Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Lucy knew her husband too well. She sensed his emotional distance as she described the festival to Mrs. Winslow. Perhaps after spending the day with the Female Aid Society, he didn’t wish to discuss it any longer.
Or was he bothered by the obvious disdain the woman showed for her husband?
With Lucy’s newfound realization about the women she’d been hoping to model herself after, she saw now how unhappy Mrs. Winslow was with a husband who was indifferent to her.
The only satisfaction the woman could find was in her own pursuits, because she shared nothing with her husband.
And that suddenly seemed such a tragic way to live.
Lucy had to find a way to discuss this with Reggie.
After she finished describing the festival to Mrs. Winslow, Lucy turned to Reggie. “Forgive me for leaving you, Mrs. Winslow, but we need to find our friend, Miss Fournier.”
Mrs. Winslow gave Reggie a look as if it was his fault Lucy was leaving her. Lucy bristled on his behalf.
But he ignored any underlying currents he might suspect, nodded to the woman politely, and escorted Lucy back to the ballroom. They stood on the edge of the crowd looking for Madeleine.
And there she was, dancing a quadrille with Mr. Abernathy and three other couples. Her face was flushed with the happy exertion, and Mr. Abernathy looked at her as if she was an angel come to earth.
Lucy and Reggie had once looked at each other that way.
She shook off such wistful thoughts. She reminded herself how good it felt to know that Madeleine would be happy, that Reggie had not been an unfaithful husband.
“Perhaps you should ask Mr. Abernathy to join you in the card room,” Lucy said.
Reggie arched a brow. “And why would I leave my lovely wife?”
She sighed and shook her head. “So you can have a better understanding of his intentions, of course. So he can ask any questions of you.”
Reggie blinked. “That make sense.”
“And besides, I believe they’ve danced three dances together—that is already cause for speculation. We surely don’t want any more scandalous assumptions.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up. “You mean like ones you and your friends assumed about me?”
She felt her face heat. “Go on with you.”
He kissed her gloved hand and headed to Mr. Abernathy.
Madeleine’s expressive face registered disappointment at being parted from her beloved. Lucy was amazed that in the space of two days, she’d gone from suspecting Madeleine’s intentions to believing she’d found a friend for life.
Lucy herself was certainly proving to be more impetuous than she’d thought. She’d jumped to conclusions about Reggie’s grief, about Madeleine’s goals, about the women she associated with and their supposedly contented marriages. Their expectations didn’t have to be her reality.
Where was the inner voice she’d once counted on, the one which had guided her to make the right choices in life? Had Anna’s death and the strain of their marriage made her doubt everything about herself?
Madeleine was practically giddy as she approached Lucy, her face flushed with dancing in the summer heat. She slid her arm through Lucy’s. “So Reggie wants to talk to Mr. Abernathy? Should I be nervous?”
“I don’t think so. There was little I had to say to convince him of the love you and Mr. Abernathy share, once he saw the expression on your face.”
Madeleine’s smile faded a bit. “And you believe he won’t mind going against my father’s wishes? He was so adamant.”
“Reggie was always a romantic,” Lucy said quietly.
The other woman sighed. “Reggie was like a son to my father. It hurt him to know Reggie was so sad. I hope the two of you find your way back to happiness.”
Lucy thought she should be offended that Madeleine assumed she knew Reggie so well. But she wasn’t, for she was beginning to hope for the same thing.
Once they’d escorted the joyful Madeleine back to her room, Lucy walked beside her husband with trepidation. She knew her thoughts and intentions had begun to shift, and it was time to discuss them with him. But she didn’t know how to begin.
Inside their suite, she turned to face him. “Reggie—”
He held up his hand. “I have something I’d like to share with you.”
She frowned as he turned away from her to enter his bedroom. When he returned a few minutes later, he carried a leather book.
He held it toward her. “This is a journal I kept while I was away from you. I wrote about the things I never thought a gentleman could say to his grieving wife. I believed letters about such things would burden you when we were so far apart. Yet emotions were building up inside of me, and I had no other way to express them than to write them just for myself. But maybe that wasn’t fair to you. ”
Tears filled her eyes as she looked at the journal. She slowly took it in both hands as if it might be heavy with the weight of all the unspoken things between them.
And without another word, he retreated to his room and closed the door.
Before Lucy could even open the journal, there was a soft knock on the door of the suite. She let in the hotel maid and accepted the woman’s help undressing for the evening. The journal lay on her pillow, waiting for her.
Once she was alone, wrapped in a light dressing gown, she sat upon the bed, with a pillow cushioning her back, and opened the leather cover.
And opened a side of her husband she’d never seen before.
The man she’d thought of as so strong that grief hadn’t affected him the same way it had her, was also a man desolate with the loss of their daughter, forced to be away from home and family for a duty he regretted, though honor-bound to accept it.
He captured his memories of Anna in a way that left Lucy sobbing over some of them and then smiling through tears when she but turned the page.
Two hours later, she closed the book and pressed it to her heart. She put her head back against the pillow, feeling drained but somehow whole again.
Leaving the journal behind, she moved quietly through the suite. It was very late, and Reggie might be asleep. She didn’t want to disturb him, so she opened the door just a crack, hoping to see if he was abed.
She saw his profile as he sat before the bare fireplace. He held something in his hands, and she thought his shoulders were shaking.
“Reggie?” she whispered.
He looked up and moved to put away the thing he held, but in two steps she was at his side. In the soft glow of lamplight, she saw that he held a miniature of their daughter.
She caught her breath.
“Do forgive me,” he said hoarsely. “The last thing I want to do is hurt you. Perhaps even the journal was too much.”
“No, don’t think that,” she cried, and pulled up a chair beside him.
Her face was still wet with tears, and she saw that his was, too. She put her hands over his and they held the photo of Anna together, their hands trembling, their pain shared.
“It was too easy to forget these feelings,” he whispered, “too easy to forget that I could not be there for you as a husband should. I don’t think my guilt will ever leave me. And that makes me fear I don’t deserve you.”
“You might suffer from guilt, but I suffer from fear. I’m so afraid to have another child, to love so fiercely and risk losing it all again.
And I’m even more afraid to find out that perhaps I can’t have any more children, since I never conceived again after Anna’s birth.
What would our marriage be like then, with only the ghost of a child between us? ”
“In the first year of our marriage, we didn’t have a child,” he said, “and I had never been happier in my life. I know it’s because I love you so much. I am content to live at your side, having whatever blessing God grants us, whether it’s children or just a simple life together.”
“But…Anna…” And then she started to cry again.
Reggie stood up and swept her into his arms, settling back into the wingback chair to hold her close. She cried as she hadn’t in many months, knowing that her dear husband was the one person who understood her grief. Now she knew and truly understood that he’d been suffering, too.
Memories of Anna flashed through her mind, and instead of holding them close, she reminded Reggie about the time Anna had followed the little boy next door back to his home. After a frantic search, they’d found them together marveling over baby bunnies.
They shared other memories aloud for the first time, and it seemed to finally bring back the peace that had eluded them for a year. To not have such memories would be far worse than the terrible loss of Anna.
Lucy felt disoriented when she awoke in the morning. The walls looked different in the curtained glow of sunrise. Reggie must have put her to bed, although she didn’t remember it. Her face felt chapped from crying, but she felt a languorous peace that hadn’t comforted her in so long.
She rolled slowly onto her back and found Reggie propped up on his elbow, staring down at her solemnly, although she thought she saw a twinkle in his eye.
“How are you feeling?” he asked softly.
She smiled and stretched her arms above her head, arching to ease any remaining stiffness. “I feel better than I have in a long time.”
Reggie’s gaze meandered slowly, meaningfully, down her torso. But he made no move to touch her.
Without overthinking anything, she looped her clasped hands about his neck. “How are you feeling?”
“Better every moment.” And he leaned down to kiss her.
This was no gentle kiss, but one of passion renewed and returned.
She opened her mouth beneath his, urgently met his tongue with her own, pressed her breasts up against his chest, needing to be close to him.
They were frantic removing each other’s clothing, their mouths panting between eager kisses.
When his naked body came down over hers, Lucy cried out her pleasure. He slid down, his tongue tracing a path to tease her breasts. She felt his leg between hers, his erection hard against her thigh.
When she could bear it no longer, she pulled him up again, wrapping her arms and legs about him. “Please,” she whispered fiercely.
And he entered her as he’d done so many times before, but this seemed to be new and urgent and so rewarding.
They moved hard against each other, the pleasure rising in a fast wave that swept over them both so suddenly that she was almost unprepared for the explosion of bliss that she rode as he groaned and thrust hard against her.
She came back to herself with their damp bodies still joined.
Reggie lifted his head, then brushed the hair out of her face. He kissed both her cheeks, her nose, her chin, before sliding away and settling beside her.
She laughed softly and held him closer to her. “I have missed you so much,” she whispered.
He stared deep into her eyes. “Did you really?”
“I did. I just didn’t know how much—I wouldn’t let myself know, really. I was in so much pain that it was hard to separate it all.”
“I’m so sorry.” He kissed her again.
“I know. And I’m sorry, too.”
“Can we start over?” he asked. “And I don’t mean by forgetting what we shared, or what we lost, but just…finding the beginning to the next part of our marriage, whatever it brings.”
She looked into his blue eyes. “Yes. Oh, yes, Reggie. I love you so.”