“Be gone, Smith!” Sebastian sat up on the ice block and yanked his breeches on with one hand and clamped Chloe’s arm with the other.
He sneered. “How the devil did he know we were here anyway?”
Chloe turned toward the laced brickwork around the ice-house doors, and tried to wriggle her arm free.
She had totally messed up everything. Her fan splayed across the brick floor. Her yellow-tasseled reticule, flung near an ice block on the other side of the lantern, sat in a pool of melting ice. The outline of Henry’s glasses showed through the silk.
She couldn’t see much beyond Sebastian’s lantern, but heard Mr. Smith’s horse gallop off. His lantern bounced away like Tinker Bell disappearing into the night.
Sebastian finally released her arm, combed his hand through his disheveled hair, and took up the lantern. “I didn’t want the hired help to know you’ve been alone with me. You understand, right? I didn’t want to compromise your reputation. You’d get booted off the show. Or we’d be forced to marry. But then you had to—talk to him.” He threw his arms up in the air, Italian style.
“Right.” Chloe tightened her pelisse around her like a second skin. Hypothermia set in. “I need to go.” She shivered uncontrollably and picked up her fan and her soaked reticule.
A real gentleman would’ve never strong-armed a lady. Then again a real lady would’ve never found herself in an ice house at midnight with Sebastian the bodice ripper. What was she thinking? He only had one proposal in mind, and that didn’t involve any kind of church ceremony. Is that all he wanted from her? Sex? Is that why he always seemed to say exactly what she wanted to hear?
She stepped into the moonlight. The sudden brightness made her squint. With a clink of the keys, Sebastian locked the ice-house doors behind them. “I’ll escort you back.”
He was hot, he was cold. He could be decent. He could be an ass. But he wasn’t the one.
“Did you really mean it when you said you had fallen in love with me?” Chloe asked.
“I think so. But this has all been very difficult for me—”
That was all Chloe needed to hear. George must’ve written up Sebastian’s bio, because the man described as Sebastian Wrightman was not this Sebastian Wrightman. She’d thought this whole thing was real, and that’s where she had gone wrong. She was channeling Mr. Darcy when she should’ve been paying more attention to what was right in front of her.
He helped her up onto his horse. In silence, he led the horse toward Bridesbridge Place. She looked up at the moon as the horse loped beneath her. She had just narrowly escaped, and she had the full moon to thank for inducing Mrs. Crescent’s baby.
When the moon was full in England, was it full at home, too? Chloe wondered. Abigail loved the full moon. Chloe used to be Abigail’s moon, orbiting around her day and night, year after year, never faltering. Now? Now she didn’t think she could ever fall happily back into that eternal elliptical path without feeling alone and cold. Still, the moon called her home like a force stronger than gravity.
On their way to Bridesbridge, they passed the castle ruins. In the moonlight, Chloe could see how the castle had been pummeled by cannonballs. She could see the holes in the walls so clearly now. Why hadn’t she seen them before?
Still, she had to win the money. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been worth it to leave Abigail.
What was going to happen now that they got caught with Sebastian’s breeches down?
At the bottom of the stairs at Bridesbridge Place, she buttoned her pelisse up to her neck. A candelabrum dripped on the griffin-footed table near the banister. A sudden howl from Mrs. Crescent rang out, and it echoed throughout the foyer. Waves of fear and memory crashed through Chloe. She’d never forget that peppermint-green birthing room, the thirst, the pain, the joy of childbirth. Slowly, she slunk up the steps, candelabrum dripping in the one hand, reticule and fan drooping in the other.
How could Mrs. Crescent have a baby here? Without electricity? Without phones? Without relaxation music? And—why?
It was almost as crazy as thinking you could find true love on a TV show.
The closer Chloe got to Mrs. Crescent’s room, the more intense the breathing sound became. Chloe had to change her gown. What did a lady wear to a birthing room, anyway? She tiptoed past Mrs. Crescent’s half-opened door.
“Miss Parker!” Nothing escaped Mrs. Crescent, even when she was giving birth. “Come here immediately! Owww!”
Henry’s low voice, like water over river rocks, calmed and comforted Mrs. Crescent . . . and Chloe. She inched the door open. Mrs. Crescent groaned in pain. Chloe couldn’t bear to look at the birthing bed—just yet. Instead she focused on their shadows, larger than life on the blue wall. Henry’s shadow, Mrs. Crescent’s shadow, and—the camerawoman’s shadow all flickered in the candlelight like a pantomime play. Would this surreal night never end? And did this, too, need to be filmed?
Mrs. Crescent’s shadow rocked back and forth, her knees up, her hair down and scraggly. Chloe squeezed her eyes shut and buried her nose in the silky sleeve of her pelisse. She might need her vinaigrette. She set the candelabrum on the dressing table.
Henry’s shadow reached out and massaged Mrs. Crescent’s back. “Push. Gentle now. We’re almost there. One, two, three. Right. Stop pushing. Breathe. Excellent.”
His shadow turned toward Chloe and bent to check his pocket watch. “How kind of the lady to pull herself away from her diversions to help us.”
“It was hardly a diversion. It was enlightening. And I would’ve been better off here.” Chloe still couldn’t look at either of them. She curled her upper lip and talked to Henry’s shadow on the wall. Mrs. Crescent grumbled in pain.
Nothing else might have been real, but this was. Chloe pulled off her gloves, rolled up her sleeves, and looked down at her hands.
“Scrub up, Miss Parker!” Henry nodded toward a washbowl across the room.
Henry wore a billowing shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the collar open. A slight tension pulled the shirt across his broad chest and she could see the curve of his muscles. With his cutaway coat off, his tight drop-front breeches revealed a body more enticing than Sebastian’s, if that was even possible. But she was done with men in ruffled shirts and breeches, wasn’t she?
“What are you waiting for, Miss Parker? Wash up, please.”
My God, Mrs. Crescent was having a baby, and Chloe’s mind was in the gutter, even after a scrape in the ice-house with an absolute rake.
Mrs. Crescent started her breathing, and Chloe hustled to the wash table.
“Do put on a pair of latex gloves,” Henry instructed.
“Latex gloves?” The hot water scalded her hands and the soapsuds felt—real. She snapped the gloves on. She whispered to Henry, “When were these invented? Not during the Regency, I’m sure.”
Henry lowered his voice. “If you must know, Miss Parker, it was 1964. Now please come and help Mrs. Crescent relax.”
Relax? Nothing could’ve prepared Chloe for what she saw when she turned around, except gory hospital and crime shows that she never watched because she didn’t have cable.
Chloe rocked back on her boots, reaching behind her for something to lean on. Her hand awkwardly bumped Henry right on his tight ass. All manners, he pretended nothing happened.
“I offered her a sheet for modesty as they would’ve done in the Regency, but she refused.”
Chloe knew there was no modesty in childbirth. She watched Henry unroll a suede package on the dressing table.
“Obstetric kit.”
It was an obstetric kit from the Regency era. The instruments, tucked in the suede kit with a strip of leather, looked more like pruning shears, great big tongs, some sort of a spatula, and the biggest fishhook she’d ever seen.
One glance would’ve been enough to get anyone—maybe even Grace—to sign on for a life of spinsterhood and celibacy. “You’re not really going to—”
“To use these? Hardly!” He lowered his voice to a whisper as he pulled out the wooden forceps. “But this is what the OB or ‘accoucheur’ would’ve used. We’ve come such a long way in just two hundred years. No wonder one in three women died in childbirth.”
“What?! One in three—”
“Uggggggggggh!” Mrs. Crescent’s face contorted into a grimace. Red splotches and sweat covered her face and neck.
Henry handed Chloe a stack of cool, damp washcloths. She hadn’t known that one in three women died during childbirth in the Regency. It was hard to reconcile the gowns and the glitz and the romance with this horrific statistic.
She scissor-stepped over to the bedside and dabbed Mrs. Crescent’s forehead with a washcloth. Her voice wavered. “Just think, Mrs. Crescent, soon you’ll be holding your beautiful, healthy, happy baby. Your baby will know you just by your heartbeat, your voice. It’ll look up at you—”
“It’s a wonder you know so much about childbirth!” Mrs. Crescent exhaled deeply, focusing on Chloe’s torn gown barely covered by a hastily buttoned pelisse. “Whatever happened to your gown this time? It’s a fright. An absolute fright! And your hair is down!”
A warm and glowing feeling came over Chloe, just knowing that Mrs. Crescent was still herself. She brushed Mrs. Crescent’s hair out of her face.
Henry scanned Chloe from her slightly askew amber necklace to her muddied hemline.
Chloe looked away and her eyes fell on her fan and reticule at the washstand. “Mrs. Crescent, you’ll be happy to know I remembered my fan and reticule.”
Mrs. Crescent clenched the stiff sheets on her sleigh bed.
Chloe’s knees went wobbly. She couldn’t do this. She wasn’t a nurse and this wasn’t a hospital.
“Time to push again,” Henry said with the utmost calm.
Mrs. Crescent banged her fists on the bed. “Ugh!”
Chloe let go of the wet washrag.
“One, two—” Henry counted, easing Mrs. Crescent into a more comfortable position.
Chloe’s head throbbed and she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t take it anymore. “Henry! We need to get her to a hospital. It’s not really 1812 here, you know. She needs an epidural—now. Who the hell has a baby without an epidural?”
The cameraman aimed at Chloe. Henry dropped his watch and it dangled from his watch fob.
“Sorry. That was very unladylike.”
Henry looked with affection and sympathy at Mrs. Crescent. “Three. And breathe.”
Mrs. Crescent could breathe, but Chloe couldn’t. She broke out in a sweat.
Henry massaged Mrs. Crescent as he glared at Chloe. “Miss Parker, this is what Mrs. Crescent wants. A natural birth. It’s too late for the epidural now. Please. Get ahold of yourself. You’ll upset our rhythm.”
She gulped. She didn’t know Henry could’ve been so—type A.
Mrs. Crescent leaned over and picked up a brown medicine bottle from the night table. “Should she have a dram?”
Henry shook his head. “If you don’t need it, she doesn’t. I just concocted it for fun in my lab.”
Chloe straightened and clenched her Empire waist. “What is it? Maybe I could use it.”
“It’s laudanum, and no, you can’t have any. You don’t have any medical reason.” Henry handed the bottle to a servant. “Take it away.” The servant hid it behind Mrs. Crescent’s dressing-table mirror and then hurried to change Mrs. Crescent’s bed linens.
Mrs. Crescent huffed and puffed. “It’s an opiate.”
Chloe tilted her head. “As in opium?” Great. She had drugged Sebastian with opium.
“Yes.” Henry continued to massage Mrs. Crescent’s back. “It’s used for everything from headaches to liven up an evening in a drawing room. It’s a sort of cure-all.”
Chloe put another cool washrag on Mrs. Crescent’s forehead.
“Look.” Henry reached for a shelf above Mrs. Crescent. He lowered his voice. “We have a mobile phone in case of emergency. An ambulance is at the ready.” The phone glistened in his latex-gloved hand. Without thinking, Chloe took it from him. She squeezed it in her hand, held it close to her chest. If only she could call Abby. Emma. But knowing she or Henry could call the ambulance made her feel better, and she put the phone back on the shelf.
Henry’s valet burst into the room. “Ice shards, sir.”
“Set them near Miss Parker. Thank you.”
The valet took one look at Mrs. Crescent and bolted out the door.
“Miss Parker, please give Mrs. Crescent an ice shard—”
Mrs. Crescent opened her dry mouth and Chloe put a piece of ice on her tongue. The ice brought it all back to her. So much swirled around her. Birthing Abigail. The ice-house. Sebastian. The look on Henry’s face before he rode off.
Henry looked at his watch. “In just a bit, we’ll push again.”
The camerawoman readied for another dramatic scene.
Mrs. Crescent pushed, exhaled deeply, until at last the baby crowned.
“My baby!” Mrs. Crescent sweated and squealed with joy.
Chloe’s eyes teared up, remembering her first sight of Abigail’s face. She’d do anything for Abigail. Anything. Even this. Even marry the on-again off-again Sebastian in a fake ceremony.
Henry turned to Chloe with a list of instructions as he supported the baby’s head and eased it into the world. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “A shoulder is stuck. I need to guide it out. Here. Hold the head.”
Hold the head?! Chloe cradled the baby’s head with her slippery gloved hands.
“Should I call the ambulance?” Chloe cringed as she watched Henry work the tiny shoulder out.
“We’ll be fine. We can do it.”
A split second later he slid the shoulder out and the hot little baby slipped into Chloe’s hands. Her heart throbbed.
Henry swooped in, wiping the baby’s mouth and eyes clean. Then he lifted the baby like a prize for Mrs. Crescent to see. “It’s a girl! A girl, Mrs. Crescent!” The baby cried.
Chloe would never, ever again romanticize the Regency. Every single love that culminated in marriage would end like this: with natural childbirth. Because there wasn’t any reliable birth control. The mother would be lucky to survive, and probably become pregnant within a year, and every year thereafter. No wonder all of Jane Austen’s novels ended with the wedding!
Mrs. Crescent quivered with happiness and exhaustion. Chloe covered her with a blanket. Mrs. Crescent held her arms out for the baby.
“You’ll have her in a minute. Just a minute,” Henry said. “Miss Parker, I need you to hold the baby now.”
Chloe took the baby in her arms. She looked away as Henry cut the umbilical cord.
“Well done, Miss Parker.” He took the baby from her, and his face beamed. The room seemed to light up. “Go soothe her. Give her water. I’ll clean up the baby. Unless you want to, of course.”
Chloe laughed. “I’ll let you do that.”
Mrs. Crescent gave Chloe a little squeeze.
“Thank you, Miss Parker. You were wonderful—”
Chloe shook her head. “No—you were. The baby’s perfect. She’s beautiful. It’s the girl you always wanted.” She pulled off the soiled latex gloves, washed her hands, and poured Mrs. Crescent a glass of water. She couldn’t believe they did it. Without a hospital. Without an epidural. But she’d never want to help with a nineteenth-century birth again, that was for sure.
Henry brought the cleaned and swaddled baby toward Mrs. Crescent. But before he handed her to her mother, for just a moment, he put his arm around Chloe, and she leaned against him. She saw their shadows, the two of them, together, and a tiny profile of a baby reflected on the wall. Then he stepped away and handed the baby to Mrs. Crescent.
Henry stood right near Chloe, their arms brushed up against each other.
“Mrs. Crescent, we need to do a little stitching,” he said. “Please give the baby to Miss Parker for a moment.”
Chloe couldn’t believe it. Stitching? Without painkillers?
Mrs. Crescent kissed the baby and handed her off to Chloe, who rocked her like an old pro. Because she was an old pro! For the first time in a long time, Chloe knew where she belonged, and that was at home with her own daughter, in the land of cell phones and ambulances, hospitals, painkillers, computers, and e-mail.
“You look like quite a natural,” Mrs. Crescent said to Chloe. “You’ll be a great mum someday.”
The baby’s eyes closed tight, like little crescent moons.
Chloe shot a look at Henry, who had been watching her.
Henry smiled at Mrs. Crescent. “I’ve gotten word that your husband and children are on their way. They’ll be here soon.”
Then Henry snapped on a fresh pair of latex gloves and threaded a needle. Chloe’s stomach lurched. She handed the baby to a servant girl behind her. “Excuse me, I need some air.” She lunged for her fan and reticule and ran out.
When she stopped running, she was outside, and breathed the early-morning air in heavily. She collapsed on the steps in front of the semicircular gravel drive, under a lit torch. She fanned herself frantically. She untied the hospital gown and it fell in a heap at her boots. The clock in the foyer behind her chimed three times.
Someone came and put an arm around Chloe. It was Fiona.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said.
Chloe couldn’t look her in the face. She just stared at her Celtic tattoo. “You lied to me. Just so that you could dance with Sebastian?”
“Sebastian’s a terrible flirt. He danced with me for one dance and he had promised me at least three.”
“What’s your deal, Fiona? Are you after him, too?”
Fiona hung her head. “I wanted to be a contestant. Like you. But I didn’t make the cut.”
That explained a lot, and Chloe had suspected it all along. “I don’t get it, though. Aren’t you engaged?”
“It’s been on and off. We’ll figure it out when he gets back.”
“Sebastian’s a lot like you, Fiona. He doesn’t know what he wants.” Chloe waved Fiona off. “Go to bed. It’s late.”
She curtsied and sauntered off. This gave a whole new spin to the issue of finding good hired help.
Chloe sat for a long time, until, off in the distance, on the way to the reflecting pond, she saw something move on the lawn. It was probably a deer. She opened her silk reticule, slid Henry’s glasses out, and put them on. It looked like some kind of animal out there, all right. Actually, it looked more like two animals—one of which was humping the other. She looked away.
Even the animals were getting more action than her around here. She buried her head in her arms until she heard a loud moan. She lifted the torch out of the ground and carried it to the edge of the gravel drive. Soon after the moaning stopped, a lantern lit up on the lawn. A lantern? Animals with a lantern?
She squinted through Henry’s glasses and clearly saw a shirtless Sebastian pulling up his breeches. Grace hopped into her ball gown.
No wonder Sebastian brought up Grace in conversation so much during their time alone. He wasn’t protecting Chloe from her. He was trying to find out as much about Grace as possible.
He was an ass! He was a player!
He was most definitely not Mr. Darcy.
Chloe just stood there. And held the torch.
Where was that laudanum?