Chapter 7 #2
Mark couldn’t breathe. The walls closed in on him.
He needed out of the room immediately. “Thank you, Mrs. Gaye. That will be all.” He rushed into the hall, fighting to keep his heartbeat slow, and leaned against the striped wallpaper.
Mark bent over, gasping for breath, hands on his knees for a long moment.
Ellen yawned, stretching. It had been a long day and long night.
She eased up into a sitting position and looked around the room.
Her old married room, the one she’d lived in for three months.
Last night she’d arrived home so late she’d fallen into bed, like usual.
It was surreal for everything to be exactly the way it used to be, right down to her lilac dressing gown hanging over the foot of the bed, yet knowing that years had passed.
All of her doctor’s visits had happened here while she was pregnant with Constance. She'd been in this bed the first time she’d felt her kick. In this room when she’d started to feel Mark’s adoration of her slip away, yet didn’t know why.
A knock sounded on the bedroom door.
Ellen rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Come in.” She pulled the covers back and eased out of bed.
The door opened, but it was not a maid who stepped through with breakfast on a tray. It was Mark.
Ellen squeaked, frozen in place as her husband balanced a silver tray with a covered dish and entered the room. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m eating breakfast.” He looked at her mildly, as though this was a perfectly normal occurrence.
Ellen suddenly realized she was standing there in her nightrail, barefoot, with hair loose and falling over her shoulders.
The drawstring of her simple nightrail was loose, which let the neck slip down one shoulder and expose half her collarbone.
Her heart beat wildly and she dove for the dressing gown at the end of the bed.
Unfortunately, bending over that far meant Mark would get a perfect view down her gaping neckline.
Her cheeks aflame, Ellen backtracked, snatching the robe up and hastily wrapping it around herself. Flustered, she glared at him. “A maid typically does that. Or do you miss life in the Navy so much you’ve resorted to work?”
He merely walked to the little breakfast nook in the corner of her room, setting the tray on the small table and then taking one of the two velvet upholstered chairs. “It’s nearly ten in the morning, which is late for your typical schedule, I believe. So I brought the food to you this time.”
Did he not see down my neckline? Ellen was baffled.
How does he look so unaffected? Or does he not care?
He certainly had cared that night he called her breasts twin globes of perfection, and then there was that time when they were betrothed he compared her to Aphrodite.
She bit her lip, embarrassed these memories now came flooding back.
Then again, he did fall out of love with me quickly and never looked back until now.
So...perhaps he did get a good eyeful and decided he didn’t like what he saw. Her belly twisted at the thought.
“Are you not hungry?” Mark removed the dome lid off his plate and picked up a piece of toast. He crunched a bite while looking at her.
Ellen jolted. He’d caught her staring at him. It wasn’t fair. How could he still be so attractive? Those warm brown eyes, so light they were almost gold. The sandy hair that framed the strong jaw and philosopher’s brow.
Gritting her teeth, Ellen cinched the belt of her gown tight and took a seat opposite him.
She curled her bare feet under the chair.
It felt so oddly intimate to have bare feet in front of him.
They’re just feet, she told herself. And you hate him now.
Her mind and her heart certainly hated him, but her body hadn’t received the message.
“What time did you get back last night?” Mark casually picked up his fork and knife and started in on the breakfast—sausage, potatoes, eggs, toast, and a dash of marmalade on the side.
Ellen took a gulp of the orange juice in front of her before answering. Does he remember orange juice is my favorite? Or maybe Mrs. Gaye told the cook. She swallowed. “Nearly ten o’clock, I think.”
Mark frowned at her. “Our second condition to my agreement was you not stay out past dark.”
Irritation flared. “If I want a lecture, I can move back in with my parents.” She spread marmalade on her toast.
“I have no intention of treating you like they did.” Mark cleared his throat. “But it is not safe. Do you not remember the drunk men who nearly stumbled upon us that night you helped deliver the twins?”
“I remember my hat pin sticking you in your stomach.” Ellen took a bite of toast.
“Yes, one hat pin against four large, drunk men shall certainly show them,” he returned in the same tone. “Please, next time send word. Think of it as giving a street boy a chance to earn honest coin. And either I, Dryden, or James shall collect you.”
“James?”
“The new footman. He was raised in Covent Garden. I chose him specifically so he’d know all the neighborhoods you stomp through and the best ways to keep you safe.”
Ellen’s heart softened. “Thank you.” She swallowed, looking at the eggs on her plate. “I promise to send word next time.”
“Thank you.” His voice sounded so uncharacteristically warm she glanced up at him in surprise. His eyes betrayed nothing, and she couldn’t tell what he wanted. Which reminded her of their first conversation since his return.
“You came to me to tell me something. You said we needed to talk. Is now a good time?”
Mark took a bite of sausage before answering. He adjusted his seating in the chair. “Just...family-related matters. I didn’t know that you kept in contact with my mother so much. You already know most of what I was going to tell you, I think.”
Ellen frowned. “What family matters?”
“Matthew cannot have children anymore.” Mark hesitated, clearly trying to find the right wording. “So if he dies before me, I shall inherit the barony. I shall become Lord Cottesloe.”
Ellen blinked. “I hadn’t thought of that. I’m told it was a serious accident.”
Mark paused again. “So when I become Lord Cottesloe, hopefully three or so decades from now, you shall be Lady Cottesloe.”
Ellen laughed. “My parents shall be thrilled. I’ll be aristocracy after all, even if it does take forty years to get there. And since you have four younger brothers, I suppose the title will be passed down the line as we die.”
He gave a weak smile.
The tension between them had eased, and Ellen didn’t know what to think.
“How are the twins doing?” Mark asked. He had just given her the perfect escape from whatever had been growing between them for the last moment.
Ellen nodded. “Still alive, thank goodness. I’m still worried.
They’re having cyanotic attacks, but so far we’ve caught all of them and can jostle them back into breathing before they turn blue.
The chances of them catching a fever or pneumonia or something else are so high.
I do my best to get them from premature to healthy newborn, but infant mortality rate is still around fifteen percent—and higher among the working class—even among healthy, full-term, well-fed infants. ”
Mark hummed. “Is the poverty that bad?”
Ellen shot him a look. “I imagine life as a sailor isn’t pretty if you aren’t on the officer track. Think about all the men who worked and lived in the hold of your ship. Now imagine women and children and babies in similar conditions. But with less food.”
Mark grimaced. “I see.”