Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

G wen held tightly to Vicky's arm as they left the vicar's and crossed the bustling market square.

"You do not have to walk me back to Barlow Hall, Gwen. You have to tend your stall." Vicky would not be pampered. "I faint now and then when I get excited or overwhelmed. It's past."

Gwen patted her hand. "Still, I will walk with you for a bit. You look pale, Vicky."

"Oh, fiddle, Gwen! I don't want you to suffer lack of customers because of me."

"I won't. Now stop barking at me and walk."

Vicky gave in, allowing the delight of their discovery to overtake her. "Sam is charming, isn't he?" She could not get over how personable he was for such a little fellow.

"He is. I was shocked at his looks myself. He does resemble Yvette. No denying it. But I am glad this is done and we know he's ours."

"We'll need to tell everyone. Charite was so agreeable to talking about how to transfer Sam to our care. She was happy for Sam, I think, and a bit sad to part with him. But first you and I must talk about what we do now. Is tomorrow best for that?"

"Yes. I am so busy today with the festival. Oh, look! Lord Barlow comes out of Beeson's."

He had a pouch in his hand. A purchase from the apothecary, Vicky supposed.

"Good afternoon, ladies!" He met them on the path and fell in with them. "Going back to Barlow Hall, are you, Vicky?"

"She is," Gwen piped up. "And she could use a strong hand, too, Ford. Apologies, Lord Barlow."

"Ford is the name you are used to. Gwen is the name I use. And as for why Vicky needs a strong hand," he said as he examined Vicky with narrowed eyes, "tell me."

Vicky opened her mouth to answer.

But Gwen was quicker. "She fainted in the vicarage, Ford."

"What?" He stopped in his tracks.

"It's nothing." She kept walking. The other two hung back.

But then Ford was at her side, one hand to her arm, the other around her waist. "Come sit down."

She dug her heels in and would not allow him to lead her to one of the benches on the green. "I will not. I am fine. Really. I had a moment in the vicarage."

Ford's silver gaze pierced hers. "What happened?"

She took a breath.

Gwen clicked her tongue. "Sam, the little boy, is ours, Ford. He belongs to Vicky and me."

Vicky smiled at him. "It's true, Ford. Gwen recognizes the amulet and the chain it's on—and I see Yvette in him. He looks exactly like her. The hair, the eyes, the laugh. This child is my sister's and Evan's. I will take him home with me."

Ford smiled at them, even if behind the joy Vicky detected fear. "I am happy for you both. Happy for the child, too. He'll have a good life."

"He will and there's so much more to discuss," Vicky said to both, "but Gwen must go back to her stall."

"That's fine, Gwen," Ford said. "Do go. We are in fine fettle. I have Vicky in hand."

Gwen bid them goodbye and trotted off.

Vicky rolled her eyes at Ford. "In hand? I am not some flibbertigibbet who needs a fainting couch at every turn."

He tucked an errant auburn curl behind her ear. "Have you done it before?"

She considered his artfully tied stock. "Only when I get excited or overwhelmed and I was that today."

"When did you do it last?"

"Why?" She grew perturbed.

"It's a good thing for those who care for you should know. When did you do it last?"

"I am not ill, "she insisted with a stomp to her foot. But he arched dark brows at her and she sputtered, then swallowed the hard lump in her throat. "Very well. When Charlie died. The moment after… The moment after he took his last breath. I just could not bear it. He was kind. And I missed him already."

"I see," he said.

They walked on. Past other people going to the fair, they wended their way arm-in-arm. Ford said nothing as if he were trying to make sense of her care of the husband who had not loved her as a husband could.

"I am glad you told me," he said at last when the crowd had thinned. "Fainting can be dangerous. Falling you could hit your head or break a limb. When it happens often to a person it could mean your humors are not in balance. There was a fellow in our regiment who'd get so excited before a battle, that he would faint at the first cannon barrage. Just melt to the ground, he would. We could not have him in the first line, but had to send him back of the charge where he could sit and faint at his leisure, recover, then come forward after an hour into the siege. Crack shot, that boy. Had to have him doing his best. But it took him awhile to recover, even after that. So, you," Ford said with a little hug to his side, "will march with me at your arm and I will sit you in a comfortable chaise in your room and tuck up your feet for the afternoon."

They walked in companionable silence for a while.

Then she said, "I want to dance tonight. I haven't in years. Will you dance with me?"

He met her gaze and beamed at her invitation. "I live to make you happy."

Vicky went to her aunt's room just before a light supper was served to the Barlow household to announce that the child Sam was Yvette's. Overjoyed that she had this little boy, a bit of her sister, Vicky regarded this as her opportunity to make up to herself, if not to Yvette, for her rejection of Yvette's choice of Evan Hughes. Her sister was gone. But this child deserved the best she could give him.

Her aunt stared at Vicky in the reflection of her dressing table mirror. "You are certain that he is Yvette's?"

"You need only look at him, Aunt, to see the resemblance. He has the Fortin sapphire eyes. But more than that, he looks like Yvette. He is the image of her when she was young. And then, there is the amulet. Gwen identifies it as one she gave to Evan to give to my sister. It has the chain Gwen made for it. I hope you will accept my decision and bring to him the same love and affection you have given me these many years."

"I will indeed. If you say he is ours, he is. We will make him so." She pivoted on her little bench and dismissed the house maid who'd been assigned to her for the visit. When the girl was gone, the door closed, her aunt caught her eye again. "Who else have you told?"

"Ford."

"Why?"

Vicky met her aunt's cool demanding gaze. Why did she push her on this? "I want him to be proud of me."

"Did you tell Ford not to say anything to his mother about this decision of yours?"

"No." She tipped her head at her aunt's skepticism. "It's not a secret."

"The countess may have a few things to say about your desire to adopt Sam."

"She can say what she likes. Her views are irrelevant. The countess is not my family."

Celeste bit her lip. "Why do you need Ford to be proud of you? Don't you think he is already?"

She rubbed her forearms and admitted the truth aloud. "No. I have not been proud of myself. Now that I do this, and it is the right choice, I simply want Ford's approval."

"You base this on what happened in the past. Six years is a long time to consider yourself a failure. Especially when you are not."

"Perhaps not a failure. But one who chooses the well-trodden path. One who does what she's told. One who is…"

Her aunt cut the air with a hand. "Stop that. You did what you had to do years ago. You could not marry Ford. He was third in line for this estate. He had nothing."

"Yet Ford gave his all to this family, this land. He was his oldest brother's estate manager! Ford knew how many chickens they had and when the hams would cure in the smokehouse. He knew every rock, every blade of grass while his two brothers gambled and whored. Ford worked here because he loved the land and all in it. For all his devotion, they regarded him as a servant, and to reward him, they paid him as if he were their chimneysweep."

"True!" Her Aunt grew red in her anger. "What his oldest brother gave him was no better than a girl's pin money. Who could live on twenty pounds a month? No one. Mon Dieu, cherie , that is half what Vicar Owen earns in a week from his living!"

"And for it all, I loved Ford. Who wouldn't? You see it now among those here. How well they regard him. How well they love him. For his earnestness, his kindness, his regard for the land and tenants and his family."

"I know you loved him at first sight, ma petite . Why not, eh?" Celeste took her in her arms. "But you were already affianced—and you had your own honor to uphold. You would not break your promise."

I had no choice." Papa was determined to get for me an English name and title. He'd planned that for years for me. Then, after Yvette had run off with Evan and you and I left here six years ago, Ford left home and joined the Army because his older brother would not support him in his quest to marry me or anyone, for that matter. For that alone, Ford is bolder than I ever was. I am proud of him."

Aunt Celeste shook her gently by her shoulders."Now you must be proud of yourself, Victorine Fortin!"

Tears burned her eyes. "I have done nothing to merit it."

"But you have. You take this child. But there is other proof of your character."

She strode away. "Do not praise me, Aunt."

"I will. You married, as you were told. You lived with Charles Wright, as you were bade. You never let on to the world how hollow your marriage was or what the emptiness cost you."

Vicky sucked in air. She could not be surprised that her very perceptive aunt knew the reality of her fruitless marriage. She hoped few others did. Nothing would be so hard to bear as the pity others would bestow on her. She would rebel at that. Reject it. Few would understand that all she'd ever wished for was Charlie's thanks for her acceptance of his preference. He'd taken it as his due. Living free as he pleased, he'd never considered the toll to her feminine pride or to her desire for a loving spouse and children. "That's done. Over. I will not discuss it now."

"But you must recognize now in your own heart and mind that you were honorable to do your duty by your husband. That you were respectful of him and of yourself to stand by him. For all that, for those years you held to your principles, you must now praise yourself. You must call yourself brave."

"I will promise you that when I leave here with Sam Hughes, I will live a different life. I will live for him. But I will live rewarding myself for my fortitude and my devotion to those principles I consider beneficial to a life filled with respect for myself filled with love."

Her aunt chuckled. "Good for you , ma petite. About time, I say!"

The news that Vicky and Gwen had identified Sam as their own was met with silence at the supper table in the Great Hall that evening. Everyone in the house was dressed in comfortable attire for dancing round the bonfire and on the sawdust dance floor of the town gazebo. The fare tonight laid upon the sideboard was light because there would be so many specialties offered for sale by brewers and bakers and the butchers in town.

Ford, who once more sat at the far end of the long table, lifted his goblet. "I say, let us raise a round of good wishes to Baroness Wright who in her grace takes in this child who was discovered by chance, brought to us by devoted travelers, and who will have his place in the family God granted him."

"Here! Here! Huzzah!" resounded round the old oaken walls of the hall.

Except for Ford's mother, the table resumed their hearty conversation.

The older woman checked her son's gaze, then that of her friend and guest, Celeste, and finally that of her other guest, Vicky. "You are brave to do this, Victorine."

Brave. The word she had craved. Yet Vicky's actions were done out of love and respect for her Yvette's decisions and for her orphaned child.

"Thank you, my lady. I am pleased we have such a certain resolution to this question of his parentage and his future."

The woman only stared back at her—and Vicky wondered why.