Chapter Twenty-Two
The next morning, Violet slept in late, waking to sunlight streaming through her windows and her stomach grumbling with hunger.
She sat up, pushed her hair from her face, and looked over at the clock on the mantel.
Eleven thirty? Good Lord, she never slept this late.
She rose, and the minute her weight shifted to her feet, she had to pee.
After freshening up, she pulled the cord for her maid. Ginny must have been waiting for the summons because her cheerful face popped around the door only minutes later. “Good morning, ma’am. How are you feeling today?”
“Good. Hungry. I suppose I have missed breakfast?”
“Breakfast is ready whenever you are, my lady. You are the mistress of this house, and it runs around your needs.” She bustled over to the dressing room.
“Now this dove-gray day dress is the best I can do while we wait for your new clothes to arrive from the modiste. Hopefully, the day after next. You only have two black dresses, and I need to launder them,” Ginny muttered to herself as she came out with the gray dress in her arms. “As long as you don’t leave the house, I don’t think you will ruffle any feathers with the color. ”
Violet sighed. Not leave the house. This was to be her life for at least another month.
Perhaps she would write to her sisters and ask them to come visit.
She donned the gray dress with its pretty lace cuffs at the wrists.
Then she sucked in a sharp breath as Ginny attempted to hook the buttons up the back.
The dress had a high enough waistline that it flowed over her growing bump, but Ginny struggled to button the top part.
“Take another deep breath in, my lady,” Ginny said through clenched teeth.
Violet did as she was told while Ginny hooked the last two buttons. When Violet walked over to the mirror and saw her reflection, she laughed out loud. Her bust was obscenely spilling over the top of the once-modest neckline. She turned sideways and took in her profile. “Good Lord.”
Ginny tried but failed to hold back a giggle. “Let me fetch a fichu.”
“Don’t bother. I am not going to see anyone today anyway. I’m hungry. This baby is demanding sustenance.”
Later in the afternoon, Violet sat curled up on the chaise in her drawing room with her book when she overheard voices she recognized coming from the front hall.
“Thank you, Hodgins. I am aware Lady Sommerset is not receiving. She will receive us. Now step aside, or I will use my bulk to run you over.”
Violet rose from her seat just as Lucy Barclay barreled into the room, followed closely by Adeline Iveson. Her two best friends in the whole world, and two women she had not seen in such a long time, were right here in her drawing room. Tears filled her eyes. “Lucy! Addy!”
“I hope you are receiving; otherwise, I’ve bullied your butler terribly,” Lucy said.
Violet’s throat clogged with emotion, and no sound came out when she opened her mouth to respond.
With a loud, wet hiccup, she simply opened her arms wide.
Both ladies rushed to her and enfolded her in an awkward three-way hug.
Violet didn’t care, though. She wrapped one arm around each friend and squeezed. “Addy, what are you doing here?”
The ladies stepped back. Adeline straightened her spectacles. “I have come to town to be here when Lucy’s baby arrives so I can be of some help. Kingsbury and I arrived two days ago.”
Hodgins hovered in the doorway.
Violet gave him a wide smile. “Mr. Hodgins, please have tea prepared. My friends will stay for a visit.”
“Right away, ma’am,” Hodgins replied.
“Please have a seat,” Violet said. “I’m so glad to see you both. But Lucy, what are you doing out of the house?”
“As I have said repeatedly to my husband, I am pregnant, not an invalid. Besides, Seaton came this morning and said that you needed us. So here we are.” Lucy sat with a sigh in a leather wingback chair. “Do you have a footstool of some sort?”
Violet stared at Lucy dumbly for a full minute. Rhys had told her friends that she needed them? She crossed to the corner of the room, picked up a small tufted footstool, and returned to tuck it under Lucy’s feet. “Rhys sent you?”
“Yes, he showed up at breakfast, ate all my bacon, and said that you needed us. So we came.”
Violet plopped down next to Adeline on the settee. She buried her face in her hands. “I didn’t know if you would forgive me for pulling away, for not responding to your letters. I was sure you both would be angry with me.”
Adeline wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “We were worried about you, not angry.”
“But why have you disappeared? Was it to do with your husband?” Lucy asked.
“We are so terribly sorry for your loss,” Addy said softly.
Violet burst into earnest tears then. She had missed them so much. “I was so ashamed of what my life had become. Of what I let him do to me.”
“What did he do to you?” Lucy demanded.
“He was hurting me. He would drink excessively, and then his temper would boil over. He h-hit me…often.” Once the admission was out of her mouth, she couldn’t stop talking.
She told them everything. All the shameful parts of Stuart’s cruelty.
Things she hadn’t even told her mother. Addy held fast to her hands as she let loose all the ugly things that had defined her life for the past year.
At some point, Lucy had risen and was pacing angrily back and forth across the carpet. “That bastard. I knew something was wrong when we visited you in Kent. Why didn’t you say something sooner? We would have helped you. Does your mother know?”
Addy sent Lucy a stern look. “Sometimes things are too difficult to speak about.” She squeezed Violet’s hands. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to notice and help.”
Violet shook her head and turned to meet Lucy’s troubled gaze.
“I didn’t want to see you because I knew that you would be able to tell how desperately unhappy I was.
” She shrugged. “There was nothing I could do about it; he was my husband. As the duke so succinctly told my father when he complained about Stuart hurting me, what’s between a husband and wife was no one else’s business, and he could do what he wanted to me. ”
Lucy huffed. “That is nonsense. No one should be at the mercy of a cruel husband. It’s too bad he’s dead, because I would have thrashed him something fierce.” She took her seat with another loud huff of indignation.
“What happened to Stuart?” Adeline asked. “Nobody is speaking about the details of his death.”
A knock at the door interrupted their conversation. The maid pushed the tea cart into the room. She put out a tray of petite sandwiches and another with biscuits, then set out the tea service.
“Thank you, Harriet,” Violet said. When the woman left, she poured tea for her friends.
The fragrant scent of orange blossom and bergamot wafted up, calming her senses.
She spooned in sugar from the bowl and then took a sip of the sweetened tea, letting it fortify her for the next part of the story.
“He and I argued at dinner. I was done placating his moods. I walked out of the room, thinking he would leave me alone. But he followed me out to the hall, yelling that I shouldn’t walk away from him. He slapped me hard across the cheek.”
Adeline gasped.
“I knew that I had to get away. My only thought was to flee upstairs and lock myself in my room. But he chased me, and we struggled. At the top of the stairs, he lost his balance. He reached out to grab me, but I took a step back.” She sucked in a deep breath to steady her voice, the horror of that night still so fresh.
Had it only been a fortnight that had passed?
“He fell backward down the stairs.” She laid a hand on her stomach.
“I had to step back. I had to protect my baby.”
“Wait, you are pregnant?” Adeline’s eyes widened.
Violet smiled and smoothed her voluminous skirts flat over her bump. “Yes, about five months now.”
“Good Lord!” Lucy exclaimed. “And he was still hurting you? Despicable man. Of course, you let him fall. Your instincts kicked in to protect your child. I can see the conflict in your eyes. Vi, you did the right thing. He would have pulled you down the stairs with him.”
“That’s just what Rhys said,” Violet murmured.
Lucy’s blue eyes narrowed. “What is between you two? How did he know to send us over here?”
Violet took a biscuit and bit into the soft, buttery center.
What was between her and Rhys? She didn’t have an answer to that question, it would seem.
Last night, she would have said he was most certainly brushing her off.
But then he had gone out of his way to send her friends over to her house.
He had clearly listened to her when she spoke about her regrets. That man was such a blasted enigma.
“After the disastrous meeting with my father and the Duke of Lavensham, where the duke essentially told me to go home and stop making trouble, I saw clearly that if I wanted to protect my baby, I needed to force Stuart to stay away from me. The only person who could control my husband was his father. My plan was to discover something about the duke that I could use to blackmail him in exchange for sending me off to one of his many estates and keeping Stuart away from me.”
Lucy nodded. “A solid plan. But still, I could have helped. We could have sent you to one of Hartwick’s estates. We would have protected you.”
“You couldn’t have hidden me forever. I still belonged to Stuart; legally, he could have taken me back at any time.”
“He could have tried,” Lucy grumbled.
Violet and Adeline both chuckled. Adeline took a sip of tea. “Continue, please.”
“Rhys and I met in the duke’s study during a party. We both were there snooping around. Actually, we met again. I had met him once previously at your house, Lucy. Anyway, we agreed to help each other, and well, so much has happened. But I like to think we have become friends.”
“Friends?” Lucy asked.
“Yes, friends.” Violet took a sip of tea.
There was no way she was going to tell them that she had been sitting in his lap last night, learning how wonderful kissing could be.
Or that she had slept in his arms the night her husband died.
It was all too scandalous, but even more than that, it felt far too personal.
And she certainly had no idea how to define their relationship, so for now, she would stick with friends.
“I can’t tell you how good it is to see you both, to sit here and talk with you.
I have missed our friendship so much over this horrible year.
” Violet sniffled and tried to hold back the tears that threatened. She had cried enough for one day.
“Don’t start or you’ll make me cry too. And you know I hate to cry,” Lucy said.
Violet gave her friend a watery smile. “I can’t seem to help it these days.”
“I know. I have cried more tears during this pregnancy than in my whole life. Happy tears, mad tears, sentimental tears…”
“I have missed you too.” Adeline leaned in and hugged her. “I’m going to cry because we live so far away. And I am not even with child.” She laughed and wiped a tear that had slipped down her cheek.
“What a bunch of ninnies we are. I love you both. Thank you for coming.”
Lucy let out a grunt. When Violet looked over at her friend, Lucy was grimacing. “What’s wrong? Baby kick you?”
Lucy shook her head. “No, I have been feeling these little spasms all day. Some indigestion, no doubt. That one was painful, though.”
Adeline and Violet exchanged a look of surprise. Lucy was not one to complain about indigestion. “Darling, when is your baby due?”
“The midwife said anytime now. Oof…” She scrunched her nose. “Perhaps it would be best if I went home to lie down for a bit.” Lucy stood and had taken only two steps forward when she froze in place. “Oh dear.”
Violet rushed over. “What is it?”
“I think I have just peed on your carpet.” Lucy’s cheeks flamed red.
“Or perhaps your water has broken, and you have begun to labor?” Adeline said kindly.
“How do you know that? Her water?” Violet began to panic at the wet spot on the carpet as Lucy stepped to one side.
“I have been studying up on all things pregnancy in preparation for starting a family. There is so much to know about the birth process and infant care.” She shrugged as Violet and Lucy continued to stare at her.
“Kingsbury and I would like to have a large family eventually, and I want to be prepared. Come, let’s get you home, Lucy.
Hartwick will never forgive me for letting you out of the house if something happens to you. ”
“I’m coming too.” Violet finally gathered her wits. She wasn’t going to miss out on any more of life. Mourning, be dammed. “How exciting! You are about to bring a new life into this world.”