Worth The Wait

By Chasity Bowlin

An impoverished spinster, Miss Augusta Penworth is not living the life she had once envisioned for herself. Beset by a series of tragedies that altered the trajectory of her life beyond measure, she struggles to get by, sharing a small house with another gently bred woman in similar circumstances. When Hugh Elliott, Lord Elwynn, comes crashing back into her life, reminding her of the hopes and dreams she'd once had for her future, Augusta is torn. She wants to believe that she can still claim the life and the love that she'd once been promised. But fear is an ugly thing, and when it's accompanied by severely wounded pride, it can be insurmountable. 

Recently widowed after twelve long years in a miserably unhappy marriage that he'd never wanted, Hugh is determined to no longer live a life based solely on duty. He wants the things he'd allowed societal and familial pressures to deny him… the happiness of being with the one and only woman he's ever loved But Augusta has little trust of him and with good reason. He broke her heart and left her humiliated in the eyes of their peers. If he cannot achieve the Herculean task of convincing her to forgive him and risk her heart on him once more, will they live out the remainder of their lives wondering what might have been?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seraphina Donavan
• Release date: Feb 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393024989

Book preview

Prologue

The house was unnaturally quiet as he climbed the stairs. It had been thus for weeks, each day growing progressively more quiet, more subdued. A pall hung over the house and all of its occupants, from the lowest to the highest. Death hovered over them, waiting to take one they cherished.

Hugh paused outside the door to their chamber, his heart heavy and battered by the thought of facing her again. He loved his wife. He’d come to care deeply for her in the near dozen years of their marriage, but he wasn’t in love with her. That kind of romantic fancy had never been part of their arrangement. But they’d made a kind of peace with their lot in life and now it was one of the most difficult things in the world to enter her chamber and sit with her while she faced something he could not even begin to comprehend. She was just shy of thirty years old and the days she had left on this earth could more than likely be numbered on one hand.

Taking a fortifying breath, he knocked softly, but didn’t wait for her to bid him enter. Her voice was too weak and he’d never be able to hear it anyway. When he entered, she was lying in bed—pale and gaunt, every breath labored.

Good evening, Felicity, he said, as he walked over to inspect the tray that had been brought up for her dinner. It was untouched, as it had been the night before, and again that day at luncheon. Was the soup not to your liking?

I’ve no appetite Hugh, she answered. I’m sure it was fine.

He turned and approached the bed, taking up his usual seat in the chair adjacent it. You must eat. You cannot possibly get better without nourishment!

She looked at him then. As she turned her head, the tendons in her neck stood out in stark relief. In the last two months, she’d grown impossibly thin and frail, her body withering before his eyes. She raised one emaciated hand and placed it over his. I am not going to get better. One does not recover from consumption, Hugh.

Let me get another doctor, he urged. There are treatments we have not yet tried.

No more doctors, Hugh, she stated adamantly. If there was one left in Christendom that we have not seen, I cannot imagine it. No more cures or treatments or trips to the baths. I’m tired, darling… I’m so tired.

He knew that. He’d known it for days now, but it was not any easier to accept. Her quiet strength and fortitude in accepting it, acknowledging it, shamed him. I would take this from you if I could.

And I would never burden you with this when I have already burdened you with so much, she said. You did not have to be kind to me. You did not have to be a loving and attentive husband. I did not deserve such from you.

That was a lifetime ago, he said. None of that matters now.

"It does matter, she insisted. I am paying for my sins, Fitzhugh."

Hugh leaned back in his chair, scrubbed his hands over his face and considered his next words carefully. His gaze wandered to the bottle of laudanum on the bedside table. It was taking more and more of it to ease her pain, to give her the few moments each day where she could lay awake and speak sensibly to him or anyone else. There is nothing you could have done, nothing that anyone could ever have done, to deserve the fate that has befallen you.

Promise me that when I am gone, Hugh, she urged, that you will find her. Live the life that I denied you, sweet man.

I cannot, he insisted. I will not reopen such wounds… not for myself or for her.

It is your destiny, Hugh, she insisted. It will happen whether you wish it or not… The universe will have its way.

He didn’t argue further or try to dissuade her. Her eyes had fluttered closed on the last word, the opium induced sleep claiming her.

Chapter 1

I t’s so very exciting, Augusta! I cannot help but think the house will be lovely!

Augusta Penworth smiled at her friend’s excitement. For the past year she’d been sharing a small house in London with Mrs. Rachel Wilmont, a widow who happily enjoyed her husbandless state. It had been only a month earlier when Rachel had received a letter from her cousin with news of a property to let on their estate near Bath. They had both longed to get away from town, out of the city and back into the countryside. The promise of a small cottage on a beautifully landscaped estate, far from the painful reminders of her past, had seemed an answer to their prayers.

But over the course of their journey, Augusta’s own excitement had faded as every step of the way had been beset by difficulty. It had rained nonstop since they’d left London, one downpour bleeding into another made the roads nearly impassible in certain places and forcing them to travel at a snail’s pace. A broken wheel, a lame horse, a driver fallen ill—one minor disaster after another had made their journey interminable. They’d had to hire another coach at the last inn and while it was just as shabby as the first, it was significantly less clean. As if the very heavens were conspiring against them, as they were setting out from the inn that morning, the small break in the rain that had come during the night ended in dramatic fashion. Great torrents of water had lashed the carriage as they traveled on, along with occasional bolts of lightning and the roll of thunder. How Rachael could maintain her enthusiasm was simply beyond Augusta’s ken.

I’m sure it will be very fine, Augusta agreed, though her tone betrayed her growing lack of enthusiasm.

Rachel rolled her eyes. You could at least attempt to feign a bit of elation at having our fondest wish granted, Augusta! From the very day we met you’ve spoken quite animatedly of your desire to leave London and now that we have you’re practically in a doldrum!

And if the misfortunes we have faced on this journey is any indication of what this change of locality will bring us then I say in a doldrum is exactly where I should be, Augusta replied with tart amusement. She’d grown inordinately fond of Rachael in the time they’d shared her small house, but at times she had to wonder just how far removed from the reality of their existence Rachel truly was.

Oh, pish! We’ve had a few minor setbacks, that is all, she stated with a nod of her head that set her pretty curls to bouncing. Do you regret leaving the city, Augusta? Isn’t living in the country what you said you wanted?

Still marveling at the fact that Rachael’s hair had remained perfectly curled beneath her bonnet while she herself resembled nothing so much as a drowned rat, Augusta sighed. It is and I do want to be away from London and all the misery that it holds for both of us, not to mention the less than genteel poverty we have endured as neither of us receives the sort of generous annuity required to live there comfortably. Still, I cannot help but wonder at the remarkably reasonable rents that are being asked for this house. What if we are trading one hovel for another?

My cousin would not have recommended it to us were it a hovel, the other woman insisted. Can you not allow yourself to feel any excitement or hope? Are you still so bitter, Augusta, that the very idea of good things coming into your life is anathema to you?

Is that truly how she appeared? It wasn’t bitterness, she reasoned, but rationality. Pretending the world was a fine place filled with rainbows and sunshine, kindness and goodwill, did not make it so, and she’d accustomed herself to the idea that difficulty and struggle were simply a part of her daily life. It was realism and not bitterness that dictated her interpretation of their current situation. No, Rachel. It isn’t bitterness at all, but if I were a superstitious person, this journey would surely fall under the category of bad omens. It’s practically a harbinger of doom!

Rachel’s lips curved upward in a slight smile. It has been a difficult journey, but it will all be worth it in the end. I promise! We’ll have a lovely visit with my cousin at her husband’s estate and then make our way to our new home. A house party, Augusta—just think of it! Neither of us has had such gay entertainment in years!

Augusta had been thinking of it, more than she’d like to admit. She’d thought of it as she examined every remaining gown in her meager wardrobe. Those clothes had once been so fine, purchased before her grandfather’s death and with what she hadn’t realized at the time was the very last of his fortune. All of it had been done in the hopes of landing her a husband who would care for her after he was gone and she alone. Like so many things her grandfather had done in his life, that venture had been an epic failure. Now those gowns were sad— threadbare and years out of fashion. Hopefully, in the country and with most of the nobility and gentry gone into town for the season, she would not look so dreadfully out of place.

We’ll stick out like sore thumbs, you and I, Augusta warned. You at least have the benefit of being a relation to the hostess. I haven’t even that. Society women can be impossibly brutal, Rachael… I don’t think you understand just how vicious they can be. Augusta’s voice was pitched low as she strained to control the pain of memories.

Rachael clasped her hands together in her lap, looking all that was prim and proper. My cousin would never invite us to stay if we were only to be objects of ridicule. I cannot believe that she would allow such viperous individuals to sully our stay with her. Please, have some hope, Augusta! Have some faith! Allow yourself to enjoy the beautiful scenery and to appreciate the fact that we are well away from London with all its ugly memories and our less than genteel poverty there!

Augusta sighed as the carriage lumbered on, hitting a particularly deep rut in the road that nearly jolted her off the seat. Rubbing her abused hip after it connected rather painfully with the carriage wall, she said, Fine. But I am reserving the right to say I told you so!

About the journey, the house party, our new rental property, or… I forget now how many dire warnings you’ve issued, Rachael stated with a mock frown.

Augusta rolled her eyes. Any and all of those things, Rachael. Mark my words!

At that moment, an ominous crack sounded and the carriage began to list alarmingly to one side.

Do not say it yet! Rachel shouted as the vehicle bounced along the roadway.

Their reticules and the sewing basket that Rachel kept with her always were spilling out inside the vehicle, small items rolling over the floor. From the window, Augusta could see several of their bags falling from where they’d been stowed behind the carriage, crashing to the muddy road. Their meager but precious belongings littered the roadway as the vehicle finally came to a rest nearly on its side.

What on earth happened? Rachel asked as she picked herself up from the dirty floor of their hired conveyance.

"I would imagine we’ve a broken yet another wheel on yet another carriage. If we’re lucky it will be only the wheel… If we are unlucky it will be the axle. Therefore, it is undoubtedly the axle," Augusta stated grimly.

Rachel said nothing in response to that, but her lips firmed and her expression was telling enough.

Augusta did not utter the