Page 42 of Marry in Secret
Raindrops trickled down the windowpane, gathering in tiny rivulets. She traced them with a finger. “But it did.”
There was a short, shocked silence. “Rose?” He took three steps across the room, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her around to face him. “You hada baby?”
“No. I lost it. I miscarried a few weeks after you... after I heard your ship had gone down.”
He stared at her, dumbfounded, and she shifted under the pressure of his hands on her shoulders. Would he blame her, the way she’d blamed herself? Losing the one small piece of him left to love...
“My God. I had no idea.... Why didn’t you tell me?”
She just looked at him. He hadn’t been there when it happened, and since he got back, where had been the opportunity? She wasn’t even sure it was the right thing to do, to tell him now, on top of his own horrific revelations, when everything was still so uncertain and he was still, apparently, pushing her away. But if she didn’t tell him now, when could she?
Rain pelted cold and relentless against the window.
He drew her to thechaise longueand seated himself beside her, holding her hand tightly in his big rough paw. It was so comforting, and yet it made her want to cry. But she was determined not to cry all over him again.
“Tell me what happened.”
“I was back at school. Lily was out of danger then, but still convalescing at Aunt Dottie’s. At first I didn’t even realize I was with child. If it hadn’t been for one of the maids...”
She turned to him and said almost savagely, “Why is it that girls are never taught anything useful? We’re not even permitted to know how our own bodies work!”
She’d been throwing up into her chamber pot every morning for a week, thinking she was coming down with something—since the mumps outbreak, everyone in the school was very sensitive to any sign of ill health. But the queasiness passed once she’d vomited and so she thought nothing of it—until the next morning, when it returned. And the next... And still she didn’t realize the significance.
Why would she, motherless, and being educated in an establishment staffed by spinsters, where such things were never discussed, never even acknowledged? They probably knew no more than their pupils.
It was Ella, the quiet little maid who lit the fires and scrubbed the floors and emptied the chamber pots who’d first shyly approached her and asked if perhaps miss might be in the family way. Rose had stared at her blankly, and Ella clarified, “Have you lain with a man, miss? Might you have caught a baby?”
Caught a baby?
Ella was the second oldest of ten, and she’d quietly explained that her mum had thrown up just this way, every time a baby started growing inside her.
“I was so happy when I realized it. Your baby, Thomas, our baby. I’d lost you, but you’d left me a little piece of you to love and protect. But then...” Her voice broke.
His arm slipped around her and tightened. “Tell me.” His voice was ragged and deep.
“I lost it.” There was no point going into the gory details. Waking in the night, just before dawn. Cramps, like knives cutting into her. And blood, terrifying blood.
He muttered something she didn’t catch. “Go on.”
“Ella, the maid, helped me through it.”
She’d come into the dormitory at dawn to light the fire and saw what was happening. Her mother had lost several babes too early, and she’d explained to Rose that she was losing the babe.
The pain was bad, but the worst pain of all was knowing she was losing the last remnant of Thomas.
He held her tucked against his chest, just breathing, and they were silent for a long time. She leaned against him. He was so big and warm. She’d forgotten what a comfort it was just to be held.
“I can’t imagine what it must have been like,” he murmured into her hair. “And nobody else knew?”
“Not a soul. You couldn’t keep a secret in that place. They would have thrown me out, married or not, pregnantor not. Miss Mallard’s Seminary for the Daughters of Gentlemen prides itself on keeping young ladies pure, ignorant of anything to do with life and skilled in the more useless feminine arts.”
“You couldn’t tell your family?”
She snorted. “They’d have been just as bad. They would have whisked me off somewhere horrid. You never met Papa, but he was the sort of father who liked hunting and fishing, thought girls were a blasted nuisance and preferred them packed away and out of sight so he didn’t have to bother with them. Cal was away at the war, and my older brother—George’s father—was built in the same mold as Papa, only Henry was lazier and even more selfish.”
She thought about Henry. It occurred to her that she was actually the second one in her family to have made a secret marriage. Though Henry had behaved disgracefully, whereas she... well, the jury was still out on that.
“Do you know, he never met or even acknowledged George, though he did at least marry her mother. I believe her grandfather forced him at gunpoint. But Henry kept the marriage secret and never went near George, left her to make her own way in the world. Cal only found George by accident after Henry died and Cal came back from the war and discovered he’d become the earl.”
