A Good Woman by Danielle Steel

of frightened amazement that one saw sometimes on brides’ faces after the wedding night. Annabelle was as happy as ever, and still treated Josiah more like an old friend than a new love. Before saying goodbye to her mother they had stopped at Josiah’s house to say good-bye to Henry too.
    Consuelo was having lunch with Josiah’s father and stepmother when the new couple stopped by. Everyone was in good spirits and talking of the delights and beauty of the night before. Her mother hugged her tightly again, she and Josiah thanked his father for the rehearsal dinner, and they left in the Hispano-Suiza moments later.
    She would have liked to stop and say good-bye to Hortie too, but her mother said that James had sent a message that she was in labor. She had made it through the wedding, and gone into labor during the night. Her mother and the doctor were with her, and James was having lunch with friends. Annabelle hoped it would go well for her. She knew Hortie was nervous about the size of the baby, and how difficult it might be. One of their friends, who had made her debut at the same time they did, had died in childbirth only months before. It had been sobering for all of them. It happened, and sometimes couldn’t be avoided, and often there were infections afterward, which almost always killed the mother. So Annabelle said a quiet prayer for Hortie as they left, wondering if her own mother was right, and it would be a boy. It was an exciting thought, which made her wonder too if she would return from their honeymoon pregnant, with a baby conceived in the wilds of Wyoming.
    She was grateful that Josiah had been kind and respectful of her the night before. Adding the newness of sex to such an overwhelming day would have been too much, although she would have been willing if he’d insisted. But she had to admit, she was glad he hadn’t. He was the perfect, kind, understanding husband, and as he had promised in the beginning, still her very best friend. She looked at him adoringly as they drove into the city, and they chatted some more about their wedding, and he described Wyoming to her again. He had promised to teach her how to fish. To Annabelle, it seemed like the perfect honeymoon. And Josiah agreed when she said it to him.
    They got to New York at five o’clock, in perfect time for their train at six, and settled into the largest first-class compartment on the train. Annabelle clapped her hands in delight when she saw it.
    “This is so much fun! I love it!” she giggled as he laughed happily at her.
    “You are such a silly girl, and I love you.” He put his arms around her and kissed her as he drew her close to him.
    They were spending the next day in Chicago, before getting on another train and heading west that night. He had promised to show her the city during their brief stopover, and had taken a suite at the Palmer House Hotel, so they could rest comfortably between trains. He had thought of everything. He wanted Annabelle to be happy. She deserved it after all she had lost, and all they’d suffered, and he vowed to himself as the train left Grand Central Station that he would never let her down. He meant every word of it. It was a solemn promise to him.
    By six o’clock that afternoon, as Josiah and Annabelle’s train left the station, Hortie’s baby had not yet been born. It had been an arduous and agonizing labor. The baby was large, and she was small. She had been screaming and writhing for hours. James had come home after lunch, and found her screams so piercing and disconcerting that he had poured himself a stiff drink and gone out again to dine with friends. He hated to think of Hortie going through that, but there was nothing he could do. It was what women did. He was sure that the doctor, her mother, and two nurses were doing all they could.
    He was drunk when he came home at two o’clock that morning, and stunned to hear the baby still hadn’t come. He was too inebriated to discern the look of