13

Prosperity clutched the baby to her chest, though she could only give him milk with the soaked sponge. In time, he was satisfied and slept. She settled him in a stuffed armchair with another butting up to it, seat against seat so the baby would not roll out.

She stared out the dark window. Nothing could be seen even if she was looking, but her thoughts had turned inward. Why had David claimed his marriage was a lie? Had he not truly wed the woman upstairs? That thought made her even more nauseous. Surely the army would not allow a woman to dwell with an officer unless a relation or his wife. He could not prove the former, so he must have married her. His claim made no sense.

Even worse, he’d declared his love for Prosperity. That thought ignited a storm of emotion. How could he say such a thing with his wife languishing upstairs? What if she died? What would he do then? The faint hope she’d tried so hard to dash wriggled back to the surface.

It was wrong, horribly wrong. This baby needed his mother and father, even if David was not the birth father. This baby’s needs must come first. To forget her confusion, she focused on him.

The empty hours of the night trickled past. David and Dr. Goodenow had climbed the stairs ages ago. It was now the wee hours of morning, when darkness took its deepest hold and hope seemed out of reach. Not one sound had come from upstairs, not even the creaking of someone walking across the floor. No wails or cries. Nothing.

She gave up pacing so she wouldn’t wake the baby and settled in the straight-backed chair. Pray without ceasing, Paul had told the Thessalonians, but words could no longer overcome fatigue. Her mind constantly rambled, and her eyelids kept drifting shut. Each time they did, she jerked awake and then checked to make sure she hadn’t woken the baby.

How peacefully he slumbered in the midst of strife. She stroked his tender forehead. This little one did not know the turmoil surrounding his parents. He must never know it.

The stairs creaked, and she stood expectantly.

The midwife appeared, carrying the kettle of water. At Prosperity’s questioning look, she muttered, “Won’t be long now.”

Prosperity followed her out of the parlor. “Then there’s no hope?”

The midwife shook her head. “Her head’s clear at the moment, but she’s lost too much blood.”

“Isn’t a clear head a good sign?”

“Seen it happen before, jest before the end.”

Prosperity drew in a sharp breath. “Then there’s little time.”

“Aye.” The midwife pushed out the back door. “He be payin’ his last respects.”

Prosperity could not even swallow. She ought to apologize for her wayward thoughts. She ought to console David’s wife that her baby would have a good father, but her feet would not move toward the staircase. How easy it sounded to offer a simple word of hope. A stronger woman might march up those stairs. Prosperity remained rooted to the spot.

This moment must remain between husband and wife. Her presence would not bring the peace this woman needed. So she watched the midwife disappear into blackest night and offered a prayer for the soul of David’s wife.

More creaking sounded from above.

Prosperity moved back to the parlor and discovered the baby rubbing his fists against closed eyes. She picked him up and cradled him close, humming the lullaby her mother had sung to her. He drifted back to sleep.

Footsteps rang on the staircase.

She looked up to see Dr. Goodenow, dressed in black coat and hat. He carried his medical bag. Either David’s wife had died or the fever had broken.

“Is she . . . ?” She must hope for the best.

He shook his head.

Gone. David’s wife was gone. Once again everything she’d counted as certain shifted. God had granted her heart’s blackest desires.

David knelt by the bed and stared at Aileen’s still body. Peace at last, but at such cost. He shuddered over the violence of her delirium. Over and over she had begged for her child. He had promised . . . he didn’t know what he’d said. With her last gasp, numbness had settled in. Unrepentant until the end, she had used her moment of clarity to curse him. The words—uncharacteristically free of vulgar language—still rang in his head.

I hope you suffer the way you made me suffer.

He had recoiled and instinctively looked to the doctor. The man was gone. No one else heard Aileen. Only him. No one else witnessed her bitterness. He could be thankful for that. She had no right to curse him. He had given her a home and his name. She was the one who had lied and cheated. Not him.

Instead of unleashing the anger, he forced himself to turn back to her. At the threshold of death, blame ought not be affixed. This shaky marriage had been built by two willing participants. She’d needed a father for her baby. He’d believed her tale, believed himself capable of such sin, and offered her the answer she sought. Yet he’d never been a husband to her.

David took her lifeless hand. A stranger to death, he knew not its character, but even he recognized the chill in her flesh. Still, he held on, staring at her for untold minutes, waiting for some sign that this too was one grand deception.

It was not.

The doctor returned to confirm what David already knew. Aileen was dead.

Their two-month marriage had been excruciating and exhausting. The child he’d hoped to gain from their union proved his mother a deceiver. He had nothing to celebrate from their time together and no direction for the future.

“What now?” he managed to ask.

“You will need to make funeral preparations.”

He didn’t know where to begin. Other than grandparents, his family had not known death’s cruel sword. He had no experience with its responsibilities. Perhaps Prosperity would help. She had buried two parents.

He began to rise. Then sank again.

Foolish thought. After the pain he’d caused her, she would not look at him, least of all help him. No, he must do this himself. There was no one to notify beyond Aileen’s few friends at the grogshop. She’d never attended a church and had no kin on the island.

He groaned and buried his head in his hands.

The doctor placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll get through this. I lost my wife many years ago. It’s difficult, but you will survive.”

The man did not know that he harbored no love for Aileen. David would not mourn her as much as he would mourn his failures with her. That would be impossible to forget.

“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered.

“You must live for your son.”

“My son.” David brushed away the doctor’s consoling hand and strode to the window overlooking the other officers’ quarters. “You know as well as I that he’s not my son.”

The doctor paused so long that David would have thought he’d left if not for the man’s reflection in the window.

“He is your son by law.”

“Did you ever raise a child that wasn’t yours?” David spat.

Again the long pause. “My wife died in childbirth. The baby was stillborn. I would have given everything to have my wife back. I would have even given up my insistence on a child of our own, but it was too late. I had refused her wish to take in an orphan. If I had listened to her . . .”

David could not absorb another man’s pain. Not now. “At least your wife loved you.”

“Perhaps too much.” The doctor shook his head. “I didn’t deserve such devotion. We are selfish creatures by nature, and I am no exception. But that baby downstairs needs a father.”

David couldn’t bear to look at the boy. What sort of father could he be? “How can I?”

“You give him a home and a future,” the doctor said.

David turned away, even though he knew the doctor was right. Caring for Aileen’s child was the greatest thing he could do to atone for his sins, the one thing he could still promise her. It would also be the most difficult.

David’s wife had died, and Prosperity had wished it. For that she could never forgive herself.

“We will go now, Doctor?”

He shook his head. “You must watch that child in your arms until another can be summoned.”

Her heart sank. One more moment with David might break her resolve. Yet what woman threw herself at a widower on the night of his wife’s death?

“I know this is difficult.” Dr. Goodenow stood at her side now, hand upon her shoulder. “Think of the child, not his father.”

How easy to say and hard to do. Her thoughts ran wayward, unbridled in their conflicting passions. “Another officer’s wife?”

His somber expression softened. “The hour is late, but if a light burns in another window, I will inquire if someone might come to assist you. But I must caution you that dawn is not far away. Doubtless everyone is sleeping.”

“The midwife, then.”

“I sent her home, as there was nothing more she could do.” He drifted toward the door.

A creaking on the stairs sent her heart racing and her gaze flitting upward. David appeared, step by painful step. His shoulders now bowed. His countenance had aged. His gaze passed over the doctor and landed on her. Oh, those blue eyes! Bright as a summer sky and deep as an ocean. They said more than words ever could. Regret and pain and sorrow.

She caught her breath at the immensity of his anguish.

His gaze drifted down to the babe in her arms, asleep still, unaware that his mother had left this world and its sorrows behind.

“Thank you,” he croaked in words barely audible.

She swallowed the protests that rose instinctively to her lips—that it was nothing, that any woman would do the same, that she had only done what must be done.

“Please stay,” David said, looking not at her but at the baby.

“I cannot.”

Surely he knew that, but his gaze rose again to her face, and she nearly cried out at the torment in his eyes.

“I don’t know what to do.” He licked his lips. “The baby. Everything. Please help. As a friend.”

No words could be crueler. Every part of her longed to agree, but that would be terribly wrong. “Your wife has passed.”

He flinched as if she had just fired a musket, but her statement wiped away the anguished husband and rejuvenated the soldier. “I will need to make arrangements. For the burial. And for the child.”

A shiver ran down her spine. She preferred the despairing husband to the emotionless soldier. “I will ask Gracie—she’s a laundress at the hospital—if she will nurse the boy.”

He stared at her.

“Your son will require a wet nurse.” She was certain she’d said this before, but he seemed to have forgotten. “Gracie is nursing her own and might be able to take on another baby. If not, she may know someone who can.”

He nodded, but she doubted he would remember come morning. She looked for the doctor, who would confirm the need for a wet nurse, but he was gone. He must have slipped out to find another officer’s wife.

“Mother’s milk is best.”

David avoided looking at her. “Then do make inquiries, Miss Jones.”

The stiff formality slapped her across the cheek. She could barely draw a breath. This was as it should be, but not as she wished. “I will.”

It was the only proper thing she could do.