Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire

“They arrived late last night, and have sent word this morning they shall come to collect you in the hour before noon.”

Lady Anne, standing with Noah in the great entrance hall of the abbey, wondered at the sheer joy the woman didn’t even attempt to disguise at this news. Had she no shame? Carrying a bastard child herself, Noah was happy to house with two of the most notorious women of English gossip? A product of a strict disciplinarian upbringing herself, the countess simply could not understand why Noah had thrown away everything she could have had—John Thornton, for instance—for some light, immoral tumble.

“I find no sin and no shame in this child,” Noah said, one hand on her still-flat belly and her eyes steady on those of the countess.

Lady Anne’s jaw tightened. “You are packed?”

“Yes. I take little with me. My lady, may I farewell your children? They have meant much to—”

“No. I forbid you to have contact with them.”

“I am no danger to them!”

Lady Anne did not reply to that. Not verbally, but the anger and distress in her eyes was response enough.

Noah sighed, then she turned away and walked up the great staircase towards her chamber.

Within moments, one of the servants announced that a coach approached down the long road through Woburn Park, and the countess, still greatly disturbed by her exchange with Noah, settled herself on a chair near the fire in the gallery and requested that her husband join her to greet the arrivals.

I will meet with them this once, she thought, and then dismiss them from my mind.

There came the faint flurry of noises and voices from the entrance to the abbey, which intensified as the footman showed the arrivals into the front hall. Just then the earl came into the gallery, taking a chair next to his wife.

Lady Anne felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. They would face these shameful women, she and her husband, with the combined weight of their aristocracy and their virtue. King Charles be damned, if he thought they would grovel to these women!

“I shall both be glad and sorry for Noah’s departure,” the earl said softly as footsteps sounded up the stairs towards the gallery. “She has been a delightful companion to both of us, and our children, over the past years.”

The countess made no reply, a little ashamed of her earlier treatment of Noah—after all, what her husband said was true enough. As the far double doors opened she stiffened a little, and raised her chin.

A footman bowed, then two women swept past him.

They were both pretty enough, Lady Anne conceded, although doubtless that prettiness had caused their fall from grace into immorality, and they bore themselves well, which bearing they had undoubtedly observed at whatever manner of court Charles had managed to gather about him in exile. The older of the women had dark blonde hair, worn simply enough in a twist at the crown of her head, a figure somewhat thickened at the waist by childbearing, yet still graceful and supple. The younger woman was darker, much slimmer (although the thickness at her waist suggested to the countess that she had recently risen from childbed) and more vivacious with bright eyes and a ready smile.

The women reached the earl and his countess, and both curtsied demurely enough.

The earl and countess inclined their heads.

“My lord, lady,” said the older woman, Marguerite Carteret. “My companion and I are much obliged by your generosity in permitting us to lease such a well-equipped house within Woburn village.”

“Our king required it of us,” said the earl.

“In our current sad climate,” said Marguerite, “you were not obliged to King Charles in any manner. Yet you acquiesced to his request. That was well done of you.”

“We will take up no more of your time,” said the younger woman, Kate Pegge, “but ask only that we may make re-acquaintance with our friend, Noah Banks—”

Re-acquaintance? The countess frowned.

“—for we have left our children waiting below in the carriage, and we would return to them speedily.”

A carriageful of Stuart bastards, Lady Anne thought bemusedly, at our front door. “Then you may collect Noah and—” she began, but just then there came a step from the doorway, and both Marguerite Carteret and Kate Pegge spun about, their faces alive with joy.

The countess and the earl looked at each other. What was Noah to these two?

Noah had entered through the far door and, abandoning any pretension to decorum, she picked up her heavy skirts, and ran forward.

The three women met in a flurry of skirts and kisses and embraces halfway between where the Bedfords sat and the door. After their initial greeting, Marguerite Carteret and Kate Pegge further stunned and bewildered the earl and countess by stepping back from Noah, then sinking into such deep curtsies before her that anyone might have thought her the most ancient and venerable of empresses.

“For the Lord’s sake,” the earl whispered to his wife, “has Charles somehow managed to wed Noah in secret that these two make obeisance to her as if she were queen?”

Lady Anne had a sudden and appalling vision of Charles restored, and she visiting court to be forced to curtsey before Noah.

“Surely not,” she said.

Noah came to stand before the earl and his wife.

“Lady Anne, Lord Bedford…I am most sorry that I must leave you in this manner. You have been good to me, and Woburn the best of homes. I—”

Lady Anne sighed, and rubbed a little at her eyes as if she were distracted. “I wish you well, Noah, but I wish you had done better.” She hesitated, then reached out and gave Noah’s hand a brief squeeze.

The earl rose, and kissed Noah’s cheek. “Go with our blessing, Noah. I pray that your life shall be a good one.”

The gestures of both Bedfords plainly touched Noah, for her cheeks coloured, and she smiled tremulously, as if close to tears.

She nodded, curtsied to both the earl and his wife, then turned away.

Just before she reached the door, Lady Anne spoke once more. “The children are playing in the vestibule, Noah. Say goodbye if you wish.”

Noah stopped, turned, and looked at the countess with shining eyes. “Thank you,” she said.

Once Noah had said her farewells to the Bedford children, and had kissed each one in turn, she, Marguerite and Kate went outside. There was a driver and a coach drawn by two horses waiting near the steps leading to the entrance of Woburn Abbey. Two children, one a boy of about ten years, another a girl of some six years, were sitting inside with a well-wrapped baby secured between them.

“My children,” said Marguerite proudly, introducing the boy and girl to Noah. “You may call her madam,” Marguerite said to the children, “and treat her as if she were your queen.”

“They have their father’s look about them,” said Noah, kissing each child gently on the cheek. Then, leaning into the carriage, she picked up the baby and cradled it in her arms. “Yours, Kate?” she said.

“Aye,” Kate replied, love and pride in evidence in equal amounts on her face.

“Just born, too,” said Noah. “Ah, she’s beautiful, Kate. You are well?”

At Kate’s nod, Noah handed the baby back into the care of the two children, and looked at the women. “You know that—”

“Yes,” Marguerite said, kissing Noah yet one more time, “Charles showed us your letter. He fears for you, Noah.”

“And thus, you have come to me,” said Noah, laying a hand briefly on each of the women’s cheeks. “We should speak of—”

She stopped suddenly, her face losing all expression as a man came slowly down the steps towards the carriage.

“John,” Noah said, and Marguerite and Kate could clearly hear the tension in her voice.

Noah recovered somewhat and introduced John Thornton to Marguerite and Kate.

John smiled, and kissed each woman’s hand graciously, but his attention returned almost immediately to Noah.

“I had to—”

“I know,” she said, finally smiling a little at him.

“I could not let you go without—”

“I know.”

There was a silence, then John looked at Marguerite and Kate. “Will you look after her well? I cannot bear to think of her suffering for her loss of home.”

“For every loss of home, another is gained,” said Kate. “We will watch her well, John Thornton, and we thank you for such care in farewelling Noah.”

“I have loved her,” said John, once again looking at Noah, “and will do so again, should she allow.”

Noah was now close to tears, and so patently incapable of replying that Marguerite did so for her. “You are a man with farseeing eyes,” she said. “You shall live a charmed life.”

Thornton’s mouth twisted sadly. “Without Noah? I cannot think it.” Then he suddenly leaned forward, kissed Noah very softly on the mouth. “Farewell, beloved. May the land rise to meet you.”

Marguerite’s eyes glowed at this remark, and, as Thornton turned abruptly to go, she reached out a hand and stopped him. “You will live a charmed life,” she said. “Believe it.”

Thornton looked once more at Noah, as if he wanted to commit her face to memory, then turned and ran lightly up the steps and into the Abbey.

“He is a good man,” Noah said softly, watching his retreating back, “and I have treated him poorly.”

To that neither Marguerite nor Kate had anything to say.