Dangerous to Love

by Rexanne Becnel

  "Can you honestly blame him for feeling that way?"

  The other woman's chin jerked up and for a moment a fierce blue light glittered in her aged eyes. But then it went out, and that fast Lucy watched as the dowager countess wilted.

  "No," the old woman answered. "I do not blame him. But I wish ..." She trailed off, shaking her head. Then she rallied. "It does not matter what I wish or whether he is angry or not. The fact remains that you carry the next Earl of Westcott."

  "But it does matter," Lucy countered, forcing herself to a more erect position in the chair. "He is no longer angry over the child, but he will be furious when he learns I am here."

  Again the woman sighed. She gripped the head of her cane tighter. "I am aware that he does not want me to have anything to do with this child, and I know all his reasons why. He thinks I neglected him by providing him with a superior education. He thinks I was wrong to make him heir to a fortune. He thinks—"

  "You neglected him when you tore him from his mother's arms and gave him no one to love in her place. And no one to love him back."

  "She was a whore," Antonia muttered. "A filthy Gypsy whore who tried to blackmail my son."

  "But that was never Ivan's fault!" Lucy cried. "It was not his fault, and yet he is the one who has most suffered. You were two grown women who should have looked out for his well-being, but neither of you did. Nor did his father."

  "He was well fed, well clothed, and well educated!"

  "None of that will ever make up for not being loved. Even now—" She broke off, then reconsidered. She swallowed hard and continued in a more subdued voice. "Even now he will not let me love him. Physically, yes. But not emotionally. I think he is terrified that he might have to love me back. Terrified. And that he will love this baby we've made."

  Her hand moved to cover her stomach, to caress the place where their child lay, quietly growing inside her. "Would it have been so hard for you to have loved a frightened little boy? Of all the things he needed from you, that was by far the most important," she finished, her voice trem bling.

  In the silence that followed, Lady Westcott sat stone-faced, as if impervious to Lucy's words. Lucy's heart ached for her almost as much as it did for Ivan. They were two proud, stubborn people—and two of the loneliest people she'd ever known.

  Lucy pushed to her feet. "I believe I'd like to retire to my bed now. Could you send in a maid to assist me?"

  Lady Westcott rose slowly. Lucy could read nothing in her face; she could see nothing in its fixed expression. How alike they were, Ivan and his grandmother. Just as he'd inherited her ice-blue eyes, so had he inherited her iron will, her arrogance, and her inability to love those who most needed it from her.

  Tears stung her eyes and she turned away from the dowager countess, not wanting her to see. She heard the woman leave. She heard a maid enter and with a minimum of discussion Lucy cooperated with her. But once she was tucked into the high bed—the one she'd shared so briefly with Ivan—she could no longer hold back her emotions.

  She rolled onto her stomach, buried her face in the soft linen-encased pillow, and cried as she'd never cried before. Hard tears. Bitter tears. Sad tears that were wrenched from the deepest part of her heart. She cried for Ivan and his grandmother, and the love they were unable either to give or receive. She cried for herself, for her loneliness and unrequited love.

  But most of all she cried for her unborn child, her unborn child whom she already loved but whom she feared would always suffer for the lack of his father's love and attention.

  Lucy felt wretched in the morning, even more so than usual. As on the previous day, her nausea would not relent, and she spent most of the morning in her room, trying desperately to relax so that the dizzying waves would recede.

  When that did not help, she resolved to go outside, to sit on the terrace and read. But that made it even worse. Her stomach was in such a tenuous and unsettled state she feared she could not control it, and that she would embarrass herself in front of everyone. Antonia, though sympathetic, understood the trials of impending motherhood. Young Derek, however, could not hide his worry.

  "Can I bring you a pillow?" he asked, his face screwed up in concern. "Would you like something to drink?"

  "Thank you, dear, but no. I'm surprised you are not down at the stables," Lucy added. She bit her cheek as a particularly cruel spasm left her dizzy and wanting to retch.

  Derek's expression turned to alarm. He whirled toward Lady Antonia, who sat in a chair in the afternoon sun, just beginning to doze off. "Lady Westcott! Help her. Please, help her!"

  "God in heaven! Help who?" the old woman cried, startled awake. "Oh. Lucy. Do you need help, girl?"

  A chill ran through Lucy and she shuddered. "Perhaps ... Perhaps I should return to my room. If I lie down a while ..."

  By dusk Lucy began to fear the worst. The nausea had ended, to be replaced abruptly by severe stomach cramps. Lady Antonia sent for her doctor, as well as the village midwife. Derek was banished from the sickroom, but Antonia never left Lucy's side.

  Lucy was more grateful for the older woman's presence than she could properly express. Whether for the right reason or wrong, here was one person who cared just as much as she for the tiny baby inside her. Here was one person who would grieve just as deeply as she should something happen...

  "Am I losing him?" Lucy whispered. She'd tried not to put words to her fears, but she could no longer hold them back. The pain in her womb was nothing compared to the pain squeezing her heart at the thought of so dire a possibility.

  "We don't know. We can't be sure," Antonia said, gripping Lucy's hand with surprising strength. The old woman hesitated before adding in a cracked voice, "I've sent for your mother."

  Lucy closed her eyes and turned her face away. A chill crawled down her spine. It must be very bad if the dowager countess had sent for her mother. But there was someone else whose presence she wanted even more than her mother's. She wanted Ivan. She needed him to be here with her. .

  "No need for alarm, Lady Westcott," the doctor said, trying to sound encouraging. "This is regretful, I know. But you are young. There will be other children."

  "No," Lucy whispered, then was unable to continue. No, I am not young, and there will be no other children. Ivan didn't want this one. He certainly will take precautions to ensure there will be no others.

  Suddenly a cramp worse than all the others, a sharp slicing pain, ripped through her, banishing all thoughts save that of surviving it. Something wet seeped between her legs—her child's lifeblood, she realized in horror. In that moment, Lucy wanted to die also.

  She'd wanted this baby so much. She'd wanted to love him and guide him, and hoped that he or she would teach Ivan how to love. But that pretty dream was gone, shredded by the pains that racked her now, drowned in the warm blood that gathered beneath her and pooled in the bed linens.

  The doctor and midwife worked together to clean her and staunch the bleeding. Antonia never budged from her bedside nor released her hand. Maids rushed in and out of the overheated room carrying in hot water and fresh linens, carrying away bloodied sheets and towels, and then, sometime around midnight, the tiny wrapped bundle that Lucy knew was her child.

  She knew because of the way the midwife held it so respectfully, how she looked at it so sorrowfully, then looked up at Lucy with tears running down her face.

  Again Lucy closed her eyes and turned her face away. The pain was over—at least the physical pain. But a new sort of pain, one formed of emptiness and loss, filled the space where the other pain had been. She'd lost her child, the miraculous being she and Ivan had created. But she'd also lost Ivan, she knew. Not that she'd ever truly had him. But she'd lost what little chance she'd had with him.

  Sorrow welled up inside her, filling every portion of her being until she could hardly breathe. More than anything she needed to cry, to let loose all the awful emotions that clawed at her insides. But the tears would not come. She was like a stoppered bottle,
and all she could do was shake. She let go of Antonia's hand and rolled onto her side, facing the wall.

  "She needs her rest," the doctor said. "Just let her be. She feels awful now, but in a few days she'll be better."

  "Someone should sit with her," the midwife told him. "She shouldn't be alone right now."

  "Nonsense. She's young and strong, and she did not hemorrhage. What she needs is sleep."

  "Her heart is broken," the midwife argued.

  "I shall stay with her." The dowager countess's tone brooked no argument. With only a bit of grumbling the doctor collected his bag and left. The midwife followed but only after leaning over Lucy to whisper, "Go ahead and grieve, child. Go ahead and grieve for your little boy. God took him up to heaven because he needed him more than you do. It don't seem that way right now, I know. But God will bless you in another way. At another time."

  Lucy nodded. But inside she didn't believe the kind-hearted woman's words. She couldn't.

  The lamps were lowered. The door closed behind the last maid, and a grim silence settled over the room.

  Lucy felt drained, and moving was a torture. Thinking was even worse. But she made herself roll onto her back and look at Antonia. The old woman's face was devoid of any color save, perhaps, for gray. She'd never looked older or frailer, and it gave Lucy a fright.

  "You need not sit with me any longer. Go and seek your own bed," she murmured, patting the woman's hand. "As the doctor said, I'll be all right."

  The old woman stared at her, and in the other woman's eyes Lucy saw a sorrow to match her own. It was a comfort, but it added also to her own pain.

  "I'm sorry, child," Antonia whispered. She shook her head back and forth, slowly, as if it were too heavy to balance on her birdlike frame. "I'm so sorry."

  "I know," Lucy said. "But we cannot undo what has been done. Sitting here with me... making yourself ill over what has happened ... will change nothing. Go to bed. You need your rest."

  Antonia gripped her hand even tighter. "Don't you worry yourself over me. I'm just going to sit here a little while longer. Just a little while longer."

  Ivan stood in the foyer, staring up the broad stairs. He'd just arrived after riding like a madman all the way from town. He'd been furious when he'd received her post, stating that she was departing for Dorset—and his grandmother's sickbed. But as he'd come storming in the doctor and midwife had been leaving.

  Now, horrified and drained of all emotion, he could only stare up the stairs. Lucy was up there somewhere. His wife, who needed his comfort. The thought of seeing her so helpless, though, so sad and heartbroken as the midwife had said she was ... It terrified him to imagine it.

  He stood there, knowing he should go to her, knowing he should rush to her side and let her cry in his arms, but he couldn't do it. His legs shook too much to manage the stairs. His hands trembled too violently to offer her any comfort. And he was sweating like a man being marched to the gallows.

  She wouldn't want to see him anyway, he told himself. She needed a woman's comfort. But not his grandmother's. That one didn't know how to offer comfort to anyone. Lucy needed her own mother. Why in blazes wasn't the woman here?

  A movement in the shadows alongside the stairs drew his attention. It was Derek, Lucy's nephew, and he appeared to have been crying. The boy looked fearfully at Ivan as he swiped his eyes with the cuff of one sleeve. "Is Aunt Lucy ... Is she all right?"

  A tremor rippled through Ivan, a tremor of fear and sadness and self-revulsion. "She's better," he managed to say.

  An expression of relief rushed over the boy's face. Then he frowned. "What of... you know, the baby?"

  An acute pain, unlike anything Ivan had ever known, squeezed his chest. The baby. His baby. Their baby.

  "The baby did not... survive."

  Derek approached him, his footsteps echoing hollowly in the empty foyer. The dim light from the one wall lamp still burning made him look younger than he was, yet somehow also even older and wiser than Ivan himself.

  When the boy stretched out his hand, Ivan took it. "I'm sorry about your baby. Lucy would've made a very good mother—" His young voice broke and tears filled his eyes. "She's always been good to me. And more than fair."

  Something seemed to break in Ivan's heart. He could barely speak. "She's been good to me too. And more than fair. Much more than fair." Then he pulled Derek into his arms and held him while the boy cried.

  "She's going to recover," he murmured into the boy's silky fine hair. "The doctor and the midwife both said so. In just a few days she'll be up and moving about," he added, praying he did not lie.

  "Yes, but... but when this happened to my mother, she ... she was sad and cried for a long time."

  "Then it's up to us to try to make Lucy happy," Ivan said.

  Derek pulled out of his arms, sniffling and wiping his eyes. "How do we do that?"

  Ivan looked past the boy and up the darkened stairwell to where Lucy lay. His Lucy.

  "I'm not sure, Derek. For now, let's get you to bed. Then I'll go see her."

  "Can I see her too?"

  Ivan wanted to say yes. He wanted some buffer between him and Lucy, for the idea of seeing her alone terrified him. He'd never had to comfort a woman who'd just lost her child. He'd never known a woman who cared particularly for children. Not his mother or his grandmother, anyway. But Lucy did. Still, he forced himself to turn down Derek's request.

  "Tomorrow, if she's up to visitors, you can see her. For now, go to bed. You need to be strong for her in the days to come," he added when the boy yawned.

  They went up the stairs together. The boy's room was near Lucy's room, and once the door closed behind Derek, Ivan had no further excuses. He stared at Lucy's door, at the weak light that flickered beneath the tall oak panel, and sucked in a harsh breath.

  When he'd received her letter saying she was leaving Houghton Hall, he'd been outraged that she would turn to his grandmother during her confinement. He'd meant to pack her right back to Somerset and her parents' home, with strict orders that she stay there.

  To learn that she'd lost the child ...

  He was stunned. Devastated.

  He should feel relief, he told himself. But he didn't. Whether this unexpected sorrow was for the lost child or for his grieving wife, however, he couldn't say. Nor did he want to examine his feelings too closely to find out.

  He took another breath and forced any stray emotions back into the recesses of his heart. He needed to be calm and strong for her. That's what she needed from him. As for the future... The future would be upon them soon enough.

  Lucy was dreaming, and in her dream Ivan was there. She heard his voice whispering in her ear. She felt his hand twining with her own.

  Her fingers twitched and a hand immediately covered them. But it was a small hand, not Ivan's larger one. And it was cold and frail, not warm and strong.

  She struggled to right the dream, to make it better. Happier. But Ivan's voice intruded and it was angry, not kind.

  "Get away from her. Get the hell away from my wife."

  The hand clenched hers tighter, almost painfully, and Lucy startled awake. Through bleary eyes the room came into focus. Ivan stood just inside the door, glaring at his grandmother who sat beside the bed, still holding Lucy's hand as she had throughout the long, torturous evening.

  For one intense moment Lucy was overcome with joy. He was here. She wanted to fall into his arms, weep with thankfulness, and never let go of him.

  But that moment disappeared when the old woman's hand began to shake. Lucy could not mistake that emotional trembling. She tore her eyes from Ivan to stare at the count ess.

  Antonia was old and exhausted, and no match for Ivan's furious temper, Lucy realized. Neither was she. But still, Lucy could not allow Ivan to destroy the one person who had stood by her in this, the worst ordeal of her life.

  "No, Ivan," she said, though it emerged as a weak croak. "No. I want her here. I need her here."

  He flinch
ed. It was almost as if she'd slapped him, and Lucy regretted that her words must hurt him so badly. But she couldn't bear being the bone they fought over, like two fierce dogs.

  "Please. For once ... For me .... Can't you put aside your animosity?" Her eyes fell closed and tears leaked from beneath her lashes. She couldn't bear any more today.

  Antonia squeezed her hand, then released it. "I'll leave the two of you alone," she said in a voice cracking with emotion. "If you need me you have only to ring."

  Lucy watched through blurry eyes as the old woman walked away. Hobbled away. She was bent over her cane and moved slower than ever. When she passed Ivan, she paused.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered to her unrelenting grandson. "So sorry." Then, when she had no response from him, she shuffled from the room.

  Lucy started to cry. She couldn't help it. After a moment Ivan approached the bed. But he didn't touch her. He seemed frozen in indecision.

  "Are you all right?"

  Lucy shook her head. She couldn't speak.

  "Is there anything I can do for you?"

  Hold me. Love me. That's what she wanted to say, and for a moment she almost did. But a part of her knew that would not be fair to him. He would take her in his arms because he would have no other choice. And though it would be heaven to have Ivan hold her, it would be hell knowing he saw it only as his duty.

  "Lucy?" He moved nearer the bed, then, after a moment, sat down in the chair his grandmother had vacated. He reached out, and when his hand covered her knotted fist, she cried all the harder.

  "I'm sorry," he whispered, leaning close to the bed. "I'm sorry, Lucy. I should have been here with you."

  She scrubbed her already damp sleeve across her face and tried to catch her breath. "You couldn't... couldn't have known."