Page 59 of Weave me a Rope
Which left the marquess. Mr. Milton told them not to worry. Apparently, the marquess had negotiated. He had had little choice. Mr. Milton now owned ninety-five percent of his debts, including mortgages on his unentailed estates, bank and other loans, and gambling debts. “I will call them in if he harasses ye and my niece,” Mr. Milton told Spen. “If he leaves ye alone, I will leave him alone.”
Spen frowned. “I will pay you back, sir, once I inherit,” he promised. “Every penny. But I hope you will give me time.”
“Do not worry yer head, lad,” said Mr. Milton. “I’ve brass enough and then some to spare, and just the one ewe lamb. Ye’ll get it all when my time is done.”
“My wife will inherit,” Spen pointed out.
Mr. Milton chuckled. “We will work something out.”
Was the marquess check-mated? Spen was not so certain. Then, on the same day, they heard about the earl’s death, they received a letter from Deerhaven’s secretary, which said, once the polite phrases were pruned out of it, that the marquess had canceled Spenhurst’s allowance and would not acknowledge Spen or his countess in public. In effect, he was going to ignore Spen’s existence, though a paragraph right at the end of the letter demanded information when Cordelia gave birth to a boy.
Spen and Cordelia enjoyed more than a month of peace. They met their neighbors, though Cordelia’s condition allowed them to avoid formal dinners and other such entertainments. Spen threw himself enthusiastically into planning for the spring planting, and Cordelia brought her managers out from London for a weekend.
Letters from London assured them of the support of the sponsors of Almack, the Duchess of Haverford, and enough of the others to whom they had written to give them confidence their next appearance in Society would not see them shunned.
Even Lady Corven wrote to say she would reluctantly accept the marriage, for the sake of the family.
At the beginning of April, Mr. Milton arrived with Aunt Eliza, John, John’s tutor, Lady Daphne, and Miss Faversham. “No stolen moments in the library for the rest of the month,” Spen said to Cordelia as he rubbed her aching back in the bath that night.
“It is good of them to come,” Cordelia replied, “and I shall be glad of Aunt Eliza and Miss Faversham before the month is out. Besides, my love, I am too ungainly for stolen moments inthe library, but everyone will understand my need for a daytime nap!”
“I like your thinking,” Spen agreed. “As a loyal and loving husband, I shall make myself available to assist in any daytime nap you may require.”
A few days later, the new Lord Yarverton arrived without prior notice. He had been a country solicitor somewhere in Yorkshire until the earl died. He had known he was heir to the earl but said he had assumed the man would marry again and displace him.
Once he had met Spen, Cordelia, Lady Daphne, and the rest of the family, he was quite frank about his motivation in calling. “My lawyers insisted Lady Daphne is happy in her current situation and is well-protected by the trust my predecessor set up for her. But I wanted to check for myself. I am her cousin, after all. And you, Lord Spenhurst, are not a relative.”
He didn’t mention the scandalous rumors, but he had clearly heard them.
Spen wondered if he was after Lady Daphne’s inheritance, but the man seemed to be sincere about feeling responsible for her. Cordelia invited him to stay, and after a couple of days and a couple of serious conversations with Spen and Mr. Milton, they parted with mutual respect and the intention of furthering the acquaintance.
In the third week of April, Cordelia brought her baby into the world, supported by the local midwife, Aunt Eliza, Gracie Simpson, and Miss Faversham.
Spen had been relegated to the drawing room with Lady Daphne, Mr. Milton, and John. The normally placid and compliant Lady Eliza had turned into a birth-chamber tyrant. “Now, Spen dear, Cordelia has work to do, and she cannot be worrying about you.”
Even the youngest of the maids acted as if she had more to do with the affair than he had himself. He sent her upstairs to enquire after Cordelia, and she came down to tell him all was proceeding as it should. When he commented that it seemed to be taking a long time, she gave him a decidedly superior smirk. “First births tend to take longer, my lord,” she deigned to explain, as if at twelve years old, she was an expert on the subject.
She is the eldest daughter in a family of seven, Spen thought, soperhaps she is. Certainly, she could not be less knowledgeable than he was.
In the end, it took eleven hours from the moment Cordelia woke in the early morning with the first hard cramps until the moment, late in the afternoon, when Gracie came to fetch him. She refused to answer any questions about the baby. “My lady is well,” she said. “She wants you to see for yourself, my lord, and for you to show her uncle and Lord John.”
When he arrived in the room, Cordelia glowed with joy. She looked up from the bundle in her arms as he entered, and her smile broadened, before her gaze flicked straight back down to the tiny face turned up to hers. He went straight to them, ignoring everyone else in the room. “We have a daughter, Spen,” she told him, not taking her eyes from the tiny creature.
Spen stiffened his suddenly weak knees so he could bend over these two most precious people in the world to drop a kiss on the astonishing lock of dark hair and another on his wife’s lips. He felt as if his heart had swollen to twice its size, taking away his breath, but he managed to choke out the words, “I love you, Cordelia.”
He stroked a finger down the petal soft cheek of his new daughter. “I love you, Mary Elizabeth.” That was the name on which they had agreed. Mary for Cordelia’s mother, and Elizabeth for her aunt. The baby turned her face towards hisfinger, her mouth open and working. He drew his hand away, wondering what she wanted. Her lashes lifted and dark blue eyes stared vaguely in his direction before being veiled again.
“Did I upset her by touching her?” he wondered out loud.
“She was born knowing to turn her head when her cheek is touched,” the midwife told him, surprising him, as he had forgotten that he, Cordelia, and the baby did not exist in a world of their own. “At feeding time, my lady will bump her little ladyship on the cheek with her, um…”
“Breast?” Cordelia supplied, her voice warm with amusement.
“Exactly,” the midwife agreed, “and the baby will open her mouth for my lady to feed her.”
Cordelia did not want a wet nurse but was determined to feed little Mary herself.
“If you will let Lord Spenhurst take Lady Mary down to meet her uncles, my lady,” said the midwife, “we shall finish getting you cleaned up.”
