed out the side door into the alleyway. At the end of the drive, the footman was getting into a hansom. Richard called out and leapt into the cab before the door could close.
“Congratulations on the news, your lordship,” the footman offered as the horse lurched into a reluctant trot.
“Let’s wait until the babe arrives safely before we pop the champagne and light a cigar at Gliddon’s,” Richard replied with his old acerbity. Like his clothes, it fit poorly on him now. Unlike waistcoats and shirts, he could not have it tailored to suit.
Last night, Richard had poured himself a cognac in his brother’s study, taken a single sip, and tossed it into the banked fire. He still had work to do. A cottage to sell. Debts to repay. Once it was done, he could get and stay as drunk as he wished, but in the meantime, Richard needed to atone for his business failures the way he’d atoned for his romantic failures. By setting it all to rights. Put things back as they had been before he crashed into Miriam, Livingston, and Howard’s lives.
Make them whole.
“You’re to be recognized in a special ceremony. You’ve been invited to Court and everything,” the footman said in awe.
Richard absorbed this information without remark. He had imagined this moment for years, when he would finally be transformed into a man of importance. A man of stature and worth, whose rank superseded those of other men. Ever since his father had received an unexpected earldom after Richard’s uncle had been killed in service to the crown, Richard had waited his turn to receive the same news. He should feel elated. Elevated.
Yet he was numb. Nothing mattered without the woman he had sent away, out of his life forever. Gray streaked the sky above as Richard stared out the window. What an uncommon streak of fine sailing weather, Richard mused. The crossing from England to America took typically took longer, but Miriam ought to be home by the end of October. He could make it back by Christmas, or perhaps hire a solicitor to handle the annulment from here. There was no need to tell the truth about their one night together, unless…
…unless he’d gotten her with child.
An avalanche of cold fear piled over him. Lizzie had not been pregnant, but Miriam could be. He should never have sent her back. Richard dropped his head into his hands. How did he continue to make the same mistakes over and over again?
“I apologize, sir, if I speak out of turn. I thought you knew,” the abashed footman offered.
“It’s quite alright.” Richard had expected having a title to magically change him into something else. Someone better. Yet he was no different than he’d been, still himself with all his humbling mistakes to atone for.
“Here we are,” the footman halted the horses, and they flung themselves down from the little buggy. Phaeton. How confusing to have so many words to describe a simple cart pulled by a horse. Richard shook his head as if to free it from cobwebby thoughts. Having stepped outside his class and country, he found he could not step back into the stream of excess privilege.
Yet, Richard found he didn’t mind. He had discovered a richness of relationships with his family, now that he was no longer fighting them. A title was only a bit of icing.
But the cake…the cake had been Miriam all along. He’d been a fool. Again.
“What are you wanting at this hour?” a housekeeper demanded. “Dr. Thompson is just back from a bloody surgery. He’s dead on his feet.” The woman barred the entry with her body and a fierce glare.
“Her ladyship the countess of Briarcliff is in childbirth,” Richard replied, with the lordliest manner he could muster. The lady glanced away and sighed.
“Very well. I shall rouse him. Come in.”
He had to admit that titles occasionally had their uses.
Richard and the footman waited in the modest foyer of the doctor’s home. There were no statues, no marble, only carved wood and wallpaper. It smelled of smoke and leather, with a metallic tinge that reminded Richard of blood. After a few impatient minutes, a stair creaked as footsteps echoed from above. The mustached doctor appeared, buttoning gray suit around his middle, his face haggard in the harsh stripes of sunrise piercing the windows. Richard waved him on and cracked open the door.
“I’m coming, I’m coming. Babies take their time. You might’ve let me rest,” the man grumbled. Edward’s footman had located the doctor’s kit. He raised it to show it was ready to go.
“These babies wait for no one,” Richard observed. “You’re needed immediately. The midwife had things under control when I left an hour ago.”
He swept the doctor into the conveyance and secured the door. The servant drove fast, faster than Richard would have done, with an intimate knowledge of London’s streets. He dodged street urchins and hand carts hawking wares, tired nags pulling cabs with heads slung low. A pair of drunks stumbling home after a night of debauchery made Richard peer backward, but they were too far gone for him to recognize. Once they might have been his companions. Now, they were nothing more than obstacles on the way to what he cared most about. His family.
The footman pulled the carriage to a hard stop in front of the Briarcliff townhouse. Less than an hour had passed since their departure. Richard only hoped they were in time to help Harper. If she needed it.
