The Christmas Foundling: A Christmas Regency Romance (Belles of Christmas: Frost Fair Book 5) Read online

  The Christmas Foundling

  A Christmas Regency Romance

  Martha Keyes

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  Also in this Series

  Afterword

  Other titles by Martha Keyes

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  The Christmas Foundling © 2020 by Martha Keyes. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover design by Martha Keyes and Ashtyn Newbold.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Martha Keyes

  http://www.marthakeyes.com

  To Micah and Jonah:

  You were worth the wait

  To Zachariah:

  I know the wait to meet you will be worth it too

  Author’s Note

  This book delves into a topic near and dear to my heart, as it is something I've personally experienced. Infertility is crushingly difficult in any age, but the Regency era, with its focus on heirs and successions, would have heightened the pain for both women and men in many ways.

  Everyone experiences adversity differently, but I hope that those who have gone through infertility—or still are experiencing it—will feel themselves represented and heard in pieces of this story.

  I hope that those who do not have personal experience with this topic can also benefit from and sympathize with the situations portrayed in the book, even if they are fictional ones.

  Finally, I hope that the story conveys the hope of the Christmas Season, particularly in a year when, like Lydia and Miles’s story, things will likely play out differently than we had hoped. There is joy and growth to be found even amidst such trials.

  Chapter 1

  There had rarely been a colder December in England, yet it was not the frigid cold out of doors which made the hands of Lydia Blakeburn tremble in her dressing room as she stared at the letter she held. Lydia didn’t want to end her marriage, but this letter might well tell her if it was possible. And if it was possible, it seemed her duty to do so. For her husband’s sake.

  She clenched her eyes shut and broke the seal. There was little point in prolonging her anxieties.

  My Lady Lynham,

  I was honored to receive your communication dated the thirteenth of December. I am afraid that I have little to add to the general knowledge you already possess, but perhaps my words will clarify any misunderstandings that may yet exist. As you implied in your letter, grounds for divorce are generally limited to adultery on the part of the wife. It is a lengthy, costly, and public process to see through, of course, and many couples choose to settle for divortium a mensa et thoro, which allows husband and wife to live apart—both physically and financially—without the option of remarrying.

  Annulment is available for a wider range of issues, and the inability to perform one’s marital obligations is a consideration, certainly, but requires an investigatory process that most people find entirely too distasteful and humiliating to subject themselves to. If you—or your friend—wish for more information on that, I can provide it. However, lack of offspring in and of itself is not grounds for divorce. That is rather left in the hands of God, as is only proper.

  Otherwise, an annulment can be granted in cases of a marriage improperly performed—banns not being read, errors on the marriage license itself, etc.—a minor marrying by license and without permission, bigamy, or one of the parties not being in their right mind at the time of the marriage.

  I hope you—and your friend—find this information useful. I beg you will not hesitate to respond if you have any further questions.

  Yours,

  James Coates

  Coates & Lamming, Solicitors

  London

  Lydia swallowed painfully, blinking to dispel threatening tears. Never would she have thought to be inquiring on such matters, and she hardly knew whether to be relieved or disappointed by the solicitor’s response. She had harbored little hope that her inability to provide her husband with an heir would be enough to legally justify an end to their marriage, but there was an element of defeat in the news all the same. She didn’t know how much longer she could continue as they were.

  And yet, the prospect of an annulment made her sick to even consider. To make five years of marriage as though they had never happened at all? And it had all started with such promise, such hope, such joy. In those days, she and Miles had spoken of children like foregone conclusions, looking to the future in all its hazy but certain bliss.

  A soft tap sounded on her door, and she hurried to fold up the letter, placing it in the drawer of the table before her.

  “Come in,” she said, stretching her mouth into a more pleasant expression.

  The bonneted heads of her two sisters, Diana and Mary, appeared in the doorway.

  “Are you ready yet?” Diana slipped into the room, and Mary followed behind, the smiles on their faces evidence of how they regarded the prospect before them.

  Neither of them seemed terribly disappointed at being stuck in London, which was a relief to Lydia. They had both been looking forward to going to Lynham Place for the duration of Christmastide, but a journey all the way to Staffordshire was out of the question, given the state of the roads. Reports claimed they were sheets of uneven ice—when they weren’t covered in snow. Fog, too, had hung over London for many days now, making travel even in Town treacherous. Thankfully, it had lifted yesterday. But the cold remained.

  They were to go out in it all the same. Lydia was determined to make her sisters’ time in London as enjoyable as possible, even if it meant enduring a bit of censure from her mother-in-law and an evening of frozen fingers and toes.

  “Yes, I am ready.” Lydia rose from her chair and pulled on her wool pelisse. “Or as ready as one can be to go out in that.”

  They all looked toward the window, its pane covered in a latticework of frost.

  “We shall simply have to eat and drink our fill of wassail and mutton to keep warm,” said Diana, handing Lydia her bonnet.

  Mary rubbed her hands together in anticipatory delight and slung an arm through Lydia’s, pulling her from the room.

  The three of them were met on their way down the corridor by Lydia’s husband, Miles, who had just come from his own bedchamber. He wore a great coat, and a black top hat covered his blond head of hair. He was as handsome now as he
had been when Lydia had first set eyes on him, and yet, so much more unattainable in many ways, given the gulf that had widened between them.

  As his gaze moved between the three sisters and settled on Lydia, she saw it in his eyes—the momentary hesitation as he debated how to treat his wife in front of her sisters. Lydia didn’t want Diana or Mary to know the troubles they had come upon. She didn’t want to burden their time here with any of that.

  Miles sent Lydia a smile and offered her his arm. “I believe my mother awaits us.”

  Lydia looked at him. “I thought she was set against the expedition.”

  Miles gave something between a smile and a grimace. “You know her. She is simultaneously offended by and interested in such affairs. I imagine she has found consolation in persuading herself that she is acting as a sort of chaperon.”

  Lydia didn’t doubt it. The dowager would never take her seriously as a capable adult until she was also a mother. Five years into marriage, that was looking highly improbable.

  “The truth is,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper directed at Lydia’s sisters, “that she is too curious to pass by such an opportunity.”

  “I cannot say I blame her,” Mary said. “I understand it has been nearly two decades since the last Frost Fair. Perhaps our having to stay in Town for the season will be a blessing in disguise.”

  Lydia mustered a smile, but she had great doubts on the subject. She had been looking forward to their time in Staffordshire almost as much as her sisters had. London was so full of people with endless questions, conjecture, and advice to offer. Always unsolicited.

  A footman pulled open the door, and a gust of chill wind swept around them, bringing on a collective shiver. Diana and Mary seemed thrilled with it, though, and charged ahead, not even waiting for Miles to help them into the coach that awaited.

  He handed Lydia up, though, not meeting her eyes. She stifled a sigh. Long gone were the days when every touch was full of significance.

  The dowager baroness, a regal if somewhat plump woman in her early fifties, had lodgings only two streets away, a fact which had given Lydia ample room for regret over the course of their time in Town. She was a frequent visitor—and often an unexpected and unannounced one—in their Mayfair townhouse, and though she was polite to Lydia, Lydia had never been able to forget how little her mother-in-law had wished for the match between Miles and her. It had not been the brilliant match she had hoped he would make.

  Ever thoughtful and attentive, Miles retrieved his mother from her doorstep and escorted her to the coach, where she settled in next to Mary and Diana.

  “A more miserably cold day has surely never dawned,” she said as she arranged herself in the seat. “I wondered if you might have thought better of your intention to go to the fair, but if you are set upon it, I cannot help but think it best that you have someone with you who has experience with such an event.”

  Lydia tried to suppress a smile, and immediately her gaze went to Miles, whose eyes held laughter. As their gazes met, though, his smile faltered slightly.

  It happened frequently these days—this awkwardness in their interactions. Neither of them knew what to do with these moments of shared amusement and understanding. They felt like memories of a bygone past, slipping unsolicited into the present.

  “We are obliged to you, Mother,” he said.

  She smiled kindly then straightened suddenly. “Oh, I had meant to tell you, my dear”—she looked at Lydia too—“of a new physician I heard about the other day. He is apparently very well-versed in”—she cleared her throat—“matters that concern you. He has some treatments that you might wish to look into.”

  Lydia’s cheeks flamed, and she gripped her hands together in her lap, avoiding the eyes of her sisters and husband. The helpful suggestions of her mother-in-law were never easy for her to accept, but even less so in the presence of her sisters.

  “What is his name?” Miles sounded mildly interested, and Lydia tried to force herself to relax, feeling her sisters’ eyes on her. She sincerely wished Miles wouldn’t encourage his mother in her interest in their affairs, though. So much about their situation was humiliating enough already.

  “Doctor Russell,” his mother replied. “I am certain I could arrange for him to see you—”

  “Thank you, Mother. Lydia and I will discuss it and decide how to proceed.”

  She could have kissed him right then in gratitude, but that would hardly have been appropriate. Besides, it was not something they did anymore, kissing.

  The streets surrounding Blackfriars Bridge were swarmed with carriages and people making their way to and from the river. Mary’s and Diana’s heads crowded the coach window in their eagerness to catch a glimpse of it all.

  “How splendid!” Diana cried out.

  “Good heavens!” Mary said. “Is that a real live elephant? I suppose we needn’t worry about the ice breaking under us, at least.”

  There was nowhere to leave the coach standing in such a place, so the coachman let them down just shy of the bridge. The bitter air nipped at any exposed skin it could find, and Lydia adjusted her fur-lined coat to cover as much as it would while the group of them made their way through the thick crowds and down the slope, covered in snow. Someone had set down flagstones to pave the way, and Miles handed each of the four women down then paid the waterman with a handful of jingling coins for their entrance.

  Secure on the bank of the river, Lydia looked at the ice with a flutter of nerves. The river buzzed with the chatter of everyone standing upon it. She was not particularly timid, but she had never walked on ice before. How much weight could it possibly hold?

  Mary and Diana stepped onto the river and, with all the confidence in the world, turned and gestured to Lydia. “Come, Lydia,” said Mary. “If an elephant can cross the Thames, none of us need fear!”

  “Not until after Christmas dinner, at least,” Diana said significantly.

  Lydia laughed to cover her nerves and watched as her mother-in-law stepped onto the ice, helped by her son. Diana raised a brow at Lydia in a good-natured challenge.

  “It is silly, I know,” Lydia said. “But, be the ice ever-so-thick, one would imagine that, at some point, the weight upon it would simply be too much. Particularly given the number of fires one sees lit upon it.” Across the expanse of the frozen Thames, a dozen stacks of smoke billowed into the nippy air.

  She felt her hand suddenly taken up. With a hint of a smile, Miles held her gaze and nodded, encouraging her forward while keeping a firm hold on her hand. It was her favorite smile of his—the one he believed he was concealing. But she’d had five years to become acquainted with his every expression.

  She allowed him to pull her gently forward, and with her feet squarely on the ice, he tucked her hand into his arm.

  With each step, Lydia’s confidence grew, and soon, her fears were forgotten with the appeal and novelty of the sights surrounding her: a group of children kicked a ball to one another, a stack of pamphlets sat on a table next to a printing press, a hock of ham hung above a fire as a man rotated it slowly.

  A child sat on the ground, hand to his head, while a neatly dressed doctor attended to him.

  “Must have slipped,” Miles said, following her gaze. “I imagine Dr. Kent has his hands full caring for injuries here. Plenty of opportunity for them.”

  As they threaded their way through crowds, bumping shoulders with merchants, fine ladies, schoolboys, and even a farmer leading a heavy hog on a rope, a host of smells competed for their attention. Wine, mutton, and smoke permeated the air from bank to bank. All of London appeared to be in attendance, with red-tipped noses that emitted puffs of fog with each breath. It was an invigorating atmosphere, and the air felt less oppressively cold with the hum of energy around.

  And yet, amidst it all, Lydia’s eyes seemed trained, whether she willed it or not, to notice one thing above all others. There were more babies than she had anticipated seeing in such frigid weather, and she won
dered whether Miles noticed them as readily as she did. Or if they affected him the same way. With every baby she glimpsed, wrapped tightly in blankets and cradled in its mother’s arms, she felt that familiar sting of longing and pain—of an emptiness that couldn’t be filled by a cup of wassail or a plate of roast mutton.

  Chapter 2

  December 23, 1813

  Miles bowed low over the hand of his wife, trying to maintain a serious expression. Couples made their way over to the ballroom floor behind him as instruments strummed in preparation for the dance. Lydia was in high spirits this evening, and, whether it was due to the anticipation of Christmastide or something else, he fully intended to capitalize on it. Happy days for Lydia were getting fewer and farther between.

  “May I have the pleasure of this dance?” he asked, brushing his lips on the back of her hand and looking up at her to gauge her response.

  Lydia’s eyes twinkled merrily, and she shook her head.

  Miles straightened and drew back, surprised. Lydia never refused a dance. “May I know why I am thus snubbed?”

  Her smile stretched larger. “I am not feeling well.”

  Miles couldn’t stifle a confused chuckle. “You appear to be feeling very well indeed.”

  She tilted her head from side to side. “Well, I am, and I am not.” Her eyes sparkled mischievously at him. “Would you care to know why?”