Always the Widow by Murdoch Emily E K

Author:Murdoch, Emily E K
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Historical, Romance
Publisher: Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2020-12-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Elizabeth watched her son nuzzle toward her.

She smiled. She was doing a lot of smiling at the moment. It seemed impossible to have any other expression when she looked at this tiny little miracle. Little Beau. Her tiny marvel she had never expected.

“I know what you want,” she murmured to the baby in his little cot, all lace and trinkets. “Come here, Beau.”

Her son wiggled in her arms as she lifted him and walked over to the sofa. He was so alive, so vibrant. Now he was here safely, she could reflect on the panic that had filled her during those horrendous birthing days.

What if he was born sleeping? What if something had happened that she could not comprehend, and he…

Elizabeth felt the weight of Beau in her arms and knew he was safe, but it did nothing to erase the panic of the last few months.

“Here you go, little one,” she murmured, unbuttoning her gown and helping him to latch on. “There you are.”

Beau suckled happily, and Elizabeth leaned back, utterly overwhelmed with joy.

She had never realized in all her two and thirty years that this was possible. How could she? Considered barren, her little son completed her in a new way. Some part of her had been broken, and she had not even known it.

The pain of Beau’s birth had been the settling of her soul.

Her son. Her little baby. Every time she looked at him, her heart ached. There he was, with a scattering of blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Jacob and Elmore were such different gentlemen, and if her babe had taken after his father in looks…

No, Beau was all his mother. Hers, all hers.

She had longed for a child, given up on ever being blessed with one, and now she was holding him in her arms—but he was Elmore Howard’s boy, not Jacob Beauvale’s, as he should be.

Slipping in Beauvale as a middle name had been…scandalous. Not seemly for a widow, certainly, and she would not be surprised if it gained her a little notoriety until something more dramatic occurred in polite society.

Her mother-in-law, certainly, would have a few things to say about that.

No matter what was on his birth registry in the church book, he would always be Beau in her heart.

They would keep it a secret for the rest of their lives: herself and Jacob, and little Beau.

How much time passed as she nursed Beau, she could not tell. Did it matter? The world continued to turn, and yet here, in this little corner of Lenskeyn House, her whole world was Beau.

It was only when there was a knock on the door that she remembered that they were not the only two living things in this world.

The door opened, and Linscott came in with red cheeks and averted eyes.

Elizabeth smiled encouragingly. “’Tis just my son feeding, Linscott. You do not have to be embarrassed or concerned. ’Tis perfectly natural.”

The butler nodded but still kept his face averted. His response was not uncommon, Elizabeth knew.

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