The Convenient Bride

by Winchester, Catherine

  May nodded coolly. “Go on.”

  “She works at my club and a handful of the members there support her, but she always said I was her favourite. After the wedding, I felt bad about not supporting her that is, so I continued to, although I’ve been avoiding the club at night because she can be a little… clingy. Anyway, the day before, she was at the club in the daytime and begged me to meet with her the next day, saying she had a business proposition for me.

  “I would love it if she could earn a respectable income, so I agreed to meet her in her rooms. It turned out she wanted me to finance the production of a play and insisted we read it through together.”

  May’s jaw dropped open again as she realised why Max had said those things.

  “It was so excruciatingly bad that we didn’t even finish Act One.”

  “So you don’t have any illegitimate children running about then?”

  “What? No! Of course not!”

  “Oh, thank God.”

  “But what was Lucy doing there? She’s never even met Marie, much less knows where she lives.”

  “She has met Marie actually; she came to the orphanage before your wedding, probably to size up her competition.”

  “She what?” Max shot to his feet.

  “And on that day, Lucy received a note purporting to be from our father, asking Lucy to meet him urgently.”

  “That scheming little-” he just stopped himself from swearing in front of his sister. “She planned the whole thing. She’s the reason our baby is dead.”

  “You’re the reason your baby is dead, Max. What were you thinking, continuing to meet with your mistress?”

  “There was no harm in it, nothing happened.”

  “Except that Lucy knows her perfume and probably knew every single time that you saw her.”

  Max knew that overpowering scent well, but he had become so accustomed to it that he hardly even noticed it now.

  “Dear Lord!” he sat down again, realising what a fool he’d been to trust such a woman. He couldn’t blame Lucy for being so withdrawn from him. Right now, he didn’t want anything to do with himself.

  “Why couldn’t you just tell Lucy the truth?”

  “She said that after we were married, she never wanted me to speak about my mistresses.”

  “I meant about the fact that you love her, idiot!”

  “I do tell her!”

  “When?”

  “When…” he thought for a moment then sighed. “When we’re in bed.”

  “It’s easy to be overcome with emotion then,” May insisted. “Have you ever said anything when you weren’t naked?”

  “May!”

  “Well have you?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  “Oh Max.” He looked so forlorn that she came up to him and put an arm around his shoulders. “She loves you too, you know.”

  “Then why doesn’t she ever say so?”

  “Probably because she thinks you don’t mean it, but she was so upset at the thought of you having a mistress, that she couldn’t see straight to walk downstairs. If she didn’t love you, she wouldn’t care.”

  “She loves me like a sister, I’ll admit-”

  “Max, for God’s sake, just go and tell her what really happened that day.”

  “She won’t believe me,” he said, sounding downhearted.

  “You have to try. You can’t let her go on believing that you only married her for her money and reputation.”

  “She thinks that?”

  “That’s what she heard you say that day.”

  “The script!” he jumped to his feet and ran from the room, hurrying to his bed chamber and rummaging through his coat pockets. He was sure he had tucked the play into his coat that day, he just wasn’t sure which coat he’d been wearing.

  Finally his hand touched on a sheaf of papers and he pulled them out. May came in was he was skimming the contents for mention of children. If he remembered rightly, there was only one page that mentioned them and that must have been the page that Lucy had heard him reading.

  “Ah ha!” he cried, then pushed May aside and went in search of his wife.

  Chapter Ten

  “It was a set up,” Max said as he came into the library, holding the papers out to Lucy.

  “Pardon?” Lucy looked away from the book shelves she was browsing, her gaze cool and detached.

  “What you heard me say that day, it was lines from a play.”

  Lucy shook her head. “I should have known that any sister of yours couldn’t keep a secret.”

  “Lucy, please, listen to what I'm saying.”

  “Why should I? Max, this is a marriage of convenience, nothing more. I don’t care if you have a string of mistresses.”

  Her glare made him angry so he strode up to her, taking hold of her shoulders to hold her in place as his mouth plunged hers, almost as though he were trying to devour her.

  Lucy struggled in his grip, her fists balled up against his chest as she tried to push him off her but he was too strong. Instead she stopped fighting, going completely still and finally Max ended the kiss and released her shoulders.

  Her fist connecting with his jaw took them both by surprise and made Max stagger back a little.

  “What the hell was that for!” he asked, cupping the left side of his jaw with his hand.

  Lucy felt awful for striking him but she couldn’t show weakness, not when she was so hurt.

  “Because you deserve it! Max, I knew you were many things but to father a child out of wedlock? How could you.”

  “Lucy, it isn’t what you think.”

  “Do you think I’m an idiot? That I am some innocent fool who has no clue when you have been with one of your women? Just because I don’t say anything doesn’t mean that I haven’t noticed.”

  “So now you’re trying to make me believe that you care?” Max snapped.

  “I am your wife, Max and I deserve a little respect, goddamn it!”

  “Then bloody well start acting like one!” he yelled back.

  “I can’t!” she screamed back, the tears that she had tried so hard not to show him finally spilling over. She turned away, her overwhelming anger leaving her as her humiliating tears fell, leaving only a gaping void of pain behind. “I can’t,” she repeated softly.

  There was silence for a moment, then the soft fall of his footsteps as he came to stand behind her. She could just make out his distorted reflection in the window before her.

  “Why not?” he asked, his voice so soft and sounding a little hurt.

  She turned to look at him, not really caring if he saw her tears any longer. This marriage was killing her anyway, she felt as though she was unravelling a little more with each passing day and if the truth had to come out, it might as well be now.

  “Because I love you,” she confessed in a soft voice. His hissed intake of breath didn’t deter her; she had been hiding for too long. Perhaps if he knew the pain he caused her, he would try to be more discreet. “I have loved you since I was 13 years old and that love has only grown until at times, I feel as if I will be consumed by it.”

  “But…” he sounded confused.

  “Every story you have ever told me about your women was like a knife to my heart. I should have left sooner, moved onto my estate and left you behind but I couldn’t bear to leave you. Now I am paying the price for my weakness, damned to an eternity with a man who cannot love me in the way that I love him.”

  Max looked truly stunned by her revelation and his jaw worked uselessly for a few moments before he could find his words.

  “But that night we made love, years ago, you were gone in the morning?” It was a statement but he was clearly seeking answers.

  “I thought that getting you out of my system might help but it only strengthened my feelings for you. I couldn’t stand to just become another one of your women, so I hardened my heart and left you, as I have been hardening my heart against you ever since, to no avail.”

&n
bsp; “My God!” he gasped, turning a deathly shade of white. “What have I done?”

  He staggered over to an armchair and sank into it.

  Despite all her attempts to drive him from her heart, he looked so distressed that Lucy took a step towards him.

  “I know it sounds unbelievable,” he said, returning to the reason that he came down here in the first place. “But she begged me to meet with her to talk about a business venture, a play. She said we should read through the script, which I thought was ridiculous but she was insistent and in the end, it was easier to just give in. I didn’t know what she was planning. If I had…”

  He looked ashen.

  “Are you all right?” she asked in a small voice. It was as close as she could come to being indifferent at the moment.

  “No. No, I think I’ve been a complete fool.”

  Lucy turned away and returned her gaze to the window once more, thinking that he meant that he had been a fool to marry a woman who loved him and therefore, would make demands of him and create scenes like this one. She couldn’t even argue with him, she was making a terrible show of herself.

  “I slept with those women because I needed an outlet,” he said, his voice low and pained. “I was so attracted to you but you were too young. I think I began telling you about them because, and I know this was wrong, but because I wanted to make you jealous. Every moment that I spend with you is like an exquisite torture, knowing that I have your love, but not enough of it, never enough. I wanted you to know just a fraction of the pain that I felt every day.”

  He sounded choked up towards the end of his speech and Lucy dared to turn and look at him. He looked into her eyes as his own tears spilled over.

  “I didn’t know how much it hurt you. If I had, I would never… could never willingly hurt you.”

  Lucy ventured another step closer, confused.

  “If that is really true, you wouldn’t come home smelling like her. You know that as a condition of marriage, I asked for discretion but you have been anything but.”

  “I haven’t slept with anyone but you since we married. It feels so wrong that I don’t even enjoy kissing her. Marie still tries to tempt me, draping herself over me when I'm at the club but it’s like comparing a silk purse to a sow’s ear. I suppose I became so accustomed to her scent, that I just don’t notice it any longer. I had no clue why you were sometimes so cool with me when I came home. If I had known what you would think, how it would hurt you, I would have severed all ties with her, I swear.”

  Lucy took another step towards him.

  “I know this is hard to believe, but Marie must have orchestrated that whole incident.”

  “To make me lose our baby?” Lucy asked.

  “Probably not; she didn’t know about that. She just hoped to drive a wedge between us, and it worked.” He held the sheaf of papers out to her. “Just read it, please.”

  “You could have written that at any time.”

  “It’s not my handwriting.”

  Warily, Lucy stepped closer and took the papers from him, then sat in the adjacent chair to read.

  “I swear I’ve been faithful to you,” Max insisted after a few moments.

  She didn’t want to believe him but these words were almost exactly what she had heard that day; their conversation was seared into her brain and she could never forget them.

  He on the other hand, hadn’t known that she was there, so he had no reason to have the perfect recall necessary to write this play. She thought back to the words that were missing from the script she was reading.

  Max had sighed. ‘Honestly, Marie-‘

  ‘Carry on!’ Mariehad chided.

  ‘Very well.’ He had given another weary sigh.

  Was it possible that he spoke the truth; that his former mistress had set up that whole situation?

  “You came home covered in her scent many times,” she remembered.

  “She doesn’t want to let me go,” he explained. “My friends from the club will confirm that she has been trying to entice me, without success.”

  “Of course your friends would lie for you,” she snapped. “Just as you would lie to their wives if necessary, but she was in our home, Max. The first day I went out after I lost the baby, you invited her into our home.”

  “I didn’t invite her, she just turned up! Nothing happened except talk, Lucy. Ask the servants who were there if you don’t believe me.”

  “Look into my eyes and swear it, Max.”

  “Lucy, I… I couldn’t do that to you. I haven’t ever cheated on you, I swear.”

  She looked into his eyes for a few long minutes, trying to gauge the truth of his words. It was the first time she had properly looked at him in weeks, and he looked exhausted; his eyes looked sunken and had dark hollows under them, and his beard growth was at least three days old. His clothes looked rumpled, despite having a valet to care for his wardrobe.

  Finally she nodded. “All right, I believe you.”

  “So you forgive me?”

  “No!” She looked incredulous. “Before, I felt that this was my fault for harbouring feelings for you when this should have been a simple business arrangement. Now though, I can see that this is your fault for bringing that woman into our lives! She is the reason our baby is dead, Max and if I ever see her again, I will tear her limb from limb!”

  He nodded, noting that she had called him Max again, rather than Maxwell, as she had been addressing him of late. He had hope once more.

  “She will get her just desserts, Lucy. I didn’t want anything to do with her before this, I only felt a sense of responsibility for her. Now I would happily see her hang.”

  Her emotions were in turmoil and she began to cry. Tears of relief that Max had been faithful, and of sadness that their child had died because of some petty jealousy. Then she felt angry at Max and his mistress and at the same time, hopeful that their marriage could be repaired, so she wouldn’t live the rest of her life in this abject misery.

  “Why are you crying?” Max leaned forward in his chair but looked wary of approaching her, as if she were some wild animal.

  He had also said that he loved her but could she believe him? Perhaps he was just saying that because he wanted to smooth things over between them, and this was the fastest way.

  Then she remembered the hurt in his voice, as he spoke of how she disappeared after they had made love all those years ago.

  “Do you really love me?” she asked.

  “I really do,” he admitted, remembering her admission from earlier. “From the day that Michael teased you, I loved you. Not in this way, not then, but as you grew and blossomed into such a wonderful woman, with so much grace and kindness… I don’t know when I fell in love, exactly, I just know that I did. That night when you asked me to make love to you, I thought that it might be our chance to… Then I considered telling Father that I had compromised you so he would make us marry but I didn’t want you by force; I wanted your love.”

  “Isn’t that how you have me, because of your father’s ultimatum?”

  “He demanded that I marry but he did not dictate whom I must marry. I came straight to you, because you have always been the only woman that I could ever envisage spending my life with.”

  Her tears fell harder and she saw Max shift further forward on his chair, although he still didn’t approach her.

  “I hate you,” she said, through her tears.

  “I know.”

  “And I love you.”

  Max closed his eyes, savouring the words for a moment.

  “Then can we not work through this, Lucy? I will do anything to make things right between us, to have my Luce back.”

  Lucy hesitated for a moment, then she held her arms wide. Max practically flew into her embrace, holding her tightly as her tears turned to sobs. She cried for a long time and when she finally stopped, he could tell that she was exhausted. He looked down at her, cupping the side of her jaw, his thumb lightly tracing her cheekbone.


  “You should take a nap before dinner,” he told her.

  Lucy nodded absently, feeling completely lethargic.

  Noting how hooded her eyes were, Max scooped her into his arms and carried her upstairs.

  “Shall I call for the maid?” he asked as she began unpinning her hair.

  “You can unfasten my gown, surely?”

  Max licked his lips and stepped up behind her to do so. It had been so long since they had made love that he was beginning to suffer withdrawal, needing her so badly at times that it hurt.

  Once freed of her gown, she slipped into bed wearing only her chemise and Max leaned down to kiss her forehead.

  “Sleep well, my love.”

  He made to leave but she grabbed his hand.

  “Stay?” she asked. Afraid that if he wasn’t here, she might wake up and find this had all been a dream.

  Max gave her a warm smile. “Gladly.” This had been a very emotional day for him too, not to mention that he hadn’t slept very well in weeks, plagued as he was by his wife’s absence and remote attitude, so he felt that he could use a brief nap too.

  “Nothing will happen,” she suddenly added. “I just don’t want to be alone at the moment. I’ve spent too long feeling alone.”

  “I understand.” Max hadn’t misread her, he only wished to share her bed, not her body.

  He undressed down to his breeches, then slipped into the other side of the bed, where he hesitated as he looked at her back. He wanted to gather Lucy to him, cradle her against him as she slept but she might misinterpret such a gesture.

  “I want to hold you,” he said. “Nothing more, I swear.”

  She didn’t react for a long time, then finally turned over and settled herself against him.

  ***

  Lucy awoke to see Max staring at her. She graced him with a hesitant smile.

  “Sleep well?” he asked.

  Lucy nodded.

  “Me too.” Max leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. “Better than I have since…”

  His words trailed off, not wanting to remind her of the reason for their recent estrangement.

  “I’ve missed you,” Lucy confided.

  “I’ve missed you too.” He found her hand and intertwined their fingers. “Could I continue sleeping here?” he asked.