Viola’s heart twisted. “Yes.” Her voice was barely audible. “Yes, I was.”
Something crumpled in his expression. His hands gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles turned white.
“A child,” he repeated, dazed. “We had a child.”
“Almost.” The word caught in her throat. “Only for a little while. I lost it before I even understood what I was losing.”
A long moment passed. The clock on the mantel ticked relentlessly.
When he spoke again, his voice had gone hoarse. “Was it...could you tell if…he…she…”
“No.” She shook her head. “It was too early. I knew only that something was terribly wrong, and then it was gone.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “It was my fault. I should have known sooner. I should have recognised the signs. If I had been more careful, if I had rested more, if I hadn’t...”
Years of self-recrimination and bitter guilt came tumbling out.
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. She watched his rigid self-control fracture, just for an instant, before he forced it back into place.
“Why didn’t you write to me the moment you suspected?”
“Because I didn’t know myself until it was already too late.” Her eyes burned with unshed tears. “By the time I understood what was happening, it was already over.”
The familiar, old pain washed over her again. The agony. The terrible, dawning realisation. The impossible question of whether to tell him at all.
“I nearly didn’t write to you,” she admitted, dropping back into her chair. “What good would it do, I thought, to burden you with grief over something that was already lost? But it felt wrong to keep it from you. So I sat down and wrote this letter.” She turned it in her hands.
Dear Sebastian,
It is with great regret and with great mourning that I must write to you regarding some heartbreaking news…
She could still remember it. The way her hand had shaken. The tears that had blotted the ink.
He rose abruptly and strode to the fireplace. Braced both hands against the mantel. His shoulders rose and fell with each breath.
“I don’t understand.” His voice was hoarse. “Why do you believe I answered this letter?”
She opened her lips to quote the infamous lines once more. “‘Mr Fane desires no further correspondence on this subject. He advises Lady Viola to proceed as though the recent unfortunate circumstance had not occurred and to conduct her life henceforth as she sees fit.’”
He turned, and the horror on his face was terrible to behold.
“Dear God.” His voice broke. “Viola. You thought I meant...you cannot have believed I would...” He could not finish the sentence.
And then, at last, she understood.
“You were referring to something else altogether.” The words came slowly. “You were answering another letter. The one I wrote before this one. The one where I asked for a divorce. And by ‘unfortunate circumstance’ you meant our accidental marriage.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Not…not…”
“Of course I meant the marriage!” The words exploded from him. “How could you think, even for a moment, that I would write such a thing about our child? That I could dismiss...that I would tell you to forget...” He dragged both hands down his face. “Good God, Viola. What sort of monster did you take me for?”
The question hung in the air, dreadful and unanswerable.
She had no answer. Because that was exactly what she had believed. That with a single cold sentence, he had told her to erase their child from memory as though it had never existed. An unfortunate circumstance to be forgotten. A regrettable mistake.
She had indeed believed him capable of that.
He saw the answer in her face and recoiled as though she had struck him.
He dragged his shaking hand across his face. “I cannot... I must...”
He could not finish.
