Passion and Propriety (Hearts of Honour Book 1) (51 page)

“Begging my pardon, my lady, but I’ve a suggestion,” Marianne said. “I don’t know if it’s an old wives’ tale, but I’ve heard that giving a hearty scream can help with the birthing.”

“I’ve been trying my best
not
to scream,” Hannah said with an exasperated huff. “I didn’t want to upset William.”

“If it will help, I’ll scream right along with you,” he said, and she half-laughed, half-sobbed.

“Grace?” She looked to her friend, and was met with a rueful shrug.

“It can’t hurt, and at least we’re all prepared for it. Take a deep breath, bear down, and give it everything you have.”

Hannah nodded, sharing a quick glance with William, whose jaw was clenched. She wanted to take a moment to tell him how much she loved him, but their baby girl needed to be born—needed
air—
if she was to survive.

Ladies weren’t encouraged to scream, and Hannah could not recall ever having done so. But the blood-curdling cry she let loose whilst pushing down with all of her remaining might would have done a banshee proud. With a satisfying pop, the babe’s head was born, and Hannah collapsed back against William.

“Well done,” he said. “You did it!”

Tears rolled down Hannah’s cheeks while she waited for the sound they all longed to hear . . . her daughter’s cry.

Long seconds passed, seconds that felt like minutes. Then suddenly, the sweetest sound filled the room. Far from David’s lusty wails, their daughter’s cry was tremulous, but it was music to Hannah’s ears.

“Will she be all right?” she asked between panted breaths, her sorely abused body making known its opinion of her ordeal. “Was she harmed in any way?”

“I don’t think so,” Grace said. After tying off the cord, she wrapped the little girl in a hastily procured blanket before placing her in William’s arms. “She’s small, and will need to be kept warm, but she seems in good health.”

The placentas came quickly after the second babe was born, and Grace assured William that Hannah’s bleeding was not excessive.

“Can I hold her now?” Hannah asked once she was settled back on the pillows. Taking her daughter into her arms, she rested her head against her husband’s shoulder while he sat with his arm around them both.

“What are you going to call her?” Grace asked.

“Dianne,” Hannah said. “After my mother, and Judith, after William’s.” Wrenching her gaze away from their daughter’s perfect features, she looked at her husband. “We did it.”

“
You
did it.” He bent down to kiss first her forehead, and then their daughter’s.

An astonished Naomi entered and returned David to his proud father. With the twins lying side by side in their parents’ arms—the larger boy with his shock of dark hair like his father and the dainty girl with the stubborn chin and hint of a golden crown—Hannah had never known such joy.

“
We
did it,” she said. “Our
love broke the Blackthorn Curse.”

Watching over his two sleeping babies, and with his arm around his wife’s shoulders, William resisted the urge to pinch himself. The nightmare he’d lived in fear of for so long had not come to fruition, but it was still hard to believe this wasn’t a dream. Hannah was tired, as could only be expected, and Grace had warned him it would take time for her to recover from giving birth not once, but twice, as well as carrying two babies to term. But she seemed well and radiated happiness. As did William.

A little over a year had passed since he’d made the pain-racked journey to his home, cursed, uncared for, and with nothing but death to look forward to. Now he had a family, friends, and a future that stretched before him like an endless sea of possibility . . . courtesy of Hannah.

She smiled up at him, and with his heart overflowing with love, he bent down to brush his lips over hers.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “For everything.”

“You’re very welcome,” she said, nestling against his side. “Although I think we might have God to thank for a second miracle . . . or would you call it a third? You survived your terrible injuries, I beat the Blackthorn Curse, and we’ve been given a daughter as well as a son, both healthy and utterly adorable. That’s at least three miracles, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I’ve lost count.” William laughed and hugged her close.

All the sixth Viscount Blackthorn knew for sure was he was a blessed man, indeed.

Thank you!
Thank you for reading
Passion and Propriety.
I hoped you enjoyed William and Hannah’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
 

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Preview:
Keep reading for a preview of
Duty and Desire,
book 2 in the Hearts of Honour series . . . Jonathan and Grace’s story. 

Coming Spring 2015

Duty and Desire

Hearts of Honour: Book 2

Chapter 1

One Accord

Grace Daniels, the village of Hartley’s resident midwife and herbalist, pulled her cloak tight around her shoulders. The wind had begun to bite, the misty rain working its way through the woollen wrap and sending icy drips trailing down her spine. What joy. She really should have taken up William’s offer to supply her with a horse-drawn buggy. But with so few hours left in her day—not enough for a decent night’s sleep on the rare occasion she wasn’t called out to assist with a birth or an emergency—she wasn’t sure how she would find time to care for such a large animal. If the viscount knew the reason for her reluctance, he would probably offer to pay for a stable boy to assist her. But Grace didn’t like to feel beholden, not even to her best friend’s husband. Although it was somewhat unavoidable, considering he now funded her work.

Startled by a horse’s neigh, she looked over her shoulder to see, as if conjured from her imagination, just the sort of covered sulky he’d suggested would be suitable for her needs. Unfortunately the driver was more likely to appear in her nightmares than daydreams.

“Get in. You can ride with me the rest of the way up to the manor.”

Grace bristled at her unwelcome rescuer’s tone even as the wind tugged at the ribbons of her bonnet. Jonathan Loring, the Blackthorn Estate manager, had a knack for rubbing her the wrong way. If she were a cat, she would have hissed.

“Don’t dawdle, Miss Daniels,” he added in his typically autocratic manner. “There’s no point getting any wetter than you already are.”

Tempted to turn her back on the man and keep walking, Grace only obliged him when a not-so-distant clap of thunder heralded a strengthening in the storm.

“Oh, very well,” she muttered, clambering aboard with little of the attribute for which she was named evident in either movement or demeanour.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get down to assist you, but Ned’s hard to handle in this weather.” Mr Loring jerked his chin towards the prancing bay. “I dare not let go of the reins.”

After placing her bag at her feet, Grace gave him a withering glance. “As you must have observed on this and numerous other occasions, I am quite capable and do not need your assistance.”

“I wasn’t questioning your capability but trying to explain my less-than-gentlemanly behaviour.” He huffed while urging the horse to trot up the steep, muddy road to Blackthorn Manor.

“Since we both know I’m not a lady, the gesture would have been wasted. Unless you’re trying to convince me you would assist your average run-of-the-mill servant in such a manner?”

“If a woman
needed my help, then I would render assistance regardless of her station,” he replied, biting off each word as if displaying the early signs of lockjaw.

While the man was as irritating as a prickle in one’s shoe, Grace couldn’t deny she received an inordinate amount of pleasure from goading him.

“I beg your pardon?” She raised her voice despite having heard him quite clearly. “You need to remember to enunciate your words, Mr Loring, if you are going to persist in covering your mouth with facial hair. It has a muffling effect.”

“My mouth is not
covered
with facial hair,” he spluttered. “My moustache and beard are perfectly groomed and . . . oh, never mind.”

He turned to face forward, and Grace was hard-pressed to stifle a smirk. Just as she had hoped, a slash of red tinged the cheekbones above his reddish-blond beard. Truth be told, she was quite partial to well-groomed facial hair, and Mr Loring’s efforts complemented his blond locks and blue eyes in a more than acceptable manner. Not that she would ever divulge her opinion. The man was too pompous by half, though he seemed surprisingly oblivious to the admiring looks he received from the district’s maidens . . . and matrons for that matter. It must be a ruse. The retired and widowed major was not yet thirty years old. Between his attractive appearance and military bearing, he had to be aware he set female hearts fluttering wherever he went. Not Grace’s, of course. She couldn’t abide the man.

Wedged beside him in the narrow buggy seat, with shoulder, hip, and thigh in unavoidable contact, she attributed her own rise in heartbeat to having trudged halfway up the hill from the village to the manor in trying conditions. The heat coming off his body mitigated the cold in an undeniably pleasurable fashion, but so would snuggling up to a large dog if it were dry . . . and the chances of being bitten were
less
likely.

Hannah, the vicar’s eldest daughter, now Lady Blackthorn, thought it a pity the two were at such continual odds, since she was Grace’s best friend and her husband was Jonathan’s. That they were both engaged in work designed to improve the lives of the inhabitants of the Blackthorn viscountcy—Grace as its healer and Mr Loring as the representative of the district’s largest employer and landlord—added weight to her argument, Grace supposed. But they were too dissimilar to achieve any degree of amicability. Nor was it necessary. Avoiding the man, when she wasn’t taking ill-concealed delight in provoking him, was the better course of action, though not nearly as much fun.

From the tension emanating from his body and the tightness of his jaw, she deduced he was holding on to his civility with ruthless determination.

Good for him
, she thought, not that she was likely to forget, or forgive,
his previous lapses in a hurry.

An uncomfortable sensation slithered down Grace’s spine—her conscience making its presence felt rather than an effect of the damp this time. She wasn’t entirely
blameless. But while she may not have been the one to instigate the animosity between them, she’d played her part in its continuation. And it wasn’t as if the man was devoid of extenuating circumstances.

Releasing a sigh, her better self urged her to at least try
and cut him some slack. She was just about to ask after his situation, a risky business considering their history, when he broke the silence.