Chapter Fifteen #2
“My courses haven’t come yet, Flora, but they must be on the way because I am crying about everything.” Joy patted the cushioned seat beside her. “Just set the tray here. I can pour.”
Flora eyed her. “Your courses still haven’t started?”
“No. All this change must have them off kilter. Like my tears and my stomach upset.”
“They should have started days ago, my lady. Regular as you are, a farmer could plan his crops by your cycles.”
Joy closed her eyes and sipped the noxious tea that always made her feel better.
It cured headaches, calmed belly pain, and made her less likely to cast up her accounts.
“It is all the changes. The wedding. The blackmailer. Learning to run a household when I have no idea how to run one. I just want to go to sleep, then wake up and find all my worries resolved. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? ”
Flora took the cup out of her hands and set the teapot out of reach. “I believe you might need a different tea, my lady. Let me fetch it for you. All right?”
“This one always works. Why is it suddenly the wrong one?”
“Because your courses have not come yet. You need a different tea to settle your nerves.”
“Fine.” Joy felt sure her courses would start anytime.
As Flora said, she was more regular than the phases of the moon—unless undue excitement or unrest happened.
When Mama and Papa had died, her courses had fallen off by several weeks.
But once she had calmed down, they had returned.
Of course, she didn’t have a husband then.
A husband who came to her bed every evening.
She looked up to find Flora staring at her with her brows slightly raised, waiting for her to realize the possibilities. “So soon? I cannot be.”
“It only takes one good seed sowing for a flower to take hold and bloom,” Flora said with a nod at Joy’s middle. “Begging your pardon, but have you not experienced several sowings, my lady?”
“That is a very bold question.”
“But a good question, nonetheless. As your maid, I need to help you prepare.”
“Prepare for what?” Joy pressed her hands to her middle. “There is too much going on right now. A child would be one more weight on my already out-of-balance scale.”
“Let me get you that tea.” Flora gathered up the teapot and cup, placed them on the tray, and hurried from the room.
Joy didn’t know whether to sob uncontrollably out of happiness or misery.
There was already so much to deal with right now—Jansen’s nightmares, Aurelia’s betrayal, redecorating Ambrose’s rooms, learning the household, and now she had to contemplate setting up a nursery?
“Oh, bloody hell. Not right now. Please.”
A soft pecking on the door drew her attention. It couldn’t be Flora already. It had to be either Aurelia or Jansen. “Who is it?” She wasn’t in the mood for surprises.
“Aurelia.”
“Bloody hell,” Joy muttered again. “Come in.”
The door creaked open, snagging Joy’s already raw nerves like a jagged fingernail across fine silk.
“Jansen said you wished to see me before I left.”
“Why, Aurelia? Of all the things you could have done—why?” Tears welled and rolled down Joy’s cheeks. She didn’t even try to stop them.
Bleary eyed and her nose red from weeping, Aurelia started crying again too.
“I was afraid the two of you wouldn’t end up together if I didn’t do something.
You didn’t wish to marry, and even though Jansen loved you so very much, he was taking his sweet time about getting around to courting you.
He is nine and thirty, for heaven’s sake.
Far too old to be dragging his feet about taking a wife. ”
“But blackmail? Seriously? What if I had told Chance about the club? Do you have any idea of the fury I would have had to listen to for the rest of my days?”
“But it worked out. I was going to confess before you spoke to Chance. I would never force you to go through that. And now you are married. And happy. You are happy. Yes?”
“That is not the point! You do not manipulate friends.”
“But it not only brought you and Jansen closer, it paid back Connie and Prudie for being such a pair of cows.”
“And what of poor Frederica? She won’t even speak to me anymore out of fear that she will be targeted again.”
“That is regrettable,” Aurelia said. “I always liked Frederica. But she is marrying and will soon be off to the Continent. Her intended is Prussian royalty. She is quite fortunate, and we will rarely see her again—if ever.”
“Aurelia.” Joy had no words. She was simply too weary and disappointed to argue.
“I know.” Aurelia swiped away her tears, sniffing as she searched for her handkerchief. “I am sorry. It seemed like a fine idea at the time.”
“And now you are leaving me. Being sent away until Jansen’s temper cools.
And aren’t you the one who told me he never forgets a slight?
How many years will he keep you there?” Joy waved her away.
“Just go. I cannot deal with another thing right now, and the loss of a trusted friend is a very big thing to deal with.”
“I am so sorry,” Aurelia whispered as she backed toward the door. “I truly am.”
“I am too,” Joy said with an exhausted sigh. “I am too.”
*
Jansen handed the Earl of Denby, his old war friend, a drink. “It is not working, I tell you.”
“It takes longer than a mere few days.” Denby accepted the glass, lifted it for a quick toast, then sipped the whisky both men preferred.
“It took me almost a year before the demons stopped completely. You have to envision a different outcome to the nightmare. See yourself conquering the bloody bastards every night before you fall asleep. Since you have a new, quite lovely wife, I’ll wager you’re too exhausted to envision anything before you drop off. ”
“All I see here of late is the sadness in her eyes whenever I leave her bed.” Jansen couldn’t express how frustrated he was with himself.
“Her parents enjoyed a phenomenal love match and always shared a bedroom. Joy is doing her best to be understanding, but I see the disappointment in her eyes. The loneliness. And I feel it too. What I wouldn’t give to wake each morning with her in my arms.”
“Envisioning myself fighting back, winning, going home victorious, worked for me,” Denby said. “Keep at it, man. You are the most disciplined person I have ever known. You can correct this and vanquish that scar from your mind.”
“Some scars are forever.”
“If you think like that,” Denby said, “you are defeated before you ever start. Believe in yourself.” He snorted. “Never in all my wild and woolly years did I ever think to tell you to believe in yourself.”
Jansen sipped his whisky, letting the liquid slowly burn its way down his gullet. “I do not handle failure well and have never been known for my patience.”
“Well, in this, you must learn some patience. The mind is a stubborn thing. Once it learns something, once it is scarred, it takes a great deal to convince it otherwise.” Denby stretched more comfortably in the leather chair and crossed his legs at the ankles. “Do you die in your dreams?”
“No. I awaken just as they start stabbing me with their bayonets.”
“See yourself snapping off those bloody blades and gutting them with their own weapons. Conquer them. Stop letting them conquer you.”
“I am trying.”
“Try harder.”
*
Leaning close to Joy’s bedroom door to better hear the slightest noise within, Jansen knocked.
No answer came. She hadn’t emerged from her rooms all day, not even for tea with Nimbus, a daily ritual she had come to adore.
He was worried. Had she already tired of him?
Had the ordeal with Aurelia changed her heart?
“It is Jansen, my angel. May I come in?”
“No. Go away.”
“I am not going away. I am worried about you. Shall I send for the physician?”
“No. I am just not feeling well, and I look like something Nimbus mauled in the garden. Leave me alone. Please.”
Jansen stared at the door. At least she had softened the dismissal with a please. “Let me come in for just a moment and see with my own eyes that you are living and breathing.”
“If I were not living and breathing, I would hardly be speaking to you, now would I? Go away.”
Then the unmistakable sound of retching came through the door. Jansen winced and backed up a step. His poor beloved sounded quite ill. “Shall I have Mrs. Copper send up one of her remedies? She is quite good with ailments of the stomach.”
Silence.
He tapped on the door again. “Joy—you are frightening the bloody hell out of me. Please let me in.”
“It is not locked, you unrelenting arse.”
Restraining the urge to throw the thing wide open, Jansen eased into the stuffy, shadowy room. “Shall I open a window for you? Some sunshine and a cool breeze might help.”
“Flora will just shut it again.”
“Why?”
“Because she is a relentless arse too.”
“If you want it open, it shall be open. I will not have you suffocating in here.” He strode across the room, yanked open the curtains, and threw open the doors to the balcony. “There. Much better.” He turned and came up short at the small mound under the covers in the middle of the bed. “Joy?”
“Go away,” came her muffled reply.
He drew closer and eased down onto the edge of the bed, taking care not to jostle it or bump the chamber pot on the floor. “I shall have the surgeon come immediately.”
“There is no need. I know what is wrong with me.”
“What?” He braced himself, dreading what malady she might name.
“We are going to have a child, you oaf.”
He stared at the mound beneath the bedclothes as it gently rose, then fell with her every breath. “What did you say?”
“A child,” she sobbed. “We are going to have a child, and I am not ready.”
His heart shattered into a thousand pieces and plummeted to his feet. “You do not want our child?” He was barely able to utter the words.