Page 69 of His Unwanted Duchess

“Miss Jane Haversham. Said to be a beauty, I recall.”

“Yes, Jane was lovely. She was very quiet and very sweet. In her first Season, she made the most remarkable match. The Duke of Thornbridge offered for her. I must say, I wasn’t sure about him, to begin with. He was so brusque, so serious, and Jane was so very sweet. My parents were conflicted. Of course, marrying the Duke would change everything for Jane—for all of us, in fact—so they were keen for her to marry him, but they did not want Jane to be unhappy. Everything was different back then, you see. We girls had our whole lives out in front of us, and Jane was so very popular in Society, we just knew she’d make a marvelous match.”

“And this beastly Duke,” Stephen said, taking a measured sip of his tea, “did you change your opinion of him?”

“Jane changed my opinion of him. She was happy with him, you see. She said that there was a great deal more to him than met the eye. For his part, it was clear that he respected her, brusque temper or not. They got married, of course, and it was quite the wedding of the Season.”

There was a pause, and Beatrice gulped down her cooling tea in a most unladylike way, suddenly thirsty.

“Shortly after the wedding, Jane conceived,” she continued, sticking to the facts. It seemed safer. “Jane was small, petite, very slender. Not like me, you know, although she had red hair too. She was nervous about the birth, although she never said as much. There were some complaints she had—sickness, dizziness, swollen ankles, that sort of thing—but the doctor dismissed them all. I didn’t like him. He always smelled of alcohol and talked about a woman’s duty, and how women werebuiltto give birth to children and had no other purpose in life, so there could be no danger.”

“Any fool knows thatthatis not true,” Stephen remarked. “Many women die in childbirth. Doctors do not seem to understand the process at all. When Anna conceived, I advised Theodore to seek a midwife, a woman with experience in delivering children, and I am glad he took my advice.”

Beatrice emptied her teacup and found herself staring at the dregs. “Edward, Jane’s husband, paid for an expensive doctor. I daresay he thought he was doing his best. I daresay you know what happened next.”

Stephen nodded slowly. “I read the obituary of the Duchess of Thornbridge in the papers. It was a tragic end.”

“The papers—and several acquaintances—made a big fuss about the fact that her baby had survived,” Beatrice said bitterly. “As if that was all that mattered. As if Jane hadsucceededand should die happy in the knowledge that she’d produced a baby. I know it’s not the child’s fault, but frankly, I still wish that my sister wasalive and enjoying her life with her new baby. If there’s anything I could do to make that happen, I would in a heartbeat.”

There was a short silence after that.

Beatrice wiped away a tear. She might have known she could never tell this story with only the plain facts. She might have known that the memories of Jane’s mild, smiling face, her ready wit and good advice would always return with full force, reminding her of what she’d lost.

“I was there, at the end,” she said, her voice wobbling. “I think that dying in childbirth is the worst way to die. There’s nothing heroic, or glorious, orwomanlyabout it. It’s simply horrific. And it happens again and again, every day, all over the country, until people believe that it’s simply a fact of life, as dull as a common cold.”

There was a pause, and then to Beatrice’s surprise, Stephen shifted, coming to sit beside her. He slid an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close, and Beatrice allowed herself to sag against him. She closed her eyes, worrying her lower lip with her teeth and willing herself not to sob.

“I know that the Duke of Thornbridge has not returned to Society since the death of his wife,” Stephen said. “And I can see how something so horrific would make you not want a baby, Beatrice.”

She nodded wordlessly.

“But you see how, if you play by the rules we set, you can have the life you want? We can have this companionship that you want.”

Beatrice flinched, sitting upright. “The rulesyouset, you mean?”

“Well, I?—”

“Do you know,” she said thoughtfully, “I wouldn’t expectBlackheart, the Devil of the ton, to be afraid. But youareafraid, aren’t you? You’re afraid of something, but I can’t quite work out what it is.”

His face darkened, the arm around her shoulders growing heavy. Beatrice knew he was going to pull away before it happened.

He removed his arm, getting to his feet. “It’s late. I think perhaps you should retire to bed, Duchess.”

Beatrice felt drained, wrung out, the way she always did when she talked about Jane. It was the memories that drained her, sapping her energy, as if she were using her own life force to make Jane live again, if only for a moment.

“Very well,” she said, too tired to argue. Despite her exhaustion, there was a sense of a weight being lifted from her shoulders.

Abruptly, Beatrice thought about asking to hang a portrait of Jane in the gallery. Portraits of Jane weren’t allowed back at her parents’ house—it hurt too much, they said—but Beatrice wasbeginning to think that she would like to see her sister now and then.

“By the way,” she added as Stephen turned away, “I am keeping your room.”

He paused, twisting back to look at her. “I beg your pardon?”

Beatrice met his gaze and smiled sweetly. “I think you heard me, husband dearest. I like your room. It’s large and well-lit, and I’ve moved some of my furniture into it. I shall be keeping it, seeing as all my things are there.”

There was a long, tense pause.

“You are stealing my own room from me?” Stephen echoed.

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