His thumb rubbed across her knuckles, a movement at once both soothing and unsettling. She blinked and looked up at him.
He was more disheveled than she'd ever seen him. His dark curls were rumpled and wild as if he'd run his hands distractedly through them. He wore no coat, his waistcoat hung open, and his collar was missing. The shadow of a beard emphasized the deep lines of weariness in his face. And of worry.
Had he been worried for their child? For a moment hope flared in Lucy's heart, like a tiny light in the darkness. But it was snuffed out when a grimmer reality struck her. He hadn't been worried for the child, but for her. He'd never wanted their child. But though he might not love her, he did feel something for her, and he would not wish her ill.
She found little comfort in that knowledge, however. She needed him to mourn their child with her, to share this terrible sense of loss with her. But she knew he could not.
Somehow she managed to speak. "I'm tired. I want to sleep." Then unable to continue, she turned away, closed her eyes, and prayed for sleep. For oblivion. For anything that would provide a reprieve from the reality of her unhappy existence.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Four Ivan sat with Lucy until dawn. She lay perfectly still, and her hands were cold. But her pulse was steady. Still, her breathing was so shallow, he had to lean forward to check the rise and fall of her chest.
And the whole time he was tortured by images of his life without her, of long, lonely years with no one to give a damn about him. He'd lived that way all his life. He didn't want to live that way any longer.
Not that she loved him—-especially now. Not that he wanted her to. But she was softhearted and she would only want the best for him. That much he knew. With time— and luck—he hoped he would be able to restore her faith in him.
But he would have to make some concessions to her. He would have to find a place in his life for her, a regular place in one of his houses—but one that his grandmother had no rights to.
He clenched his jaw. He would take a house for them, just the two of them. Yes, once she was well enough to travel, he would take her away from here, from the bad memories they both had of this place, and of the woman who was the cause of it all. .
The room brightened slowly, and as it did, so did Ivan's spirits. Lucy's cheeks held a hint of color now. Her hands were no longer so cold. He stared at her, at the dark crescent her thick lashes made on her pale skin, at the tangle of hair that fanned across the pillow.
He'd been the worst sort of husband, neglectful and cruel. But he meant to do better. He meant to make her happy.
But what if she wanted another child?
A chill ran through him. It was not because he didn't want children, though, much to his own surprise. He could live with the idea of children, he realized. But the thought of Lucy chancing this sorrow again, this pain ... Women died trying to give birth.
Once more he shivered. He couldn't bear the idea of Lucy taking that risk again.
A soft rap sounded at the door. But it was not the maid, nor young Derek. It was his grandmother's face that appeared around the door, and his mood darkened at the sight.
"How is she?" she asked without venturing into the room.
Ivan stood and advanced on her. "She seems all right, no thanks to you," he added bitterly. "What were you thinking, summoning her here when you knew she was in so delicate a condition? Damn you," he hissed. "Have you ever in your entire life considered anyone's needs but your own?"
It was a curious thing, after all these years, to see her flinch at his words. To know at last that he'd hurt her. As a hot wind fed a fire, so did that knowledge fuel his anger to greater heights.
"You summoned her here and now she has lost the very child you've wanted for so long. Or perhaps you didn't want it at all. Perhaps you didn't want me wed so that I could provide you with an heir—a legitimate heir. Perhaps all you really wanted was someone new to make miserable. Someone new to torture. Behold, madam, the results of your handiwork."
He gestured toward the bed, toward his sweet Lucy who deserved none of the misery that had been heaped upon her. His hand began to shake so he tightened it into a fist.
"You have killed my child. You have very nearly killed my wife. Are you content now? Will you ever be content!"
Lucy woke to hear the last of Ivan's tormented words. She was groggy. She felt heavy and compressed, as if she were weighted down on the bed. Something was wrong, that was plain. Then she remembered where she was, and why, and sorrow constricted her chest.
Her child was gone. And Ivan blamed his grandmother.
"No." Lucy's voice was weak and cracking, but Ivan heard and turned abruptly to face her. She could not make out his expression, for he was backlit by the window. But his voice, when he addressed her, was as gentle as it had been cruel when he spoke to his grandmother. His face was wary and hopeful and oh, so welcome to her. Last night she had needed him desperately. But at least he was here now.
"How are you feeling? Can I get you anything?"
Lucy stared up at him. "Don't blame her, Ivan. I beg you. This is not of her doing."
He shook his head. "Don't defend her, Lucy. You don't know her as I do. When she learned you were expecting a child—her heir—she wanted you here. She wrote you and you came."
"She wrote me, yes. But she didn't summon me. I came because she was ill—"
"As she knew you would." He broke off with a curse. "I don't want you to think about this, Lucy. We'll have time to discuss things after you're well Until then ..." He turned to stare coldly at his grandmother, who stood in the doorway still, leaning heavily on her cane and holding a candle in her other, trembling hand. "Until then, you will keep your distance from her." He bit the words out to the dowager countess.
"Ivan, no," Lucy begged.
But he did not heed her words. He glared at his grandmother until she backed from the room, an old, beaten woman he'd finally managed to best. Even when the door closed with a hallow metallic click and he turned finally back to face her, Ivan would not hear Lucy's words.
"You mustn't blame her for this."
"She deserves none of your worry. I don't want you to concern yourself with her any more."
"But Ivan—"
"No," he stated, frowning at her. "We're not going to discuss her further. You're the one who's ill. You're the one we have to strengthen."
He rang for a maid and in the ensuing hours Lucy had no opportunity to talk with him at all. Instead she was bathed, dressed in fresh nightclothes, and had her hair combed. A breakfast was brought up to her, along with a selection of books and newspapers to read. Ivan left her to the maids. When the doctor arrived around noon to examine her, Ivan came into the room as well. But when the doctor departed, with assurances that a week of bed rest was all she needed, Ivan departed too.
Lucy was left clean and well fed—though she had no interest in food—and given strict orders to rest. But she feared she'd never be able to sleep, so consumed was she by unhappy thoughts. She stared around the elaborately painted bedchamber, at the gold leaf and elaborate tapestries and portraits of former inhabitants, and felt even worse.
She didn't belong here. She was not meant to be a countess. Nor was she meant to be a mother, it seemed. At that thought she began silently to weep. No child. No husband either, at least not one who truly wanted the role.
Eventually she did fall asleep on her damp pillow. She dreamed of birthday parties, of a little boy turning five and a little girl who was two. And for a short while, at least, she was happy.
When she awoke she was completely disoriented and her head ached. Stronger than those ailments, however, was a profound need to get out of her bed and out of this room.
She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the high bed. When she tried to stand, however, her knees nearly buckled beneath her. She'd never before felt so weak. Still, she persisted. She found her dressing gown and managed to put it on. Then moving slowly, on legs that f
elt none too secure, she made her shaky way to the door.
To her surprise, young Derek sat on the floor just outside her door, playing with a half-grown kitten. When he spied her he jumped to his feet, a relieved grin on his face. "You're better, then?" he asked hopefully.
Lucy managed a smile. "Better, yes. But still a little weak. Will you help me?"
At once he slipped an arm around her waist. He was only nine but he was sturdy, and Lucy was grateful for his assistance. "Do you know where Lady Westcott is?"
"Taken to her bed."
She'd feared that very thing. "And Ivan?" she asked after a brief hesitation.
Derek's face screwed up in a frown. "He took one of the hunters out, the strongest, fastest one, the stablemaster said. I hope he doesn't run it too hard."
Lucy hugged Derek a little closer. "He's very good with horses," she whispered, past the lump in her throat. "You needn't worry over that."
At Lady Westcott's door Lucy bade Derek wait outside. There was no answer when she knocked, but she went in anyway. The room was dim, with no candles lit and the curtains drawn against the day. Despite the poor light and the fact that the bed linens swallowed the old woman up, Lucy made out her frail form in the bed. She looked very nearly dead.
Alarmed, Lucy's hand went to her throat. "Lady Antonia?"
The old woman turned her head. When she recognized Lucy she struggled to sit upright. "You should not be up. The doctor said a week of bed rest."
"I was worried about you. And about Ivan," Lucy added as she lowered herself gingerly into an arm chair beside the bed.
Antonia sank back into her pillows. "Don't worry about me," she said in a tired voice. "I am old. I'm ready to die. As for him." She paused to control the quaver in her voice. "As for him, he has his hate to give him sustenance."
For a long moment Lucy did not reply. Then she sighed. "Is that so very surprising? It's all he's ever had to give him sustenance."
The dowager countess turned her face away, and Lucy didn't think she would respond. But she was mistaken. "I don't blame him," the woman murmured. "But I don't know how to undo what I have done. I don't know how to repair the damage I have wrought. It's too late," she finished in the barest of whispers.
"Tell him you are sorry," Lucy urged. She leaned for ward and laid a hand on the old woman's arm. "Tell him you are sorry."
This time there was no reply. Lucy sat there a while in silence, her hand resting on the old woman's arm. When it seemed that she slept Lucy finally left, more exhausted that before, and in no better spirits than when she came. There was such sadness in this house—in this family. And now there was a new sadness.
Derek helped her back to her room then, at her invitation, sat with her a while. He read to her—good practice for him and a distraction for her. She didn't want to be alone. When a clatter of hooves in the yard heralded Ivan's return, however, she nodded at Derek's hopeful look.
"Go on, then. But Derek—" She hesitated. Still there was no avoiding what must be done. "Ask him to come to me, would you? He and I... We need to talk."
It was twenty minutes before Ivan came. Twenty minutes that felt like twenty hours. She wasn't sure what she meant to say. No, that was not precisely accurate. She was sure what she had to say. She just didn't know how she would say it.
He came in without knocking, startling her with his sudden presence. She sat in the bed, propped up with pillows, looking perfectly pathetic, she realized, in contrast to his overwhelmingly masculine vitality. He was windblown and disheveled from his ride, of course, and dressed more like a groomsman than master of the house. A Gypsy groomsman, with his diamond earring glinting at her.
He was neither Gypsy nor lord though, but rather an uneasy mix of the two. As she stared longingly at him, she feared that he would never be entirely happy. Most certainly she was not the person who could make him so.
"Thank you for coming," she said when he did not venture any farther into the room. "I thought we needed to talk."
He flexed his gloved hands. "Derek told me you went to her room. If you plan to plead her case, save your breath."
Lucy shook her head. He was so filled with hatred it made her want to weep. She swallowed the lump of emotions caught in her throat. "I want to talk about us. About our marriage."
If anything, he became even more wary. "What about it?"
Lucy could feel herself wavering. Even though it would be the best thing for everyone concerned, she didn't want to say it.
"We should never have wed," she finally blurted out. "You know it; I know it. Now that... Now that I am no longer pregnant, I release you. You no longer need stay wed to me."
A bitter smile curved his lips, a cold, brittle grimace. "You can't divorce me so easily as that."
"I know that, Ivan," she whispered. "But I also know that you do not love me."
"Since when is love a prerequisite for marriage?"
"Nor do you want to be loved," she said, ignoring his question.
"Again, I ask, what does love have to do with marriage?"
"Oh, God! Must you always be so cynical! Do you want me to concede that you're the only person in the entire world who needs no one, who is perfectly content in being alone? Then I do. I concede it. You need no one at all, least of all a wife. But as for me, I need people. I seed a family. And since you cannot be that for me, since you have never wanted to be that for anyone, then I... I am going back to Somerset, to live with my family. You need not concern yourself with me any longer. I relieve you of that loathsome responsibility," she finished in a whisper.
His expression might have been carved from stone, he looked that hard and unyielding. His leather gloves stretched taut over his knuckles, he clenched his fists so tight. But his face betrayed no emotion. "I told you I would not abandon you, and I meant it. There is no reason we cannot manage as before. Better than before," he amended.
He took a step nearer and his tone softened. "I know this ... this loss hurts you grievously. But you will recover, Lucy. We can recover."
Something in Lucy's heart seemed to twist and tear, and she shook her head helplessly. They would never recover so long as he held his emotions in check and expected her to do the same. "I can't," she whispered. "I just can't." She couldn't live with a man who wouldn't love her, a man who wouldn't hold her when she need to cry. A man who wouldn't cry with her.
I can't. Ivan heard her softly uttered words, and he wanted to run away from them, for they cut him deeper and more cruelly than any words ever said to him.
Go with the nice old lady, Ivan. You'll be better off, his mother had said, then turned away and left.
Ugly Gypsy bastard, his grandmother had said. Take him to Burford Hall.
Filthy little heathen, the headmaster's wife had called him.
But none of them—all those insults he'd hoarded in his heart to steel himself against an unfeeling world—none of them cut him so fiercely as did Lucy's tearful whisper. I just can't.
He could hardly breathe. His chest hurt and he feared for a moment his legs would give out, the pain was so intense.
But he didn't fall. He stood there not moving, not able to move, and stared at the woman who'd gained more power over him than any other. He was a man, fully grown, with money and influence, and more power than any man should have. But with those few words she brought him to his knees. She slew him and yet wept as if she were the one pained by it.
He shuddered and struggled for breath. If nothing else he would keep his pain from her. She would not know what she had done, how much she had hurt him. How much power he'd let her wield over him.
"As you wish," he said, his voice steadier than he'd dared hope. More nonchalant.
She bowed her head. Only then did he dare blink. His eyes stung. Tears? No. But on the remote chance it was tears, he'd better leave.
"As you wish," he repeated. "The traveling coach is at your disposal." Then he turned and stalked to the door, terrified to leave, but even more terrified to s
tay. If he stayed he might break down and beg her not to go. He might beg her not to leave him. He might tell her that he needed her more than he needed anything else in his life.
Outside the door he stopped. His heart thundered and his stomach churned. Would she stay if he confessed how much he needed her? It was not love, but it was the best he could do.
What if it wasn't good enough?
He turned back to her door, then froze at the sound of a step in the hall. Looking up, he spied his grandmother leaning heavily on her cane. She looked thin and frail, almost as tiny as the seven-year-old he'd been when she'd bought him from his mother.
Bought him. Yes, his mother had sold him to his grandmother. But for once he could muster no fury toward either of them. There was no room for fury against either his grandmother or his mother, not when Lucy was set on leaving him.
"I would have a word with you. Just a moment or two of your time," she said. Her voice was hoarse and low as if it pained her to speak.
Ivan's first instinct was to turn away, simply to ignore her, to leave. To get the hell out of this house and all the misery it meant to him. But he stayed because he knew leaving would bring him no reprieve. Still, he did not want to talk to her. Then he spied Derek standing just beyond her, his young face worried and confused.
Unaccountably Ivan recalled something Sir James had said in one of his lectures—it seemed like years ago. Children learned from the adults around them: whether to be honest or not, to be generous or not. To be good or not.
His grandmother didn't matter, but Derek did. Every child did.
Ivan took a slow breath. "Perhaps you should sit down first."
She stared at him, but not with the cold glittering glare he'd always associated with her. At some point the blue of her eyes had faded; the steady stare had become cautious and blinking. But where once he would have gloated, he seemed now to have lost the ability to do so.
He followed her into her sitting room. Derek would have slipped inside with them too, but Ivan stayed him with a hand on the lad's arm.
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