Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Alexander knew he had made a mistake the second he said the words.
They hadn’t quite done the full act—a deliberate move on his part—but they had still come together.
Found pleasure together. She was an innocent, relatively speaking, and she deserved gentleness.
Sweetness! All things he no longer thought himself particularly capable of—but he would have tried. For her…
But all he could think of was his seed in the water, and the fact she lingered in it.
He didn’t rightly know if this would be enough to get her with child, but the irrational fear it might clutched at his chest. In time, of course, he had known he must sire an heir. That was his duty, and part of the reason he was considering keeping Lydia as his wife.
But not yet. Not yet.
He was vastly unprepared to be a father. Unsuited to the task.
His own father had been a short-tempered man, more interested in public image than the realities of raising a son, which he largely left to his wife and servants.
The only time Alexander had ever come into contact with his father was when his father was punishing him for something or insisting he stay away from Helena.
His father had been as addicted to drink as Alexander was to laudanum.
They were both flawed, the difference being that Alexander was attempting to change his life.
But that didn’t change the fact that as he stood, he could not embrace fatherhood.
Any child he brought into the world, he would either hurt by his absence or his very presence.
He could not afford to let lust outweigh these other considerations.
Lydia climbed from the bath, water glistening across her naked body, which she partially attempted to cover with her hands. His cruelty had made her self-conscious when she was lovely in every way.
He had to fix this.
“I’m sorry—” he tried as she found herself a robe and wrapped it around her figure. The material dampened and clung to her body almost instantly, rendering its services unnecessary. She may as well still be naked.
“For what?” she asked, her voice sharp. “Instantly regretting being with me?”
“I-I don’t regret it.” He meant it, too. The experience had certainly shaken something loose within him, leaving him feeling warmer than he could remember since Helena. If only his fears over getting her with child hadn’t ruined it. “I-I merely wanted to ensure you didn’t get with child.”
If anything, that revelation only made her expression colder.
“I see.”
Good God, he was a scoundrel.
He found a rag and cleaned himself off as he stepped out of the tub.
“Forgive me.” As he came into contact with the carpet, he suddenly swayed. His body reminded him with a sick pulse that physical gratification was not the only thing it craved, and now that he had been sated, the cravings returned with renewed vigor.
It had been days—long days—since he had last indulged in laudanum, and as his head throbbed once again, he wondered if this was worth it. Did the pain justify the freedom?
There were other vices he could indulge in…
On that note, he cast about for something to ease the ache, but her room contained no brandy. Nothing. He drew in a shaking breath, attempting to suppress the urge, but it felt as though razors were slicing up his insides.
A man could die from this, he was certain.
A headache slammed behind his eyes, and he blinked several times to clear them.
Lydia’s face came back into view, her anger dissolved into something that looked alarmingly like concern. After all this, and all the ways he had contrived to hurt her, and she still looked at him like that?
He did not deserve it.
But perhaps he could want to deserve it. To deserve her…
“Are you well, Alexander?” she asked, taking a step towards him. He was still utterly unclothed, and in this light, he could see how his addiction had wasted his body. She must have noticed, and it made his cheeks burn in shame. “Is there something I can do to help?”
“I w-wish you could,” he muttered, stepping back clumsily.
“I’m sorry, Lydia. Truly, I am. You—you were incredible.
” He reached out to brush her cheek, and to his surprise, she let him, her eyes wide as he made his uncertain way across her bedchamber to his own, before shutting the door firmly behind him.
There, he slid down the door to the floor, attempting to steady his stomach before he vomited everywhere.
Brandy—that was what he needed.
That would soothe the beast inside him just enough that he could see through the evening, although he couldn’t indulge too far. For Lydia’s sake, if not for Godwin’s.
Crawling desperately across the room to the bottle he kept in his room for these occasions, he lay back on the carpet and stared at the ceiling as he dwelled miserably on the situation he now found himself in, afraid of siring a child with his wife because he had been so thoroughly broken by the events of his past.
Now, Lydia had to pay the price of that.
Maybe it was better for them both if he left her alone.
Only, now, he wasn’t sure he could.
Once he recovered himself and dressed, he knocked on their adjoining door. He wasn’t entirely sure what the purpose would be—to apologize, perhaps even to explain himself a little.
But no matter how many times he knocked, she never answered.
Lydia pasted a false, bright smile on her face as she and Alexander climbed into the carriage that would take them to Mr. Godwin’s house. The night was dark, and it had finally stopped raining. Only a few patches of snow were left, and they were easily navigated past.
If Alexander wanted to send her away, he could now do so perfectly easily. And, given his sudden terror at the prospect of making her with child, he wanted her to leave. After all, it would not do to cast off a pregnant wife.
Casting off a non-pregnant wife, she assumed, was a prospect very much on the table. No matter how much she hated the idea.
Yet there had to be more at play than merely that; for a moment, it had looked as though he would collapse! Not from their intimacy or from fear—at least, so she supposed. He had apologized to her while looking abominably pale, practically swaying on his feet as he made his way to his bedchamber.
He never had told her what battles he was fighting.
“You never answered the door to me,” he murmured, the darkness concealing his expression. They could have chosen to light a lantern, but she preferred this obscurity.
“I did not,” she answered.
“Why?”
Because she had been crying on her bed, pressing her hands against her eyes, clamping her lips tight shut so she would make no sound. She hadn’t even rung for Rosie until she was certain she had found her composure, and she would absolutely not entertain Alexander seeing her in that way.
She didn’t know quite what it was about the experience that made her feel quite so…
vulnerable. Going in, she had been determined that it was a means to an end, a way of proving to him that he would not want to do without her.
And a way of discovering what pleasure could be like with another person.
What she had discovered had been so, so much more…
She had seen glimpses of the man she had first formed a tendre for, and in having him touch her the way he had, she had yielded parts of herself to him. What had begun as a power play in which she felt as though she was the victor had turned into something far different.
He had emerged the victor, and she had been forever changed.
Yet there had been, for a moment, a time when she had thought their experiences together had touched him as much as they had touched her. As though he had been shocked by the sheer force of his reaction to her.
Perhaps it truly was a physical itch for him, easily scratched by another lady.
The thought felt a little too sharp to easily swallow.
“Well?” he prompted. “I wanted to apologize.”
“You may do so now, if you wish.”
He sighed. “I am sorry. The way I approached the subject—we ought to have discussed these things in advance.”
“You mean your disinclination to get me with child?” The hurt coalesced in her throat. “I’m good enough to bed, but not good enough to be the mother of your children. Is that right?”
She heard the way his jaw snapped together. “If that were the case, I would be far more free with my favors.”
“Excuse me?”
“The reason I don’t want to sire a child at this present moment in time has nothing to do with you.”
“You are a duke; is that not the main thing you want from a wife?” A wife who was not her, it seemed.
“In time, yes. But not now. Not yet.”
She thought again of the way he had looked when he’d stepped out of the bath. The unsettling feeling that he was suffering something she could not touch.
“Then why?” she whispered. “Explain it to me. Please.”
He dragged a hand through his hair. “My father was not a good man. And as of now, I am also not a good man. I would not wish a child of mine to endure what I had to.”
“And what did you have to endure?”
“Neglect, mostly. A man more consumed by his love of drinking and his title than his own flesh and blood. Anything I wanted, he opposed, largely because he wanted to believe himself more powerful.”
Despite herself, her heart clenched in sympathy. “You don’t have to be a man like that…”
“Am I not already?” He gave a harsh laugh. “I am not—I am not the man I ought to be, Lydia. You are paying the price of that. I’m sorry.”
“Then can you not change?”
“Change is not as easy as you’d suppose.” He stopped as what appeared to be a shiver overcame him. His teeth clenched together. “Some days are easier than others.”
“Tell me what it is. Maybe I can help.”
“There is nothing anyone can do that will help. This is my problem, and I must overcome it alone.”
“You’re being ridiculous!” she snapped.
Although she couldn’t see him in the dark, she could practically feel his raised brow. “Oh?”
“You may not have ever wanted me, but I am your wife. You accepted that earlier, whether or not you want me to bear your children. Of everyone in the world, I am best equipped to help you, because we are joined in the eyes of the law, and I am your partner. If I can’t fix whatever ails you suffer, at least let me stand by you and bear them with you!
That is what a wife is supposed to do! Or did you think that you could sit at the top of your ivory tower and martyr yourself? ”
Her voice rose in her indignation. “If you don’t want me, why have you not sent me away already? Why did you come back and let me get closer to you? Why did you touch me if you were so set against me having any sort of part in your life?”
“Because you wanted it!” he exclaimed simply.
“And so did I. Against my will, I cannot stop myself, and that is why I took everything you offered me. And it’s why we’re here, on the way to an obligation I fabricated.
It’s why we will return home tonight, and I will find ways to delay your departure still further.
” He drew in a ragged breath. “And it’s why, even though neither of us chose this, I hate knowing that I hurt you, even if it was unintentional. ”
Not an apology—but close. She could practically feel his torment from here.
“So what now?” she whispered.
“Now, we will attend this ridiculous dinner hosted by a man pretending not to be in love with the woman he’s betrothed to, and then we will return home.”
Home. The word sounded as though she belonged there.
“And then?” she asked.
His voice was kind as he said, “And then I will be in no fit state to entertain you.”
“Because of this mystery ailment you suffer from?”
“Yes.”
She longed to ask what it was, but she knew that would achieve nothing. So, she reached forward and placed her hand on his knee.
“I thought I hated you,” she whispered. “When you came back, I tried to. Truly, I did. But now, I think I want a life with you, if you will permit me.”
He laughed, actually laughed, and his hand found hers, just for a moment. “I’m afraid the reality may be a disappointment.”
“Perhaps we could try and see?”
The silence that followed her vulnerability stretched long enough that she retracted her hand, but eventually he said, “Perhaps”, and the tension in her body eased just a little.
She had been successful, after all. He wasn’t about to throw her aside as though she meant nothing.
She could most definitely work with that.