Page 56 of An Accidental Elopement

Lady Lindley waved it away as if it was nothing.

“I would like to insert that it is not your job to keep him satisfied, that is his own. But please go on, how did discovering that he has impregnated an actress change the course of your marriage to the point where you are sleeping in separate rooms and not talking to each other?”

Cecilia was quiet again while she thought, and Lady Lindley let her. It was astonishing to speak to a person who did not rush her or try to tell her what to think.

“At first, I thought he was having an affair. When I discovered the truth, it just... hurt. He had thought to keep the entire matter a secret from me. As if he assumed I could not offer any advice on how to handle it. And then...” She gulped. “The way he spoke about the child. It was so detached. For both of them. I mean, it will be a living, breathing child of his blood. For me, it does not matter that it was not born within wedlock. It will be an actual person... and he did not seem to care.”

Cecilia was silent while she tried to control her emotions.

“I think I was shocked because I had at least assumed that he would care about the children we have. Like I have seen him care about others. But this made me question that. And then... I feel so angry and hurt that he did not ask for my advice. As if I could not offer any.” Cecilia stroked her arms and shoulders; it was partway a soothing manner to calm herself and partway to rub warmth into her cold skin. Despite the blankets and her many layers of clothing, she was starting to feel the cold.

“Have you told him any of this?” Lady Lindley asked, again so gently, so unjudgmentally that it seemed incredible that a person such as her could exist in a world where everyone was busy telling each other how to live their lives.

“Not as such,” Cecilia muttered and avoided her gaze. “Last time we spoke, we argued, and then I have refused to see him.”

She thought Lady Lindley might comment on it. Might tell her that obviously she needed to speak to Archie about how she felt. But it was easier said than done. Instead, Lady Lindley surprised her by asking:

“What would you have advised him to do if he had sought your council?”

Cecilia shrugged.

Part of her problem was that she had no answer to this. She had been so preoccupied with being angry at Archie for not asking for her advice, that she had not really come up with a plan to solve the problem. Lavinia wanted to place the child with a good family. A decision that Cecilia condoned heartily. Even though she did not understand how the woman was prepared to give her unborn child away, she felt that Lavinia at least was decent enough to secure its future properly. She was not simply going to leave it in an orphanage or even worse a gutter.

But finding a family that would care for the child, preferably telling everyone that it was their own, was not easy. At least Archie had indicated as much although Cecilia did not know to what lengths he had gone to find one.

She rubbed her forehead and sighed. Perhaps she would have been able to offer no help at all. She just wished that the child was properly taken care of. By a loving family. If it would not cause a scandal, she might even have suggested that she and Archie took the child in as a ward. If she had conceived one of the times she had slept with Archie, the children would have been born only months apart and would have grown up together. If not, she would at least have the child to care for when Archie tired of her. It might be Archie’s child by another woman, but she felt certain that she could love it.

A small smile tugged at her lips, and she looked up, surprised that Lady Lindley was still sitting in front of her.

“You have found a solution, it seems,” Lady Lindley said with a smile that seemed almost proud.

“Well, sort of, there is still the issue of legitimacy...” Cecilia began but then interrupted herself: “My aunt Elizabeth in Portsmouth!” she exclaimed as she realized that her aunt might be the perfect option to pass the child off as legitimate.

Her impoverished aunt who had run away with a groomsman would probably welcome any money. Archie could pay them for pretending that the child was theirs. When the time came, Lavinia and Aunt Elizabeth would go away together and Aunt Elizabeth would return to Portsmouth, claiming that her niece had very graciously offered to take in the child since a fifteenth child simply would be too much for them. Aunt Elizabeth was a couple of years younger than her mother, which put her in the middle of her forties. She had had twins only two years ago, so it would not be that out of the question that they had yet another child. Would it?

“Do you think it is completely unbelievable that a woman of four or five and forty has a child?” she asked Lady Lindley, then realized that the other was in no way privy to her line of thinking. This did not seem to perturb the other woman.

“Has she had other children, this forty-four-year-old woman?” she only asked with a smile.

Cecilia nodded enthusiastically.

“Fourteen. She had twins only two years ago.”

“Then I think it is very plausible that she would have another child now.” Lady Lindley’s smile spread. “If you want to explain it to me, I will of course listen, but it seems more pressing that you talk to your husband.”

Cecilia jumped from the lounger, the blanket landing on the floor.

“Thank you, Lady Lindley,” she exclaimed and pressed the other woman’s hands between both of hers, then turned and ran towards the estate.

Twenty-Six

“Archie, Archie,” Cecilia exclaimed with an enthusiasm that Archie had not heard her use in well, ever. He turned from the flower decoration he had been placing on the mantelpiece and watched how Cecilia took in the room.

She was wearing indoor shoes, but in her haste had not bothered changing out of the thick coat and shawl around her shoulders nor take off the brown woolen bonnet on her head. Her mouth was slightly open as she stood completely still and looked at the salon, where she had been convalescing. Where they had first become acquainted. He had decorated it with flowers from his mother’s hothouse, and a tray with tea and vanilla and cinnamon biscuits was on the table by the settee.

“Curtis told me to find you here,” Cecilia murmured in a small voice, her eyes still roaming the room. When her gaze turned to him, there was a frown on her face. “What is happening? Who are you going to meet?”

It felt as if his heart bobbed into his throat, pressing against his uvula, and making him instantly nauseous. Her first reaction was that he had done this for someone else. How great a cad did she expect him to be? To have a tryst with someone in his parents’ house right under the nose of his wife?