Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
The smile that Rowena managed was wan at best, but her friend was good enough to pretend that she was convinced.
“There now,” said Adena with a concerned expression. “‘Tis good to see you smile.”
Rowena nodded, her smile unwilling – or unable – to broaden, and as she was jolted by the coach moving over a stone, her gaze shifted to the window revealing the ever moving landscape, house after house, building after building rushing past.
Perhaps it was that which made her feel even more nauseous – or perhaps it was the child growing within her.
How could she have not guessed that she was with child?
The pregnancy signs were all there: tiredness, lethargy, sickness in the morning and nausea throughout the rest of the day. She had even grown to dislike tea.
She shook her head slightly as Adena chattered with Luke, the two of them seated on the other side of the carriage.
It had been her friend who had noticed first rather than herself, and she had had enough of a conversation with her mother when her fluxes had first arrived to understand their meaning.
But this situation was absurd: with child, her? Who would have thought that you really could make love just the once – one heady night – and fall with child immediately?
“Do not concern yourself,” Luke was saying to his wife, a comforting hand on hers. “We shall arrive at the doctor’s quite soon.”
“I still do not understand why the doctor cannot come to us,” said Adena petulantly, her other hand on her stomach.
Rowena watched Luke’s gaze look over at her for a moment, and then fall back to his wife. “Because…because it is easier this way, that is all.”
Rowena watched the flicker of concern mingled with excitement on Adena’s face, and the guilty feeling that she had been experiencing ever since the Marquis and Marchioness of Dewsbury had taken her in after her disgrace increased once more.
Of course the doctor could not come to visit them – there would be talk, and talk would lead to visits, and visits would mean the truth would come out.
They had sacrificed much – Luke especially – to harbour such a fallen woman.
Their social engagements curtailed, the constant threat of discovery hanging over their heads.
As the carriage picked up pace as it travelled outside of London, Rowena sighed and tried not to think about the journey they were on.
“I must apologise for the discomfort of the journey,” Adena murmured to her with a smile. “No doctor in London could be trusted to keep their tongues quiet, and we would have used our own carriage to transport us there, but this one is not recognisable.”
Rowena nodded, and felt the sense of shame increase in her once more. All this trouble, all of this expense, for her. She should never have gone with them, that day at the King’s Head Inn. She should have found her own way home.
But was not that attitude exactly what had got her into this trouble in the first place?
Her eyes watched as the houses thinned, and countryside appeared as they left London. To breathe clean air against hat was at least one simple comfort that she could draw from their overly cautious trip.
“Is the doctor expecting us?” She asked Adena.
Luke nodded, a broad smile creeping over his face. This seemed to be such a strange response to her predicament that Rowena glanced at her friend, to see if she had noticed the strange reaction – but Adena blushed as her friend’s gaze came upon her.
Rowena laughed, and it was a true laugh, the first for many days. “Adena, you sly thing! Clearly I am not the only one who is visiting the doctor today to discuss their child!”
Adena’s face flushed an even darker pink, and Rowena was able for a few moments to forget that they were seated in an uncomfortable, dank carriage with little to no comfort, forced out of London to visit a doctor whose silence could be trusted.
“No wonder,” grinned Rowena, “no wonder you were so quick to easily identify my situation!”
“Well, it was obvious anyway,” Adena countered, her hands tightening around her husband’s. “But…yes, ‘tis true. We are also expecting!”
The two friends laughed together, and Rowena felt some of the tension in her shoulders melt away.
Well, if she could not share this with – no, she would not think of him, she would not allow him to even enter her mind – then the least she could do was share it with someone who she knew cared about her, and knew what she was experiencing.
“Tell me all,” Rowena said, a little more fiercely than she had intended in order to drown out the thoughts of him from her mind. “When did you know?”
Adena exchanged a glance with her husband, and they both grinned. “Well,” she said coyly, “you may be surprised to learn that we were not…strong enough, shall we say, to wait until we were married before we…”
Rowena’s jaw dropped, and she stared at Luke who had the good breeding to look a little embarrassed. “My lord Marquis, you do surprise me!”
“I have no idea what you are referring to,” replied Luke good-naturedly, above his wife’s giggles. “You know Adena, she talks such nonsense.”
The three of them laughed together, and Rowena leaned back to listen to her friend’s chatter; about their love, about how they met on the island, about their baby…
As interesting as Adena’s words were, Rowena could not help but glance more often than was strictly necessary at her husband. Luke was watching his wife with such a look of pride and devotion that it almost made Rowena blush, as though she had disturbed one of their most intimate moments.
To think that James may have looked at her in such a way, if he knew that he had a child coming into the world.
A son? A daughter? Would they have his pale blue eyes, or his way with words?
Rowena placed a hand surreptitiously across her stomach.
Could it feel her love, even now when it was so small? Did it know how much it was wanted?
All three of them gave a shout as the coach jerked suddenly to one side, and Rowena shrieked and brought a hand to her head as she was thrown against the side of the carriage.
Head spinning and stars appearing in her vision, she saw a blur of something that looked like a man on horseback through the window of the carriage.
Mind dazed and head sore, Rowena blinked.
She could not have seen that. She could not have – but her eyes focused and found the window once more, and was dismayed to see the same image.
A highwayman, riding at full pelt just to the left of the coach, galloping to keep up and despite the hurried yells of their driver, managing it.
“A-a man,” was all she managed as her temple throbbed. Luke stared in the direction where she was pointing, and cursed quietly under his breath.
“Faster man!” He yelled, hitting the roof of the coach. “Faster!”
Rowena’s heart was racing. It was rare, these days, for a coach to be taken by highwaymen – but not unheard of. As the coach jerked forward at full tilt, bumping the three inhabitants around like matches in a box, the two women looked at each other.
Adena looked anxious, and Rowena saw with a lump in her throat that both of them were naturally clutching their bellies, as though they could in some way protect their unborn babes with the action.
“Luke – Luke, what is happening,” Adena breathed, her face unbearably pale. “He must not hurt you, you must not do anything…anything…”
Her eyelashes fluttered, and her head slumped slightly as she fainted.
“Adena! Adena!” Rowena leaned forward, one hand still clutching her own stomach, and felt the pulse of her friend. “It is low, but it is there.”
Luke nodded with relief, but he could not concern himself totally with his wife: his eyes still watched the highwayman, and so did Rowena.
Newspaper reports raced through her mind. Highwaymen were known to rob, rape, murder those who they accost. What did this man want? What was going to happen to her – to them, to her baby?
The coach moved faster and faster until the world was a complete blur, but yet still that dark blur was following them, keeping abreast of the carriage, forcing the coach driver to whip the horses again and again, until they cut go no further –
And then a huge jerk and both Adena and Rowena were thrust against the side of the carriage as the blur that was the highwayman forced his horse across their path, cutting off the horses and causing them to slow down.
Heart in her mouth, barely able to comprehend exactly what was happening, Rowena cast her panicked gaze at Luke.
“Stay here – stay inside,” he said forcefully. “Do you hear me, Rowena? No matter what happens, stay inside the coach.”
It had come to a stop now, but Rowena was still shaking. This was a nightmare, this could not be happening. She did not understand how a simple Tuesday afternoon could end this way.
There were steps outside now, and Luke gave her a warning look but there was a rising sense of injustice within her. No one, but no one was going to hurt them.
She would not allow it.
As the man flung open the carriage door, Rowena raised both feet and kicked him hard in the chest.
She was not a particularly strong woman, and if she had had more time, she may have thought of a more impressive move – but it was enough.
The man choked, all the breath knocked out of him, and recoiled completely winded away from the coach.
“And there is more of that,” shouted Rowena, trying to keep her voice level but strong. “You can take anything you want of value – ”
“Rowena,” breathed Luke, but she ignored him.
“ – but you will not harm myself, my baby, or any of us in here!” Rowena ended, her hands balled into fists. She would kill before she allowed anyone to hurt her, or the life growing within her.
Breathing heavily, head spinning, stomach sore and mind confused, he tried desperately to recall exactly what he was going to say.