Chapter Thirteen #2
“You know this place was special to my mother. She used to bring me here when I was a boy and we would enjoy our time spent out from beneath the gray cloud that is my father. But…there is more to it than that.” The foreign words he’d held buried deep within his soul for so damn long were finally resurfacing.
They threatened to break free in a terrifying torrent of emotion, but he just barely managed to keep them in check.
So, Pearce finally began to tell Clara about Anna MacPherson, his mistress from his youth—how he’d met her, the daughter of an impoverished Scottish nobleman, when Pearce been visiting his grandfather shortly before the old man’s death.
Bewitched by her classic Scottish beauty and fire, he had returned to Edinburgh as often as his schedule would allow so he and Miss MacPherson might foster a relationship.
“I believed she was my reward for having my mother stolen from me so early in life—especially here, in of all places. I wanted so badly to believe it.” Pearce described how quickly he’d begun to care deeply for Miss MacPherson, but that they’d decided to keep their meetings a secret to preserve her reputation; not all their meetings took place under the most proper of circumstances.
“We were so young…so na?ve…” It was also around then that Kempton had become betrothed to Amelia the first time.
With his closest friend absorbed in his own new love, it had been easy for Pearce to step away and focus on his own affair.
He threw himself into his emotions fully, gave himself permission to toss aside every whisper of caution and sink beneath the surface of his desire.
Then, the need for secrecy became even more necessary when Anna discovered she was with child.
While she’d told him of her suspicions early on, she managed to hide the truth from her family for a handful of months while they tried to decide together the best way to handle what they had done.
Unfortunately for Anna, her family had immediately cast her out when her nausea and sickness became too overwhelming to hide.
“And, still, no one else knew?” Clara asked, worrying the edge of the bedding in her fingers in a seemingly unconscious fashion.
There was no masking the bitterness in his voice when he said, “They only held their tongues when a hefty purse was delivered to them in return for their discretion.” The bitterness he felt at their callous treatment of Anna still infuriated him.
No one deserved to be treated that way, valued so little, and tossed aside.
Without question, Pearce had taken her in, promising to marry her regardless of whatever his father might feel about the match.
They were already in Scotland, so a quick marriage was manageable without a special license.
They could create a life for themselves in Edinburgh.
He had his own funds and homes he’d inherited from his mother’s family, so they would be comfortable even if his father disowned him.
“What did your father think of all this?” she asked meekly, as if afraid speaking might break the spell that had unfettered Pearce’s tongue.
He thought of how incensed his father had been when he’d broached the subject of wedding the daughter of a minor Scottish noble.
As displeased as the man had been with Pearce’s sudden marriage to Clara, he’d been incensed by the uselessness of forming such a bond between the Brinley and MacPherson families.
Whereas he’d at least been pleased with the quality of Clara’s bloodline, he’d not offered the same deference to Anna.
Either way, the man viewed the situations as temporary because, as he so gracefully said it, “Only tragedy can come from a Brinley marriage. We must gain what we can from them before the curse strikes.”
Brinley, in his youthful optimism, had been so certain that his feelings for Anna and their unborn child would be enough to overcome anything…
How very wrong he’d been.
“He protested, of course, but I was a headstrong buck determined to do what I felt was the right thing. Besides, I fancied myself entirely besotted with Miss MacPherson.” He offered Clara a sad little smile before continuing with his story.
He detailed the plans he and Anna had made in haste.
He’d arranged for Anna to be moved into his Queen Street house in secret.
He returned to London when necessary, but slipped off to Scotland at any opportunity, where he and Anna were able to live in a world and a reality of their own making.
Together, they decided they would share the news with his friends and London Society after the babe was born, though they planned to wed before the birth.
Their plans were postponed, however, when early pains confined Anne to her bed.
In those months, she managed well enough with her books and Pearce never left her side.
One month before the expected birth, they were determined to try to wed again. As Anna had been preparing herself, however, she’d gone into labor in earnest. The midwife was summoned and then, as the labor had continued without progress, a physician had to be summoned as well.
“Anna endured hours of pain and no headway toward birth. One day moved onto the next…” Every word was agony as the memories slammed into him.
The screaming…
Pearce could still hear the echoes of Anna crying out his name, begging him to help her stop the pain. He’d become almost ill from worry when the hours continued to pass with still no child appearing. The physician prepared him for the worst, but Pearce had refused to acknowledge the possibility.
Then, the screaming began and did not abate.
Breaking with tradition, he’d burst into the chamber and was instantly overcome with the scent of sweat and coppery blood. The maids were rushing from the room with linens so soaked in it that they appeared to have been dyed red.
Pearce closed his eyes to steady himself as he forced himself to continue as he was swallowed up by the past.
He’d rushed to Anna’s side. She’d been so pale, her eyes dull with exhaustion, her breathing ragged and weak. She’d taken his hand, her grip as light as a bird’s, and she’d tried to smile.
“Do you see her?” Anna had asked weakly.
“Who?” Pearce had looked around to find the maid holding a little bundle, wrapping it with all the reverence of a relic.
There was no sound.
The realization that she—his daughter—had been stillborn, after everything Anna had endured, overcame him. His desperate eyes had sought out the physician, who simply shook his head, turned his attention back to his surviving patient, and barked for more clean linens.
More packing for the bleeding.
Meanwhile, Anna’s hand had gone cold in Pearce’s, and she’d begun to tremble uncontrollably.
“Is she beautiful?” she had asked through shivering, blue-tinged lips.
It was then that he had realized the physician’s kindness—he hadn’t told her of the stillbirth, and she was too insensible to notice the lack of crying.
“She is as beautiful as her mother,” he’d whispered and then kissed Anna’s clammy brow.
Though the physician had done his best, he’d been unable to stop Anna’s hemorrhaging. She’d taken her last breath in Pearce’s arms.
Lost in a disbelieving haze of shock, he had taken the time to hold his daughter’s tiny body only once before she and her mother had been prepared for burial.
With her so tiny and peaceful in his arms, he’d briefly been able to pretend she was sleeping.
He spoke to her, touched her squished little nose, caressed the pale-blond fuzz of her hair, and committed all of it to memory.
Despite the fact that he’d sent word to the MacPherson family of the tragedy, he’d been the sole person at the burial.
Anna’s family had still been too ashamed of their daughter’s choices to face it; they blamed him for their downfall, and now they could blame him for her death.
They’d readily accepted his money and then their shame continued to keep them silent about what had occurred.
As an unbaptized bastard, his daughter should not have been buried in consecrated ground, but a well-placed bribe had her settled within her mother’s eternal embrace before the coffin was sealed.
Immediately after, Pearce had closed up his Edinburgh house and vowed never to return. He shut away the memories and closed the door on his shattered hopes and dreams. He left behind his embarrassment at his foolishness that he ever thought he’d be the one to move past the Brinley curse.
“I should have seen my mother’s death for what it was. It was rash of me to believe that nothing worse than that could happen to me. Instead, I dragged Anna into my life, and she and our child suffered for it.”
“You cannot say that,” Clara whispered firmly.
“But I can. As surely as if she died by my hand, that labor and birth destroyed her. I was the cause of it. My family’s curse brought about her end.”
“It pains me that you feel that way.”
“I have generations of evidence to support this. Tragedy befalls the members of the Brinley family. The losses we have suffered are immeasurable, but we have always managed to endure; it is why our family motto is ‘Ex Dolore Robur.’”
“How horrendously tragic.”
“It is a point of pride for my father that we continue to exist despite all that we have lost, and why he has such a finite view of the world. When all you have seen are endings, it is difficult to view any sort of beginning with a sense of optimism.” Pearce scrubbed roughly at his face before continuing with his tragic tale.