Helen Dickson

by When Marrying a Duke. . .

  ‘The brothels are full of men who love their wives. Monty—suffered three bouts and took the cure.’

  It was much as Marietta had expected and her heart went out to her mother. Had Marietta known any of this she would have screamed out her fear and misery and horror. As it was, she stared at Teddy’s taut, watchful face and said, ‘What was it, Teddy? I know it was more serious than a common cold or consumption of the lungs. Yang Ling has told me all about gonorrhoea and syphilis and how they can affect an unborn child. Was it one of those that killed him, or some other disease which contaminates a man in a brothel? Whichever disease he contracted would have made little difference to my mother. They are both disgusting and dangerous—and fatal. He infected her, didn’t he? And through her their children. Did she know?’

  He nodded. ‘She knew. It was—syphilis.’

  The brief statement, so bluntly spoken, struck Marietta like a hammer blow. Her body seemed to sag, robbing her of her physical substance, a stricken expression on her face. ‘Syphilis,’ she echoed in a small voice.

  ‘A common enough affliction,’ Teddy said.

  She glared at him. ‘For some, perhaps. Not for a

  gently reared woman like my mother. My father handed her a death sentence. It was fortunate the babies were born dead—but not so fortunate for my mother.’ She didn’t look at Max, but she would have seen he was listening intently as he began to piece together what troubled her, and with it at last there came understanding. ‘Before I left Hong Kong I went with Yang Ling to visit an orphanage in the poor quarter, where there are children born as a result of syphilis and cast out by their parents as freaks. Some of them are quite mad, others horribly deformed, and some so sick they will die of it. It’s a terrible affliction to give a child.’

  ‘Monty would not like to hear you speaking like this. Whatever happened, it was not intentionally done.’

  Marietta stared at him, hating him now. ‘How can you say that? Of course it was. He wasn’t dragged kicking and screaming into a brothel.’ She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. ‘Get out, Teddy. I don’t want to see you again—and from the look of you I don’t think I shall.’

  Teddy was chastened when he left, still clutching the bank draft, but Marietta didn’t believe for one moment that it would last. As soon as he reached India he would head for the nearest brothel and opium den. Getting up, she went to the hearth and gazed down into the glowing embers of the fire. Her salvation was in her own hands. Only she could cure herself of what had become a virtual obsession.

  The silence inside the room was profound now that Teddy had gone. Marietta looked at Max. His granite features were an impenetrable mask, and she was too nervous to notice anything about his mood except that he was tensed.

  ‘When are you going to tell me the real reason that has brought you to London?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘I came to see you.’

  ‘So, is it just a visit? Do you intend returning to Arden, or are you here to stay for the time I am here?’

  Marietta drew a tortured breath, trying not to show her trepidation. ‘It is not a visit, Max, I have come to stay. I would have thought the purpose was obvious.’

  ‘Not to me.’

  ‘I’ve come to explain why I behaved as I did as best I can—which I am finding extremely difficult in the light of what Teddy has just told me, and I sincerely hope you will not make it more so. You came back from seeing your friend earlier than I expected.’

  ‘It was fortunate that I did. Would you have told me about Longford coming here if I hadn’t?’

  ‘Since I was completely oblivious to the fact that there was any kind of hostility between the two of you and that he was Nadine’s lover then, yes, I would,’ she replied truthfully.

  ‘And what are your feelings now you know?’

  ‘Shock. I really had no idea that Teddy and your wife...’ Her words trailed off into silence, for she could understand if he didn’t wish to speak of something that caused him pain. What he told her next shocked her to the core.

  ‘How could you?’ he said, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets and staring down into the hearth in which a warming fire burned. ‘I didn’t know Nadine was pregnant. The child wasn’t mine. She spent her life going from bed to bed after we were married. I didn’t realise how much pressure her family had put on her to marry me. She wanted to marry someone else, someone her parents didn’t approve of. As a result she resented me as well as her parents. Our marriage was over before we went to Hong Kong. I no longer cared what she did.’

  Marietta stared at him in disbelief. ‘But—I thought you loved her.’

  Max’s face became taut, his eyes hard and when he spoke his voice was brittle. ‘Loved her? Dear God, I never hated anyone the way I hated her.’

  ‘Then why did you marry her?’

  ‘I was dazzled by her looks and in her case the saying is true that beauty is only skin deep. It didn’t take me long to find that out. In the beginning she gave me her body for everything she could wheedle out of me—money, jewels that would please a queen. She took everything I gave her and repaid me by bestowing her body on any man who invited her into his bed. Yes, I hated her and I’ve felt the guilt and the shame of it ever since she died. I wished it on her a thousand times and yet when she died I tried to be sorry for her, but I couldn’t.’

  Marietta became still, like a statue of marble. Any colour left in her face drained away. She was totally, utterly disorientated. She put up a trembling hand to her mouth and felt her body shiver.

  Turning his head and observing her reaction and the extreme shock of his disclosure mirrored in her eyes, at any other time Max would have gone to her and swept her into his arms, but now he could only stand and look at her. ‘Did you think I actually loved her?’ She nodded dumbly. ‘Then I must have been a better actor than I thought,’ he uttered bitterly.

  If anything could have brought life back to Marietta’s body that did. She wanted to hit him, to deal him a blow that would make him feel like she had felt all these weeks. Without a pang of remorse her anger sprang, fully roused, to the surface and she was glad of it, since it swept away the memories of their nights of love. It swamped the hurtful love which seemed to multiply with every heartbeat, gripping her in its painful, unwanted embrace. There was nothing more agonising than a love unreturned.

  ‘How could you,’ she cried. ‘You’ve let me believe all this time that you were pining for your first wife. That you still loved her even though she was mouldering in her grave and all the while...’

  It was Max’s turn to be disorientated now. He was shocked by her verbal attack on him and bewildered by the ferocity of her anger. Her back had stiffened as though her spine had been turned to steel and her eyes, which had been a soft shade of green, flashed to a glittering, burning of a wild animal Max had once had in his gun sights in India. His own anger erupted, emotions were high, charged with some power which captured them both and his reaction was instinctive.

  ‘Where the hell did you get that idea from?’

  ‘From you. How many times have you refused to mention her name, and if I did I would see you gazing soulfully into the distance...’

  ‘In the name of God, Marietta, if I gazed anywhere it was not soulful—never that, not when I thought of Nadine.’

  ‘How else was I to see it?’ Marietta’s face was scarlet now and her eyes flashed with fury.

  His voice was ragged with rage that was hazardous, but when he took a step towards her she did not flinch. ‘You foolish woman, you must have known—could you not see how it was with me when I married you, what you meant to me?’

  ‘How could I? I’m not a mind reader, Max. I thought you loved her, that I would always be second-best to you. How could you make me feel that way?’

  ‘You exaggerate, Marietta...’

  ‘Liar,’ she cried. She was becoming hysterical and her hysteria suddenly brought Max at last to the realisation of what was happening between them, the wor
ds they had thrown at each other and their meaning.

  ‘If I gave you reason to believe I loved Nadine, then I apologise,’ he said stiffly. ‘But what of you, Marietta? When I married you my feelings for you went way beyond anything I had ever felt for Nadine. But those feelings meant sharing, and that, it would appear, is where everything began to go so dreadfully wrong. You shut me out and I was unable to understand why. Are you ready to explain?’

  Marietta swallowed and nodded. ‘I will try—but you must bear with me. You see the only knowledge I have of childbearing is of pain and blood. I was there when my mother suffered three miscarriages. I was young—too young to understand what was happening. After the last time, when she died, I swore I would never have children if I had to suffer like that to bring them into the world. I know that some illnesses are inherited from one’s parents and I truly believed I had inherited my mother’s inability to bear children.’

  ‘Your mother gave birth to you, Marietta—a perfectly healthy girl.’

  ‘Yes, I know, which confused me as I grew up. I thought if she could have me, then why not another healthy child? How could I possibly have known then that it was my father who had contaminated her?’

  ‘And now you do know.’

  She nodded, swallowing down the tears that threatened. ‘How could he? How could he do that to my mother? She was such a gentle, caring, loving woman. He must have known, he must have. How could he not? But all he did was take his pleasure where he found it in his own warm, amiable and unthinking way.’ She turned and looked at Max. ‘My grandmother knows nothing of this and I would like to keep it that way. It would break her heart.’

  ‘Of course. I understand.’

  ‘Thank you. I now realise it was through no fault of my mother’s that she failed to produce another healthy child. More than anything I wanted to have a baby to love and cherish, but the fear was constant. The long agony of the birth of my mother’s babies merged insensibly with the tortured memories of Nadine’s loss. It was something I could not put into words. My mind and brain recoiled from it. My mother suffered her first miscarriage when she was barely into her sixth month. When she went into labour the second time it was blessedly short, but it almost killed her. The last time—there was so much blood—she was in so much pain—I didn’t know what to do. Her health was always delicate—but that alone did not kill her. I realise now after what Teddy told me that she had syphilis.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Marietta, but it does appear so.’ Max realised she was terrified, that the memory of her mother’s miscarriages followed by Nadine’s abortion had taken possession of her mind—the fear in the act of begetting and the tragedy of its end, for she fully believed that, like her mother, she too would miscarry. ‘If only you had told me this at the beginning I would have made things easier for you, been considerate and understanding of your fears. I would never have left you. I have enough experience with life—and women—to be able to handle any problem of that sort.’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you. I was too ashamed. I didn’t know how to. It’s not the kind of thing a woman discusses with her husband. As young as I was, the memories and the fear left their mark, I’m afraid. The fear of having to suffer what my mother did has tortured me for so long I could not think of marriage without feeling horror at getting with child. Which was partly the reason why marriage to you seemed like the answer to my prayers.’

  Max leaned his shoulder against the mantelshelf, hands in pockets, looking across the room at her. ‘And now?’

  After a brief, faintly smiling silence, Marietta swept away once and for all the trouble that for so many weeks had divided them, the trouble that Max had found himself still fearing to mention. Slowly she walked towards him, her eyes never leaving his as she stood in front of him. They were soft and warm and full of all the love she carried in her heart for this man.

  ‘Despite everything, I’ve missed you so much. I’ve been so miserable without you. Even if I hadn’t already reached the conclusion that my fears weighed very lightly in the balance against love, Teddy’s disclosure would have settled it. I was never afraid of love, only of its consequences. I love you, Max. There are no reservations.’

  ‘What about regrets?’

  ‘No regrets, Max. And I shall be very happy to prove it. So would you please hold me now?’

  Max’s arms closed around her with stunning force. ‘God help me if you don’t mean it,’ he warned fiercely, ‘because I’ll never let you go or be parted from you again. At this moment, I can’t possibly imagine how I could love you more than I do right now, or, for that matter, have loved you since you fell off that damned horse at my feet.’ Holding her from him, he touched her chin, turning her face up to his. ‘First and foremost it is you I want, Marietta. A child would be a bonus.’

  Marietta searched his face, her eyes wide and uncertain, then she smiled as she laid a hand upon her stomach and for the first time her lips spoke of the matter which had haunted her of late, but no longer. ‘I think you will have your bonus fairly soon, Max,’ she whispered, ‘in approximately seven months’ time, in fact.’

  Max stared at her in stunned disbelief, an array of fleeting, conflicting emotions crossing his face. His concern for her was sharp, and then he pulled her into his arms once more. ‘My God, Marietta!’ he said, his voice sharp with dawning alarm. ‘This is just what you didn’t want. How do you feel about it? Are you displeased?’

  Marietta closed her eyes and shook her head, feeling his warm breath on her face. ‘No. It pleases me, Max. Truly. I have suffered enough because of my memories. I have to put my fears behind me now.’

  Max was quietly jubilant with her condition—in fact, he was euphoric, believing that with the birth would finally come the curtailing of her fears about bearing a child. When he took her in his arms his mouth was dry and his hands shook and all his senses were completely occupied with her, as though she were a little girl in need of someone to care for her.

  ‘I need you, Max,’ she whispered against his chest. ‘I don’t think I can manage this on my own.’

  Her confession wrenched his heart and his arms tightened around her, but then he held her from him. He stared at her for a moment in wonder at the emotion he saw and then his face flickered with amusement. ‘I think you underestimate yourself, Marietta. I think you will manage very well. But worry not, my love,’ he murmured, lovingly cupping her face between his hands. ‘I have no intention of going anywhere. You will have the finest doctors money can buy, and I shall be with you every step of the way. Have you any preference as to the gender of the child?’ he asked tentatively.

  ‘It would be nice if we had a boy to continue the Trevellyan dynasty,’ Marietta explained. ‘After that, whether girl or boy, I’ll be grateful for whatever will be born to us. As long as they are healthy, that is all that matters.’

  * * *

  The tinkling chimes of the clock on the mantel stirred Marietta from the depths of sleep. Lying in the curve of Max’s long body, she listened to the delicate notes until finally the fifth note heralded the dawn. Hoping for at least another three hours before having to leave this warm bed, she nestled more closely against her husband, placing soft kisses on his chest and his sheltering arm under which she lay. As was Max’s preference, she was naked, as was he. A smile curved her lips as her fingers slowly plied the firmness of his flesh and moved over the furring of dark hair on his chest and felt the slight increase in the steady beat of his heart, the rippling of his powerful chest muscles when she slid her hand a little lower.

  Max felt it as a flame racing uncontrollably through his veins. He half-laughed, half-groaned as he stirred beneath her questing fingers. Propping himself on his elbow, he met her tender gaze as he peered down into her face. There was a devilish gleam in his eyes. ‘How does it feel to know you can make my body respond to your slightest touch? You can take pride in having such power over me. I can find a reason for joy in it.’

  Reaching up, Marietta threaded her a
rms around his neck, pressing herself to the full length of his hard, unyielding contours and kissed his lips, feeling the warm smoothness of them. Max groaned, his mouth opening passionately over hers, kissing and caressing her with gentle, skilful hands. Marietta had a feeling of pride, drugging, delirious and quite wonderful.

  ‘I want you,’ he whispered against her parted lips. ‘I want you quite badly, my love.’

  Sensitive to her pregnancy, Max’s lovemaking had taken on a whole new dimension to before their separation. He roused her until she was delirious with wanting him, and then he loved her with painstaking gentleness, pleasurably and unbearably prolonging the moment of joyous release, providing Marietta with the reassurance that such a tender invasion of her body could not hurt the child growing inside her.

  Epilogue

  Marietta’s child was born at Arden Hall. Max, who had been a pillar of strength for her during pregnancy, paced the room next door like a caged animal while Lady Wingrove sat and calmly waited for her great-grandchild to come into the world. She was quietly confident that all would go well despite Marietta’s mother, her dear daughter, having died in childbirth. Why it had happened was a mystery to her, but it was not unusual. Her daughter’s health had always been fragile and women died in childbirth far too often.

  Her confidence paid off. With the doctor present and assisted by Yang Ling, Marietta’s son was born following a brief labour and a relatively easy birth—far less painful than Marietta had imagined and dispelling any remaining fears regarding the terrors of childbirth. After all the years of recoiling from it, of rejecting it, when her infant son was placed in her arms, she could scarcely bear to be parted from him.