by Laura Martin
‘I don’t want to become pregnant again,’ she said quietly.
‘Because of David.’
She nodded. ‘And...’ She trailed off, shaking her head. She wasn’t ready to reveal that part of herself yet. Oliver knew about David, had in so many ways shared that loss with her, but he didn’t know anything about her brother and the way her family had treated him throughout his short life. Now wasn’t the right time to tell him, not when they were both so vulnerable. Perhaps one day she would feel comfortable enough to reveal the challenges her brother had faced each and every day, but it wasn’t today. Even though she knew William and his short and difficult life were as much to blame for not wanting to try to bring another child into this world as was her grief over David.
‘And what?’ he asked.
She shook her head, repeating, ‘I don’t want to become pregnant again.’
Oliver sank on to the sofa beside her, but didn’t make any attempt to touch her again. She felt the gulf widening between them as the silence stretched out for over a minute.
‘You don’t want to have any more children?’ he asked eventually. ‘Or you don’t want to have any more with me?’
‘I can’t love another child like I did David only to lose them,’ she said.
‘Why do you think you’d lose them?’
She shrugged, trying to hide her vulnerability with the movement.
‘The doctor said there was no reason we couldn’t have a healthy child next time,’ Oliver said, pushing her.
‘What do the doctors know about these matters?’ Lucy asked. ‘They can’t predict whether a child will be born healthy or not. Hundreds upon hundreds of babies are born with physical or mental problems.’
‘But there’s no suggestion we would be at any higher risk of having another child like David,’ Oliver persisted.
‘There are other conditions, as well,’ Lucy said quietly.
She thought of her brother, that dear, sweet boy, marred by his difficult birth and discarded by their father. Oliver didn’t even know William had ever existed, not many people did. It was a family secret her father had fought hard to keep. He’d been adamant it would affect their standing in society if it became widely known his wife had given birth to an imbecile. Lucy flinched at even the thought of the word. She’d hated it when her father had used it—William was many things, but he was not an imbecile. He struggled to speak, he struggled to move and he didn’t have full control of his bodily functions, but there was a quiet intelligence behind his eyes that fought to be seen.
‘We can’t live our lives in fear,’ Oliver said. ‘Yes, something terrible may happen, but that is true of any situation. I may get struck by a carriage when crossing the street, you may be thrown from a horse when out riding, but that doesn’t mean we avoid going outside.’
‘This is different. We can protect ourselves from this easily, too.’
‘By not having a full marriage? By leading a celibate life for the next thirty years?’
‘Yes.’ She couldn’t look at him as she spoke. It was a lot to ask of anyone.
‘No, Lucy. I’m not willing to accept that.’
‘You’ll force me?’ she asked defiantly.
‘Good Lord, you do have a low opinion of me, don’t you?’
She felt embarrassed immediately. She’d lashed out, cruelly, and Oliver didn’t deserve it. There was no scenario where Oliver would force himself on her and the only reason she’d suggested he would was to hurt him, to push him away.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘That was unkind.’
She risked a glance up at him and saw the hard set of his jaw in the muted light. Oliver was a problem-solver and now she was the problem. No doubt he would work tirelessly to come up with a solution to their problem, but she doubted he would find one.
‘There are...’ he paused as if trying to choose the correct words carefully ‘...methods that people use to reduce the chance of a pregnancy.’
Lucy’s eyes widened involuntarily. Of course she knew of such practices; working at the Foundation had been an education in many ways.
‘They’re not reliable,’ she said quickly.
‘Maybe not one method on its own, but if we combined two or three...’
She felt the lure of temptation and almost found herself agreeing straight out.
‘I don’t want there to be any chance.’
‘Let me at least look into it,’ Oliver said.
Hesitating for a moment, Lucy weighed up the options. She wouldn’t agree to anything unless it was virtually foolproof and she doubted anything Oliver would come up with would be that effective. If she agreed, she was purely buying herself some time.
‘Fine, look into it,’ Lucy said. ‘But I’m not promising anything.’
The kiss he planted on her lips shocked her so much she barely had time to react and he had pulled away before she could even think about protesting.
Chapter Eleven
Lucy opened the door to the office at the Foundation to see Oliver and Mary jump apart guiltily. A frown forming on her face, she raised her eyebrows in question.
‘Good morning,’ Mary said, a little too cheerily.
‘What are you doing here?’ Lucy asked her husband bluntly. He’d been gone before her this morning and she’d found herself both disappointed and relieved. After their kiss and following truce the night before, she had slept uneasily and still didn’t quite know how she felt about Oliver’s intentions to find some way for them to become intimate without any resulting pregnancies.
‘A little bit of business,’ he said vaguely.
‘Business—what business?’
‘Why don’t I fetch you a cup of tea, dear?’ Mary said, sidling towards the door.
Normally the older woman was adept at dealing with confrontation, but right now she looked as though she’d rather be anywhere else but here.
‘Stay,’ Lucy said, taking a step to the side and effectively blocking the only exit from the room. ‘I want to know what you were discussing.’
‘I needed Mary’s help with something,’ Oliver said, giving a little cough of embarrassment before he spoke.
Lucy felt her cheeks flooding with heat. Surely he hadn’t asked Mary, her closest friend and the woman she respected most in the world, about their intimacy dilemma?
He must have seen the expression on her face so quickly pressed on.
‘We need to take a little trip,’ he said, looking her squarely in the eye. ‘And I know how important the work you do for the Foundation is.’
‘We’d be lost without you,’ Mary agreed.
She had a horrible feeling she wasn’t going to like the next words.
‘To try to compensate for taking you away for a few days, perhaps a week or two, I thought I would offer some other form of support to the Foundation to help things keep ticking over while you’re absent.’
‘Other support?’
‘Money,’ he said bluntly.
‘You’re paying Mary off?’
‘Nothing like that, my dear,’ Mary rushed to interject.
‘It’s just a little donation so you can rest assured that the Foundation won’t struggle in your absence.’
‘We can hire a teacher to cover the classes you normally take,’ Mary said, an optimistic smile on her face.
‘And the accounts?’
‘You can bring them with you,’ Oliver said. ‘No point being idle throughout the journey.’
‘There would be some money left over,’ Mary added. ‘Enough to make repairs on the worst of the rooms.’
‘Would you excuse us for a moment, Mary? I’d like to have a word with my husband.’
The older woman scurried out of the room in relief.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Lucy hissed. ‘You can’t j
ust come here and bribe Mary to let me go.’
‘You’re always so melodramatic.’ Oliver sighed.
‘And you’re trying to control me, exactly what you promised you would never do.’
‘I have merely tried to smooth the way for you taking a break for two weeks. I didn’t want Mary to feel the strain of your absence.’
It all sounded so reasonable when he said it, but the anger was roaring inside Lucy and there was no way to dampen it now.
‘You haven’t even mentioned this trip to me. Does it even exist? Or is it just a way to prise me away from the Foundation? To make Mary see money is more useful than me?’ Her voice was rising now, but Lucy couldn’t rein it in, no matter who might be listening outside.
‘It is a trip you are not going to like,’ Oliver said with a sigh, ‘so I thought I would organise the details first. That way you would have less time to dwell on our destination.’
‘Where do you want me to go?’
‘Brighton.’
‘No.’
‘Lucy, I know it won’t necessarily be a pleasant trip, but I made a promise to your father.’
‘Then you go. I’m staying here.’
‘That’s not an option. I promised him when I found you I’d bring you to visit, and I’m not going to break a promise.’
‘I’m not going.’
‘The Foundation will be fine without you for a couple of weeks, then you can just take up where you left off when you get back.’
‘But there will be a new teacher for my classes...’ she reminded him.
‘Which can only be a good thing. More teachers mean a better education for the children.’
‘Don’t pretend there is a selfless motive here, Oliver,’ she said. ‘You could have donated money at any point. Instead you do it now when you need something in return.’
‘I don’t need anything, Lucy,’ he said calmly, his eyes turning hard and his mouth forming a thin line. ‘You’re my wife, remember. I could forbid you from ever coming to this place again. I’m not going to, because I know how much it means to you, but I could. The donation is to make it easier for you to leave for a couple of weeks. It has no bearing on your involvement here in the future.’
‘I’m still not going to Brighton,’ she said.
‘We leave tomorrow. I’ll instruct your maid to pack your bags.’
He leaned in and kissed her gently on the cheek before she could pull away.
‘I’m not going,’ she called after him as he left.
Sinking down into a wooden chair, Lucy rested her head in her hands. She’d dealt with so much this past year. How was it she couldn’t seem to deal with her own husband?
‘Are you unwell?’ Mary asked from the doorway a couple of minutes later.
‘What did he say, Mary?’ Lucy asked. ‘Is this really just about a trip away or is it the start of prising me away from here for good?’
‘You worry too much, my dear,’ Mary said, coming into the room and patting her hand. ‘He’s a good man, and it is clear he cares for you.’
Lucy snorted and Mary gave her an admonishing look.
‘Just because he doesn’t kowtow to your wishes doesn’t mean he doesn’t care for you.’
‘He’s trying to organise my life.’
‘With this donation he’s trying to make up for taking you away from something you love. I don’t think he has an ulterior motive. He just wants to ease your guilt about leaving us in the only way he can.’
‘That’s a very trusting way to look at it.’
‘Not all people are bad. And I think your husband truly cares for you.’
Lucy thought of the way he looked at her, the escorts to the Foundation, how he took time out of his schedule to accommodate hers. Just as she was softening a little towards him she rallied. It didn’t make up for his attempting to take her to Brighton to visit her father.
‘He wants me to visit my father,’ she said miserably.
‘Does he know how sour your relationship is?’
Lucy shrugged. She hadn’t divulged much about her family when they were first married so she supposed he only knew the public face of the De Pointe family.
‘Perhaps you should tell him. You can’t expect him to anticipate your needs and wants if you never communicate with him.’
It was true, as little as she wanted to admit her friend was right.
‘I can’t tell him about William,’ she said, feeling the tears rush to her eyes as she thought of her brother.
‘Why not?’
‘I just can’t.’
She’d kept her brother secret for so long it wouldn’t feel right talking about him, even now.
‘Well, then, go along with his plan, let him see how cruel your father is for himself and then it’s likely you’ll never have to visit again.’
‘Why do you have to be so level-headed?’ Lucy grumbled.
‘I like him,’ Mary said after a moment.
‘My father? You’ve never met him.’
‘Your husband. He’s different from most of the titled ladies and gentlemen I’ve met.’
In her work fundraising for the Foundation, Mary had encountered much of the ton. Although they had a few steadfast patrons who were generous and kind, most of the upper classes were too self-interested to get involved with a charity like theirs.
‘I think it’s because he wasn’t raised expecting to inherit the title.’
‘Could be, or it could just be him. You should give him a chance to show you what marriage to him could be like.’
‘You’re sounding more and more like his advocate,’ Lucy grumbled.
‘I just want you to be happy, my dear, and I think if you let him your husband could make you happy.’
She thought of the uncontrollable desire she’d felt for him on the occasions they’d kissed and the easy companionship they shared when she let herself relax around him. Perhaps Mary was right, but she just didn’t seem to be able to lower her defences when Oliver was around. It might be habit, a way to protect herself from further heartbreak, but she just couldn’t seem to let him closer.
‘Go on this trip, enjoy your husband’s company and let him see why you don’t wish to ever see your father again. Your place here will always be waiting for you. I need all the help I can get.’
‘Thank you, Mary,’ Lucy said, getting up and embracing the older woman. ‘I’m sorry I said what I did.’
She regretted accusing Mary of accepting a bribe from Oliver—once again she’d spoken rashly in anger. It was a trait she couldn’t seem to break.
Chapter Twelve
Oliver tapped his fingers on the carriage seat and felt the thumping of his heart in his chest. After spending so many years in the army hardly anything fazed him, but today he was nervous. Lucy was still barely talking to him after catching him giving Mary the donation and he couldn’t quite work out if she was angry because of implication that the money could replace her or angry with him for arranging a trip to see her father.
In truth, the last place he wanted to go tomorrow was Brighton. He had met Lucy’s father on three occasions: the first to ask for her hand in marriage, the second on their wedding day and the third a few months after she had disappeared. He’d travelled to Brighton to see if her family had heard from her and found the old man to be rude and condescending, but worst of all barely worried about the safety of his daughter. The older man had, however, kept his word to write every three months with any news or rumours he’d heard that might have helped Oliver in his search. In return, Oliver felt obliged to fulfil his end of the agreement and take Lucy to visit her father now he had found her.
As well as keeping a promise, the trip had another purpose. Lucy had hardly mentioned her family throughout their short marriage and he had a strange instinct that there was something she wa
s hiding from him. He didn’t know if it was anything that might impact on their relationship, or her reluctance to have any more children, but if there was even the slightest chance it might he wanted to be fully informed. Oliver was a great believer in gathering as much information as possible before attempting a final assault.
Still, Lucy’s bizarre family and their trip to Brighton would wait until tomorrow. This afternoon he had a more important mission to complete.
‘Where are we going?’ Lucy asked. They were the first words she’d uttered to him since he’d picked her up at the end of her working day. She’d held out for an admirably long time, throughout their walk through St Giles, the carriage ride through central London and only now they were approaching the East End did her curiosity cause her to break her silence.
‘It is probably easier if I explain when we get there,’ Oliver said, knowing he was only postponing the inevitable.
Lucy fell silent, looking out of the window again as they pulled up outside a smart house with a private side entrance, one that wasn’t overlooked by the road or any neighbours.
‘Come,’ Oliver said, taking her hand and helping her down, wondering all the time if he was making a mistake.
It was late afternoon, the sun still up and the street busy, so he led her quickly to the side entrance before knocking on the door.
A well-dressed middle-aged lady opened the door and smiled warmly.
‘Lord Sedgewick, I presume this is your wife?’
Lucy shot him a questioning glance, but he just motioned for her to follow the woman inside.
They made their way through to a comfortable sitting room, with plush furnishings and dim lamps, the curtains pulled closed despite the abundance of sunlight outside the windows.