Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
When Rowena opened her eyes, she once again had to remind herself exactly where she was.
She would have expected the room to feel familiar, now that she had been staying with Adena for nigh on a month, and yet it still felt strange, alien.
Someone else’s room, as though the real owner had just stepped outside for a moment.
As though they were going to open the door at any time and express surprise that there was someone else in their bed.
But the green curtained windows were hers now, as was the large bed covered in blankets, and the small dressing table at one side of the door. She knew each inch of this room, and yet it was not her room.
Her room was still at her parents’ house. Rowena grimaced, and tried to sit up in bed, but her lethargy was too overpowering, and she fell back onto the pillows. She could rise in five minutes or so. There was no rush, after all. Nowhere to be. No one to see.
The sadness that had been kept at bay by sleep crept over her once more, and Rowena tried to shake it off. She was not in love with James, she reminded herself, as she was forced to do every morning. He had just used her for her body. He had not cared for her a jot.
A memory of that night – that wonderful night – rose up in her mind. The gentle kisses on her lips, and then the not-so-gentle kisses down her neck, and towards her –
The rush of heat and love that always accompanied these memories died away almost instantly as the sadness returned. It had meant so much to her, that night. But it had meant nothing to him.
It made her feel a little sick to think that she would never see him again.
Rowena lay, dull and depressed, in the large bed for another two hours, until the chiming of eleven by the clock in the hallway forced her to accept that she could no longer laze about in bed.
It did not take her long to dress – what care should she take, after all? She was going to see no one special. Luke and Adena had few visitors to their London home, if any, so Rowena was surprised to see her friend bidding farewell to a striking woman, tall and slim, in the hall.
“You must write,” Adena was saying, and there was a catch in her voice as she embraced the stranger. “You must promise me, even if it takes an age for the letters to reach me: I must know how you do there.”
“You have my word,” the woman replied as Rowena reached the bottom step. “I promise you, Adena, if this was my will – ”
Her words were cut off as Rowena stepped into the drawing room. Luke looked up at she entered, and smiled gently.
“Good morning.”
“Only just,” Rowena said with an answering smile. Throwing herself into a chair, she asked quietly, “Who is that woman in the hallway?”
If she did not know any better, she would have said that Luke hesitated for a moment before answering, but answer he did. “Miss Margaret Berry. A school friend of Adena’s, I understand, or some such thing.”
Rowena glanced to the door, now closed and barring any sight or sound of the beautiful stranger. “She did not seem particularly cheerful.”
Luke barked a laugh. “No, well, she would not. She is emigrating, against her wishes. ‘Tis a curious tale, and not one for me to tell. Toast?”
His hand moved to ring the bell, but Rowena shook her head. “No, I thank you. I feel a little queasy, and would rather have tea than anything to eat.”
“Nothing to eat again?” Adena strode through the door shaking her head at her friend. “Really, Rowena, you will fade away completely if you do not eat something!”
“Do not scold me,” Rowena replied placidly, knowing her friend too well to take her seriously. “I am quite well, I just have no appetite this early in the morning.”
Adena raised an eyebrow. “My girl, ‘tis nearly midday!”
A rush of affection rose up in Rowena’s heart to be spoken to by her friend – who was, though she would not remind her of it, two full years younger than herself.
“My girl?” Rowena smiled, the first smile for a few days.
Adena seemed to know what she was thinking. As she sat down in a chair opposite her friend, she laid a plate of buttered bread on her lap, and had the good grace to smile demurely.
“Well, as a married woman, you know, I can dictate almost anything to you.”
Rowena tried to ignore the pain that this remark gave her. She had dearly wanted to be a married woman herself, but James had not wanted that. He had not wanted her.
In an attempt to stave off the pain that was maiming her heart in that moment, she smiled bracingly and said, “Adena Garland, as you once were, I had only eloped for two days – two days, mark you – and you had already got married!”
It was through a medley of pain for herself and happiness for her friend that Rowena watched Adena beam at her husband.
“When you know,” she said quietly, “you know.”
Luke rose from his chair, dipped his face to his wife’s and gave her a passionate kiss, and return to his seat without a word.
Impossible as it was to not look at this display of affection without envy, Rowena was captivated by the devotion that Luke showed to his wife – his bride, for now it was but six weeks since they had married.
Sadness, envy, joy, it was all confused within her heart, and there was no control of it. There seemed to be no control of her emotions at all, recently.
A cup of steaming tea had appeared by her side, she had not noticed how, but as she raised it her lips, Rowena found that she could simply not take a simple sip.
Placing it beside her, undrunk, her gaze wandered around the room and lingered on the window.
Faces, blurred through the glass, strode past them.
One day she may see someone she recognised: James, perhaps.
At once she tried to force that thought from her mind. James did not know that she was here, no one did. And even if he did, he would not come here. He had not wanted her.
It was at that moment that Rowena became aware that she was being watched. It started as a prickling at the back of her neck, and then a heat across her cheeks. She looked around.
Adena was watching her carefully, with a knowing look on her face. Opening her mouth, she said kindly, “Luke, be a darling and go away.”
Rowena could not help but roll her eyes at the way her friend addressed her husband, but he seemed to enjoy it more than anything else. Laughing, he rose and kissed his wife on the cheek before inclining his head to her, and leaving the room.
Adena watched the door close, and then turned to her friend. “Should we call a doctor?”
Rowena laughed, and shook her head. “Now, where on earth have you got that idea from?”
“You have not looked well since we returned here,” countered her friend. “I have a little medicine, but you I think need the benefit of an expert.”
A flush of heat moved through her cheeks as Rowena felt herself under the fiery gaze of her friend. She returned sarcastically, “I must be lovesick.”
But her words did not have the response that she had expected. Adena rose slowly, and made her way to her friend, seating herself beside her.
“That is not,” Adena said quietly, “exactly what I had in mind.”
The seriousness of her expression was enough to make Rowena hesitate. “What you had in mind?”
Adena nodded, and lowered her voice, even though they were the only ones in the room. “Rowena, I would not ask this unless I…I absolutely had to. When was the last time that you had your flux?”
Rowena felt her cheeks pink, but thought about it carefully – and her mouth dropped open as she spoke without thinking. “You know, I think that it was over seven weeks ago.”
Adena whistled, and Rowena’s thoughts became frantic and panicked. “No, that cannot be right; I must have miscalculated. I am tired, that is why I cannot remember properly. I am sure that I have had one in that time, I just cannot recall…”
Her voice disappeared as she thought about it again. No, she had recalled correctly. She had not suffered her flux since she had been brought here by Adena and Luke – and before then, it had been a few weeks before she had eloped with Mr Bentley. That was at least six weeks, perhaps seven.
“You have been lethargic and nauseous ever since we returned here,” whispered Adena, her eyes not leaving her friend. “Since we returned from the King’s Head Inn.”
“Yes, but…” Rowena tried to calm her frantic thoughts. It could not mean – Adena could not mean what she thought she meant. It was not possible.
“It is possible,” Adena said quietly, as though reading her friend’s thoughts. “’Tis true, it would be unusual, but plenty of women have fallen with child from just the one lovemaking.”
“Fallen with child,” whispered Rowena, her eyes growing wide. “With child. Child. Adena, I cannot be pregnant!”
But it was possible – and not only possible, but probable. Oscar Bentley had barely touched her, and James, Viscount of Paendly, had very definitely touched her. She was pregnant: pregnant with James’ child, and he did not know.
Her instincts almost overwhelmed her, and she felt a need to tell him immediately – but then her pride returned. She could do this on her own, just as she had been about to make her own journey home before he get involved.
“I can do this,” she found herself saying to an astonished Adena. “I do not need him.”
They both know who ‘him’ was, he needed no name.
Rowena saw Adena bite her lip. “My dear, your parents have disowned you. Your name is disgraced throughout London, throughout the ton. You can stay here, hide with us as you have done for the last month. Have the child here, secretly. No one needs to know.”
Tears were threatening to escape from her eyes now, but Rowena was determined to hold them in. “The father of my child – the father of my child should know.”
It hurt to even think that the life growing inside her would not know its father, would not be known by him – but to have him back in her life, to see him again, it would tear her apart with the pain, knowing that he did not love her.