A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)(73)

“Yes, for everyone but me.”

Jeremy gave him a questioning look.

“I can’t help it, Jem. I don’t want to be an MP. I know, it sounds disgustingly self-serving. It’s just…” Toby ran a hand through his hair. “It seems like running for Parliament is something I ought to be doing for my own reasons, you know? Because I want to do it. Not just because it’s what Isabel wants me to do.”

This was all coming out wrong. Toby honestly did yearn to find some goal, some larger purpose to his life beyond tending an estate that hardly needed tending and waltzing girls onto verandahs. He realized now, watching Isabel’s principles in action, he’d been craving just that for years. But, selfishly enough, Toby wanted to find that purpose or goal for himself—not be handed it by someone else. Not even her.

“My Lord. Can you hear yourself?” More ungodly noises filtered down from upstairs, and Jeremy winced. His eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “Someday that’s going to be your wife up there, screaming. Going through hell just to bring your child into the world. At this moment, there is nothing— nothing—I would not give for Lucy, up to and including my own life. And here you’re complaining about the prospect of sitting through a few boring committee meetings and assuming your long-shirked duty as a gentleman of privilege. You want me to advise you how to lose.”

Toby cringed. Well, when he put it that way … For a plan that was supposed to keep everyone happy, this election scheme was making him feel a downright cad.

“I’ll tell you how to lose,” Jeremy continued, his voice a raw whisper. “Start an argument with your very pregnant wife. Shout hateful, unforgivable things at her. Send her tearing off in a fury so she’ll go into labor a month too soon. Endanger her health and the life of your unborn child. Make her so bloody angry with you that she won’t even allow you at her bedside while she’s suffering. That is how to lose … everything.”

Toby hurt for his friend. He knew Jeremy was prone to bouts of dark humor, but this was extreme pessimism, even for him.

“Jem.” He leaned closer, forcing Jeremy to meet his eyes. Keeping his voice firm and level, he said, “Lucy’s going to be fine, and the babe as well. You’ll see. Whatever row the two of you had, it will all be forgiven when you’re cooing over your newborn child.”

Jeremy shook his head. “How can she forgive me? I will never forgive myself.”

“What happened, precisely? I can’t imagine any argument so horrible as you’re implying.”

Jeremy blew out a slow breath. “I came home early, around noon. I suspected I’d find Lucy in the new nursery. Lately she spends the whole day in there, arranging and rearranging it. Imagine, I’m rounding the door, eager to surprise my wife by coming home for luncheon—

only to find her standing atop a tiny three-legged table, adjusting the netting that goes round the cradle.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Of course I startled her, and with her being so awkward and round, perched on that spindly table …”

Toby’s heart stalled. “Did she fall?”

“No. Thank God.”

“Then what happened?”

“I raced to her side and bodily hauled her down from the table. I may have uttered some rather coarse words in the process.”

Toby fought the urge to chuckle, imagining that scene. “And how did Lucy take that?”

“How do you think?” Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “Of course she took offense, started berating me for my interference. But damn it, she could have fallen at any moment. What was the woman thinking? We have no shortage of servants to fuss with netting, if that was what she desired. No, Lucy had to do it herself—never mind her own safety, or that of the baby.”

“They all get like that, when the time is close.” Toby sipped his drink. “Toward the end of my sister Fanny’s last pregnancy, her husband found her down on her hands and knees, using a hairpin to clean the grooves between the kitchen floorboards.”

Jeremy shook his head. “It wasn’t the fact that I pulled her down, it was everything that came afterward. We argued, like we haven’t argued since the first weeks of our marriage. I was so damned scared, and then I was so damned angry. The things I said to her, Toby … Lucy will never forgive me. That’s why she’s refusing to see me now. She knows I pushed her away, pushed her into labor before her time. She wants to punish me, and God knows I deserve it.”

He made a fist and pressed it against the window sash. “Right now, I scarcely care about the baby, that’s what a fiend I am. I just want Lucy to be all right. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost her.”

“You won’t lose her.” Toby put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Jem, I hate to put it this way, but Lucy knew well before this morning what an overbearing tyrant you are.”

“An addle-brained brute.” Jeremy grimaced. “That’s what she calls me when she’s cross.”

“Very well. She knows you’re an addle-brained brute, then. But she also knows you love her. And she loves you. You’re not the only one with protective impulses. If she’s keeping you away, I doubt it’s from some desire to punish you. If I know Lucy, she’s the one shielding you. As your little row this morning proves, you can’t bear to see her in distress. She knows that, and she doesn’t want this to be any harder for you than it already is.”