Wicked Intentions (Maiden Lane #1)(78)

“I miscarried three times,” his mother said low. “Once before you were born and twice before Annelise was born.”

He eyed her sharply. “I didn’t know.”

She nodded. “Of course not. You were a child, and we were not a particularly close family.”

He didn’t bother replying to that.

She continued. “So when Annelise was born, she was very dear to my heart. Your father, of course, had no need of a girl child, but that was just as well.” She glanced up quickly at him and then down again at her glass. “He’d taken you away from me when you were but a baby, made you his own, as it were. His heir. So I made Annelise my own. Her wet nurse lived in the house, and I visited her every day. Several times a day if I could.”

She took a long sip of brandy, closing her eyes.

Lazarus didn’t say anything. He didn’t remember this, but then he’d been a child and only interested in matters that impacted his own small world.

“When she became ill…” She stopped and cleared her throat. “When Annelise became ill that last time, I begged your father to send for a doctor. When he refused, I should’ve sent for one myself. I know that. But he was adamant… and he was your father. You remember how he was.”

Oh, yes, he remembered well how Father was. Hard. Mean. Completely assured of both his own invincibility and his own correctness. And cold, so very cold.

“Anyway,” she said softly, “I thought you should know.”

She looked at him as if waiting for something, and he stared back, mute, because he wasn’t sure if he was ready—if he’d ever be ready—to give it to her.

“Well.” His mother drained her glass and set it on a table before rising. She smiled brilliantly at him. “It’s very late and I must be getting home. Tomorrow I have a fitting for a new gown and then an afternoon tea to attend, and I must get some sleep if I’m to look my best.”

“Naturally,” he drawled.

“Good night, Lazarus.” She turned to the door, but then hesitated before looking at him over her shoulder. “Please remember that just because love isn’t expressed doesn’t mean it isn’t felt.”

She swept from the room before he could reply.

Lazarus reseated himself and watched as he swirled the last of the brandy in his glass, remembering a little girl’s brown eyes and the scent of oranges.

SHE COULDN’T GO on like this.

Silence pretended sleep as she watched her husband rise. They’d slept in the same bed last night, but it might as well have been separate houses. William had lain as still as a corpse on the far side of the bed, so near the edge she’d thought he might fall off in the night. When she’d carefully inched over to lie against him in the dark, his entire body had stiffened, and fearing he really would fall, she’d rolled back to her own side, hurt.

But it had taken her many hours to finally sleep.

Now she watched as he shaved and dressed without ever looking her way. Something shriveled and died inside her. His ship’s cargo had reappeared just as suddenly as it had disappeared. The ship’s owner was overjoyed, William was no longer in peril of being sent to prison for theft, and he’d finally received his pay.

They should have been happy.

Instead, despair hovered over their little home like an insidious mist.

William buckled his shoes and left the bedroom, closing the door softly behind him. Silence waited a moment and then rose herself, hurriedly tiptoeing about the room to dress. Yesterday he’d left without saying good-bye. And, indeed, when she came out of the bedroom, he already had his hat on.

“Oh,” she said.

He walked to the door.

“I… I’d hoped to make you breakfast,” she said in a rush.

He shook his head without looking at her. “No need. I have business this morning anyway.”

He’d been at sea for over six months. Probably he did indeed have business, but at seven of the clock?

“He never touched me,” she said low. “I vow on my mother’s grave, he never touched me. I swear… I swear on…”

She looked wildly around the room and ran to pick up the Bible her father had given her as a little girl. “I swear, William, on—”

“Don’t.” In two strides he was beside her, finally. He gently took the Bible from her hands. “Don’t.”

She looked at him helplessly. She’d told him again and again, but each time he merely looked away from her.

“It’s the truth,” she said, her voice trembling. “He took me to his bedroom and told me that if I spent the night in his bed, then in the morning he would return the cargo. He promised he would not touch me, and he did not. He did not, William! He slept on a chair by the fire the entire night.”

She fell silent, mutely urging him to acknowledge her, to turn and kiss her and pat her on the cheek and say what a silly misunderstanding this all was. To be her William again.

Instead he turned his face away from her.

“Oh, why can’t you believe me?” she cried.

He shook his head, his weariness more chilling than anger would’ve been. “Mickey O’Connor is a notorious scoundrel without a scrap of decency or pity, Silence. I don’t blame you. I just wish you had let me handle this.” He looked at her finally, and to her horror, she saw that his eyes swam with tears. “I wish to God you’d never gone there.”