Marry in Haste – Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Scarborough Fair – Amy Nuttall

CHAPTER SIX

Henrietta and I looked at one another, our fear reflected upon each other’s faces, and tussled for a moment to be the first out the door. I threw my Chinese print wrapper over my shoulders, and attempted to slip past her, my heart in my throat, but she was more solid than I, and shoved me so hard that my head cracked against the door, giving her the upper hand to be first  into the hall. 

“Where is he? Where is my son?!” she wailed, turning on Mr Sinclaire like a madwoman. “What have you done to him?! I shall have the magistrates try you for murder!” 

“Mother!” My husband stood in the doorway, being propped up by a groom on one side of him. His face was ghastly, pale, his eyes quite glazed with the obvious effort it took to walk forward. “I am not murdered, I am quite unhurt.” He took his arm from the groom’s shoulders, and then tried to demonstrate, but when he put pressure on his leg, his face went completely white. He cursed a blue streak, staggering to lean with one arm propped against the wall. 

“Ned!” I shook myself from my dazed stupor, and dashed to him, patting him all over, checking for his wound. He pushed my hands away, irritated.

“Woman! I’m all right! It’s a mere scratch!” He was breathing heavily through his nose, and I did not miss the spasm of pain that crossed his handsome features. 

“Ned, we promised not to lie to one another, and to always take care of one another.” I grasped his hand, rubbing my thumb over his knuckles, keeping my voice calm and quiet, though inside, my emotions raged like a whirlwind. I dropped my voice even lower, standing on tip-toe to whisper into his ear, “You do not have to be strong in front of me.” 

His blue eyes softened, and he stroked his thumb across my cheek: for a moment, we were the only two people in the room. Then the footmen, groom and butler moved swiftly to get Edmund to his bedroom, Henrietta sobbing theatrically. 

As I lifted my skirts to follow them up the stairs, Mr Sinclaire touched my arm. “Perdita.” 

“What in the devil happened, Ernest?!” I demanded. “Were you so jealous of my husband that you would seek to have him killed?!” 

He grabbed my arm quite forcefully, and dragged me into the music room, shutting the door. From above, I could hear my husband’s loud cursing, Henrietta shrieking, and the feet of the maids running quickly up and down the stairs. “First, that is only your fear. I would never do anything so dishonorable. Do you think so little of me, after all this time?” He did not wait for me to answer him, but continued, in a low voice that shook with anger. “And if the tables were turned? Do you not think your husband would have left me to die like a dog in the dirt?”

I put a hand to my throat, touching my collarbone. “Ernest…” 

His blue eyes lacked mirth. “This is neither the time nor the place, but you know it is true. What kind of a husband asks his wife’s lover to be his second in a duel?”

I did not have to answer, it showed on my face. A very confident man, or a very stupid one. 

“I am doing this for you, not him — and I wish I could despise him, I wish he was a terrible husband to you. More than anything, I wish I did not have to ask myself why we are doing our damndest to wound this man who obviously thinks you hung the moon.” Sinclaire ran a hand through his hair. He would not look at me. “He has changed. He is not the Marlcaster I once knew.” He took me by the shoulders, staring deeply into my eyes. “Just know that I will see it through. Wherever this leads, Perdita. You know how I feel, how I — if only we had married, all of this could have been avoided. And our little boy…” he covered his eyes with one hand for but a moment, and I felt his pain as though it were my own. 

“But you came every day. Ned told me –” Sinclaire held up a hand, stopping me. His eyes were soft, wet with an old grief. 

“He lied to you, Perdita. I was there when they lay that tiny box in the ground, and he only sent for me as a matter of honor between men, nothing more. I liked to think that he and I came to an understanding that day.” His eyes were far away, he was back in the churchyard. “He did not have to be that man. It wasn’t his son being buried in the frozen ground. I thought he would strangle the life from the vicar when the man said an unchristened infant could not lie in the churchyard alongside your father and half-brother.” 

Pain flooded through me. It still hurt, after all these years. “He said you came every day,” I repeated. My voice was small, I felt as though I were drowning, grasping for a single hand to pull me to shore and finding none. 

Sinclaire clasped me in his arms. “You know I could not acknowledge my son, Perdita. Even if he had lived…” he swallowed hard, stepping back. “He would have been thought Marlcaster’s son.” Ernest shook his head. “I respect him for what he did. In his position I do not think I should have been so forgiving. If the Duke had tried — I should have strangled him rather than the vicar.” I knew he spoke of his former wife, Rosalyn, dead these many years in childbed with the Duke’s get. He clenched his fists. “Your husband may bear me no love, but he is not a monster. Would that he were! How much easier this all would have been.” 

“Love.” I plucked at his sleeve, wanting to turn the conversation, but I knew it was far from over. Sinclaire was a good man, an honorable man — did this mean that I was the villain of the piece? No, we were all equal players in the game. Yet why did it all suddenly feel so hollow? 

Sinclaire ran a hand over his face, and made a choked sound. “I would have called him Nicholas. I thought of him when the bells rang for my wedding on Christmas Day.” He was still far back in the past, remembering. “If he had been buried in Ledford, as he should have been–” but he could not go on. 

“Tell me what happened at the stables,” I said, taking his hand and resting it on my cheek. He folded me into his embrace at once, and I knew if anyone should come upon us, there would be hell to pay, but I did not care. Perhaps the game was a foolish thing, but we were too deep in it already. How I loved him!

Sinclaire cleared his throat, and then began. “We chanced upon the Duke at the stables. He greeted us with a fifteen minute diatribe on the prime horseflesh in Town, informing us he had bought the fastest hotblood in all the realm, Sultan.” He paused for breath, and began to pace. “Then, we parted ways. Later in the morning, your husband having inspected at least twelve steeds, found a Thoroughbred bred from an Edgewater winner at last.” Mr Sinclair stopped his pacing, and reached into his pocket, drawing out what looked like the tailbone of an animal, for the game of knucklebones, with the edges shaved to sharp points.  “This was under the beast’s saddle. Your husband is damnably lucky he is still alive.” He ran a hand over his face, his expression taut. And if the tables were turned? Do you not think your husband would have left me to die like a dog in the dirt? 

I stared at the thing in my hand, clenching it, it dug into my palm and bit me, blood dripping from my fist. “What does this mean?” 

A black cloud passed over Sinclaire’s handsome features. “It’s a damnably bad business, Perdita.”

The Duke will stop at nothing to ruin the pair of you. I clenched my knuckles until they were white. “So Ned must forfeit the race, and you — you are in danger as well!” 

“The Duke does not frighten me, Perdita.” Sinclair took my hand, binding it with his handkerchief, and I dropped the knucklebone into my pocket. “Do you not see? It is you he seeks to punish, for some real or imagined slight.” 

I thought back to the matter of the broken betrothal. This is a sham marriage, and I shall do everything in my power to break it! “He does not scare me!” 

Sinclair’s mouth was drawn with concern. “I know you are not a fool, Perdita. You are indeed one of the cleverest, bravest women I have ever known.” He lowered his voice. “But let me do this thing for you.” 

“Please tell me you intend to win,” I pleaded, and his face closed. “The Duke cannot be allowed to triumph!” 

“Perdita…” Sinclaire’s expression locked. He stared steadily back at me, his voice hard. “For the love I bear you, do not tell me what it is that I must do. Only trust that I will see this thing through, and then it will be over. If Edgewater wins, it will never be over. Do you understand what I am trying to tell you?” 

I felt all the blood leach from my face. It will never be over… When I roll the bones, I play to win — every time. 

“Now, come.” Sinclaire’s hand lingered on my lower back for a bit longer than was proper as he ushered me out the door. “You had better go to him. After all, you are his wife.” 

•••

Upstairs, I did not bother knocking, but went straight into the room, where Edmund was lying back against the headboard, a bottle of whiskey near his hand. His trousers had been cut away on one leg, and I nearly retched at the unnatural angle. 

“I thought I told ye to keep the women out of the room!” The surgeon barked at his apprentice, a tow-headed young man who gawped at me, agog. 

“I am the Countess, and his wife. I have a strong stomach, there is not much on this earth that frightens me.” I tossed my hair and fixed the surgeon with a frosty glare. “Mr Sinclaire can vouch for me.” 

“Lady Perdita is a Force to be reckoned with, Dr MacDougal. You would be wise not to cross her.” My lover shook his head at me. “‘Struth, both Marlcaster and myself have learned to let her have her way, or life becomes very difficult.” 

Edmund looked at Sinclaire, and something seemed to pass between the two of them. Sinclaire put his hand on my lower back: intimate, a lover’s touch. Edmund’s fists clenched reflexively at that, though his grim smile did not falter. I stepped forward, and took his hand, he raised it and kissed the knuckles, but his eyes were on Sinclaire the whole time. “Wife,” said he, through clenched teeth. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Well, I am here, and I am not leaving, Ned.” I squeezed his hand, and he gripped it so hard that I let out a squeak of pain. 

Sinclaire was at my side in an instant. “Let go of her, Marlcaster.” 

“Let go? Of my wife? You forget whose house you are in, Sinclaire.” Edmund’s upper lip curled, and he made a move as though he would rise, but the doctor hit him sharply on the knee, and Edmund swore bloodily, taking another swig of whiskey. 

“Don’t move, laddie! Do ye want yon leg tae come off so badly?!” The doctor, a Scot with bushy red muttonchops and piercing blue eyes, glared at me. “We had tae revive t’ other ladyship with the smelling salts and threats o’ the leech, aye, Jamie?” 

Jamie bobbed his head at me, his eyes glued to my décolletage. One would think he had never seen a lady’s bosoms before. Sinclaire cleared his throat loudly, but before he could step in front of me to defend what little honor I had left, the doctor coughed, startling Sinclaire and Edmund, who left off glaring at one another to look at him.

MacDougal turned to Edmund. “I’ll be borrowing yer missus for a minute if ye don’t mind, lad.” Without waiting for an answer, the doctor hustled me out into the hall, Sinclaire following close behind.

“You will kindly not manhandle the Countess, sir!” Sinclaire breathed heavily through his nose in anger. 

“An’ who are you tae tell me my business, man?!” The surgeon drew himself up to his full height, which came to Sinclaire’s chin. “Well?!” 

Sinclaire crossed his arms. “I am Mr Marlcaster’s second in the race, and a… friend of the family.” He looked quickly at me. 

“Make yerself useful an’ fetch another bottle o’ whisky, an’ be quick about it.” MacDougal shooed him away, his bushy brows rising. “So, the gossip is true. Well, that’s none o’ ma affair.” He fixed me with a scowl. “Have ye ever seen a man’s leg get sawn off, lassie?” 

I let out a half-scream, my hands flying to my mouth. “No!” I shook my head violently, I wanted to scream and rage, but emotion would not move this man in front of me. It was cold, hard logic that I needed, for knowledge I sorely lacked. 

“Oh, aye, lass. It’s a terrible thing. I’ve spent ma time in the war, an’ unpleasant things can happen when ye don’t amputate.” The old sawbones wiped his grimy hands down the front of his apron. 

“You can’t! I won’t let you!” I cried passionately. “I’ll do anything — coin, drink, a swift horse that runs through night and day, as though it were bred from the wind itself!” 

MacDougal drew back at that, his eyes knitting together. “Will ye, lass?” he drew me away from the door, making sure it was shut tight. He exhaled deeply. “I’ve seen horrors ye’ll not find in one o’ yer comfy townhouses. Tha bone isnae shattered, if he can still walk upon it — yet I’ve seen a strong man walk upon a broken limb, and then wither awa’ days later. It could yet develop bad humours, turn t’ rot in the blood — yon limb will go black, an’ the rot will spread upwards.

“D’ye ken, lassie, that ye may murder yer husband here and now, as if ye’d stabbed a knife intae his heart? And he’ll no’ go quick, nae, ’twill be a long an’ lingerin’ death, one I’d no’ wish on ma worst enemy.” 

“I don’t care!” I cried. I was certain he could hear my voice wavering, but I pressed on. “He won’t die! I won’t let him. Do you hear me?” 

MacDougal studied me, his expression serious. “Aye, men an’ women make plans, an’ the gods laugh. A patient o’ mine said that once.” I did not dare ask what had happened, I saw it in his eyes. His shoulders slumped infinitesimally, and then he was back to business. A hard light came into his eyes, and suddenly he towered menacingly over me, getting right up in my face. “I willnae be told ma business by a foreign lass who knows nothin’ of medicine! Yer husband gave ye an order, lass! Go back tae yer ‘broidery!” 

I made as if to go into the room, but he picked me up as though I weighed nothing at all, and moved me from it. “Jamie!” MacDougal bellowed. “Get Auld Jenny!” 

Sinclaire came up behind us, startling me, and the doctor whisked the whisky with him into the bedroom, the door slamming shut with a final knell. “No! No!” I screamed, rattling the doorknob, but it was locked fast. 

“Perdita! What’s the matter?!” Sinclaire grabbed ahold of me, but I was in a wild frenzy, and could not be calmed. 

“He’s going to cut off Ned’s leg! Help! Mrs Tate! James! Alf!” My screams brought the household staff, my Lady Grandmother, and the Dowager Countess running.

“What is going on here, granddaughter?!” My Lady Grandmother demanded, and Henrietta rounded on me in an instant.

“What have you done to him, you little witch?!” Henrietta flew at me, but I slapped her in the face.

“Do you want the doctor to amputate his leg?” I hissed, and she swooned. The housekeeper came bustling up with her keys, and I gave Henrietta a little push back towards the parlor. “You are helping no one with your hysterics, Henrietta. Go away!”

“He is my son!” she shrieked. I reared back, slapping her hard across the cheek, and she stared at me, slack-jawed in horror.

“And I am his wife! Now go, before I am forced to have you removed from my sight!”

She shot me an evil look, and flounced off.

My Lady Grandmother touched my arm. “I hope you know what you are doing, child,” she said gravely. “You gamble everything.”

The housekeeper unlocked the door with a flourish. I prayed to God it was not too late. “My lady, take James and Alf in with ye,” she said with a respectful gleam in her eye.

With James, Alf, and Sinclaire at my side, I dashed into the room just as MacDougal laid his saw to Ned’s flesh. 

Edmund was pale as a sheet, hand on the bottle of whiskey, agog. “Dita?!” 

“Stop!” I screamed, and MacDougal reared back, his face like thunder. 

“Get out!” he roared like a bull, and then he turned on me. For such a big man, he moved fast. I darted towards him, grabbing the handle of the saw from his hand, and in my madness, wrested it from his grip. The teeth were brown and rusty with old blood, and I shuddered in disgust. I flung it from me, it went skittering across the floor. “Sairpent!” He grabbed me by the wrist, throwing me to the floor, but I was back on my feet and in his face with an anger I had not known I possessed. 

“Get out of my house!” I said in a voice of deadly quiet. “You’ll not harm a hair on his head, do you hear me, you wicked old butcher?!” 

“I’ll no’ be ordered about by a woman!” MacDougal bared his teeth, shaking with anger. 

“Get out!” I roared, pointing a shaking finger at the door. I whirled on one of our footmen. “James, run and get a boy to fetch the bonesetter, as fast as you can!” 

“Yes, my lady!” James dashed from the room. 

“My lady!” MacDougal lunged for me, and Sinclaire stepped forward as though to stop him. “I told ye tae stay out o’ it! I’ll not be told ma business by some slanty-eyed, foreign bitch!” 

Edmund was on his feet before Sinclaire could move, and his fist hit the doctor square in the mouth. “You forget your place!” he roared, breathing in sharp, jerky pants. “You’ll not lay hands on a peeress of the realm, sir! Now get out before we call Bow Street!” 

“Mr Greaves!” I shouted, and the butler came into the room at once, he had likely been waiting in the hallway for my summons. He was a big African man, balding, with a kindly smile, but today he had none, his mouth was set as hard as stone as he looked at the surgeon.

“My lady,” Greaves said respectfully. “Mr Marlcaster.” 

“Escort this charlatan from the property!” I ordered in a voice like steel, praying none of them could sense how I shook inside. Ye may murder yer husband here an’ now… As if ye’d stabbed a knife intae his heart.

“Unhand me at once! I’ll show m’self out!” MacDougal cried. “Jamie, ye wee idiot! Bring ma bag!” 

“But sir!” Jamie cried, finding his voice at last. And it squeaked. 

“We are no’ welcome in this house. I wish good day to you, Madam!” MacDougal thundered at me. As he turned to go, he whispered, in a voice like ice, “Let all who hear me bear witness! I say ye do murder — an’ I’ll testify against ye and yer lover at the trial!” Slamming his hat on his head and shoving his bag under his arm, he stormed out, tripping over the person coming up the steps as he shouted for Jamie to call a cab. 

When he had gone, I turned to Edmund, and as though he knew how I trembled inside, he took me into his arms and held me for a long, sweet moment. Then he sat back down on the bed, he was sweating and pale. “What have we done, Dita?” he whispered. 

“She’s saved your life, most likely, Marlcaster,” Sinclaire said from the doorway, and I jumped back, feeling guilty for comforting my own husband in front of my lover, though why I should feel such a confusing emotion, I knew not. “I’m not a man for medicine, but that blade would have poisoned your blood and condemned you to a long and lingering death.” 

Edmund scoffed, but I saw how ill he looked, and my heart squeezed hard. “Always the bearer of good news, aren’t you, Sinclaire? I think you would love comforting my widow overmuch, if I should perish.”

Sinclaire ground his teeth audibly. “Is that not why you chose me as your second, sir?”

“Oh, you call yourself an honorable man, Sinclaire, but I’ve seen how you make eyes at my wife as though I were not right in front of you!” Edmund jeered. I placed a hand on his arm, and he pulled me roughly to him, as though he would kiss me, but at the last moment I turned my face away. I saw hurt flash in his eyes, he let go of me, and I put my hand to my lips. I did not want to be a pawn in that game, and yet suddenly I felt bereft, and ached for the kiss I had denied him. “You hope to wear the fair lady’s favor and win the race, I suppose. But do you really think it shall be so easy?” he sneered.

“Enough, Ned!” I snapped, hearing the bell ring for the door. “The bonesetter will be here any moment! Do you want her to see you brawling like a common peasant, or acting like the gentleman I know you to be?”

“Send for the bishop, wife, we may as well give last rites. I will be half a man without my leg, I…” his voice dropped and he turned back to me, stroking the back of his hand across my cheek. He was shaking, his teeth chattering, and his voice had begun to slur from the drink. “But why are you crying? Will you mind so overmuch when I am dead?”

“You’re not going to die!” My voice quaked a little on the last word. 

“Who in’t going t’ die?” It was a little old lady, ugly and wizened, with a wide mouth like a toad and shoulders wide as a dockworker’s. She had a thick accent, and leaned upon a walking stick. “I be Mrs Mapp, the bonesetter. Ye must be that high-faultin’ foreign miss what married this foolish man who’s t’ race that wicked Duke. Aye, all o’ London is talkin’ about it.” She eyed Edmund’s leg with a gimlet gaze. 

“The race!” I gasped, swallowing hard. If I gambled nothing, I would lose everything. “But how do you know, madam?” 

The bonesetter barked back a sharp laugh. “‘Tis the Talk of the Town, girl!” 

When she moved toward the bed, her clothes letting off a not unappealing cloud of herbal smells, Edmund set down the bottle. “What witchcraft is this?” He stared at the old woman, throughly appalled. “Who is this hag?” 

“You respect your ma, boy?” Mrs Mapp bent her ear to his leg and then began massaging it roughly, and he howled. “That’s what I thought. Feels like it ain’t shattered.”

“That is what the surgeon said, madam. He wanted to amputate.” At Sinclaire’s words, Edmund clenched his jaw and went quite pale.

“An’ it was you that kicked him out, eh?” She poked a knobbly finger at me. “I like yer brass, girl. Want ter make yerself useful? Fetch me some hot water, as hot as ye can make it, and fresh, clean towels. Well? Are ye waitin’ for infection tae set in, ye wee mort?” She fixed me with a gimlet eye, throwing a pitcher off the washstand to me, and then drew herself up to her full height. “Now, boy,” she said, turning her attention back to my husband, “you’re goin’ ter want t’ get very drunk.” 

When I returned, my husband had drunk nearly the entire second bottle of whiskey, and when he saw me, his eyes lit up. “Look, Shinclaire, it’s Dita,” he slurred. “My angel.” 

“Aye, she’s yer angel all right, boy.” The bonesetter cackled, handing Sinclaire a strap of leather, and he put it in Edmund’s teeth. “Now we’ll set the bone. You, lads –” and she jabbed a finger at Sinclaire and Alf, who I had quite forgotten. “Hold ‘is lordship down. An’ you, Angel, since ye insist on makin’ use o’ yerself, cant a tune fer yer man t’ keep ‘im calmed.” She chewed on her spit. “Ye can sing, can’t ye?” 

“Dita caterwauls like a cat in heat!” Edmund winked at the bonesetter. “Her mama was a celebrated opera soprano, but m’ wife can’t carry a tune in a bucket!” 

“Ned!” I scowled, crossing my arms. “You told me I had a beautiful voice!” 

Sinclaire coughed, looking ashamed. “He’s right, y’know. Your singing voice sounds like a cat yowling. Madam, you’ll want to cover your ears.” 

The old woman cackled loudly, and set to her work. I opened my mouth, and began to sing a song from when I was a child, Edmund’s eyes never leaving my face. 

Tell him to buy me an acre of land,

Between the salt water and the sea sand. 

Tell him to plough it with a ram’s horn,

And sow it all over with one peppercorn. 

Tell him to sheer’t with a sickle of leather,

And bind it up with a peacock’s feather. 

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme…

When at last the grisly task was finished, Edmund had passed out from the pain, and the men were sweating from the exertion it had taken to hold him down. I escorted the bonesetter to the back gate and paid her a golden crown, she bit down on it, satisfied, and then looked at me with eyes that saw beyond mortal knowing, and I shivered all over at the sorrow in her eyes. 

“When he wakes, Angel, he’ll be cursin’ both god an’ the devil. Don’t ye let him go t’ that race tomorrow.” 

I gasped, I had quite forgotten it. “But his second will race the Duke, madam. Mr Sinclaire.” 

“Oh, aye? Your lover they say, and they also say this.” And she bent her lips to my ear, dry and cracked like leather. “When men and women make plans, the Devil laughs.” She slipped something into my hand.

“What?” I gasped. But when I turned around, she was gone, and the breeze brought the smell of ash and bone from the charnel houses beyond the lichgate, though perhaps I only imagined it.

And inside my palm lay a knucklebone.

•••

“I’m afraid, Ernest,” I whispered. We were in the back garden, sitting on the bench together in perfect propriety, as Susanna played ball with her puppy, a little white eared runt Edmund’s favorite bitch, Cleopatra, had thrown. He doted on his daughter whenever he could, and I wondered how he could ever think her the child of the man beside me, who twirled his finger through one of my red curls, bringing it to his lips. 

“I do not intend to lose the race, if that is what you fear.” He tugged whimsically on one ringlet. “Perhaps I need a lady’s token, for luck.” 

I kissed him chastely near the mouth, mindful of my husband lying inside. “Very well.” He handed me his knife, and I wrapped the ringlet in my handkerchief, slipping it into his front pocket. He caught my chin in his hand, brushing his lips against mine as he stared into my eyes. We both took a sharp breath, and moved back — and not a moment too soon. 

My Lady Grandmother walked into the garden and came up short upon seeing us, her brows shooting up in surprise. We jumped guiltily apart.  “Granddaughter, your husband is awake and asking for you.” 

•••

Edmund was sitting up in bed, his face contorted in a grimace of pain. His leg was bound in boiled linen bandages and kept immobile in a splint. When he saw me, his whole aspect lightened, and he patted the space beside him. 

I sat down next to him with my knees drawn up to my chest, and when he put his arm around me, I pressed my face to his broad chest, unable to hold back my tears. “Ned, Ned.” 

He tilted up my chin. “Don’t cry, I am still living.” He brushed his lips across my cheeks, tasting my tears. Of course, this only made me cry all the more, and I nuzzled my face into the crook of his neck, lying back against the pillows with him, my body curled up against his. When he spoke, it was husky, ragged. “I don’t know how I should have made it back without the thought of you in my head. When the horse threw me… I remembered that race with the Duke, years ago, before we eloped, and I thought, At last my luck has run out. And then I knew I could not live a single moment more unless I…” he turned his face, his eyes softening, and he swallowed, hard. “Unless I had but one more kiss from you, Lady wife.” 

His lips on mine were gentle, but demanding: his tongue teased the seam of my lips apart, and I opened them to him, moaning a little as a ripple of heat lit up every nerve ending along my skin. He tasted of whiskey and clear, green water. “You do not know how badly I want to be buried deep inside of you, Dita.” Edmund’s husky admittance kindled such a longing inside of me that I was staggered by it. He took a small sip of his tea, and his eyes held the glazed look of one whose head is filled with opium Dreams. “Do you not ever think that Susanna might like a little brother to play with?” 

“She has brothers.” I was referring, of course, to Briar’s children, Harry and Joss, who we saw little to none of, though that was more her doing than mine. If she had not been so ridiculously jealous of me, I would have had the boys to play with Susanna, and often. Besides, it would do Edmund good to see his boys more frequently, for I knew he missed them sore.

In Edmund’s voice was a bone-deep ache that made my heart fair turn over with pain for him. “I did not know my father, Dita. And I barely see the boys, for she has sent them to be raised by her mother, back in Grovershire.” His lips twisted. “She says it is so she can give all her attention to me, but I… Oh, Dita, it kills me not to see my sons.” 

This was the drink loosening his tongue, I was sure of it. Edmund had never expressed such a desire heretofore. In this state, I would be able to get him to admit to anything. But I was not that cruel, not yet. “Tell me again how you want to make another babe with me.” I twined my fingers through his, and his brow crinkled before he burst out laughing, half sitting up. 

“Why, in the usual way, Dita. Where I take you every which way possible until you conceive, and then you do not touch me again, but go back to your lover.” His voice was void of mirth as he leaned back again. “Do I have that aright?” 

“Ned…” my voice was stricken. “You know that is not… I mean…”

“It is what we do, Perdita.” He sounded weary suddenly, and a shadow moved across his face. “It is the game we play. By God, I am sick to heart of it.”

“Edmund, would you — oh!” My mother in law clapped a hand over her heart, shocked to see me curled up beside her son in the bed. “You need your rest, my son.” She kissed his brow, smoothing the lines away, and looked steadily at me. For once, we were at an accord. 

Very gently, I sat up, attempting to disentangle our fingers, but he gripped my hand hard, pulling me back to his chest.

“No, stay with me. I shan’t be able to sleep unless you are here.” His lips brushed against my ear. “I need you, Dita.” 

“Well, you need your sleep more, husband.” I laid my head back down upon his chest, pressing a soft kiss to the place where his heart beat so steadily beneath my cheek. “But I will stay.” 

“Stay forever, Dita,” he whispered. 

“I will.” My false promise fell on deaf ears, he was asleep. 

•••

I could not sleep before the morning of the race, I tossed and turned in bed all night, the knucklebones upon the wash stand, mocking me. The Duke… This was under his saddle… You are a clever girl, Perdita…

I bolted up in the darkness. 

Sinclaire. 

Historical notes: 

(1) Burial in consecrated ground was only permitted after 1823 without ritual, and with ritual only after the 1880 Burial Act. Usually suicides and unchristened babies were not buried in the family plot, but outside the churchyard, or to the north. I wasn’t able to find much. 

Source: http://www.sacred-texts.com/etc/fcod/fcod11.htm

https://genealogy.stackexchange.com/questions/10193/burial-of-a-person-who-committed-suicide-in-18th-century-england

(2) the lyrics that Perdita sings are from a traditional ballad, a version of Scarborough Fair which can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarborough_Fair_(ballad)