Chapter 14
Benedict
Cameron is talking about occupancy percentages, but I’m only half listening. The figures scroll through my head like water over stone, not sticking, not mattering.
We’re at the long oak dining table, place settings arranged for three. Cameron is animated, eager, shuffling his papers while he goes on about how bookings for summer weddings are already exceeding projections thanks to the change in wedding venue options. He expects me to be impressed.
Instead, I’m distracted.
Because the third chair is empty.
Madeline was supposed to join us for lunch. She promised.
I glance at the clock on the wall. Nearly one.
It’s been a month and a half since we got married, and I have yet to see Madeline be late to anything.
Our odd rhythm has turned her punctual, predictable in her own quiet way.
Breakfast at nine. Work on her laptop in the sunroom mid-morning.
A walk outside or calls with Stella in the afternoon. She should be here.
But she isn’t.
Cameron clears his throat, noticing my distraction. “Mr. Bronson?”
I push back from the table. “Excuse me. Continue eating.”
He blinks, startled. “Of course.”
I leave him there, the papers spread out across the tabletop, and move through the hallways with long strides. The house feels too quiet, the echo of my boots swallowed by the walls. Something coils low in my gut; déjà vu, a sense that something is wrong.
I find her upstairs.
The door to her suite is ajar, a faint sound drifting through—uneven breaths. I step inside, trying to shake the tense feeling of anxiety sinking into my bones. The familiarity of finding something I didn’t want to find.
The curtains are drawn, the room dim. Madeline is curled on the bed, pale against the sheets, one hand pressed to her stomach and her face turned into the pillow.
“Maddie.” I cross the room in seconds, panic washing over me in waves.
She opens her eyes, hazy, and tries for a smile. “Sorry. I didn’t… feel well enough for lunch.”
Her voice is thready. I crouch beside her, pressing the back of my hand to her forehead. Warm. Too warm.
“Why didn’t you send someone to tell me?”
She shrugs weakly. “Didn’t want to bother you.”
Bother me. As if her health could ever be an inconvenience. Fury lashes through me—at her for minimizing it, at myself for not noticing sooner.
“I’m calling Dr. Furman.”
Her eyes widen. “Ben, no, I don’t need a doctor—”
“You do,” I say flatly, and stand to stride from the room, hell-bent on making sure she’s safe and healthy.
Dr. Furman arrives within the hour, his bag in hand, his mouth a hard line. He’s been my physician for decades, his loyalty tested more than once. But loyalty isn’t the same as warmth.
He examines her in silence, methodical. Blood pressure. Pulse. Questions about her symptoms. Maddie answers softly, color returning to her cheeks as the minutes pass. I’ve had Sarah, one of the staff, bring her up a small dish of buttered noodles while we waited for his arrival.
Finally, Furman sets his stethoscope aside and asks, “When was your last period?”
Maddie glances at me, startled by the question. “Um. Seven weeks ago? Maybe eight. I… thought I’d just missed it because of stress.”
The room goes still.
Furman’s gaze flicks to me, sharp and assessing, before returning to her. “You’re pregnant.”
The words detonate.
Madeline inhales sharply, sitting up straighter, her hands fisting in the blanket. “What? But I haven’t even taken a test—”
“You’re seven weeks along, by your count. We’ll run a test to confirm, but I don’t see reason to doubt it. All the symptoms line up, and I can only assume, as you’re newly married…”
There’s no judgement in his statement, but the implication is clear: what do normal newlyweds spend much of their time doing?
Pregnant.
The word reverberates in my skull, echoing against old ghosts and apparently unfounded fear—she’s not sick the way Georgiana was sick, with that illness that snuck into our lives. No—this is something different.
Something that will change my life, our lives, and the circumstances of this situation I got us into.
I go cold.
Furman continues, voice clipped. “You’ll need proper vitamins, reduced stress, regular monitoring.
I’ll make arrangements.” His eyes cut to me again, hard as flint.
“And you’ll need support. Real support. She needs someone to check on her regularly, Benedict, and whether it’s you or someone else, I expect it to be done. ”
The accusation is subtle, but I hear it. The past, dragged into the room like a corpse.
My jaw tightens. “That’s enough, Doctor.”
He doesn’t flinch. “See that it is.”
He gathers his bag, gives Maddie a warmer look—gentle, reassuring—and leaves.
The silence is heavy, and I swear I’m not escaping it when I follow Furman out into the hall.
“What do you think you’re doing?” The words are cold and flat.
He turns slowly. “I’m doing everything I can to keep my patient safe, Benedict. And as I’m sure you’re aware, your lodge is a place where those in need are easily overlooked.”
Fury sweeps through me like a fire. Furman has a few years on me, an illustrious career as a doctor known for precise diagnoses of confusing conditions. Under his care, Georgiana didn’t flourish, but she was comfortable.
Right up until the end.
Which he thinks I caused.
“Don’t forget your place,” I warn. “Don’t go making accusations you can’t support, Doctor.”
He looks at me long and hard but doesn’t press the issue further—doesn’t come out and say what he’s obviously assumed all these years. Furman turns and moves quickly down the stairs, out the door, and into the bright spring afternoon.
Madeline stares down at her lap, twisting the blanket in her hands. She looks small, fragile in a way I’ve never seen. “I forgot,” she whispers. “The day of the wedding. The day after. Everything was so crazy, and I forgot to take it.”
She lifts her eyes to mine, wide and filled with panic. “Ben, I didn’t mean—”
I can’t move.
I stand rooted to the floor, my arms heavy at my sides, my chest hollow. Pregnant. The word echoes again, amplified now that we’re alone with it, and I’m forced to face the future instead of the past.
Her face crumples. “You’re angry.”
“I’m not,” I say, but it sounds distant, foreign even to me. I sound angry.
“You are. You hate this.” She turns away, making to get out of bed, struggling with her leg twisted in the blanket. “I swear I wasn’t trying to—”
She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. I’ve been around long enough to see what young women will do to get into families with money.
But Maddie didn’t have to try; her family has money. She was already married to me. Even if—when—this facade ended, she’d be married to Derrick, guaranteed a place here.
She had no reason to trap me. No, this is my fault.
I shut my eyes, struggling for breath. I don’t hate it. I don’t even know what I feel. My mind is blank, frozen, caught between the jagged memory of loss and the impossible image of Maddie holding a child.
Our child.
I force myself to meet her eyes. She looks at me like she’s waiting for a verdict, braced for rejection. Exhausted at the edge of the bed.
I can’t give her anything. Not anger. Not comfort. Not hope.
I’m paralyzed.
“Rest,” I say finally, my voice hollow. “We’ll talk about all this later.”
Her lips part, but she doesn’t speak. She only nods, eyes skating to the pregnancy tests that Hugh picked up at the store shortly after Furman left.
I leave the room before she can see what I don’t know how to say—that I am terrified. That this isn’t a future I planned for, so late in my life.
Her. And a child.