Книга - The Viscount’s Runaway Wife

The Viscount's Runaway Wife
Laura Martin


'You’re my wife, Lucy.'His lost-and-found ViscountessAfter a year of desperate searching, Lord Oliver Sedgewick has found his wife…in the slums of St Giles. He can’t suppress his joy that Lucy is alive, despite his grief that their baby has not made it. With his Viscountess home, the spark of passion is burning with more intensity than ever. Oliver might not fully understand why she left—but surely their marriage has a chance of a happy future…?







“You’re my wife, Lucy.”

His lost-and-found viscountess

After a year of desperate searching, Lord Oliver Sedgewick has found his wife...in the slums of St. Giles.

He can’t suppress his joy that Lucy is alive, despite his grief that their baby had not made it.

With his viscountess home, the spark of passion burning with more intensity than ever, Oliver may not fully understand why she left, but surely their marriage has a chance of a happy future...?

“Laura Martin has penned another winner. She immerses readers in the world and scandals of the ton with realistic settings, authentic dialogue and twists and turns that keep the action moving.”

—RT Book Reviews on An Earl to Save Her Reputation

“A sweet and passionate romance with a worthy couple well deserving of their happiness.”

—Roses Are Blue on An Earl to Save Her Reputation


LAURA MARTIN writes historical romances with an adventurous undercurrent. When not writing she spends her time working as a doctor in Cambridgeshire, where she lives with her husband. In her spare moments Laura loves to lose herself in a book, and has been known to read from cover to cover in a single day when the story is particularly gripping. She also loves to travel—especially visiting historical sites and far-flung shores.


Also by Laura Martin (#u5ec3ef9e-a5f0-502a-970d-e80f8cac0b31)

Under a Desert Moon

Governess to the Sheikh

A Ring for the Pregnant Debutante

An Unlikely Debutante

An Earl to Save Her Reputation

The Eastway Cousins miniseries

An Earl in Want of a Wife

Heiress on the Run

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).


The Viscount’s Runaway Wife

Laura Martin






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


ISBN: 978-1-474-07423-0

THE VISCOUNT’S RUNAWAY WIFE

© 2018 Laura Martin

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


For George, my little warrior.


Contents

Cover (#u2b6d1165-84b1-5457-854b-c7f01874595a)

Back Cover Text (#u2242b60f-c908-5c63-8d23-c3de3b48a213)

About the Author (#ue512313f-4fd4-5185-b91d-a450c9b1a1e0)

Booklist (#ubaa735a0-519a-5f37-859c-c35f9ca06817)

Title Page (#u9ff6577a-10da-564e-8ac9-04f6f9e2cb40)

Copyright (#ua145e14b-3bd3-549f-8942-5756c63867f3)

Dedication (#ubca30cee-f80a-583b-a398-e0fb17e82d93)

Prologue (#uccfaf83f-ba41-5574-868a-e59fc6f47366)

Chapter One (#ud5796f32-0ec2-50e8-b91d-c020ea6d62e5)

Chapter Two (#uf1741d93-60b4-5fdd-9ba0-2e0c7fb3198f)

Chapter Three (#udcb4fc34-388a-55c6-830b-0aa2bc26b0f1)

Chapter Four (#u2270e36f-b977-5cc4-81ae-c0822254b125)

Chapter Five (#u0e71ba80-3a16-52bc-b659-871da2cbd961)

Chapter Six (#ue12a0b64-6319-56c3-bf5c-2144dc62f893)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)


Prologue (#u5ec3ef9e-a5f0-502a-970d-e80f8cac0b31)

Sussex—1814

Dear Husband,

I am sorry. Please do not look for me.

Your wife,

Lady Sedgewick


Chapter One (#u5ec3ef9e-a5f0-502a-970d-e80f8cac0b31)

London—1815

Oliver paused before entering the butcher’s shop situated a few streets north of Russell Square. In the past year he’d been to many places a titled gentleman wouldn’t normally venture in search of his missing wife, but never in his life had he had cause to go into a butcher’s shop before.

Regarding the hanging cuts of meat with curiosity, he pushed open the door, looking up as the bell tinkled, and walked in. A large man wielding an oversized meat cleaver flashed him a smile, indicating he would be with him once he’d finished slicing the half a pig that was hanging over the rear of the counter.

‘How can I help you, sir?’ the butcher asked as he wiped his bloodied hands on a white rag. ‘Got some lovely fresh pork if you’re interested.’

Despite the man’s words, Oliver could see the hint of mistrust in his eyes—the butcher knew already Oliver wasn’t there to buy anything.

‘I’m looking for my wife,’ he said without any preamble. He’d been in similar situations hundreds of times over the last year and honed his speech to be concise and to the point.

The butcher frowned.

‘I spoke to a delivery boy last week who thought he might have seen her in this area, most specifically in your shop.’ Taking a miniature portrait from his pocket, he held it out to show the butcher. ‘Her name is Lady Sedgewick, although she might be using a different name.’

Oliver watched the man closely and wondered if he saw the tiniest spark of recognition in his eyes.

‘Name doesn’t sound familiar,’ the butcher said, buying himself some time.

‘And the woman in the picture?’

‘Why are you looking for her?’

Oliver felt his pulse quicken. Just over a year he’d been searching for Lucy, a year of disappointment and dead ends. Every time he thought he might be drawing closer it came to nothing, but perhaps he was finally getting somewhere.

‘She’s my wife.’

‘Lots of reasons a wife might not want to be found by her husband.’

‘I mean her no harm,’ Oliver said and it was the truth. He’d never wanted to harm Lucy despite everything she’d put him through.

The butcher regarded him for some moments and then nodded as if satisfied.

‘Looks a bit like a young woman who comes in once a week from the St Giles’s Women’s and Children’s Foundation. I sell them our offcuts of meat at a reduced price.’

‘Where is this Foundation?’ Oliver asked, already knowing the answer, but hoping he was wrong.

‘St Giles, of course,’ the butcher said with a grin. ‘Though, you’ll need a guide if you want to get in and out of there in one piece.’

‘Thank you for your help,’ Oliver said, holding out a few coins for the man’s trouble. The butcher pocketed them with a nod, then turned back to the pig carcase.

Stepping outside, Oliver took a moment to digest the information he’d just been given. In the year he’d been searching for her he’d imagined the worst, Lucy and their child dead in a ditch somewhere in the country, Lucy having to sell her body on the streets of London, his firstborn son growing up in the filthiest, most dangerous slums, but never had he considered St Giles.

It was a slum, of course, probably the most notorious slum in London, but no outsiders ever ventured in, not if they wanted to leave again with their lives. He couldn’t imagine how Lucy had ended up there, nor could he understand how living in St Giles could be better in any way than living a life of comfort as his wife.

During his years in the army Oliver had never shied away from dangerous skirmishes and he wasn’t the sort of officer who stood back and allowed his troops to go into battle first. However, the thought of venturing into St Giles alone sent shivers down his spine. Nevertheless, he strode south. Today would be the day he found his wife and discovered what had happened to his son. Even if it meant navigating the treacherous, warren-like streets of the slum.

Just as he was about to skirt around the back of Montague House, the impressive building that housed the British Museum, he caught sight of a woman hurrying away from him down Montague Street. Her back was to him, but he felt his stomach clench in recognition. She was slender and clad in a brown woollen dress, skirts swishing about heavy and practical boots. The woman’s hair was pulled back into a bun that rested at the base of her neck, wispy dark blonde tendrils had escaped and were coiling over her shoulders. It could be the back of a thousand women, perhaps a housekeeper or a shopkeeper’s wife, but there was something about the way she carried herself, something about the way she walked.

‘Don’t be a fool,’ he murmured to himself as he felt his feet changing direction. In the months after his wife had disappeared he had fancied he’d seen her everywhere: strolling through Hyde Park, on the other side of a crowded ballroom, even in the face of a serving girl at the local tavern near his country estate. A year ago he’d barely known his wife, he was hardly likely to recognise her from just the back of her head now. It was just because his hopes had been raised by the butcher—that was why he thought he was seeing her here.

Unable to listen to his own reason, Oliver picked up his pace. If he could just get in front of the woman, surreptitiously pause and turn to look at her, he would be able to satisfy himself that it wasn’t Lucy without frightening an innocent young woman. Trying not to draw attention to himself, he strode along the pavement, dodging the couples walking arm in arm and the groups of men deep in conversation.

The woman in front of him crossed the street, heading away from the more salubrious area of Russell Square and towards St Giles. His hopes soared and he stepped out on to the road, racing for the pavement opposite. He was only four feet behind her now, almost close enough to reach out and touch her arm.

Contemplating whether to call her name and see if she reacted, Oliver froze as the woman glanced back over her shoulder before crossing another road. At first she didn’t see him, instead focusing on the carriage that was meandering down the street, but then the movement from his direction must have caught her eye and she turned a fraction of an inch more. She stiffened, her hands bunching in the coarse wool of her skirts, her mouth opening in a silent exclamation of shock. Though he couldn’t see her face clearly, her reaction was enough to tell him he’d finally found her, he’d finally found his wife.

‘Lucy,’ he growled, lurching forward as she darted from the pavement and into the road. She had picked up her skirts and was running faster than was seemly for a wife of a viscount, but that shouldn’t surprise him. ‘Stop right there.’ He barked the order, just as he would to the men under his command during his time on the Peninsula. Lucy took no notice, instead vaulting over a pile of horse manure and rounding the corner with surprising speed.

In a fair race on a different terrain Oliver would have had no trouble outpacing his wife, but here her smaller size worked to her advantage. She was able to weave through the other pedestrians quickly and by the time they’d reached the outer edge of St Giles’s slums Oliver had only gained a few feet.

‘Lady Sedgewick,’ Oliver bellowed, ‘I demand you stop running and face me.’

His words had no impact whatsoever. Oliver slowed a little as he entered the narrower streets. Buildings rose on either side, shadowing the area below from the sun, and although the street ahead of him was deserted save for Lucy’s running figure he could feel eyes on him, hidden observers who could mean him no good.

The sensible thing would be to turn back, to retreat to the wider, safer streets and wait for Lucy to emerge. Oliver dismissed the idea straight away; a year he’d been made to wait to confront his wife about her disappearance with their newborn son—he wasn’t going to let a bad reputation stop him now.

‘I’m coming for you, Lucy,’ he shouted as he darted forward, seeing the hem of his wife’s skirt swish around the corner, following her trail like a hound with the scent of a fox in his nostrils.

He leapt over a man sprawling drunk in a doorway, muscled through a group of men arguing over a game of dice and ignored the catcalls from women far past their prime, but making a valiant effort to hide the fact beneath a thick layer of powder.

Just as they exited the narrow streets into a courtyard Oliver lunged forward and caught Lucy by the arm.

‘Will you stop?’ he barked, holding her gently but firmly by the arm. She wriggled, her eyes refusing to meet his, until he pinned her against a wall.

‘Is this man bothering you, miss?’ A quiet voice came from somewhere behind Oliver. He glanced over his shoulder to see a grubby middle-aged man approaching. Lucy’s defender only had about half his teeth and those he did retain were a varying shade of brown. He was dressed in an assortment of dirt-coloured clothes and Oliver could smell the years of ingrained grime. All this he observed in an instant, before his eyes came to rest on the small knife cradled in the man’s palm.

Looking back at his wife, he raised an eyebrow. ‘Am I bothering you?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she spat, wriggling again, fire and passion flaring in her eyes.

‘I think you should step away from Miss Caroline.’

‘Miss Caroline?’ Oliver laughed harshly. ‘That’s the name you’re going by now?’

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the man with the knife step even closer and watched Lucy’s face as she contemplated whether to let him attack her husband. Eventually, after too long a pause for Oliver’s liking, she sighed.

‘Please don’t exert yourself on my account, Bert.’

‘Are you sure, Miss Caroline? Won’t be more than a moment’s work to stick him and roll him into the river.’

‘Although quite an effort to transport me there,’ Oliver murmured. ‘The river must be at least fifteen minutes away.’

‘That’s what the good Lord invented wheelbarrows for.’

‘I’m sure that’s the exact purpose he had in mind.’

‘I’ll be just over here—shout if you change your mind,’ Bert said, doffing his cap to Lucy.

‘What do you want?’ Lucy rasped as Bert meandered away.

Oliver blinked in surprise. All the times he’d imagined their reunion he’d pictured her contrite or ashamed or remorseful. He hadn’t ever imagined his quiet, dutiful wife to be annoyed and confrontational.

‘Do you really need to ask me that?’

She looked at him then, with the large brown eyes he’d remembered even when all her other features had begun to fade in his mind.

‘I want to know where my son is and what you’ve been doing all this time.’ He said it harshly, a year of anger and bitterness pushed into one sentence, but he never meant to make Lucy cry. She burst into tears, big racking sobs that pierced a tiny hole in his armour and headed straight for his heart.

* * *

Sniffling, Lucy tried to bring herself under control. She hadn’t meant to cry, hadn’t wanted to show such weakness in front of her husband, but at the mention of their son she’d been unable to hold back the tears. Even though it had been over a year since her son’s death, she still couldn’t think of him without tears springing to her eyes. He’d been so little, so fragile and in need of her protection, a chunk of her heart had died alongside him.

‘David’s dead,’ she said, knowing this wasn’t the way she should break the news of their son’s death to her husband, but aware she’d kept it from him for too long already. In truth, she’d meant to write a week or so after David’s passing, but she hadn’t been able to find the words and a week had turned to a month, which had turned to a year and still she hadn’t let Oliver know.

‘Dead?’ her husband said, letting go of his grip on her arm and stepping away. He nodded once, and then again, as if this was what he’d expected. As Lucy looked at his face she saw it was completely blank, completely unreadable. He looked as though someone had pulled his world out from under his feet and he didn’t know how to react.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She meant it, too. She wasn’t sorry for running away, but she was sorry for everything that came after. Not letting Oliver know she was safe, not telling him when their son died, not including him in her decision to stay away, to build a new life for herself.

‘Come,’ Oliver said, his voice gruff. ‘I’m taking you home.’

‘This is my home.’

He looked around him, frowning as he took in the bedraggled children, skinny and dirty, running through the courtyard. Lucy could still see all the desperation and dirt and disease—she didn’t think any number of years spent in the slums would make her immune to it—but now she could also see the people underneath.

‘A whole year, Lucy, with not a single word. You owe me this much.’

She opened her mouth to protest but saw the steely determination on his face.

‘Come.’ He took her by the arm, his fingers gentle but firm, and began to lead her back the way they’d come.

‘There’s a shortcut to St James’s Square,’ she said as they walked. She’d often avoided that part of London, always knowing there was a chance Oliver could be in residence at Sedgewick House, but she knew all the routes through St Giles after spending so long living here and knew which ones would take them most directly to the residential square.

Laughing, he shook his head. ‘I don’t know what other criminals you’ve got lurking around corners ready to rescue you. We’re getting straight out of here.’

‘It’s not that bad,’ Lucy mumbled.

‘It’s the most deprived area in London.’

She couldn’t deny the truth in his words. She’d said as much to the governors of the women’s and children’s Foundation she helped at during one of their biannual funding meetings. Here, in St Giles, the destitute mixed with criminals and prostitutes and, most heartbreaking of all, the shoeless children who ran wild through the streets, willing to do anything for a hot meal or a few coins.

‘I can walk by myself,’ she said, wriggling free of the restraining hand on her arm.

‘I don’t trust you,’ Oliver barked. That was fair, she supposed. They hadn’t known each other well during their short marriage and her behaviour over the last year hadn’t endeared her to her husband.

They marched rather than walked, Lucy having to take two steps to every one of Oliver’s long strides, and within two minutes they were leaving the narrow, shadowed streets of St Giles and emerging back on to the main thoroughfare.

Hailing a hackney carriage, Oliver almost stepped out into the path of the horses, but dutifully the coachman pulled to a stop just in front of them.

‘St James’s Square, number twelve,’ Oliver instructed, before bundling her inside and following quickly.

‘I...’ Lucy began to speak, but Oliver held up an authoritative hand.

‘I’ve waited over a year to hear why you abducted our son and disappeared without a word. We are not going to have this conversation in a carriage.’

‘I just...’

‘I said no. Whatever it is can wait for twenty minutes.’

Disgruntled, Lucy settled herself back against the padded bench, turning her body away from her husband and looking out the window instead. Ten months she’d lived as Oliver’s wife, although for almost nine of those months he had been away at war. She barely knew the man, but that didn’t mean she had to tolerate such rudeness.

As they weaved through the streets Lucy recognised most of the landmarks. She’d lived in London for the past year and although she didn’t have much reason to set foot in the more elite areas, she had passed through on occasion. She fidgeted as she watched the carriage round the corner into St James’s Square, knowing the next few hours were going to be difficult and really she only had herself to blame.

‘Come,’ Oliver ordered as the carriage stopped in front of a white-painted town house. It was immaculately kept and for a house in the middle of the city huge in size. They could house twenty mothers and children comfortably in the space, maybe more, but instead it was the domain of a single man and a few servants. It seemed such a waste.

The door was opened promptly by a smartly dressed young man with a scar running from eyebrow to chin.

‘I trust you had a pleasant afternoon, my lord,’ the young butler said, sparing a look for Lucy, but valiantly trying to hide his curiosity.

‘Yes, thank you, Parker. We will be in my study. I don’t want to be disturbed.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

And with that Oliver had whisked her into his study, closed the door and clicked the lock. Lucy swallowed, eyeing the windows which were all firmly closed. She shouldn’t be afraid—for all his faults, her husband was a noble man; he wouldn’t hurt her. At least she was reasonably sure he wouldn’t.

‘Sit,’ he instructed, motioning towards two comfortable leather armchairs positioned in front of the unlit fire.

She complied immediately. For all her strong-willed dislike of being told what to do, she recognised now they were completely in her husband’s domain. For the next few hours at least she would have to remember he was in charge here.

Watching nervously as Oliver stalked about the room, selecting two glasses and pouring two generous measures of whisky, Lucy was surprised when he set one in front of her. Never in their short marriage had he invited her to join him for a drink, but she supposed then they were occupying more traditional roles of gentleman and his wife. Now it was clear he had no idea how to regard her.

‘Talk,’ he commanded eventually, settling back into his chair.


Chapter Two (#u5ec3ef9e-a5f0-502a-970d-e80f8cac0b31)

She looked nervous, Oliver thought with grim satisfaction. Drumming her fingers on the fine crystal glass he’d just placed in her hand and shifting her weight in the armchair every few seconds. In truth, Lady Sedgewick looked as though she wanted to be anywhere but here with him.

‘What do you want me to say?’ she asked, raising her dark eyes to meet his.

He felt a surge of irritation, but tried to conceal it. He’d been raised to be civil even in the most trying of circumstances. And reuniting with his estranged wife could certainly be described as trying.

‘I want to know everything,’ he said calmly. ‘What happened with the birth of our son? Why you left. Why you stayed away. What you’ve been doing all this time.’

Sighing, Lucy took a gulp of whisky, unable to hide her discomfort as the amber liquid burned her throat.

‘I’m sure you’ve worked most of the details out by now,’ she said softly.

‘But I want to hear it from you.’

Of course he’d imagined a thousand scenarios in the year he’d been searching for her. An inappropriate lover, a nervous breakdown and, in his more desperate moments, even more unlikely stories involving French spies and a need to serve her country. Despite all his searching, all the time and effort he’d put into finding her the last year, he still didn’t know the truth behind why she’d disappeared.

‘I got scared,’ she said simply. Nothing so extravagant as French spies, then.

‘Scared?’

There was a long pause before Lucy continued. As he waited for her to speak, Oliver realised his wife had changed immeasurably in the time she’d been absent. Not that he could pretend he knew her very well when they’d been married. Twice they’d met before they’d said their vows, two awkward meetings where neither had revealed much. And then he’d only lived with Lucy for a month after their wedding before being called back to the Peninsula. All the same, she’d certainly matured in the time they’d spent apart. Gone was the shy, meek debutante and in her place was a poised and almost worldly young woman. It appeared his wife had matured in her absence, in more ways than one.

‘We barely knew one another,’ Lucy said eventually. That he couldn’t deny.

‘True.’

‘I loved David,’ she said quietly. ‘I loved him from the first time I felt him kick inside me, maybe even before that. I spent hours dreaming of what he would be like, what he would enjoy and who he would resemble. When he was born...’ She trailed off.

Oliver had spoken to the doctor who’d been present at his son’s birth. Apparently it had been a difficult labour and for a while it had seemed like their son would not come, but eventually, after many hours, Lucy had given birth.

‘He was so beautiful—’ her voice was barely more than a whisper ‘—so perfect in every single way.’

That wasn’t how the doctor had put it. ‘Characteristic facial features’ had been mentioned a number of times and ‘a likelihood of mental difficulties’.

‘The doctor commiserated with me when he looked David over, told me that there was no reason I couldn’t have a healthy child next time.’ There was bitterness in her voice as she recalled the words.

Lucy glanced up at him and he could see she was on the verge of tears again, but no matter how difficult this was for her he had to know what had happened next.

‘I lay there with our son resting on my breast, cuddled in all warm and safe once the doctor had gone, and I started to realise that he wouldn’t be the only one judging our son, finding him wanting.’

‘You can’t mean...’ Oliver said, his eyes widening.

‘I didn’t know you,’ Lucy said quietly, unable to meet his eye. ‘I knew what most men do with their offspring when they don’t view them as completely healthy—they send them off to be raised by another family, sometimes even deny their existence.’

‘So you left, before even finding out what my reaction might be.’

‘I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t risk you taking my son away from me.’

‘Our son,’ Oliver murmured. ‘He was my son, as well.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘It was cruel of me, I know that. I knew that at the time, but I had to protect him.’

‘You didn’t have to protect him from me.’

She regarded him calmly, searching his face as if trying to see if there was truth in his words. Oliver felt a surge of anger. She shouldn’t be judging him. He’d done nothing wrong. He hadn’t run off with their son without any explanation.

He stood, needing to put some space between them, and busied himself adjusting the clock on the mantelpiece. The seconds ticked past in silence as Oliver struggled to regain control of himself. Outwardly nothing in his expression or stance changed, but inwardly he had felt a tight coil of frustration and anger ready to explode. Now, breathing deeply, he forced himself to remain calm. Nothing would be gained from showing his estranged wife how much she had hurt him, how much her betrayal still affected every aspect of his life.

‘Then what happened?’ he asked, returning to his seat, motioning for Lucy to continue.

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes,’ he barked sharply. ‘It matters to me. What happened next?’

‘I had a little money so I made my way to London. I knew I couldn’t seek refuge with anyone I knew. I had to go where no one knew me.’

She was making it sound as though she’d been running from a monster, when in truth he didn’t think he’d ever raised his voice towards her or spoken a single word in anger.

‘I ended up in St Giles.’ Lucy grimaced. ‘The first few days were not easy, but then Mary found me. She helps to run a home for women and children and she took us in.’

‘David was still alive?’ It sounded strange to be saying his son’s name after so long of not even knowing what Lucy had called their child. The words almost caught in his throat, but he managed to force them out, gripping the back of his chair for physical support as he said them.

Lucy nodded, pressing her lips together. ‘He seemed healthy enough the first couple of weeks, thriving and growing, but then he deteriorated quickly.’ Her voice quivered, but she managed to go on. ‘I’m told it is quite common in those born with similar conditions to our son to have problems with their hearts and chests. David became unwell and although we saw doctors, they could do nothing. He died when he was three weeks old.’

He watched as she suppressed a sob, swallowing a couple of times and taking a deep breath to compose herself.

‘Where is he buried?’ Oliver asked bluntly.

Looking up at him with wide eyes, Lucy shook her head before answering.

‘He did get a proper burial?’ Oliver interrupted, his heart sinking at the thought of his only child being consigned to a pauper’s grave.

‘I used the last of my money. He’s buried in the churchyard of St Giles in the Fields.’

He nodded grimly. Not a peaceful resting place for an innocent young boy, among the plague victims and the executed criminals, but at least he’d had a proper burial.

‘You’ll take me there this week.’

A spark of indignation flared in his wife’s eyes, but he watched as quickly she quashed it and nodded. ‘As you wish.’

Visiting his son’s grave would be difficult, but he owed it to the child he’d never held in his arms to at least see where he was buried.

Smoothing her skirts down, Lucy stood, placing her almost-full glass on the small table beside her.

‘I should be getting back,’ she said, inclining her head and taking a step towards the door.

For a long moment Oliver was too stunned to do or say anything. He’d barely begun questioning her, barely scratched the surface of what had become of his wife over the past year. All she’d revealed was the bare bones of the story of how and why she’d fled after the birth of their son. He needed to know so much more.

‘Sit down,’ he said, catching her arm as she edged past him.

For the first time since he’d cornered her in St Giles, her eyes came up to meet his and Oliver felt a painful flash of memory. He’d barely known Lucy on their wedding day, but when she’d walked down the aisle of the church and turned to face him in front of the altar, he’d felt a hopeful stirring deep inside him. He’d wondered if perhaps their marriage could be about more than convenience, more than producing the heir he so desperately needed and having a wife at home to look after the estate. Quickly he suppressed the memory, setting his mouth into a hard line.

‘You’re my wife, Lucy. I’m not going to let you just walk out of my life again.’

There was panic in her eyes, the same feral expression as an animal that knows it is cornered.

‘You can’t just keep me here,’ she said softly, as if she knew it wasn’t true.

‘Twenty minutes,’ Oliver said brusquely. ‘That’s how long you’ve been in my house. Over a year I’ve been searching for you.’

‘What if I promise not to disappear again?’ she said quietly. ‘I can give you my address.’

‘I don’t trust you, Lucy.’

She chewed her lip and Oliver wondered if she had something or someone she wanted to get back for or if she just couldn’t bear to be in his company any longer. The idea that she might have a lover was like a dagger to his heart and quickly he had to push the thought away before it did any more damage to his emotions.

Before he could stop himself, he spoke. ‘Come,’ he said brusquely, ‘let me show you to your room. We can continue our discussion at dinner.’

Although they had been married for ten months before Lucy had fled, she hadn’t before been to Sedgewick House in London. His main residence was Sedgewick Place, a sprawling country estate in Sussex, and that had been where they’d married and spent the time together before he’d been recalled back to the army. Since she was pregnant by the time he’d left, she had decided to spend the Season in the country rather than travelling up to London, only to have to return to Sussex for her confinement.

With a guiding hand resting in the small of her back, he felt Lucy stiffen, but she allowed him to show her the way out of the room and up the stairs.

‘Your bedroom,’ Oliver said, opening the door. He watched her face carefully, noting the widening of her eyes as she realised it was the bedroom of the lady of the house, complete with connecting door to his own room. ‘Take some time to get settled in. Dinner is at eight.’

Stepping out, he left her alone, keen to put some distance between them. The revelations of the afternoon had given him a lot to think about. Oliver wasn’t the sort of man who made any decisions quickly and he would appreciate having a few hours to himself before he resumed questioning Lucy. One thing was for certain—he wasn’t going to let her slip out of his life again and if that meant keeping a close watch on her these next few days, then that was what he’d do.

* * *

Sinking down on to the bed, Lucy glanced around the room. It was rather oppressively decorated with dark furniture and busy flowery wallpaper. Quite the change from her room back in St Giles. She had no doubt Oliver’s late mother had chosen the decor for the bedroom; it was not a room made for comfort and her mother-in-law had not been one for relaxing.

Quickly she stood, refusing to let the despair she could feel creeping in overtake her. There would be a way out, all she had to do was find it. She sympathised with Oliver, felt dreadful about how she had treated him and understood his desire to know everything that had happened since she’d run away, but she just couldn’t stay here. She was needed at the Foundation; people were relying on her—she couldn’t just disappear. With a shudder, she wondered what her husband’s long-term plan was—surely he couldn’t mean for her to stay with him indefinitely. Their lives had changed too much for that to work. Plenty of couples led completely separate lives. There really was no need for them to become entangled once again.

With a glance at the window she shook her head. There was no reason to consider acrobatics when she could easily just walk out the front door. She hadn’t heard Oliver turn the key in the lock; she wasn’t his prisoner here. All she needed to do was open the door, stroll down the hallway, descend the stairs and slip out the front door. She’d send him a note, of course, perhaps arrange a meeting in a more neutral environment to resolve their remaining issues.

Taking a deep breath, Lucy opened the door and stepped out into the hall.

‘Good afternoon, Lady Sedgewick,’ a smartly dressed young footman said, giving a formal little bow.

Lucy’s eyes narrowed as her heart sank. Oliver had posted a guard at her door. A guard. Someone to make sure she didn’t sneak away. It was insulting and showed her true position in the household: she was a prisoner.

With her cheeks reddening, she conceded that she had planned to slip away, but still, how dare her husband send a footman to monitor her movements.

‘Is there anything I can get you?’

‘Some tea, and water to wash my face.’ She hoped he would step away, hurry downstairs and organise the things she had requested, but he didn’t move a single inch.

‘Of course, Lady Sedgewick. I’ll arrange for them immediately.’

Neither of them moved and Lucy raised an imperious eyebrow. She had never been one to talk down to servants, always seen them as the hard-working, genuine people they were, but she wasn’t above a bit of play-acting if it meant securing her freedom.

‘Immediately,’ she said, injecting a sharp note into her voice.

He nodded but still didn’t move. Lucy hated any kind of confrontation, but a year living in St Giles had taught her how to look confident even when scared or uncertain.

‘Please don’t keep me waiting...’

‘Peterson, Lady Sedgewick,’ the footman supplied with a smile, as if oblivious to the tension between them. ‘You’ll have your tea and hot water in no time.’

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, giving in and spinning on her heel, closing the door firmly behind her. No doubt Peterson had strict orders from her husband not to leave his observation post and Oliver was not a man people seemed to disobey lightly.

Sighing, she regarded the room, crossing to the bed to flop down on the floral covers, but hesitated just as her body began to sink down.

They were only on the first floor, barely ten feet from the ground. The window had a generous ledge outside and she was sure she would be able to lower herself down. The remaining drop would only be a few feet. She’d be at risk of a twisted ankle, but nothing more serious, and if she landed correctly she might even get away unscathed. From what she could see there was a garden gate, leading to what she assumed would be a side passage and an easy stroll back to the street.

With a glance at the door, aware that her tea and hot water could arrive at any moment, she dashed to the window and pushed it up. To her relief it was unlocked and, before she could talk herself out of it, she had one leg over the casement and resting on the ledge. The skirts of her practical woollen dress tangled a little around her knees, but one swift tug and she was free, swinging the other leg out the window.

Cautiously she looked down. The garden was deserted, the small patio beneath her devoid of any furniture and the neatly trimmed lawn unbroken by any flower beds. It meant there was nowhere to hide, but if she dropped to the ground she could quickly skirt around the house to the side gate and let herself on to the street.

For a moment she hesitated. Perhaps she did owe it to Oliver to stay, to explain a little more about what had happened this past year. She’d been cruel and selfish to remain distant for so long, but truly what did he think they had to gain by renewing their relationship now? No, she’d escape from here, from the pressure he was putting on her to explain, from the guilt that was threatening to destroy her from the inside. Once she was back on more neutral ground she would consider how best to make amends to her husband, but she couldn’t think with his dark eyes boring into her, couldn’t reason when he fixed her with that haughty stare.

Before she lost her nerve, Lucy manoeuvred herself first to her hands and knees and then eased her body over the edge of the ledge. As she dangled, her fingers gripping the rough stone, she wondered if she had miscalculated. The drop seemed further than she had first imagined, but knowing there was no way she would be able to pull herself up again, she closed her eyes and let go.

She plummeted for a fraction of a second before coming to a juddering halt. A strong hand gripped her arm, stopping her from falling to the stone patio below. Lucy opened her eyes, looking up into the frowning face of her husband.

‘Peterson, in here now,’ Oliver shouted, his fingers digging into her flesh as he held her firmly by the wrist.

He said nothing more as the footman joined him at the window and together they hauled her back inside. Lucy stumbled as he set her on her feet and immediately Oliver’s arm was around her waist, guiding her to the bed.

Only once they were alone, the door firmly closed behind them, did he open his mouth.

‘That was foolish,’ he said quietly.

Lucy looked down, unable to meet his eye. It had been foolish, but she was desperate.

‘I had a man under my command on the Continent, James Havers,’ Oliver said, his voice betraying an uncharacteristic amount of emotion. ‘He was young, barely twenty when he joined. One day, in the heat of battle, he was trampled by a horse.’ Oliver grimaced. ‘Our own cavalry. His leg was broken in three places.’

Lucy tried to swallow, but realised her throat was too dry.

‘The surgeons tried to set it, but they couldn’t. Three days later they amputated, above the knee. Two weeks after that he was dead. The stump had festered.’

Unable to look away Lucy glimpsed a hint of pain in her husband’s eyes. She had always thought of him as cold and aloof, but there was no doubt he’d cared for the young man who’d died. She suspected he’d cared for all the men under his command.

‘Havers could not help what happened to him. You can,’ he said brusquely. ‘I do not want to see you putting yourself in such danger again.’

He left, without looking at her again, closing the door softly behind him despite the heat of emotion that had been in his voice.

As she sank to the bed, her whole body shaking at the realisation of what she could have done to herself, Lucy found herself staring at the door Oliver had just left through. She realised she didn’t know anything about her husband, at least not anything that wasn’t common knowledge among the rest of society, as well.

A few minutes later a pretty young maid bustled into the room, but Lucy barely noticed.


Chapter Three (#u5ec3ef9e-a5f0-502a-970d-e80f8cac0b31)

Oliver stood stiffly by the window, regarding the comings and goings of the street below as he waited for his wife. She was late, but that was hardly unexpected, probably trying to work out a way to swap identities with the maid and escape the house that way.

As the door opened Oliver felt his heart skip a beat in his chest. Gone was the worn, brown woollen dress, gone was the sensible bun and slightly grubby visage, and in their place the Viscountess he remembered.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ Lucy said, her voice not containing even a hint of remorse.

Oliver had to suppress an unexpected smile. Nearly two years ago he’d asked his mother to find him a suitable bride. With his father and two older brothers dead from a particularly virulent fever, Oliver had unexpectedly inherited the title, land and responsibilities he’d never imagined would be his. Aware his career in the army wasn’t normal for a viscount, he’d realised he would need to start fathering some heirs just in case he, too, was taken from earth before his time. Too busy, and often a continent away, to search for himself, he’d asked his mother to make a list of suitable candidates. Lucy had been at the top. His mother had described her as respectable, docile and amiable. Looking at her now, he thought she might look respectable once again, but certainly not docile or amiable.

‘Shall we eat?’ Oliver asked, holding out his arm.

She hesitated before taking it, but eventually placed her gloved hand on his jacket.

As they walked through to the dining room, Oliver glanced at his estranged wife out of the corner of his eye. She’d always been pretty, in an unassuming way, but when they’d married she’d been young, only nineteen. The girl who’d walked down the aisle had blossomed into a beautiful young woman and Oliver was remembering why he had dreamed about her every night of their separation for the first few months.

‘We need to talk about the future,’ Lucy said quietly but firmly as she took a spoonful of soup.

‘And the past.’

‘Why dwell on it?’

He levelled her with a cool stare, only relenting when she hastily diverted her eyes and focused once again on the bowl in front of her.

‘We haven’t lived as husband and wife for a whole year. It seems silly to take up the pretence again.’

‘But we are married, so not living as husband and wife would be more unnatural,’ Oliver shot back.

‘I’m sure we’ve both moved on with our lives...’

‘I haven’t,’ Oliver said bluntly. ‘A year ago you left and an entire year I’ve been searching for you.’

This at least made Lucy look up and meet his eye. He kept his expression neutral, determined not to let his wife see just how much her abandonment had hurt him.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lucy said softly and this time Oliver could see she genuinely meant it.

They sat in silence for some minutes, waiting as the next course was served. Then Lucy pushed on.

‘What did you tell everyone about me?’ she asked, lifting her head to look him in the eye.

‘What do you think I said?’ he asked.

‘I thought perhaps you’d tell everyone I’d died in childbirth.’

‘That would have been too easy.’

She nodded. ‘So what does everyone think?’

He shrugged. ‘Most people don’t ask. They whisper in corners about my mysterious wife, wonder if I have you locked in a tower in deepest Sussex or if you are too mad or melancholic to be allowed out into society.’

‘And those that do ask?’

‘I tell them that you have been unwell.’

‘Even after all this time?’

Oliver fixed her with a stony stare. ‘I knew I would find you, Lucy, even if it took ten years.’

Her cheeks flushed and she looked hurriedly away.

‘We could...’ She paused as if summoning up the courage to continue. ‘We could get divorced.’

Trying to suppress the snort of laughter, Oliver grimaced. ‘Why would we want to do that?’

Divorce was uncommon and scandalous, requiring the husband to make an application to Parliament and for a private act to be passed. It was extremely costly and, if Oliver wasn’t very much mistaken, required the husband to prove his wife had been adulterous. He’d only known one person to get divorced in his entire life and the woman’s reputation had been completely ruined by the ensuing scandal. The gentleman in question had been left free to remarry, but Oliver had often wondered if the palaver had been worthwhile for the man.

‘I know it is unheard of and damages reputations, but it is possible. It would allow you to remarry, get on with your life, start afresh.’

‘I don’t need to remarry. I already have a wife, Lucy.’ He said it sternly.

‘You truly mean for us to pick up where we left off a year ago.’

He nodded gravely. ‘It will take time. I’m aware of that. The trust between us has been broken and it will need to be built up again, but I am willing to put in the work.’

‘And what about me?’ Lucy asked quietly.

‘I’m not a monster, Lucy,’ Oliver said. ‘It won’t be that terrible living with me as your husband.’

‘I didn’t mean...’ She rallied. ‘I have a life, responsibilities.’

‘Ah, your Foundation.’

‘It’s important to me.’ She bristled.

‘Then I’m sure we can find some acceptable compromise.’

‘I don’t want a compromise,’ she muttered, but Oliver chose to pretend he hadn’t heard the mutinous comment.

‘We are married, Lucy, and we shall be until one of us dies. It is best you accept things are going to change.’ The words sounded harsh even to his own ears, but he wasn’t about to pander to the whims of a woman who’d abandoned him a year ago and prevented him from ever knowing his firstborn son. ‘I am your husband and you are my wife. That’s the end of it.’

She studied him for over a minute in silence and Oliver could see his quiet perseverance was getting his point across. They were married, no matter how they felt about one another, and he didn’t want to hear any more ridiculous suggestions about divorce or separation. He didn’t plan on letting Lucy slip away, even if the next few weeks of adjustment were awkward and uncomfortable.

* * *

Lucy’s eyes narrowed. It was hard to tell exactly what her husband was thinking. He always spoke in that same calm, infuriating voice, his words carefully considered and chosen. She had to admit she felt a little suspicious. An entire year she’d kept him in the dark as to her whereabouts, her safety, and now he was talking about compromise. Although in the short time they’d spent together after their wedding he had always appeared courteous and kind, if a little distant, Lucy had expected something different when he’d manhandled her into the carriage bound for St James’s Square. Perhaps to be locked in a room and physically punished; perhaps to be denied her freedom to walk in the fresh air ever again. Instead he was suggesting they resume their roles as husband and wife, as if nothing much had happened in the intervening time.

‘We barely know each other,’ Lucy said quietly.

‘Luckily we are not alone among married couples of the ton—many of them have spent less time together than us.’

She knew it was true. Many marriages were made for reasons of money or titles, with the husband and wife meeting only on important occasions. Theirs had always been a marriage of convenience, allowing Lucy to escape from an overbearing family and Oliver to gain a wife to give him heirs.

She swallowed, trying to suppress the heat in her cheeks despite knowing it was an uncontrollable reaction to what she was about to ask. ‘What do you expect of me?’

His eyes met hers and she fancied she saw a flicker of amusement behind the serious façade. Surely he couldn’t be enjoying this.

‘I expect you to be my wife,’ he said, his voice low.

A shiver ran down her spine, not of fear or dread, but anticipation. In the month after their marriage they had been intimate a number of times, as was expected of a husband and wife. Far from the painful, awkward encounters her married friends had whispered about, Lucy had found to her embarrassment she looked forward to the nights Oliver had quietly knocked on her door and slipped into her room.

‘We will attend functions together, entertain here and at our home in Sussex, you will oversee the household...’ he shrugged ‘...all the duties of a wife.’

Lucy felt the blush on her cheeks deepen. He wasn’t even thinking about intimacy in the bedroom. She lifted her eyes to find he was looking intently at her, not even the hint of a smile present on his lips.

‘And the Foundation?’ Lucy asked, forcing herself to focus on what was important.

‘You may visit, of course. Properly chaperoned.’

‘Visit?’

‘Yes, advise them on their books, play with the street children, whatever it is you do,’ Oliver said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

‘We keep dozens of families alive,’ Lucy said, the pitch of her voice rising. ‘Provide shelter and food and education to those who truly have nowhere else to turn.’

‘I’m sure they managed perfectly well before you became involved—they will survive if you take a step back now you have other responsibilities.’

‘I won’t do it,’ she said quietly.

‘Won’t do what?’

‘Attend your parties, organise your household. Not if I can’t continue with my work.’

Oliver sighed, rubbing his forehead with the fingertips of one hand as if he had a headache coming on.

‘There will be changes to both our lives, Lucy,’ he said quietly, his reasonable words and measured tone inflaming her spirit even further. ‘We shall have to compromise.’ Again he paused before pushing on, holding her gaze as he delivered his next words. ‘And if you can’t compromise, then I am your husband and you need to remember the obey part of your vows.’

She supposed she’d pushed too far, but his words inflamed her anger and reminded her why she’d stayed away for so long.

‘They need me,’ she said, forcing herself to be reasonable.

‘Then you will have to find a way to make them need you less.’ He held up his hands in a placating gesture as she pushed her chair away from the table. ‘Do not take offence, Lucy. All I mean is the kindest thing to do for any person or organisation is to make it more self-sufficient.’

Forcing herself to calm down, she settled back into her chair. He wasn’t saying she couldn’t go, not exactly, although it was clear he meant for her to step back from her responsibilities at the Foundation and focus more on those at home. She probably should be thankful. She’d feared he might keep her under lock and key to ensure she didn’t disappear again. Perhaps he would send a footman to accompany her for the first few days, but once he realised she wasn’t going to run away she doubted her husband would interfere too much in her life. After all, he had his own life to lead. Just over a year they’d been separated; surely he would have built his own life for himself in that time. Friends, a mistress, regular social engagements. He wouldn’t want to disrupt his routine too much either, she was sure of it.

Pausing for a second, Lucy glanced again at the composed profile of her husband. Surely he had moved on, built a life for himself. He’d told her he’d been searching for her this entire time, but she wasn’t quite sure she believed that. It wasn’t as though theirs had been a union of love. They’d barely known one another, not enough to inspire that sort of devotion.

‘That’s settled, then,’ Oliver said, laying down his cutlery. ‘I shall arrange for you to have a schedule of our social engagements over the coming weeks and mark in a few suitable dates for you to visit the dressmakers. I brought some of your clothes from Sussex, but it is by no means a full wardrobe.’ He paused and Lucy wondered what it must be like to have such an ordered way of thinking. ‘We shall refuse all visitors this first week and I shall reintroduce you to society at the Hickams’ ball next week.’

Involuntarily Lucy’s hand rose to her throat, rubbing the skin of her neck as she tried to control the urge to flee.

‘After that, I expect acquaintances will be very curious—we may be inundated with well-wishers for quite a while—but I shall leave it up to you to decide how to deal with them.’ He waved his hand dismissively as if not wanting to be concerned with the minutiae of running a household and maintaining a social calendar.

Lucy didn’t plan to be at home to visitors; she had much more pressing things to occupy her time than to sit sipping tea with nosy old women.

‘At the end of the Season we shall host our own ball, to confirm to the world you are back for good.’

All she could do was nod.

‘Good,’ Oliver said, as if he had just concluded a business meeting.

They ate dessert in silence, the clinking of the spoons heightening Lucy’s feeling of confinement. She wanted to be loose on the streets, free to go wherever she desired, not trapped here with a man who seemed determined to carve her into the perfect society wife.

Oliver stood as Lucy finished eating, offering his arm and escorting her to the hallway.

‘I am going to retire for the night,’ he said softly.

With a sharp inhale Lucy glanced up at her husband, wondering if he was suggesting she joined him, but there was nothing but his usual, unreadable expression on his face.

‘I hope you sleep well,’ he said. ‘Don’t leave in the night.’ It was a command more than a request, but Lucy found herself nodding none the less.

He turned and made his way quickly up the stairs, leaving her to stare after him in the flickering candlelight.


Chapter Four (#u5ec3ef9e-a5f0-502a-970d-e80f8cac0b31)

Oliver didn’t lift his head as he heard Lucy’s soft footfall on the stairs, instead turning the page of the paper and pretending to be engrossed in the news. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her hesitate, then enter the dining room.

‘Good morning,’ she said.

Carefully he closed the paper, lowered it and looked up.

He grimaced—she was wearing that ugly brown woollen dress again. It made her look more like a milkmaid than a viscountess.

‘Good morning.’

He’d have to throw it out, perhaps instruct one of the maids to squirrel it away on the pretence of washing it and then unfortunately misplace it. Eyeing the coarse wool, he reconsidered, throwing it out wasn’t drastic enough; he’d have to burn it.

‘I’m ready to leave for the Foundation,’ Lucy said, the smile tight on her face as if she were having to force herself to be polite. ‘You mentioned a chaperon...’

‘Yes.’

She looked around, as if waiting for him to summon someone.

‘Perhaps you changed your mind...’ she suggested hopefully.

‘No.’ He stood, crossing to her side and offering her his arm. ‘I’m ready.’

He felt her stiffen beside him and wished he could see the expression a little more clearly on her face, but a loose strand of dark blonde hair had escaped her bun and obscured some of her features from him.

‘You?’ she asked, the tremor obvious in her voice.

‘Yes, me.’

‘Surely a footman...’ she suggested.

‘No,’ he said without any further explanation. He wasn’t anywhere near the point where he could trust her not to trick or evade a footman and disappear off into the slums of London.

She opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came out. Oliver smiled in triumph and gently steered her towards the door. He felt the exact moment that she rallied and pre-empted her protest by striding on ahead, only pausing for her to catch up when he reached the carriage.

They spent the entire carriage ride in silence, Lucy’s face stony and her indignation at being outmanoeuvred by him rising from her like steam from a kettle. For his part, he was content to sit quietly, pretending to peruse the top sheet of papers he’d brought with him, while surreptitiously regarding his wife out of the corner of his eye.

Even in the offensive woollen dress there was something almost regal about her. She sat with a straight back and lifted chin, a posture that screamed defiance. He couldn’t imagine her fitting in the slums of St Giles. She might be able to walk and talk with the locals, but she’d never assimilate. He couldn’t quite believe she’d spent the last year living there. Most people didn’t choose to live somewhere as deprived as St Giles and not for the first time he wondered what motivated her to live in such squalid conditions when, unlike many of the other residents, she did have other options available.

As the carriage made its way through Charing Cross, slowing to avoid the numerous pedestrians, Oliver stifled a yawn. It had been a long night and he had not got much sleep, finding himself staring at the canopy above his bed much as he had on the days following Lucy’s initial disappearance. He was happy to have found her, happy to know she hadn’t died of a fever or been stabbed for her purse, but he wasn’t so naïve to think these next few months were going to be easy. She didn’t want to resume her role as his wife and he knew that meant they would clash in the coming weeks. For his part, he was torn between wanting to spend time with his wife, so they could more easily take up their positions as husband and wife again, and wanting to distance himself from her. He wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to forgive her for taking their son away. It wasn’t something that a simple apology could solve. He doubted the trust between them could ever be repaired, but he was willing to accept a less-than-perfect marriage.

The carriage rounded a corner, turning north towards St Giles, and Lucy’s body momentarily rocked into his. Even through the coarse wool of her dress he could feel the heat of her skin and he had to take a deep breath to compose himself. The last thing that should be in his mind was renewing the physical side of their relationship. First he needed to focus on ensuring she wasn’t going to run away at the next available opportunity.

Even so, the distant memory of the nights they had shared at the beginning of their marriage fought to the surface. Her body writhing beneath his, the soft moans of pleasure, the frantic way she’d clutched his back, urging him on. He hadn’t expected such a physical connection and had known at the time Lucy had felt embarrassed by her reaction to him. That all seemed a long time ago, a different life, and he doubted they would ever share such intimacy again.

‘We’re here,’ Lucy said, forcing Oliver back to the present.

Quickly he regained his composure, gathering the papers from his lap before vaulting from the carriage and turning to help his wife down. They’d stopped on the main thoroughfare, the carriage being too large and unwieldly to take into the rabbit-warren streets of the slum, but already Oliver could see his wife growing in confidence, as if she were more comfortable now she was back in the area she considered home.

He could feel eyes on them as they entered the narrow streets, curious but not overly malicious at present. Not for the first time he wondered how his refined wife had thrived in such an environment and once again he had to remind himself that he barely knew the woman beside him. There was clearly much more to her than he’d realised when his mother had proposed her as a marriage candidate.

It would be easy to lose your way in the maze of streets, but the years Oliver had spent in the army meant he had a sharp eye for observation and thought he probably could escape from the slums if he needed to.

‘We’re here,’ Lucy said flatly, her voice without enthusiasm.

They stopped in front of a nondescript door, situated in a brick building with crumbling windows and nestled between a lodging house on one side and a building that leaned dangerously out over the street on the other. To Oliver it looked as though it should be condemned, but as they watched, a young girl threw open a window and hurled a bucket of water into the street below. Definitely lived in, then.

He observed her as Lucy hesitated for just a second, then pushed open the door. They entered into a narrow alley, the bricks on either side dank and dirty, and walked the fifteen feet to a courtyard at the other end.

‘Caroline,’ a middle-aged woman shouted as they entered the courtyard. She abandoned the scruffy young woman she was talking to and came rushing over. ‘I’ve been so worried.’

Oliver watched with curiosity as the two women embraced, wondering if this was the woman who ran the Foundation. Mary, Lucy had said her name was.

‘I should introduce my husband,’ Lucy said, the reluctance evident in her voice.

Mary’s eyes widened and Oliver wondered exactly what Lucy had told the older woman when she’d first arrived, desperate and destitute.

‘Mary, this is Lord Sedgewick, my husband. Lord Sedgewick, this is Mary Humberton, proprietress of the St Giles’s Women’s and Children’s Foundation.’

‘A pleasure to meet you, my lord,’ Mary said, rallying splendidly.

Oliver inclined his head in greeting, catching the puzzled glance Mary threw at his wife.

‘You are reunited?’ Mary asked eventually.

He saw Lucy hesitate for just a moment, and then nod.

‘Lucy has been telling me of the work you do here,’ he said, filling the awkward silence that was stretching out before them.

‘Caro—’ Mary started and then corrected herself. ‘Lucy has been a godsend. I don’t know what we would have done without her this last year.’

‘Miss Caroline,’ an exuberant voice shouted from one of the windows that overlooked the courtyard. Oliver looked up in time to see the flash of blond hair before the boy disappeared, heavy footfalls announcing his imminent arrival down one of the many staircases.

A door flew open and a boy of seven or eight hurtled into the courtyard, throwing himself into Lucy’s arms.

‘Old Bert said you’d been kidnapped,’ he said, his eyes wide with excitement.

‘Not kidnapped, Billy. I just bumped into an old acquaintance.’

Oliver grimaced at the casual way she described him. A husband should be more than an old acquaintance.

‘Is this him?’ Billy asked, squinting up at Oliver. ‘Bert said he had a big knife, more like a sword, and he dragged you off by the hair screaming.’

‘Old Bert can exaggerate sometimes,’ Lucy said, suppressing the smile on her lips as she looked down at the boy with affection.

‘Exaggerate?’ Billy mumbled with a frown. Then his face suddenly lit up. ‘Stretch the truth to make it sound more exciting?’ he asked.

‘Well done,’ Lucy said, ruffling the young boy’s hair.

‘Did he hurt you?’ Billy asked, his voice a loud whisper, a dark glance directed Oliver’s way.

Before Lucy could answer, Oliver saw the boy tense and fling himself towards him, fists swinging as he dived at Oliver, teeth gnashing and eyes dark. Catching the young lad easily, he held him at arm’s length, trying to remain gentle but at the same time determined not to be bitten. Who knew what diseases a street child carried in his mouth?

‘He didn’t hurt me, Billy,’ Lucy said quickly, stepping forward to pull the young boy away with a surprising show of strength.

Oliver received a dark, distrusting look from Billy, but no further attempts to attack him were forthcoming.

‘Get back to your studies, Billy,’ Mary admonished gently, ‘or you’ll fall behind the rest of the class.’

Reluctantly Billy gave Lucy one final hug before racing back up the stairs he’d come down. Within seconds there was a low rumble and a few excited shrieks followed by a dozen curious faces at the window of what must be the schoolroom. Billy had lost no time in informing his classmates about Lucy’s return and her mysterious companion.

‘Back to your seats,’ a deep voice called and slowly the faces trickled away.

‘One of the things I’m most proud of,’ Mary said, stepping closer and taking Oliver’s arm. ‘Our education programme. No child that stays here with us gets out of lessons to read and write. Some of those who stay longer also learn a little mathematics. Probably not enough to allow them to be clerks, but certainly enough to be able to take money behind a bar in an inn, or work out weights and prices in a butcher’s shop.’

Oliver had come across all sorts of people in the course of his life. Those who were selfish and thought only of their own profit; those who were determined to pauper themselves in the service of others. Mary was one of the kind ones, he could see, but she was astute, too. She knew exactly what the young children of St Giles needed, and it wasn’t lessons in French or Latin, but basic skills aimed at allowing them to navigate through life just a little easier than their parents.

‘Come, let me show you around,’ Mary said.

‘I don’t want to inconvenience you.’

‘Nonsense. This is purely selfish. I’m hoping if you see the good work we do here you’ll want Lucy to remain involved.’

* * *

Oliver was safely ensconced in the office. Hopefully his accounts would be absorbing enough to keep him from wandering, Lucy thought.

He’d been remarkably well behaved on his tour of the Foundation, asking Mary insightful questions and greeting the children and adults he met politely. Lucy didn’t know what she’d expected, but not this. Perhaps a surly superiority, or a dismissive air about him, but Oliver had been genial and courteous.

‘What on earth happened?’ Mary asked, pulling Lucy into her private rooms.

Lucy collapsed into one of the low armchairs and let out a heartfelt sigh.

‘Somehow he found me, followed me and insisted I went home with him.’

Mary was one of the only people who knew the truth about Lucy’s background. Most of the residents, as well as the patrons of the orphanage, believed she was the daughter of some minor country gentleman, probably caught up in a scandal that had brought her low in life. Mary had been the one to find her and David shivering on a street corner just over a year ago and she’d been the one to comfort Lucy when David passed away. She’d helped Lucy grieve, then slowly brought back her purpose in life by giving her a role at the Foundation. In return, Lucy had been honest with the older woman, telling her the details of her background and why she’d fled from her marital home.

‘He seems perfectly pleasant on the outside,’ Mary mused. ‘Has he hurt you?’

With the kind of women they helped at the Foundation they were both well aware of the outwardly charming man who beat his wife roughly behind closed doors.

‘He’s been gentle,’ Lucy admitted. ‘Hasn’t raised a hand against me, or even his voice.’

She knew Oliver would be well within his rights to lock her in her bedroom, beat her with a stick for her disobedience and force himself on her until she was with child. And, despite hardly knowing the man she was married to, Lucy did know he would never hurt her.

‘What does he want?’

‘To be my husband. And for me to be his wife.’

‘Hardly an unreasonable request,’ Mary murmured.

Despite the fear of the future Lucy was feeling, she couldn’t help but smile. Mary had never held back from saying exactly what she was feeling.

‘I thought he would have moved on by now,’ Lucy said glumly.

‘Do you want him to?’

‘Of course. I left. I could hardly wish him to wait for me all this time.’

‘But he has. And now you have the chance to be a lady again.’

‘I was never made for that life,’ Lucy said. It wasn’t quite true. The life of a lady was what she’d been born into, what she’d been raised to be. Her entire childhood had been aimed at preparing her for marriage to a respectable gentleman. This life, this vocation she felt at the Foundation, would have been foreign to her younger self, but now she couldn’t imagine returning to a pampered life of idleness, having a maid to help her dress, a cook to prepare her meals.

‘Perhaps there’s a way for your two lives to meet in the middle,’ Mary said. ‘It seems your husband is content to let you continue at least some of your work here and I dare say you could find a way to enjoy some of the perks of being married to a viscount.’

Of course Mary was right. That would be the ideal solution. It was much like what Oliver had proposed.

‘That’s what he said,’ Lucy grumbled, feeling decidedly put out and not quite knowing why.

‘Change, dear,’ Mary said, patting her on the hand. ‘It’s difficult to accept when the decision has been taken from your hands, especially when you’ve been independent for as long as we have.’

‘I don’t want to let you down,’ Lucy said, then corrected herself. ‘I will not let you down.’

‘I know.’ Mary paused as if wondering whether to say any more. ‘He’s not your father, Lucy. Give him a chance at the very least.’

Lucy’s relationship with her father could be described as sour at the best of times. She hadn’t contacted him in the year she’d been living in St Giles and would be content to not ever speak to him again. The old man was controlling, but worse than that, he was cruel. Lucy would never forgive him for how he’d treated her younger brother, William, and still blamed him for the young boy’s death. At the age of five, when the old man had realised William was different, unable to speak, unable to move around by himself, he’d sent him away to live with a succession of families, the last of whom had mistreated him badly. To this day Lucy still mourned her sweet younger brother.

Mary squeezed Lucy affectionately on the arm before bustling out to carry on with the business of the day. For a few minutes Lucy just sat where she was, wondering if she was being unreasonable in how she’d approached this situation with Oliver. Deep down she knew she was the one in the wrong. She’d run away without a proper explanation, she’d neglected to inform her husband that she was still alive, she’d built a new life without bothering to enquire if Oliver was doing the same. She knew all this, but it still was difficult to accept Oliver’s proposal that they return to being husband and wife.

Shaking herself from her self-imposed mental slump, Lucy rose and exited Mary’s rooms. Today she’d been planning on preparing the accounts for the next governor’s meeting in four weeks’ time. It wasn’t too time-consuming or difficult as she was the one who kept all the Foundation’s day-to-day accounts. This biannual meeting took a little preparation, but nothing too arduous.

Making her way back to the office, Lucy felt her heart sink as she saw the empty chair where Oliver had been sitting. His papers were neatly stacked on the desk, telling her he hadn’t grown bored and returned home. Instead he was somewhere loose in the Foundation.

Frantically she dashed from the office, racing down the stairs and into the courtyard. If she thought logically, there were only a few places Oliver could be. Most of the upper levels of the sprawling building were made up of small living quarters for the women and children needing shelter. It was only the rooms on the ground floor that were communal. Still, he could be in the dining room, one of the two classrooms, the laundry, the workrooms...

Hearing a soft peal of laughter, Lucy paused and listened for a few seconds before turning in the direction of the dining room. The large room was set out with two long tables for the residents to take a communal lunch together, but presently at eleven in the morning it was deserted, save for two figures hunched over one of the tables.

‘B-o-a-t,’ the young boy sitting squinting at the paper in front of him read.

‘And what does that spell?’ Oliver asked softly.

‘Boat.’

‘Good. How about this one?’

Lucy shifted and the noise was enough to make Oliver and Freddy, the young boy he was sitting with, look up.

‘Miss Caroline,’ Freddy shouted, throwing himself from his seat and rushing towards Lucy. ‘Billy said you’d been kidnapped.’

Rumours were always quick to spread in the Foundation. No doubt it would take much longer for the truth to circulate. It was nowhere near as sensational.

‘No, Freddy, not kidnapped.’

‘Mr Oliver is helping me with my spelling,’ Freddy said.

Lucy regarded her husband through narrowed eyes. She had no idea what he was playing at, wandering around the Foundation and talking to the inhabitants, but surely it wasn’t anything as innocent as just helping Freddy with his spelling.

‘That’s kind of him,’ Lucy said eventually.

‘Freddy tells me he wants to be a Bow Street Runner when he grows up.’

Coming from a family of mainly unsuccessful petty criminals, Lucy wasn’t sure how realistic this ambition was, but she always encouraged the children to have aspirations.

‘I need to be able to read so I can look at clues.’

‘Can I borrow Mr Oliver for a moment?’ Lucy asked.

Freddy turned back to his spelling and Oliver rose quickly, following her back into the courtyard.

When she was sure they couldn’t be overheard, she whispered, ‘What are you doing?’

Her husband frowned. He gestured back to the dining room where he’d left the young boy still puzzling over his spelling.

‘What are you really doing?’

Oliver regarded her for thirty seconds before speaking and when he did his tone was cool.

‘You seem to have a poor opinion of me, Lucy, when I have not given you cause to doubt me. All I want is for my wife to return home and once again be my wife. I’m not a monster, I’m not asking anything any reasonable man wouldn’t and I have been nothing but patient with you these last twenty-four hours.’ He paused, standing completely straight and looking like the army officer he’d been for many years. ‘You, on the other hand, have tried to run away, refused to divulge much about your life and now look at me like a monster for helping one of your young charges with his spelling.’

She felt the heat rise in her cheeks. He was right, although she was loath to admit it. She was struggling with their reunion, but not because of how he’d behaved. Perhaps it would have been easier if he’d shouted and thrown things, behaved like the man she had once pictured him to be to ease her conscience.

Opening her mouth, she tried to apologise, but found the words wouldn’t come. It was rude and cowardly of her, but she wondered if maybe by not apologising she’d push him away, make him leave her here to the life she’d built.

‘What are you so afraid of?’ he asked, for the first time a hint of softness in his voice.

It wasn’t a question she had the answer to. He looked at her with a mixture of pity and resignation, before turning on his heel and returning to the boy in the dining room. It seemed he wouldn’t abandon a promise, even one as small as helping a child with his schoolwork.


Chapter Five (#u5ec3ef9e-a5f0-502a-970d-e80f8cac0b31)

‘Blue is certainly your colour,’ the dressmaker’s assistant twittered as she held a swathe of material up to Lucy’s cheek.

‘I’m not sure. I don’t want anything too ostentatious,’ Lucy said.

Out of the corner of his eye Oliver observed the proceedings. Before today he’d never witnessed what happened when a woman wanted to order a new dress. He’d had vague ideas about a quick perusal of material, perhaps picking a style out of a book, and thought that was probably all there was to it. How wrong he’d been.

So far the dressmaker and her assistant had been occupying their drawing room for the past half an hour and they were still discussing colours. It was going to be a long afternoon. Still, he reasoned, at least he’d had the sense to make an appointment for the dressmaker to visit the house rather than finding himself trapped for hours on end in a stuffy shop on Bond Street. He’d done it so they would have less chance of bumping into some gossiping acquaintance, but now he could see the merit of home appointments for so many other reasons.

‘What do you think?’ Lucy asked, breaking into his thoughts.

He blinked a couple of times, surprised to be addressed by his wife. Despite her thawing to him these last couple of days, she still seemed determined to keep her life and his as separate as possible.

‘That colour,’ he said, pointing to an abandoned swathe of silk draped carefully over the arm of a chair.

‘The coral?’

‘It suits you,’ he said with a shrug.

‘It does bring out the honey shades in your hair,’ the dressmaker said.

‘And such a warm colour,’ the assistant added.

Oliver knew nothing about honey shades or the warmth of a colour, he just knew that when Lucy held up the coral silk against her skin something tightened inside of him.

‘I like it,’ she said, giving him a small smile.

Pretending to return to the papers in front of him, Oliver had to suppress the confusion blooming inside him. There was something rather enchanting about his wife; he’d felt it when they’d first married. It had been purely arranged as a marriage of convenience. He’d needed a wife to give him an heir and look after his interests at home while he was off fighting on the Peninsula. The details of Lucy’s home life had always been a little vague, but he was under the impression she was so keen for marriage to get away from an overbearing family. Given the reasons behind the marriage, he’d never expected to actually start feeling affection for his wife alongside the physical attraction that had bloomed immediately.

That affection and attraction were trying to rear their heads once again and this time it was entirely unwelcome. He couldn’t forgive her for how she’d left him, how she’d taken David away from him before he’d even had a chance to look into his son’s face. He didn’t want to desire his wife—he didn’t even want to feel that same affection he’d hoped for in the early days of their marriage. Yet here it was, trying to muscle its way in.

Turning a page to keep up the pretence of working, he regarded his wife for a little longer. As a debutante, Lucy had never been thought of as the diamond of the Season. She’d been out in society for a year before he’d proposed to her with no other suitors, but in his eyes she was beautiful. Slender and lithe from a year of living a simple life, she still had curves in all the places he liked. More than that, though, was how her face lit up when she smiled, how her brow furrowed when she was worried. He loved how expressive her face was, how you could tell so much from a single glance.

‘Off the shoulder, do you think?’ the dressmaker asked.

For a moment Oliver didn’t realise all eyes were turned to him. Carefully he put down his papers and rose, walking over to the three women.

The dressmaker was holding up two sample dresses, one with a tight bodice and low-cut front, the puffy sleeves sitting well off the shoulders. It was a design to draw attention, a dress that exposed a fair amount of skin.

‘I’m not sure...’ Lucy said and Oliver could see the hesitation in her eyes. Although the dress was lovely, and would no doubt make Lucy look beautiful, it wasn’t her style. It was too ostentatious, too scandalous for a woman who was used to wearing a brown woollen sack.

‘The other one,’ he said.

The second design was still tight in the bodice area, but not so low cut, leaving more to the imagination.

‘Good choice, sir.’

As the dressmaker and her assistant stepped away to find their tape measures, Oliver stayed positioned just in front of Lucy. He wanted to reach out, to run a finger over her cheek, feel the softness of her skin, the moistness of her lips. They had barely touched since their reunion, just gloved hand on jacket as he offered her his arm, and already Oliver was yearning for more.

‘Time to take your measurements,’ the dressmaker said, bustling in between him and his wife.

Reluctantly Oliver moved away. He knew this was his cue to depart and leave the women alone to do the more personal aspect of the fitting, but for a moment he lingered, watching his wife hold out her arms obediently as the tape measure was looped around her back. All the time he’d searched for her he’d told himself it was to find out what had happened to their son and to get his wife back for social occasions and the running of his household. Never had he allowed himself to believe there might be a deeper reason for desiring their reunion.

* * *

‘Parker,’ Oliver called, waiting as his young butler promptly turned and faced him. Despite it being four years since Oliver had been his superior officer in the army, the young man still almost saluted. Oliver saw his arm twitch at his side as he struggled to suppress the movement.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Meet me in the dining room.’

The butler grinned, nodding swiftly and hurrying off to prepare the room.

Oliver followed behind. With Lucy still being pushed and prodded by the dressmaker, he was feeling restless and the only solution was to use up some energy.

As Oliver reached the dining room, he saw Parker had recruited two footmen and between them they were moving the dining table and chairs to one side. A couple of the more expensive pieces of furniture had been moved out of the way and an antique vase placed on a high shelf.

Within minutes the centre of the room was clear of any obstacles, a long, wide space big enough for the coming physical workout.

Oliver stretched, pulling each arm to one side, and then opened the large display cabinet at one end of the room. He removed two fencing foils, long and sleek, giving them both an experimental swish.

Parker, the butler, shrugged off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, revealing a few more scars on his forearms to match the vertical slash down one cheek.

‘I hope you’ve been practising, Parker,’ Oliver said as he handed the foil to the butler.

‘Never fear, sir, one of these days you’ll beat me.’

The younger man was always respectful and deferential in his work as butler, but there was a subtle shift when the jackets came off and foils came out. It was as though they were back in the training camp, still superior officer and soldier, but a comradeship flourished that was peculiar to the army.

‘I’ll go easy on you, Parker,’ Oliver said, getting into position.

They fought, foil clashing against foil with satisfying clinks, moving backwards and forward with lunges and parries. As they clashed Oliver felt some of the tension that had been building inside him the last few days dissipate as it always did with physical combat.

They were fairly evenly matched, with points being traded backwards and forwards as the minutes ticked by. Oliver didn’t really care who won. For him it was more about the thrill of the fight, the wonderful way he felt liberated as his body lunged and defended.

‘What on earth...?’ a small voice said from the doorway as the foils clashed.

Oliver spun around to see Lucy’s shocked face in the doorway.

‘Forgive us,’ he said with a bow. ‘Just a little light exercise.’

‘Shall I put the room right, sir?’ Parker asked, wiping a film of sweat from his forehead.

‘Don’t let me stop you,’ Lucy murmured, backing away, but Oliver had already tossed his foil to the butler and was following Lucy from the room.

He caught up with her on the stairs.

‘That’s a very peculiar use of the dining room,’ she said. He could tell she was itching to ask for an explanation, but held back from fear of getting overly involved or invested in his life.

‘Sometimes I find I need to work out a little energy,’ Oliver said, offering her his arm.

‘And your butler can fence?’

‘He can fight,’ Oliver corrected. ‘He was my sergeant for a while on the Peninsula.’

‘And now he’s your butler.’

‘And now he’s my butler.’

Lucy looked at him with curiosity and he wondered if she might ask more. He knew she was interested in people, but so far she had kept her enquiries into his life to a minimum, as if asking about it risked pulling her deeper into it.

‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said. ‘Giving him a job. I know many soldiers struggle to find employment after returning from the war.’

It was an awful thing to see when walking the streets of London. Former soldiers who had once fought bravely for their country, abandoned by the very people they’d served. Many of the returning soldiers found their families had moved on and their jobs filled, leaving them without a true place in the world. It was a hundred times worse for those who had been injured, losing an arm or a leg or an eye, unable to find even the most menial of jobs to provide them with food and shelter, and having to resort to begging on the street.

‘He’s a good man—loyal. I never have to worry about my silverware disappearing with Parker running the household.’

Parker was a good man, one of the best, but with his facial scars he would have been turned away by any of the grand households who wanted their footmen and butlers to be aesthetically pleasing, sometimes even more than they wanted them to be efficient at their jobs.

When it became clear she wasn’t going to ask any more he turned the subject back to her dress fitting.

‘Will the dress be ready in time for the ball in two days?’

‘Mrs Farrar assures me it will be ready even if she has to stay up all night.’

‘Good. I don’t want anything to upset our plans.’ He saw her stiffen at the idea of the ball but couldn’t stop himself from adding, ‘It is very important we reintroduce you to society as my wife.’

‘We wouldn’t want the gossips speculating about whom you might have holed up in here,’ Lucy murmured.

‘This isn’t a joke, Lucy.’

‘I know. It’s my life.’

‘Our life. As husband and wife.’

‘But my freedom.’

‘Freedom?’ he asked, letting out a cold laugh. ‘I thought you’d grown up in the year we were apart, Lucy. No one is free, we all have responsibilities, all have to do things we don’t want to.’

‘You get to choose how your life ends up,’ Lucy said, turning to face him, lifting her chin so she was looking him straight in the eye. ‘And how mine does.’

‘There you are wrong. No matter what I feel, we’re still married—I’m just as trapped by that as you.’

Her eyes searched his face, as if trying to work out his true feelings.

‘You have the power to at least apply for a divorce—only men can do that. You have the power to set me free from this marriage, let me go back to my old life.’

‘That’s not going to happen, Lucy. We’re married and married couples live together and they socialise together. I’m not asking you to chop off a limb or scale a mountain. All I want is for you to fulfil your part of our wedding vows.’

They stared at each other in silence for over a minute before Lucy turned on her heel and stalked away. Oliver waited until he was alone in his study before he sagged. That exchange had not gone as he’d hoped. Every time he clashed with Lucy he wished it ended differently, but she was so distant, so difficult to engage and he could feel the simmering anger beneath his own words. How could she treat him like this when it had been she who’d run away? She who had taken their son? She didn’t have the right to remain aloof and angry. Admittedly she’d built a life for herself in the year they’d been separated, but that was none of his concern. He wanted her back here as his wife and if he could, he’d wipe out all trace of the world she’d been living in, but realistically he knew that wasn’t an option.

He wondered if she would ever thaw, if she would ever look at him with anything more than distant coolness. Surprisingly he wanted that, even though he doubted he could ever return the feelings. Perhaps they were destined to live their lives as many married couples did, putting on a front for society events and then barely speaking at home. It was what he’d imagined, when he’d first found her, but every so often he wondered if that would be enough or if one day, when his vexation had burnt itself out, whether he would want more than a cold and unfeeling marriage.


Chapter Six (#u5ec3ef9e-a5f0-502a-970d-e80f8cac0b31)

Lucy shifted uncomfortably on the seat, feeling the layers of petticoats clinging to her legs and making her hot despite the cool October air.

‘Try to at least pretend you’re enjoying the evening,’ Oliver said from his position across the carriage.

Lucy felt like screaming. He was so calm, so unfazed by the evening Lucy had been dreading ever since he’d found her again.

Tonight was the night of the Hickams’ ball; the night when Oliver would introduce Lucy to his friends and acquaintances as his wife. All week she’d seen this event as the point of no return; once he’d brought her out in public there was no way he’d ever let her slink off into the night as a free woman.

‘Remember to smile once or twice.’

Suppressing the urge to deepen her frown, Lucy contented herself with looking out the window. They were barely moving, the press of carriages thick as they approached the house, and the temptation to get out and run was strong.

‘It might not be as bad as you’re dreading,’ Oliver said more softly, even giving her a brief but reassuring smile.

His words threw her. It was much easier to build her husband up into a heinous villain, but deep down Lucy knew that wasn’t the truth. Oliver was asking her to do something she didn’t want to, but he wasn’t a monster. He’d kept his side of the bargain and allowed her to continue her work at the Foundation. She knew the sensible thing to do would be to keep her husband happy and play the part of the dutiful wife tonight.

Somehow she couldn’t follow her own advice. Something inside was driving her to keep pushing, keep fighting. Perhaps it was fear, perhaps it was a certainty that she didn’t want to return to the mundane routine of her old life, but whatever it was kept her from doing what she knew was right; plastering a smile on her face and pretending she was happy to be there.

Letting a deep sigh escape, Lucy looked out of the window. They’d inched forward, but still weren’t at the front of the long line of carriages. This felt so different from her Season as a debutante, before she’d ever met Oliver, when her mother had whisked her around London in the hope she would find a suitable husband to marry. Lucy had hated it, not the balls or the socialising, but the constant pressure from her mother to impress a gentleman with a title and a fortune, when Lucy had been young and shy.

That had been part of the reason she’d accepted Oliver’s proposal so readily. Of course he was titled and rich, which kept her parents happy, but also marriage to him meant she wouldn’t have to endure another Season as a young woman seeking a husband. It wasn’t the main reason, which had been escape from her odious father and unhappy home life, but it had certainly been an added incentive.

Their carriage finally reached the steps in front of the house and a footman opened the door.

‘Come,’ Oliver said as he took her hand to help her from the carriage. He ensured she was steady on her feet before leading her up the steps and into the house.

The press of people was suffocating as they edged through the guests to the ballroom. Lucy had certainly been in more crowded places, but the scent of perfume and the press of layer upon layer of fabric was a different kind of crowded to the jostling mass of people in St Giles.

‘Lord and Lady Sedgewick,’ a footman announced as they entered the ballroom.

Lucy wondered if she imagined the slight pause in conversation that followed their names. No one looked directly at them, but there were a number of sideways glances directed their way. For a moment she wondered what the gossips had said about her absence from society for the year she’d been away. Then, just as her nerves were getting the better of her, she felt Oliver squeeze her hand.

Straightening her back and lifting her chin, she smiled, surprised at how reassuring she found Oliver’s subtle reminder of his presence at her side.

‘Sedgewick, what a surprise,’ a tall, thin man shouted as he made his way through the crush of people. ‘And the elusive Lady Sedgewick.’ The man leaned in closer to Lucy and gave her a conspiratorial wink. ‘We all thought he’d made you up.’

‘You’re not meant to actually say that,’ Oliver grumbled.

‘Seeing as Sedgewick has forgotten his manners, I’m Lord Redmoor.’





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