by Laura Martin
Smoothing her dress, she pulled on the white satin gloves Oliver had given her soon after their marriage with her new initials—L.S. for Lucy Sedgewick—embroidered on the lower edge and the Sedgewick crest beneath them. Satisfied she looked presentable, she thanked Florence for her help and made her way downstairs.
Oliver was waiting, punctual as ever, with her thick cloak in one hand ready to help her on with it.
‘Surely it’s not that cold outside,’ Lucy said, thinking they were only going to be sitting in the carriage and walking to the theatre.
‘You’ll be glad of it later in the evening,’ Oliver said, placing it over her shoulders.
‘Where are we going?’ Lucy asked, wondering if her assumption about the opera had been wrong.
‘Wait and see.’
They took the carriage, heading away from central London as Lucy peered out of the window and wondered what Oliver could have planned. He was tight-lipped, unwilling to reveal their destination until they arrived.
Settling back into her seat, Lucy watched her husband. There was something different about him tonight. He looked determined and purposeful, which he always did, but tonight these attributes seemed amplified. She wondered what his purpose was and shivered at the thought it could be something to do with her.
* * *
‘Come,’ Oliver said as he helped her down from the carriage.
Lucy had to contain a squeal of pleasure as she realised where they were. Far from spending the evening cooped up in a theatre or opera house, instead Oliver had surprised her by bringing her to the Ranelagh Pleasure Gardens.
‘Have you been here before?’ Oliver asked.
Lucy shook her head. She’d always wanted to visit, had asked her mother more than once during her Season in London if they could spend the afternoon there, but her mother had never agreed. Their main reason to come to London was to find Lucy a husband and strolling around a pleasure garden was probably not the best use of her time.
‘You can see more of the gardens during the day,’ Oliver said as they paid their entry fee and walked through the gates. ‘But I think there’s something rather magical about visiting in the evening.’
As they walked in, the path lit up by dozens of lanterns perched on walls and resting on the ground, Lucy gasped.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, squeezing Oliver’s arm.
‘We never got to do much as a couple before,’ he said quietly. ‘I want to make up for that now. This is one of my favourite places in London and I wanted to share it with you.’
Feeling a swell of warmth towards her husband. she smiled up at him. It was almost impossible to remember why she had been so reluctant to reunite with him. She knew he was still hurting from how she had abandoned him, but these past few days he had been really trying to put that behind them.
‘Come this way,’ Oliver said, leading her off the main path and down a well-lit set of stairs. They passed a few other couples on the way, but when they reached the bottom the gardens seemed quieter, as if they had the magical place to themselves.
Carefully Oliver guided her down ever-darkening paths until they reached a small fountain, illuminated by lanterns and splashing away in the darkness.
‘The stories say if you throw a coin into the fountain it will grant you one wish,’ he said, reaching into a pocket and pulling out two shiny coins.
Wordlessly Lucy took her coin and closed her eyes, squeezing them tight as she formulated a wish in her mind. Then she tossed the coin into the fountain, watching as it splashed and caused ripples to break out on the surface of the water. A moment later Oliver did the same.
‘What did you wish for?’ he asked, stepping closer and wrapping an arm around her waist. Lucy stiffened instinctively at the contact, but relaxed after a second, allowing her body to sink into his.
‘Surely that would spoil the wish.’
‘I’m not superstitious. I can tell you mine if you prefer.’
Suddenly Lucy had a deep desire to know what her husband had wished for. She had wished for the same thing she prayed for every evening—that her boy was at peace and no longer suffering as he had been in life.
‘What did you wish for?’ Lucy asked, knowing deep down it would be dangerous to ask, but not able to stop herself all the same.
‘I wished for a kiss,’ Oliver murmured.
She had plenty of time to stop him as he bent his neck slowly, covering her lips with his own as if they had all the time in the world. Even though she knew she shouldn’t kiss him, that it went against her need to stay distant from Oliver, she didn’t do a single thing to stop him and as his lips met hers she pulled him in closer.
Little jolts of pleasure coursed through her body and Lucy felt as though she were awakening for the first time in over a year. The spot where his hand met the skin of her cheek felt as though it were on fire and all Lucy could think of was keeping this moment going for ever.
‘So lovely,’ he murmured, kissing the angle of her jaw, her neck, her throat, before returning to the softness of her lips.
Right then, in that moment, Lucy couldn’t think of anything more appealing than giving in to every primal desire that was rampaging through her body. She wanted to lie down under him, rediscover the pleasure they had shared at the beginning of their marriage, spend hour upon hour in bed until she knew his body as well as her own.
Reality came crashing back down as suddenly as the first flash of lightning in a summer storm.
‘Stop,’ she said, planting her hands on his chest and pushing him away.
‘Stop?’ he asked, his voice deep and confused.
‘We can’t do this.’
‘Of course we can, Lucy. We’re married. It’s natural.’
In a way he was right—most married couples didn’t practise a completely celibate relationship. Still, theirs wasn’t the most usual of unions.
‘I can’t do this,’ Lucy said, then corrected herself. ‘I won’t do this.’
‘What’s this all about?’
‘Please, Oliver, just take me home.’
He looked at her for thirty seconds without speaking and for a moment she thought he would press the issue, but instead he offered her his arm and briskly led her back the way they’d come, walking so quickly she almost had to run to keep up.
Chapter Ten
Oliver glared at an approaching acquaintance, unaware quite how unwelcoming his visage was until the woman and her daughter scuttled away, glancing back over their shoulders with alarmed expressions on their faces.
‘Good job there are no children here tonight,’ Redmoor murmured as he slipped into the space beside Oliver. ‘You’d scare them half to death with that expression.’
Oliver grunted, for once not feeling in the mood for Redmoor’s witty remarks. He had insisted they come to the Fletchers’ ball despite Oliver’s foul mood and now Lucy was completely avoiding him, making everything worse.
‘No progress in sowing the seeds of marital harmony?’ Redmoor asked.
‘No.’ It wasn’t strictly true. They’d made a lot of progress. Two days ago he’d been satisfied that Lucy wasn’t about to slip away in the middle of the night any more. They’d found an easy truce, a compromise of a relationship that meant they were civil and even friendly towards one another, but now Oliver wanted more.
‘Is she here?’ Redmoor asked, scanning the room.
‘Dancing with our host, Lord Fletcher.’
‘Poor girl.’ Lord Fletcher had a reputation for being a little overfamiliar with his female guests and no doubt Lucy was being treated to a long accounting of his family history and lineage, admittedly one of the finest in the country, but still not a thrilling subject for the dance floor.
Oliver had no inclination to save her, though, despite knowing what a foul time she would be having. Ever since the previo
us night, she’d either avoided him or ignored him. Walking around with a troubled look on her face that showed she was fighting some sort of inner turmoil, but refusing to tell him what it was.
Oliver believed the world would be simpler if people just spoke their minds a little more often. In Lucy’s case, he would be able to respond to her fears much better if she would just tell him what they were. Instead he was left guessing whether she was avoiding him because she hadn’t enjoyed the kiss, if she found him repulsive or if she’d vowed never to be intimate with a man again after the trauma of their son’s death.
‘She’s avoiding me.’
‘Barely two weeks into your reunion and already she’s avoiding you. What did you do?’
Oliver shrugged—in truth, he had no idea. At the time she’d seemed to enjoy their kiss. Her body had responded to him, her lips had invited him in and then it was as if she had regained conscious control of herself and regretted their moment of intimacy immediately.
‘You’ll get through to her eventually,’ Redmoor said, his voice low and reassuring. ‘You’re just impatient because you’ve been waiting so long for this moment.’
‘I have not been...’ Oliver started speaking, then stopped himself as he saw Redmoor’s grin. His old friend was baiting him.
‘No one searches for an entire year for a woman they do not care about,’ Redmoor said, repeating his comment from the other night.
‘Of course I care about her—she’s my responsibility.’
She was so much more than that. The turmoil of his emotions the past couple of days was difficult to deal with. He wanted to gather Lucy in his arms and make her promise she would never run away again, then make love to her over and over again. But at the same time he still couldn’t trust her, still wondered every morning if she would turn up to breakfast, still found himself holding back out of fear she would crush some part of him.
‘I’m going to rescue my wife,’ he said, watching as the dance ended and Lucy was escorted off the dance floor by Lord Fletcher.
‘May I steal my wife for the next dance?’ Oliver asked as he stepped in beside Lucy.
The look of relief on her face was immediate, replaced after a few seconds by one of startled wariness. Momentarily at least she’d forgotten she was avoiding him.
‘Charming young lady,’ Fletcher said, planting a sloppy kiss on her palm, ‘I don’t know why you kept her hidden away for so long, Sedgewick. It’s a crime to the rest of society.’
‘I wanted her all to myself,’ Oliver murmured, whisking Lucy away.
‘Thank you,’ she said as they took their places on the dance floor for a waltz. Two dances, that was all they’d ever shared in life and both had been waltzes. Not that Oliver minded—he liked the slower tempo, the need to hold one’s partner close. And it gave much more opportunity for whispered conversations.
Oliver pulled her in closer to him, purposefully narrowing the gap between them to the smallest possible while still maintaining at least the semblance of propriety.
‘You need to start talking to me,’ he whispered in her ear as he spun her on the first note.
‘I do talk to you.’
‘About things that matter.’
She remained silent.
‘I’m not a monster, Lucy. I want to know when things are upsetting you. I may be able to help.’
‘Nothing is upsetting me.’
‘You’ve been avoiding me all day.’
‘I’ve been busy.’
He fell silent, whisking her across the dance floor with ease as he tried to think of another approach.
‘I think we should start sharing a bedroom,’ he said bluntly. He was ready when Lucy stumbled, missing the step and then another, and he caught her deftly, lifting her slightly before setting her back on her feet. ‘We’ve been married for nearly two years. I can only see benefits to the arrangement.’
‘Surely our current arrangement is working perfectly fine.’
‘I don’t want perfectly fine, Lucy,’ Oliver growled.
‘It’s too soon,’ she protested.
‘Then when? A month? A year? A decade?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes to what?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lucy said, visibly flustered. She clearly hadn’t been expecting him to press her on the issue; he’d been so reserved until now. ‘We should have this conversation in private.’
‘Good idea,’ Oliver said, whisking her off the dance floor, hearing the murmur of surprise from the other dancers and spectators, but hardly caring.
‘Everyone is looking at us,’ Lucy said, pulling back as he tugged her by the hand through the crowd.
‘Let them look.’
He exited the ballroom, ignoring the curious stares from a group of middle-aged women in the hall, and started testing doors.
‘Oliver, we can’t do this,’ Lucy said, glancing back over her shoulder.
‘Of course we can. We’re married. There’s no scandal in a man being alone with his wife at a ball.’
She opened her mouth as if to protest, but at that moment he found an unlocked door and pulled her into a darkened room.
* * *
Lucy swallowed as she heard the click of the lock. She wasn’t afraid of Oliver, not that he’d physically hurt her, but she was a little scared of being alone with him. Last night had shown she couldn’t trust herself to behave sensibly around him.
She’d never seen him like this before. Until now he’d treated her gently, emotionally as well as physically, content to let her come to him in her own time, but now she was reminded of the man in his study searching for answers on the first day of their reunion.
‘Sit,’ he said and she found herself obeying, sinking into a plush sofa before her mind had even fully registered the command.
He sat next to her, so close she could smell his scent, that mixture of soap and something sweeter. It was intoxicating to have his body so close to hers and already she felt what little resolve she had slipping.
‘Last night,’ he said, leaning in so their faces were almost touching, ‘I very much enjoyed our kiss by the fountain. I think you did, too.’
She nodded once before catching herself.
‘I thought so. I remember how you used to moan underneath me when we were first married. It was the same yesterday.’
Feeling her cheeks burning, Lucy was glad of the near total darkness. Her response to him physically wasn’t at all ladylike. Although what happened in the bedroom of married couples was a taboo subject for well-brought-up young ladies, she knew most women did not enjoy it as much as she’d found herself doing. There were always whispers of enduring the deed, of lying back and waiting for it to be over, but her experience had been much, much different.
‘I enjoyed kissing you—you enjoyed kissing me. We are married, husband and wife, so there is no moral reason we cannot be intimate, but instantly you regretted it. Enlighten me as to why?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Lucy said, knowing this wishy-washy answer wouldn’t be enough to pacify her husband.
‘So if I was to kiss you again you wouldn’t pull away?’
The primal, instinctive part of her swelled with anticipation, needing to feel his lips on hers again.
‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kiss you,’ Oliver said, his voice low.
Lucy knew there were many reasons, arguments she’d thought out in depth in her mind, but right now she couldn’t think of a single one of them. Her mind was completely blank.
‘We shouldn’t,’ she said, but even to her own ears she sounded unconvincing.
‘One good reason,’ Oliver murmured as he leaned forward, ‘and I’ll stop.’
She shuddered as his lips met hers, his body heavy above her own. Already she was half-reclined on the sofa and as he
kissed her she felt her body sinking further into the soft upholstery.
The last of her reason and common sense fled as he trailed his fingers through her hair and cupped the back of her neck, sending shivers down her spine.
For the entire duration of their separation Lucy had been devoid of physical contact and it wasn’t until Oliver had kissed her last night that she’d realised how much she’d missed it.
Lucy wrapped her arms around Oliver’s muscular back, running her hands over the fabric of his jacket and wishing it was skin. She felt him shift slightly and then his lips were tracing a path down her neck on to the exposed skin of her chest. He pushed the neckline of her dress lower, fighting against the ties and the fabric, until she felt the cool air on her breasts, then she could think of nothing else as his mouth captured a nipple and she let out a guttural groan.
Lucy felt her hips thrust up towards him, moving rhythmically even though there were layers of clothing separating them. He murmured her name and just as she was about to beg him for more she felt his hand on her thigh.
Higher and higher his fingers moved, so leisurely Lucy felt like screaming, then he was caressing the very tops of her thighs, making her want to press her legs together and urge him to continue to her most private place.
Just as his fingers dipped inside her Lucy stiffened, and suddenly all reason came flooding back as quickly as it had fled.
‘Stop,’ she said, pushing him off her.
Oliver rolled, but his quick reflexes saved him from tumbling to the floor.
‘What is it, Lucy?’ he asked and to her surprise his voice didn’t sound frustrated or annoyed, just concerned.
‘I can’t do this.’
‘Why not?’
‘I just can’t. Please, Oliver.’
‘I’m not going to force you. Good Lord, what sort of man do you think I am? I just want to understand.’
‘You can’t understand.’
‘Try me.’
She hesitated, wondering how to put into words the deep hole David’s death had left in her. Her fear of surrendering to her desires, to resuming a full and physical relationship with her husband only to find herself pregnant again. She didn’t know if any other children she and Oliver might have would be healthy or not, but she couldn’t risk the small chance of another child being born, only to die a few weeks later. Her already fragile heart would completely shatter and this time she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to piece it together again.