Love, Come to Me(110)

“We both wish you well in England—”

“And I wish you well,” Raine said, her cool gray eyes shining with a mysterious light as she took a cup of coffee from Lucy’s outstretched hand. “I do like you, Lucinda. You may find that hard to believe, but I do. You’re difficult not to like. Before I met you, I knew that to have caught Heath, you had to be as slick as goose grease. I was wrong. Heath married you because you’re a cheerful little thing, and you have a sweet smile . . . the only warm thing Heath saw in a cold place, among very cold people. You caught him at the right time and the right place, and that was a stroke of luck for you. But I still pity you. The two of you are a mismatch, and that won’t ever change.”

“He married me for one reason. Because I make him happy. That won’t ever change.”

“I guess time will prove me right or wrong—”

“It will prove you wrong.”

“It might.” Raine stood up from the table, leaving her coffee untouched. “All the same, I wish you luck, Lucinda. I am sorry for you. Because I understand more than anyone how you feel about him.”

Frozen, Lucy fastened her gaze on the scene through the window, ignoring Raine until she left quietly.

The day after Raine left, Lucy began to feel that it wouldn’t take long at all to put their marriage back on the right track. As had been their habit in the months before Heath’s illness, they went to church on Sunday and visited with friends and acquaintances they hadn’t seen for a long time. Although Heath’s religious background had been scandalously undisciplined and it took dedicated effort to drag him to church, Lucy always found some way to coax him to accompany her. As the congregation poured out of the Arlington Street Church, the air in Boston was permeated with the appetizing scents of hundreds of Sunday roasts, kept hot in the ovens during church services so they could be eaten between two and three o’clock.

“Thank God that is over,” Heath muttered. The sermon had been long and vigorous that morning, full of spine-tingling fire and brimstone. To Heath, it seemed to have lasted for hours. He had spent an entire morning wrestling with the pleasure and pain of having Lucy tucked by his side. Acutely aware of her sweet fragrance, her softness, he had found his mind occupied with thoughts that had nothing to do with the service. He felt like more of a sinner coming out of the church than he had going in.

Scandalized, Lucy glanced around to make certain no one had overheard him as they filed out between the two white columns of the freestone church with the rest of the crowd. “Do be quiet—someone’s bound to overhear you!”

“I don’t like to be preached to as if I’m one of a bunch of schoolchildren who need to be taken to task for—”

“I don’t know about everyone else, but there’s plenty you and I should be taken to task for,” Lucy whispered sharply. “We haven’t been here in months.”

“Which has been just—”

“Oh, don’t say it,” she implored, and assumed a quick smile as they passed by the Treadwells and the Nicholsons. They stopped and exchanged pleasantries. “Good morning. Lovely Sunday afternoon, isn’t it? Yes, it was a fine sermon.” As soon as they resumed their walk to the carriage, Heath dropped his affable expression.

“I don’t know why they always have to comment on how long it’s been since the last Sunday we were here—”

“We can fix that by attending every week regularly.”

“Or not at all.”

He sounded so shamelessly unrepentant as he made the suggestion that Lucy groaned in a mixture of laughter and exasperation, and let go of his arm.

“I’m beginning to think your name is short for heathen.”

He looked down at her and smiled, his appearance nothing short of angelic, with his sun-washed hair and bright blue eyes. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said, giving him a severe frown even though she wanted to laugh. “I’m already concerned about the bad example you’ll set for our children.”

“Forgive me if I don’t seem too concerned about our children.” There was a faintly mocking curve to his lower lip. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about them for a while, unless you’re planning on some method of conception I don’t know about.”

“I can’t believe you’d be crude enough to say something like that on a Sunday,” she said with frosty dignity, causing him to laugh.

“Are you worried about my salvation?” He looked down at her with a teasing smile and lethal charm.

“Someone has to, and it’s obviously not going to be you. Oh, stop laughing—I’m being serious!”

“I’m always charmed by the pious airs you put on every Sunday,” he remarked, a half-smile tugging at his mouth. “All right. If you want to go to church every week, we’ll go every week. But it’s doubtful that I’ll get anything out of it.”

His concession mollified her a little. “That’s fine. I don’t expect any miracles. At the very least, it won’t do you any harm.”

Heath helped her into the carriage, his eyes glinting as they rested on her small, beautifully turned figure. He hadn’t planned on making any promises to her, but then she had mentioned the word children, and his heart had skipped a few beats. The thought of having sons and daughters with Lucy filled him with pleasure and anticipation. In a way, he would be sorry to lose Lucy’s undivided attention. He liked having her all to himself; there was no doubt about it. He could spend a whole lifetime like this, perfectly happy with just the two of them together. But the two of them with sons and daughters—what a family they would have!