Initium (Nocte Trilogy #2.5)(5)

His look is sympathetic. “You must take care of your mother,” he reminds me. “I cannot do that. I don’t have roots, Livvie. I don’t have a place in the world or means to care for her or for you. Take this chance. Raise our baby to be a Savage. He’ll be esteemed and so will you. I cannot do that for you.”

My heart crumbles into dust and I can’t even cry because I am shocked, so so shocked.

“I thought you loved me,” I say and it comes out as a whimper.

“I do,” he tells me firmly. “In my own way, I do.”

He palms my belly and bends to kiss it. “We’ll have a son,” he announces, as if just touching my belly had given him that knowledge. “Name him Adair, Livvie. It’s a family name.”

“He’ll have your last name,” I say firmly even though Phillip has disappointed me. Even though I feel lost, so lost. “He’ll never be a Savage. I won’t have it.”

“If you must,” Phillip answers, and it is clear that he doesn’t feel as strongly as I do. “Just raise him well, Livvie. I’m sorry I cannot be what you need me to be.”

My heart throbs and he kisses my forehead and then he’s gone and I’m a heap on the floor in the middle of my voluminous white dress.

How will I survive this? How will my heart keep beating?

I don’t know.

After the fitting, after they determine that they do in fact have to take out the bust, I sit with my hands clasped around my stomach. Inside, Phillip’s child grows. If Phillip is gone, his child will give me strength. He’ll be my one true light, my purpose.

When I walk back to Whitley, it is with renewed spirit.

I know what I have to do.

I marry Richard seven days later.





Chapter Four





Richard’s sister Laura comes home from college for the ceremony, and during the reception, she sits by me, clasping my hand within hers.

“You seem so sad, Liv,” she says, her red hair swirling around her shoulders. Laura has always been as beautiful as a wood sprite, so fierce, so fiery.

“I’m not,” I insist, but my voice isn’t convincing and Laura doesn’t believe me, but she doesn’t press it.

“I’m telling my mother soon that I’m leaving England,” she confides, her slender arm wrapping around my shoulder. I’m startled by this and horrified.

“You can’t!” I exclaim. Because short of Mr. Savage, she’s my only ally. She’s the only decent one, and her mother would never allow it.

Laura laughs softly and it’s a tinkling sound. “I’m in love,” she confides. “And to an American! He was on holiday and we met and it’s been wonderful.” Her face clouds over. “But mother will never approve, and Daddy can’t be found.”

She’s right. Mr. Savage isn’t here for the wedding, and Eleanor acts as though nothing is wrong. It’s very strange.

“What will I do without you?” I ask, and even though I try to sound like I’m joking, I’m not and Laura knows it.

“You don’t have to stay here,” she tells me. “I’d help your mother. We’d figure something out, Liv. You’re my friend. I don’t want you to be miserable. My brother can be…difficult.”

“For everyone but you,” I whisper, and she looks at me, because she knows exactly what I mean. Her brother is in love with her, and he has been their whole lives.

He’s always tried to fill the void elsewhere, in brothels, with prostitutes and men and even boys, trying to fill sick need that he has for his own sister.

It never works.

He still lusts after Laura.

But that doesn’t stop him from trying.

Richard came home last night smelling of sex… the kind of smell that comes from being with another man. One of his favorite things to do is have rough, aggressive male-on-male sex, and he prefers his males to be barely legal, and he does unspeakable things to them, all in the name of trying to avoid being with his sister. I’ve known it. I’ve always known it, and so has Laura.

I cup my belly, and the sense of peace I get when I do is profound.

I shake my head. “I’ll be fine,” I tell her. “I’ll just miss you. You need to leave here and we both know why.”

“I’ll miss you, too,” she answers and she nods because she knows, too. “But I’ll come home to visit. Don’t you worry.”

If she’s smart, she won’t, but I know she’ll come back. She’s got the Savage sense of duty, no matter how much fear she has of her brother, or how much she dislikes her mother.

The reception drags on, but that’s fine with me, because I’m afraid that even though he won’t want to, Richard will feel a sense of duty to consummate our marriage. It isn’t until the wee hours of morning that we find ourselves in Richard’s suite, a cold set of rooms where I will live from now on.

“You should bathe,” Richard tells me, and his voice is disdainful. “It’s been a long day.”

I’m too tired to bathe, but I’m also too tired to argue. “Can you unbutton my dress?”

I only ask because I’m too tired to try and reach the tiny pearls. Richard seems horrified, but he does as I ask with cold fingers. I have to steel myself from shirking away from his touch.