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“Which meant you were left with no income or a place to stay, plus circumstances that didn’t necessarily thrill you.” After taking another drink of coffee, he rose, crossed to the door, and quietly closed it. “I’m sorry.” God, the world was a terrible place for women. Never had the responsibility he carried as a member of Parliament sat so heavy upon his shoulders. If he could pull his head out of his arse and function within society, could he perhaps pass laws that would lend support to women in these types of straits? Especially since men like him put them in those predicaments to begin with?
If not for marrying Lavinia, his eyes would never have been opened.
“Yes, I was staring at certain devastation after that.” She paced between a window and a row of shelves that lined the wall. “I couldn’t survive on my own. To say nothing of my then nineteen-year-old sister to support. Especially after she’d received devastating medical news. There was no way I could add a child to that mess. Neither could I provide… services while increasing.” Her chin quivered, and the emotion behind that gesture sliced through his chest. “I needed to make a living, to find a residence, quite desperately, for winter was nearly upon us at that point.”
So many questions popped through his mind like soap bubbles, but he concentrated on one. “What happened?” He both wished to know, and he didn’t, for he feared the story wouldn’t have a happy ending.
“I visited a midwife I was friends with.”
Ah, of course. “The woman who told you about the willow bark tea for megrims.”
“Yes.” Lavinia nodded. Her eyes were haunted by memories of that time. “She gave me some herbal tea that, after ingesting three times a day, eventually rid me of the pregnancy.”
Shock plowed into him, left him reeling, looking at her with a slightly hanging jaw until he remembered his manners. “I had no idea such things existed.” No wonder the women within the demimonde were able to keep at their crafts. Even if the man used a sheath or pulled out before ejaculation, there were no guarantees those trysts wouldn’t result in children. Both astonishment and sympathy warred for dominance in his chest.
“Women in my former profession must learn to look after their own health and future interests. It was a painful, messy endeavor, and one I don’t know that I’d choose again.”
“But your future is settled. Never again will you need to.” Would she believe him?
“I sometimes wonder…”
His chest hurt for her and the situation she’d had to endure. “I’m so sorry you—and they—are forced to make such decisions.” Never had he thought about the lives of the mistresses he’d taken and then abandoned outside of what they could do for his pleasure in his bed, or how they would look on his arm in society.
God, I’ve been a prick.
“Thank you.” Quick tears welled in her eyes, and before he could speak again, she had dissolved into sobs that shook her whole body. She leaned her hands on the windowsill with her back to him. Another way to hide her helplessness. “I agonized over that decision, Percival.” The words sounded pulled out of her. “Never, for a second, think it was easy for me. It was the best choice I could make at the time.” More sobs followed, and the mournful sound plowed into him, made him remember the agony he’d gone through when he’d lost his wife.
“I cannot imagine your mindset.”
“I always wonder what would have happened to that child. Not a day goes by that I don’t know how old it would have been, how it might have grown, what it would have looked like.” Her body was racked with the force of her emotions. “Essentially, I took a life, and no one can ever help me with that forgiveness.”
Dear Lord, what should a man do at a time like this and with a woman so obviously hurt and upset? But her distress tugged at his chest and brought out protective instincts he hadn’t employed since he’d been married before.
Percival shot across the room. Once he’d closed the distance, he gently turned her about and then gathered her into his arms. At the end of the day, she was a woman with a heart that had been broken, and he was a man who’d experienced the same. They were bound together in grief. “Hush, now. Everything will be all right.”
They were useless, empty words, he knew, but they were the best he had in that moment.
When Lavinia clung to him, he pressed her head to his shoulder and stroked a hand up and down her back in an effort to soothe her. It was nice having her in his embrace for something beyond a sexual capacity. He felt… needed, and that had been lacking in his life for far too long.
“I had no good choices.” His cravat muffled the words. “How could I, in good conscience, bring a child into the world I inhabited like my mother did to me?” Another sob interrupted her speech. “That is no life, and I couldn’t bear to think of that child languishing in an orphanage unloved, unwanted.”
“Shhh.” He continued to stroke his hand up and down her back.
She trembled from the force of her sobs; her tears wetted his cravat. “And now, when I think I might be of some use to your daughter, that I have so much love to give, that I might find a modicum of healing in this relationship, you treat me like a lesser person, as if my very presence will taint her, as if I’ll never be good enough to be a mother.” Lavinia cried all the harder.
Never once had he suspected this part of her history, and it nearly broke his heart to hear. That she’d suffered alone… “Oh, Lavinia, I’m so sorry.” He gently rocked her in his arms. “I never meant to hurt you, disrespect you by my careless words.” His previous behavior left him roiling beneath hot embarrassment and shame. He’d been a cad. No matter her previous status within society, she didn’t deserve such treatment from her husband, and she was his wife now.
He needed to begin acting like it.
She sniffled into his cravat. No doubt the abuse of that piece of fabric would earn him a lecture from his valet. “Please don’t judge me on my choices when you didn’t have to live my life.”
“I would never do that.”
“Above all, I never wanted to be the same sort of woman as my mother, a woman who needed a man to do anything, a woman who let things happen to her instead forging her own path.” She drew in a shaking breath. “I wanted to be more.”
“I fully believe you’ve done that.” Percival held her tighter. He needed her as much as she needed him. “I’ll do better by you. I promise.”
For a long moment she was silent, her fingers curled into his lapels, her head on his shoulder. “No matter how our marriage came about, what’s done is done. Can we not try to make the best of it?” She pulled slightly away in order to peer up into his face. “I’m so tired of the daily fight to survive, to gain acceptance, to overcome scandals, some not of my making.”
