Suddenly You(68)

How odd it seemed that after so many years, her life had finally come to this…being courted by a good man, knowing with near certainty that it would lead to marriage if she chose. There was something different about Charles Hartley from any other man she had ever known—it was astonishingly easy to trust him. She knew in her soul that he would always treat her respectfully. Moreover, they shared the same values, the same interests. In a short time, he had become a remarkably dear friend.

She wished that she could bring herself to feel more of a physical attraction to Charles. Whenever she tried to imagine being in bed with him, the thought was not in the least exciting. Perhaps that feeling would develop over time…or perhaps she would be able to find contentment in the kind of pleasant but passionless marriage that her sisters seemed to have.

This was the right path for her to take, Amanda reassured herself silently. Sophia had been correct—it was time for her to have her own family. If Charles Hartley eventually proposed to her, she would marry him. She would slow the pace of her career, perhaps even give it up entirely, and lose herself in the everyday concerns that ordinary women faced. It is always more difficult for the people who swim against the current, Sophia had counseled her, and the truth of those words had sunk in more deeply every day. How nice it would be, how pleasant, to surrender her fruitless desires, and finally be like everyone else.

As Amanda dressed for a carriage drive with Charles, she noticed that her best carriage gown, made of heavy apple-green corded silk, with a flattering V-shaped stomacher, was almost too snug to fasten.

“Sukey,” she said with a sigh of displeasure as the maid strained to close the buttons at her back, “perhaps you might pull my corset laces a bit more tightly. I suppose I’ll have to begin some kind of slimming regimen. Heaven knows what I’ve done to gain so much weight in the past few weeks.”

To her surprise, Sukey did not laugh or commiserate or dispense advice, only stood behind her without moving.

“Sukey?” Amanda questioned, turning around. She was perplexed by the odd expression on the maid’s face.

“P’raps I’d better not lace you tighter, Miss Amanda,” Sukey said carefully. “It might do ye harm if ye are…” Her voice faded off.

“If I am what?” Amanda was bewildered by the maid’s silence. “Sukey, tell me your thoughts at once. Why, you almost look as though you think I’m—”

Abruptly she broke off as she understood the woman’s unspoken question. She felt the blood ebbing from her face, and she put a hand to her midriff.

“Miss Amanda,” the maid asked cautiously, “how long has it been since yer monthly courses have come?”

“A long time,” Amanda said, her voice sounding distant and strangely detached. “Two months, at least. I’ve been too busy and distracted to give it a thought until now.”

Sukey nodded, seemingly robbed of the ability to speak.

Amanda turned and went to a nearby chair. She sat with the unfastened dress sagging in shimmering folds around her. An odd feeling had come over her, as if she had been suspended in midair, with no way to gain purchase on the ground far below. It was not a pleasurable sensation, this terrible lightness. She wished desperately for a way to anchor herself, to catch hold of something reassuringly solid.

“Miss Amanda,” Sukey said a long moment later, “Mr. Hartley will arrive soon.”

“When he does, send him away,” Amanda replied numbly. “Tell him…tell him that I am not feeling well today. And then send for a doctor.”

“Yes, Miss Amanda.”

She knew the doctor would only confirm what she suddenly felt quite certain of. The recent changes in her body, and her feminine instincts, pointed to the same conclusion. She was pregnant with Jack Devlin’s child…and she could not imagine a worse dilemma.

Unmarried women who found themselves pregnant were often described as being “in a predicament.” The shortcomings of that phrase nearly made Amanda laugh hysterically. Predicament? No, it was a disaster, one that would change her life in every way.

“I’ll stay with ye, Miss Amanda,” Sukey murmured. “No matter what.”

Even in the chaos of her thoughts, Amanda was moved by the woman’s instant loyalty. Blindly she caught at the maidservant’s rough, work-worn hand and clutched it. “Thank you, Sukey,” she said hoarsely. “I don’t know what I shall do if…if there is a baby…I would have to go somewhere. Abroad, I suppose. I would have to live away from England for quite a long while.”

“I wearied of England years ago,” Sukey said stoutly. “All this rain an’ gray gloom, an’ the cold that settles in yer bones…nay, it’s not fer a woman of my warm nature. Now, France or Italy…those are the places I allus dreamed of.”

A mirthless laugh stuck in Amanda’s throat, and she could only whisper in reply, “We’ll see, Sukey. We’ll see what is to be done.”

Amanda refused to see Charles Hartley, or anyone else, for a week after the doctor verified that she was pregnant. She sent Hartley a note explaining that she was suffering with a touch of la grippe, and required several days to rest and recover. He responded with a sympathetic message and a delivery of beautifully arranged hothouse flowers.

There was much to consider, and important decisions to make. Try as she might, Amanda could not blame Jack Devlin for her condition. She was a mature woman who had understood the risks and consequences of an affair. The responsibility rested squarely on her shoulders. Although Sukey had tentatively suggested that Amanda go to Jack with the news, the very idea had made her recoil in horror. Absolutely not! If there was one thing Amanda knew for certain, it was that Jack Devlin did not want to be a father or a husband. She would not burden him with this problem—she was capable of providing for herself and the baby.