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She flinched, misery piercing her heart and settling deep. “I could not live through such a thing again.”
Theo stilled, then her expression softened. “What do you mean?”
Lucinda met her friend’s stare. “I believed I mentioned I had an affair once…”
“Yes, and it led to your marriage.”
Lucinda swallowed. “The Viscount only offered for me because I revealed I had fallen with child.”
“Oh, Lucinda,” Theo said, holding her hand.
The touch comforted her, even as remembered pain blossomed through her heart. “I…I had all the signs. I missed my courses, my breasts were tender, and I even cast up my accounts a few times. A physician was called, and he confirmed the pregnancy for me. I was…I was so terrified and also happy. Terrified because he and I had only been lovers for a few weeks, and our time together had only been once. I doubted that I was in love with him, but I knew Icouldlove him. He was so pleasing and amiable, and he seemed to dote on me. He was…aghast but determined to be honorable when I told him. You see, he had not wanted to marry. At least not yet. He was only five and twenty, and I think he envisioned himself a bachelor for many more years.”
Lucinda withdrew her fingers from Theo’s hand and wrapped her arms around her middle. She did not understand why revisiting the past ached so much. Her wounds of the heart had long healed or so she told herself. Yet history had repeated itself and now she was pregnant and alone once more.
“Tell me what happened, Lucinda.”
At that soft entreaty, she realized she had been silent with tears rolling down her cheeks. “After only a few weeks of marriage, I realized I was not pregnant. The viscount accused me of trapping him with falsehood. I was angry and mourning, for I was certain I had been with a child. I am still uncertain if I was or if I had suffered a miscarriage. Consulting with at last three physicians gave the same answer. There was no way to confirm either way. Our marriage grew bitter and vile, for he refused to trust in me and the love that had been slowly building between us. We remained apart…until he died. I confess I think he hated me.” She used the back of her hand to wipe the tears from her chin. “I cannot believe I was foolish enough to have repeated my own sad history.”
“Do not say this!” Theo said, her eyes flashing. “You do not know if the earl’s reaction—”
“But I do know!” Lucinda cried. “Our understanding of each other is that neither of us wanted to get married. The earl is three and thirty, a confirmed bachelor and enjoys his life that way. He already has his heir and spare in his two younger brothers. What should I do now that I am with his child? Tell him? With the expectation of what? That he will make me an honorable offer? That he will forgive that I have trapped him?”
“And what if he does?”
“I do not want to be a duty that he will come to resent,” she snapped, unable to see past that fear.
“Lucinda—”
“No, Theo, please, no more. I ask you to keep my confidence in this matter. I am going away for a bit. I shall write to you often, I promise it.”
They spoke long into the night, at times laughing and chatting even if the merriment rang hollow to Lucinda’s ears. She returned home that night and slept alone, praying she had made the right choice. The next day she left town with instructions to her attorney to purchase a small seaside cottage in Hampshire for her and hire the proper staff. There she would bear her child and make plans for the future. Without her lover. If only it wasn’t the most painful thing she had ever committed to doing.
* * *
Dearest Alexander,
When I think of these sweet weeks I have spent with you, I am filled with a happiness I cannot express. I feel the best thing I have ever done was to accidentally climb into your bed. Thank you for the pleasure you gave me in taking me as your lover and for your friendship, it made me the happiest I have ever been. However, the scare that I felt that I might be enceinte with your child, brought me back down to earth with a crash. I realized that affairs cannot continue forever, and I would like to part while we still own to affection and mutual respect.
I am sorry that I did not have the courage to tell you in person and that this letter must suffice in my stead. I apologize for not knowing how these things should be properly arranged, but we have no promises or vows to bind us together, and I am not a particularly expert correspondent, so I hope that you will not be offended by the brevity of this letter. I hope you will forgive me for terminating our liaison which I will always remember with joy.
Yours, Lucinda
The shockof those words stabbed Alexander inside his chest, wounding him in a manner he had never thought possible. Lucinda had ended their affair. The loss that cut through him felt like a poison-tipped dagger, and he tossed aside the letter with the intent to chase her. He had to force himself to stop, recalling the distaste and anger he’d always felt when a lover tried to convince him against his feelings.
It was hard to swallow, for he had fallen in love with Lucinda’s charm, wit, kindness, and beauty. He knew it to be love. The idea had teased in his thoughts several times, and he held himself back, wanting to understand the urges surging to life…and remembering that she did not want to marry.
So he had foolishly decided that they could continue being lovers for several months while he slowly introduced the idea of a more permanent liaison between them. He glanced down at the letter once more, a damn ache growing in his throat.
It was over. She was not with child…and the fright had sent her running. Of course, he would have offered marriage if she had been pregnant, trapping her into a life she did not want. Pain and denial roared through him, and he slammed his fist into the wall, hoping the pain of that physical wound would detract him from the one writhing in his chest cavity.
It did not work. Although the dent he made in the wall bore testament to the violence of his feelings and the bruising and scrapes on his hand throbbed in pain.
For the first time in almost ten years, that night, Alexander got roaring drunk and fell into a deep sleep. Several days later, Alexander found himself carving small wooden animals like the ones his father had made for him when he was a small lad. He had done an elephant, a lion, and a tiger thus far, and he had a whole menagerie planned. He stilled, scrubbing a hand over his face.
What the hell was he doing? It did not escape his awareness that a mad hunger had been seizing him for the last few nights, and he found himself imagining that she was indeed pregnant. The first time it had flashed across his thoughts, he had been gripped with a fierce sense of joy, satisfaction, and possessiveness.
Then it was only this morning he admitted the truth. He wanted it badly. Not just Lucinda and her passion and laughter. He wanted a family with her. Children. The six children she had spoken about with that sadness in her voice. He wanted to give her all her dreams and never see the happiness depart from her eyes. Alexander tossed aside the small animal he was trying to carve and cursed. He had been so convinced that she was also falling in love with him.
