by Karin Baine
‘You don’t need to go anywhere. The condemned couple has left the building. We are officially bridal-party free. If it’s an allergy to weddings you have, perhaps we can go hang out in the divorce courts to counteract the toxins.’ Usually his naff jokes were enough to make her smile, but not today.
‘It’s not that. Thank you for setting that up today,—they really seemed to enjoy it. It’s just...it’s just... I can’t do this.’ She dropped her head into her hands and sobbed her heart out.
This was it—she was going to run again before he was ready to accept it was over. He was supposed to have two more weeks with her. Now she was cutting their time together short he was left with that same sick, empty feeling inside as before. He needed some warning before he was back to his ‘work, eat, sleep’ routine with none of the fun in between and no one to come home to at the end of the day.
‘Do you need me to get you anything?’
‘A pregnancy test?’ Violet gave a forced laugh, but there was nothing funny about it.
‘Don’t joke about something like that.’
‘I’m not. I’m late.’
Nate dropped her hand to steady himself before he fell over. This couldn’t be happening. ‘But you’re on the pill, right?’
‘I think I missed one the night I flew in from London.’ Her grimace sucker-punched him in the gut.
‘You’ve been under a lot of stress too though.’ He slowly got to his feet, still trying to come up with alternative theories. Ones that wouldn’t tie them together for the rest of their days.
‘I’ve been queasy and light-headed today. We both know if there’s a possibility the worst could happen, it will. I should have known things were going too well.’ The tears started again and it was obvious she didn’t want this any more than he did. Neither of them had signed on for parenthood; they hadn’t even been able to commit to each other for longer than a month, for heaven’s sake.
‘We’ll get through this. Somehow.’ The sickness was spreading to him now, his stomach twisting into a tight knot of anxiety.
A baby, their baby, was going to affect so many—him, Violet, his parents, the Earl... Nobody was going to take the news well. Why should they? He’d messed up big style. He should’ve taken extra precautions to prevent this happening, but he’d been too lost in his own desires to consider the consequences. Now he’d ruined Violet’s future, the one she’d worked so hard to ensure didn’t include him.
‘I don’t expect you to take this on. That’s why I’m leaving. This was my mistake. I’ll deal with it on my own.’ She wouldn’t look at him and turned her attention back to throwing her clothes haphazardly into her case.
A vice gripped his heart and squeezed. If there was a baby he wanted to be part of its life, wanted to be included in any decisions concerning their child. He didn’t want Violet to deal with this on her own, regardless of how she did or didn’t feel about him. A child needed two supportive parents to have the best possible start in life. To make sure it wouldn’t ever feel abandoned, as he had when he’d attempted to improve his lot in life.
‘Let’s not jump too far ahead of ourselves. First things first—we get a test.’ If their lives were about to change for ever they should really find out for sure. The delay would also give him a chance to figure out how to get her to stay. Indefinitely.
* * *
The sight of Violet packing to leave had crushed him almost as much as finding her room empty had when she’d first gone to London without an explanation. This was much, much worse. That had been puppy love, a childish infatuation. Now he knew how powerful real love was. The kind that was ripping him apart from the inside out at the thought of her leaving again. She was taking an even bigger part of him with her this time. Literally.
This baby might not have been planned but that didn’t mean he didn’t want it or wouldn’t take responsibility for it. All of those steps he’d taken to avoid emotional attachments had led to the biggest one of all—fatherhood. He got chills every time he thought about it. Twelve years ago this would’ve been everything he’d wanted. Violet’s rejection had changed all that, clouded his view on relationships even more. He’d dodged commitment as if it were some deadly disease when all along he’d still been devoted to Violet. She was the only woman he’d ever imagined spending his life with. Still was.
Unfortunately, the last time he’d confessed his feelings for her she’d skipped the country. He doubted ruining her life with an unplanned pregnancy was going to do anything to improve his chances of her loving him back. She’d only just begun making progress with her father and this news could set them back at loggerheads. Nate knew the Earl’s reputation was everything to him and he would never want to sully Violet’s name because of his selfish mistake.
The journey in the car to the chemist for the pregnancy test had given him the space and clarity to decide what to do.
‘Marry me, Violet.’ He loved her. No matter how much he tried to deny it, in the midst of this chaos, the strength of his feelings for her were abundantly clear. Until now he’d refused to admit it and run the risk of repeating the past. Although he’d never be the great love of her life he’d hoped to be, he’d always supported her. He’d always been afraid of marriage but now it seemed the best solution for all three of them. They needed each other.
‘Don’t be stupid.’ A marriage proposal wasn’t helping her dizziness as she glared at Nate and back at the screen. She knew it was a knee-jerk reaction to the reading when he’d told her what an awful idea he thought marriage was only hours ago. He didn’t love her and she doubted he’d even entertained spending the rest of his days with her until they’d sat on the edge of her bed watching the digital screen spell out their future.
Pregnant
2-3
There was no mistaking her symptoms now, the damage apparently done at the beginning of their supposed fun fling. She gave a strangled laugh. It was either see the irony of that or start crying again.
‘I mean it. This baby needs a father and I know how you feel about marriage but you need a husband. Hear me out—’ He put a hand up to stop her as she bristled. ‘It can be in name only, or you know we can keep the physical side going since we’ve both enjoyed it. What I’m saying is, love doesn’t have to enter the equation. I don’t expect it to. But I have a house you and the baby can live in, I can provide for you, and your reputation remains intact.’ He looked so pleased with himself as he shredded her heart into tiny irreparable pieces.
The man she’d apparently never stopped loving, the father of her unborn child, was offering her a marriage of convenience. It somehow seemed worse than the arranged marriages her father had proposed to maintain his social status. Probably because she knew she was in love with Nate and she’d ruined her chances of him ever feeling the same way about her. It was the reason she’d made certain she would leave the country again for London, a place she’d hoped to be able to forget him. Now she would have a permanent reminder.
Nate would always do the right thing, that was who he was, and it was the only reason he would want to marry her. She’d wreaked havoc in his life once too often and it wasn’t fair to lumber him with a wife and child he’d never wanted. Neither did she want to give up her job to fake a happy marriage, following in her mother’s tragic footsteps after all.
In an ideal world her baby would have two doting parents, madly in love with each other, providing the happy, family environment she’d never had. Marrying Nate would simply be perpetuating that myth that money and good name were all that mattered. She would rather raise this baby alone than with a father who was only there out of a sense of duty. The next generation of Dempseys deserved more after the trouble she’d caused to emancipate herself from society rules in the first place.
‘It wouldn’t work, Nate. We’d only end up making each other miserable. Marriage isn’t for us. It’s fo
r people who love each other and are willing to give up everything to be together. Forget about me, forget about the baby, and just pretend I never came back. That this never happened.’
The vertigo was back, her head spinning with snapshots of these weeks they’d spent together and memories of her parents’ tumultuous relationship. Neither of them should have to compromise who they were simply because they’d made a mistake. In her case, it was falling in love with a man who could never love her back after everything she’d done to him.
‘That’s impossible.’ Nate rested his hand gently on her stomach, staking a claim on the life growing inside her.
She slapped it away. It would be easier for him to walk away now before this was about more than a bunch of cells. ‘Not if I’m in a different country. I don’t want you in my life, Nate. That wasn’t the deal.’
She was shaking with nerves as the lie left her lips, hoping he couldn’t see through it, or if he did he’d realise this was her way of letting him off the hook. She wanted Nate in her life more than anything but not through a sense of responsibility. This was her way of trying to protect him, sacrificing her desires again and putting him first before her own needs. No matter how much it hurt.
* * *
Violet had taken a sledgehammer to what was left of his heart and pounded it until it was nothing but a big red stain he would never be able to scrub away. He was willing to give himself to her body and soul, something he’d never thought he would do, something he’d never imagined he would want to do. Everything he had worked to achieve seemed to have been building up to this moment and asking Violet to share it with him and their baby. Yet, she still didn’t want him. The house, the job, the car—none of it was enough to convince her to be with him. None of it seemed to matter without her.
‘I know this wasn’t what either of us had planned but I’m simply trying to make the best of the situation.’ He was doing his damnedest not to get too emotional and make her even more skittish than she was. She didn’t respond well to intense personal discussion, as he’d found out to his cost. Her default setting was to run and hide rather than confront the truth; he’d seen it so many times before. She’d disappeared for twelve years after one kiss between them and he knew if she went back this time he’d lose her for ever.
‘I just want you to go, Nate.’ She sounded tired, resigned to life as a single parent already and he was being forced into the role of absent father. He didn’t want to make things even more difficult for Violet than they already were by arguing with her, even though he was dying inside with every push further away. Neither could he, in good conscience, simply walk away after getting her into this condition in the first place.
He wanted to be there as she blossomed during her pregnancy, see their baby on the screen as it happened, not in some grainy printout he’d been sent as an afterthought. That role of a supportive father was important to him. It was something neither of them had really had growing up. Violet’s father had been more concerned with his place in society than her feelings and Nate’s parents’ priority had always been Strachmore.
His childhood hadn’t been carefree either, but an endless round of chores and lectures on being respectful. He’d practically had to make himself invisible so as not to offend the Earl. That wasn’t conducive to making a child feel wanted or loved. More like an unpaid, unappreciated skivvy. Perhaps if they’d both been accepted for who they were by their own families they wouldn’t have the problems they had connecting now.
If Violet didn’t want him in her life there wasn’t much he could do, but he had to at least try to be a part of their child’s. That wasn’t going to work long distance and he was willing to make sacrifices to get her to stay if it prevented their baby becoming another statistic of a broken relationship.
‘I’ll go and I promise not to come back unless you want me to. On the condition you stay at Strachmore until you’re due back at work. I want you to be one hundred per cent sure that this is what you want.’ His feet were blocks of wood, heavy and clumsy, as he reluctantly made his way to the door. He’d thought knowing she was leaving would be easier than finding out after she’d gone. He was wrong. However, whenever it happened, Violet walking out of his life was always going to be the worst thing that would ever happen to him.
‘I am.’ She threw one last knife into his back and killed the last dregs of hope stone dead.
CHAPTER NINE
‘I’M SURE IT won’t be much longer now.’ Violet tried to pacify her father, who’d already picked up and set down the one magazine sitting on the waiting-room table. She understood how difficult it was to manage time when dealing with emotional patients, but she also knew how much of a short fuse her father had when he was kept waiting for an appointment. Especially when grief counselling wasn’t something he was totally on board with.
He checked the clock again and gave a huff but at least nothing had been thrown in the interim. It was progress but she was still tense sitting here in the hospital with him. Her heart picked up the pace again as the thought of bumping into Nate came to mind. It had been over a week since she’d seen him at the house. He’d kept to his word to stay away as she’d known he would, enabling her to spend her last few days at Strachmore trying to figure out her next move.
‘I haven’t seen Nathaniel for a while. Did something happen between you two?’ Her father picked up on the very subject matter making her unhappy.
Although she was glad he’d chosen conversation over berating the staff to fill the time, every time she thought of telling him about the baby her heart fluttered in her chest and she felt as though she might pass out.
‘He’s a busy man and we’ve probably taken up too much of his time at Strachmore.’ She had no wish to take up any more of it by making him pay for her mistake. Whether she stayed at home or went back to London, she had to plan the rest of her life without him in it. The thought alone made her light-headed.
‘I’m not blind, Violet, nor am I stupid. That boy has been in love with you for years and vice versa, unless I’m very much mistaken. He’s hardly been away from Strachmore these past weeks and I doubt that’s solely because of me. Now, he’s suddenly incommunicado. Something clearly happened between the two of you and, whatever it is, I don’t want it to affect your decisions about coming home in the future. I know I drove you away in the past but I really want you to at least visit.’
It was a huge step for him to admit his past behaviour towards her and let her know he wanted her to be part of his life again but, oh, how she wished he were right about Nate’s feelings for her. He might have been in love with her when they were kids but time and distance, not to mention her actions, had changed that. She fidgeted with the sleeve of her shirt, knowing she in turn should be honest with him, regardless of how petrified she was at the prospect of having to tell him she was pregnant. He might have mellowed slightly since his heart attack and subsequent procedures but that didn’t mean his principles had changed.
The Earl’s daughter was pregnant by the son of the housekeeper and it didn’t get much more scandalous than that when it came to society gossip. This would be a real test of his priorities but she couldn’t put it off much longer. Her condition would soon become apparent if she did come back in the future. It wouldn’t be fair on her father to disappear again without telling him why.
She took a deep breath. And another. ‘I’m pregnant.’
She braced herself for the backlash—shouting, screaming, crashing furniture—all of his typical reactions to such news would be justified this time. Most of them she’d done herself since sending Nate away.
‘And he’s not stepping up to his responsibilities?’ Only when he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion did his face take on that red hue of impending rage.
‘No. It’s not that...he even offered to marry me.’ She was quick to defend Nate; he’d done everything right
. Except love her.
‘What’s the problem, then?’
‘I don’t want to get married because it’s the right thing to do. I’m sorry, but I’d rather be on my own than in a cold marriage put on for appearances’ sake.’ Her reasons for turning Nate down might seem a tad insensitive in light of the present situation but it was the truth. Perhaps if there’d been a bit more of that between her parents, or between her and Nate, things could’ve turned out much differently. If she’d been honest with him about the strength of her feelings for him in the first place they might’ve actually stood a chance together.
Her father’s frown turned into a half-smile. ‘Marriage always was your sticking point. That doesn’t mean you can’t still be together. Times have changed, so you keep telling me.’
She was surprised he’d paid any heed to her word against that of his ingrained sense of tradition. An illegitimate child would have devastated him not so long ago but he was clearly working hard on keeping their relationship alive.
‘I can’t be with someone who doesn’t love me. It wouldn’t be fair on me, or the baby.’ She rubbed her hand over her still flat-belly, wishing only happiness for the life growing inside her.
‘I don’t believe that for one minute. Only a man in love would put up with your irritable father and do everything he has to secure Strachmore’s future. I think it’s you who doesn’t want to commit.’
‘Well, he’s never said it,’ she huffed, upset at the accusation she was the one at fault here. As far as she was concerned she’d done everything right to ensure Nate had been treated fairly. Not many women would’ve given him the green light to walk away. Especially when they were head over heels about him and carrying his child.