by Merry Farmer
The boy looked so much like him that it had knocked the air out of her lungs. The two were clearly on familiar terms, otherwise the child wouldn’t have run straight into Alex’s arms the second they stepped out of the station. Most telling of all, Alex clearly loved the boy. She’d never seen such joy in his eyes or so bright a smile on his face. Certainly not when he looked at her.
She pressed a hand to her stomach, to the spark of life growing inside of her. Her baby was barely formed, and it already had competition.
“James, would you like to meet someone very special to me?” Alex asked the boy in his arms, his question hesitant.
Marigold blinked rapidly to tamp down her sudden urge to weep. There wasn’t anything to weep about, or so she tried to tell herself. Alex had mentioned a previous relationship. Once. Briefly. Anger welled up in her all the same. They’d been married for six weeks, and not once in all that time had he thought to tell her he had a son.
The boy, James, shifted in Alex’s arms to look at Marigold. He raised a dirty hand and flapped it. “Bye-bye.”
“No, no, hello,” Alex laughed. “It’s hello when we meet someone.”
“Hello,” James said. He turned to Alex. “Cake?”
“We can have cake later,” Alex told him, beaming. “Right now, we need to take you home.”
Marigold swallowed hard, her heart twisting in her chest. The scene in front of her was unbearably sweet. Alex was clearly besotted. But she had never felt more alone. The world she’d entered by marrying Alex wasn’t at all what she’d thought it was. No wonder he’d barely spent more than two minutes talking with her in the past two months. Her father had hinted there was something Alex hadn’t told her, which begged the question, did everyone know about his son but her? Was she a laughingstock? She’d believed she could be the fulcrum of Alex’s universe, his equal partner in all things. Now she felt like an afterthought, an intruder in a world that was already fully formed and functioning without her.
He sent her a guilty look, his smile dropping. “I can explain,” he said, darting an anxious glance to the footmen and carriage that had come to meet them. “Truly, I can. But I need to take James home first.”
“Doesn’t he live at Winterberry Park?” Marigold asked, her voice fragile and wispy, blinking rapidly.
Alex let out a breath. “No, he lives with Rev. Fallon, the local vicar, and his wife and children.”
Marigold swallowed, unsure what to do with the added information. Alex had a child he’d never bothered to mention, and he’d foisted the boy off on another family. The nausea of her own pregnancy swelled, and she felt dizzy.
Alex let out a breath, some tension leaving his shoulders. He stepped closer to Marigold. “Why don’t you take the carriage back to Winterberry Park. I’ll take James home, then I’ll come along and explain.”
Marigold shook her head tightly, not trusting herself to speak until she’d taken a few more breaths. “I’ll come with you,” she said hoarsely.
Alex pursed his lips, looking as anxious as if she’d asked him to walk across fire into a pit of vipers. He glanced to James—who appeared to be more interested in the pin stuck through Alex’s tie than the drama enfolding the adults—then sighed in resignation. “It’s just up this way.”
He marched past Marigold up a gently-sloping hill. His hand moved toward hers, as if he would escort her, but Marigold deftly backed too far out of his reach for him to touch her. His expression hardened as if he knew what that meant, and he walked on.
“We’re going up to the vicarage to return James,” he told his footmen and driver.
“Would you like us to follow you, sir?” the driver asked.
Alex shook his head. “No. Take the trunks home, then bring the buggy ’round the Fallon’s to pick us up.”
“Yes, sir,” all three of the young men replied. They glanced worriedly toward Marigold for a moment before moving on to do as they were told.
The walk up the hill and through the small town of Lanhill was a surprise boon for Marigold. She needed time to steady her breathing, to gather her thoughts, and to pray that her stomach would settle. She needed time to shift her entire world to fit into the new reality that had been thrust upon her. Alex was a stranger. She knew less about him than she did about the clerks who worked in her father’s office. She’d had more conversations with Lavinia’s driver than she had with her own husband. And yet, she’d married Alex. She’d given her body to him—in a closet in the Palace of Westminster, even—she’d conceived his child…and he’d barely told her anything.
Part of her wanted to be furious, but she was beyond even that. She was numb, and felt as though she were walking through a dream, someone else’s dream, as she followed Alex and James through what could have been a charming and beautiful town, if she’d had the focus to take it in. James chattered to Alex with youthful exuberance and a toddler’s vocabulary. It should have been wonderful. It should not have brought Marigold to the edge of tears.
“There you are.” A woman’s alarmed shout jerked Marigold out of her thoughts as they neared a cozy, country church with a house off to one side.
Marigold snapped her head up to find a tall, dark-haired woman with not one, but two newborn infants in her arms. She had circles under her eyes, but still managed to be striking in appearance.
“Clara,” Alex greeted her with a smile. “Having a bit of a rough day?”
“Mr. Croydon, I’m so sorry.” Clara looked as though she might drop from exhaustion and shame. “I don’t know how he slipped away. For once, I thought we had everything under control.”
Marigold’s brow went up slightly at the woman’s accent. She was American, which was unusual enough to break through the shock she was lost in.
“Did you find him?” A man with a strong, English accent was heard just before he stepped through the front door of the house beside the church.
Marigold blinked again. The man wore the high collar of a minister, but his sleeves were rolled up, and he too carried a baby in each arm, somewhat older than the other two. They were both in tears, and as the man joined them on the pavement in front of the house, they set the smaller babies in Clara’s arms to crying as well. Marigold suddenly had an idea why the couple looked so worn out, and how James could have escaped their notice.
“Alex,” the reverend exclaimed with a combination of welcome, panic, and exhaustion. “I’m so sorry. We’ve been looking for James everywhere, but the twins have been a handful today.”
“All of them,” Clara added with a weary laugh, trying to rock both of her infants at once. “Oh, this will never do. Come inside so we can put these ones down and greet you properly.”
“I heard about the new arrivals,” Alex said as he followed the frazzled couple through their front garden and into the tiny cottage. He glanced to Marigold, his expression apologetic. She followed, her lips pressed tightly shut. As soon as they were through the door, he went on with, “For some reason, I didn’t realize it was twins again.”
The reverend laughed humorlessly. “Punishment for our sins, eh?” He broke into a smile as he glanced to the babies in his arms. “And an outstanding blessing.”
“But we didn’t mean to lose track of James,” Clara added as she shifted the two newborns into a wicker bassinet sitting on a table filled with piles of folded nappies. Marigold could only imagine how many they went through in a day with four babies, none of whom looked older than a year and a half.
“Clara, Arthur, I’d like you to meet Marigold Croydon, my beautiful bride.”
Alex’s introduction took Marigold by surprise, and she had to blink herself into full focus. She could only just manage a polite smile. “How do you do?” She began to extend her hand, but wasn’t sure who to offer it to.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Clara came forward, a warm and welcoming smile on her weary face. She took Marigold’s hand and shook it with American enthusiasm. “We were so pleased when we heard Mr. Croydon was marryin
g at last.”
“We’ve been looking forward to meeting you since we heard,” Arthur added, handing the two older babies to Clara when she stepped back so that he could shake Marigold’s hand as well. “This is Bonnie and Amelia,” he gestured to the two wailing babies in Clara’s arms. “And causing havoc in the bassinet over there are George and Miles.”
“They’re delightful,” Marigold said, utterly overwhelmed.
“No, they’re not,” Clara laughed. “At the moment, they’re a pack of howling wolf pups ready for their supper. You’ve caught us as a bad time, I’m afraid.”
“Not at all,” Marigold lied, falling back on every bit of rigid politeness that had been drummed into her in finishing school. She wasn’t sure she could have withstood the chaos—both of the Fallons’ house and of her own inner turmoil—if she hadn’t.
Alex had set James down, and the boy had immediately grabbed his hand and dragged him to one side of the room to see a collection of stuffed toys. His full attention was on his son’s jabbered explanation. Both sets of twins were screaming and crying, reflecting everything Marigold was trying so hard to hide.
“Oh, dear,” Clara murmured. “Arthur, take the girls.” She shuffled the babies back into Arthur’s arms, then rushed forward to put an arm around Marigold’s shoulders. “It’s a lot of noise and mess, I know. The kitchen is much tidier, and I need to feed everyone anyhow.”
Before she knew it, Marigold was swept out of the main room of the cottage and into the kitchen off to one side. It may have been tidier than the rest of the house, but that wasn’t saying much. Dishes and pots sat on the counters, clean but not put away. The table held an army of bottles and a rack of drying, rubber nipples. Piles of laundry sat in one corner. A steaming pot of something was cooking away on the stove.
“We do have help,” Clara explained. “But Missy has gone home for the day. That’s why supper is always the trickiest time.”
It was too much. The mess and the noise, the unfamiliar surroundings and the faint smell of burning. It piled in around Marigold, making her feel like a fish that had been wrenched out of water and left to flap away on land without notice.
“He didn’t tell me,” she gasped, her face pinching as she fought desperately not to burst into tears in front of yet another person she didn’t know at all. “He didn’t say a bloody word.”
“He didn’t what?” Clara glanced over her shoulder from the stove, where she moved the pot to a cooler burner. She let go of the pot and rushed back to Marigold. “Oh, no.” She threw her arms around Marigold as if they’d been friends their whole lives.
Marigold wasn’t sure she liked the sudden, stifling embrace of a strange woman who was nearly a foot taller than her, but she would take whatever comfort she could get. “He didn’t tell me he had a son.”
Clara made a sound of sympathy and hugged her tighter. As much as she appreciated it, Marigold had to wrench free of her embrace to stop the wave of nausea that threatened to embarrass her.
“We rushed into everything,” she went on, just needing to get it out at once. “I barely know who he is. What was I thinking?” Panic rose through her so fast that she had no choice but to lunge forward, darting through the door that stood open, leading out to the back garden, where she promptly tossed her stomach onto the grass.
Clara rushed after her, gathering her into her arms and leading her a few steps farther into the garden to a bench in the shade of a tree. She’d thought fast enough to bring a damp rag with her, which Marigold used to wipe her mouth, and then her tears.
“I don’t know how a man could marry a woman without disclosing his son,” Clara said, somewhat awkwardly. She rubbed Marigold’s back. “But Mr. Croydon is a good man. I’m sure everything will be all right.”
Marigold shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut and praying that one short burst of crying was enough to get it out, and that she could summon the strength to make it through at least the rest of the day in once piece. “I’ve only known him since the beginning of May,” she said, her shoulders sagging. “I was flattered by his attention and aroused by his presence.” She’d just vomited in Clara’s garden and wept all over her while spilling her unfortunate business. There didn’t seem much point in holding the truth back from the woman. “I don’t really know who he is, and I’m married to him.”
“Poor dear.” Clara continued to rub her back. “Marriage is such a gamble to begin with. But maybe it’s not as bad as all that.”
Marigold glanced wearily toward her.
“At least he only failed to mention James,” Clara went on. “It’s not like he failed to mention a mistress and six kids, all of whom depend on him.”
It was not what Marigold wanted to hear. She stared at Clara in disbelief…then laughed. The reaction came out of nowhere. It wasn’t truly a reflection of how she felt. But Clara’s statement had been so baldly American and so blunt that Marigold couldn't help but laugh until her tears were flowing again. And oddly, it was just the thing she needed to break through the overwhelming shock that had her in its grip.
“It will be all right,” Clara laughed along with her. “And if it isn’t, well, we could use an extra pair of hands around here, if you need somewhere to go to get away from it all.”
Marigold gulped in a few breaths and wiped her face with the damp rag once more. “Thank you. And where are my manners? Can I help you with supper?”
They both stood. Clara looked bashful as she said, “Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t dream of asking the wife of a wealthy MP, who obviously comes from class herself, and who is so distraught, to help with my meager supper preparations….”
“But you could use an extra hand,” Marigold finished for her. “I’m glad to help.”
They headed back into the kitchen. It was completely mad. She was utterly out of her depth. Clara was exactly the opposite of every richly born woman who had ever been her friend and her kitchen might as well have been a different planet. But as she helped Clara spoon out porridge for the older babies, cooling and fortifying it with milk, then cutting vegetables for the stew Clara and Arthur would eat for supper, the initial misery of her sudden shift in reality smoothed out.
By the time the buggy arrived from Winterberry Park and she returned to the main part of the cottage to face Alex again, she felt far more in control of her faculties and far less likely to either beat Alex senseless or collapse into a veil of tears. She said goodbye to Clara and Arthur, their babies, and James with the politeness that had been instilled in her, then followed Alex out to the buggy.
Alex remained silent as he handed her into the buggy and settled beside her. Marigold didn’t trust herself to look at him, so kept her gaze straight forward as the driver flicked the reins and they lurched forward. Her arm was pressed against Alex’s out of necessity in the small buggy, but she couldn’t quite stomach the thought of him touching her.
“His mother, Violetta, was an Italian actress with whom I had a long-lasting relationship,” Alex said at last with a heavy sigh. “She died nearly three years ago, due to complications after James’s birth. Something about the placenta not being fully expelled and rotting inside of her.”
Marigold’s body went rigid, and she clutched her hands in front of her. “Did you have any other children?”
“No,” he answered quietly. “To be honest, she didn’t think she could. James was a surprise to both of us.”
Silence fell between them. Marigold’s heart pounded against her ribs. With every beat, she ached to demand why he hadn’t told her sooner, why she’d had to find out without a shred of warning or preparation. She was too overwhelmed to form the question, though.
“It was years ago,” Alex resumed, rubbing a hand over his face and resting his elbow against the edge of the buggy. “Violetta is the reason I never married, or the reason I didn’t marry sooner.”
A fresh wave of anger and despair swept through Marigold, heating her face. Had he loved her? Did he love her stil
l? Would he always love her?
“I should have told you sooner,” he murmured.
“Yes, you should have,” Marigold said with a burst of vehemence. She squeezed her eyes shut and looked away from him, out over the sun-kissed, Wiltshire countryside. It was beautiful, but they might as well have been in a bog in the rain. A rush of homesickness for London and the familiar threatened to crush her. “What else don’t I know about you?” she asked through clenched teeth.
“Marigold,” he began, both apologetic and impatient, reaching for her hand.
She tugged hers out of his grasp. “What else have you failed to mention to me? Do you have a harem of dusky beauties in your back garden? Do you keep elephants in your stable? Have you penned a series of scandalous novels under a secret name?”
“I’m sorry,” he implored her. “I am completely at fault here. It’s unforgivable that I forgot to tell you about James. I’ve been so swept up in parliamentary business lately. The bill for women’s rights is so important to me, and Turpin has been such a thorn in my side that I—” He gave up his explanation with a sigh, shaking his head and burying his face in his hand. “I’m sorry.”
Marigold remained silent. Her anger faded quickly. He truly was a busy and important man, and she’d known that from the day she met him. She hadn’t exactly been reasonable and circumspect when it came to planning their wedding, and she hadn’t been pushed down the aisle. Lying by omission about his son was Alex’s fault, but rushing into a marriage with a man she barely knew was hers. And of course a man of Alex’s age and experience would have a past and its consequences.
That didn’t lessen the sting of her situation, though. Her shoulders sagged as they approached a palatial mansion set on a gentle slope. Winterberry Park was surrounded by trees, and Marigold caught glimpses of vast gardens stretching out to either side. Under any other circumstances, her new home would have filled her with awe and excitement. She was to be mistress of everything before her. But all she could feel was a longing for London, for her father and Lavinia and the things she knew.
