The Convenient Bride (12 page)

May
’s mouth had dropped open in shock.

“I fled from their words without making my presence known but my vision was blurred. I tripped and
lost my footing, falling down a flight of stairs. That’s why I lost the baby.”

“Oh, my darling.”
May put her arms around her friend and pulled her close, causing Lucy to begin crying in earnest, though she tried not to disturb the baby. “I’m so sorry.”

May
didn’t know what was going on but she was certain that Max wouldn’t behave like that. He loved Lucy, she would bet her childrens’ lives on that fact, and no matter how forced this marriage had been, she was also sure that there were no two people more suited for each other than Max and Lucy. Yes, they had their differences as well as their similarities, but those differences compensated for weaknesses in the other.

Lucy was responsible, while Max tended to flee from it.

Max knew how to have fun, while Lucy tended to prefer being shy and demure.

They both had a temper and weren’t afraid to
‘tell the other their fortune’ if necessary.

And they both loved each other so deeply that it frightened them.

When Lucy’s tears had dried, May tried some gentle probing.

“How do you know he was talking with his mistress?”
She asked kindly. Right now she was hoping that he had been talking to his mother, or perhaps Maude or Madeline, their other sisters.

“She came to see me at the orphanage before the wedding, under the guise of making a donation. I recognised her perfume as one I’d smelled on Max many times before.”

“But surely you couldn’t recognise her from her voice alone, after only one meeting?”

“She has the worst
French accent in all of England; I’d know that voice anywhere.”

May
was out of excuses. “I take it you haven’t spoken with Max about this?”

“No. This is my fault,
May. I allowed myself to fall love with him-“

“We can’t help who we fall in love with,” she cut Lucy off.

“
Then
I allowed myself to marry him,” Lucy continued, “knowing full well that he didn’t feel the same.
And then
I deluded myself into believing that we could be happy, that he might come to love me the same way I love him.” She sighed. “I can’t help being angry though, no matter how unjustified and if I tell him anything about what happened that day, I might just end up killing him.”

“So you do still love him?”

Lucy looked at her friend for the first time since this conversation began.

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t care how many mistresses he has.”

“I’m sure there must be an explanation,” May insisted. “I have known my brother since childhood, well, since he was three to be exact, and I know he isn’t like that.”

“
Like what? The type of man who sleeps with many different women? We both know that isn’t true.”

May
wanted to scream that he only did that, because he was frustrated that Lucy wouldn’t love him as he loved her.

For two people who had always been as close as
Max and Lucy were, they certainly were stupid sometimes.

“You can’t tell
Max,” Lucy implored. “He would just try to weasel out of it, and I really don’t want to get blood on my rugs.”

May
smiled, amazed at her friend’s resilience and that she could joke after all she had been through.

“
Very well.”

“You swear?”

“I swear,” May answered, making a cross over her heart with her left hand, and keeping the crossed fingers of her right hand, safely hidden behind her back.

They sat in silence for a few moments, watching Sophie as she picked some
daisies from the otherwise flawless lawn.

“If you ever find yourselves short of money, I'm sure our garden could use Sophie’s services. He is always
bemoaning how quickly the daisies come up.”

May
smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“So what happens now?”
May asked.

Lucy’s smile faded too. “I will learn to forgive him for not loving me, I always have in the past, then we will carry on as we used to, as friends. He
will get his heir one day, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not, I'm worried about you. Both of you actually. You look as though you haven’t had a good meal in
months, and Max looks as if he hasn’t slept in weeks.”

“I'm sorry if my distance is hurting him but I need it to survive right now
, May.”

“I know.
” She smiled. “How about if we continue this walk and try to think of happier topics?”

Lucy nodded and carefully got to her feet, so as not to wake the baby.

“Why don’t you tell me about this little man,” Lucy suggested.

“Oh, I could talk all week about that,”
May grinned.

***

May returned to her suite of rooms for an hour, just in case Lucy was keeping an eye on her, then she went in search of Max. She found him in the study, looking out into the gardens. He didn’t turn as she entered, so she marched up to him and cuffed him around the back of the head, none too gently.

“Hey, what was that for?” he turned to her, looking confused.
May adored him, and he her, so this was thoroughly out of character for her

“For being the biggest idiot in all of England!” She was steaming mad. “How could you have a mistress,
Max? I thought you loved Lucy?”

“What? I don’t have a mistress?”

“Really? Then who was the woman with the bad French accent that Lucy heard you professing love for, the day she lost the baby?”

“The… what?”

“That little conversation is the reason she lost the baby, Max. She was so upset that she tripped and fell down the stairs on her way out. And do you know what the silliest thing is? She blames herself for loving you so much, when she should lay the blame firmly on your stupid, idiotic, adulterous arse!”

The last four words were
accompanied by punches to his bicep. Finally she seemed to have run out of words and she watched as the colour drained from his face. Seconds later the strength seemed to leave him too and he collapsed into the closest chair.

“Oh, God,” he uttered, looking stricken.

“So it’s true?” May felt tears prick her eyes. She hadn’t disbelieved Lucy but at the same time, she had always idolised her eldest brother.

“No!” he answered
, with such vehemence that her heart swelled with hope, that maybe this could all come good in the end

“I think you’d better start at the beginning,”
May said.

Max wiped a hand over his face, as if washing without water. He had dark circles under his eyes, as though he hadn’t
slept in weeks.

“She
was
my mistress,” he admitted, “but I swear on our mother’s life that I haven’t slept with her since the wedding.”

May
nodded coolly. “Go on.”

“She works at my club and a handful of the members there support her
, but she always said I was her favourite. After the wedding, I felt bad about not supporting her that is, so I continued to, although I’ve been avoiding the club at night because she can be a little… clingy. Anyway, the day before, she was at the club in the daytime and begged me to meet with her the next day, saying she had a business proposition for me.

“I would love it if she could earn a respectable income, so I agreed to meet her in her rooms. It turned out she wanted me to finance the production of a play and insisted we read it through
together.”

May
’s jaw dropped open again as she realised why Max had said those things.

“It was so
excruciatingly bad that we didn’t even finish Act One.”

“So you don’t have any illegitimate children running about then?”

“What? No! Of course not!”

“Oh, thank G
od.”

“But what was Lucy doing there? She’s never even met Marie, much less knows where she lives.”

“She has met Marie actually; she came to the orphanage before your wedding, probably to size up her competition.”

“She what?” Max shot to his feet.

“And on that day, Lucy received a note purporting to be from our father, asking Lucy to meet him urgently.”

“That scheming little-” he just stopped himself from swearing in front of his sister. “She planned the whole thing. She’s the reason our baby is dead.”

“You’re the reason your baby is dead, Max. What were you thinking, continuing to meet with your mistress?”

“There was no harm in it, nothing happened.”

“Except that Lucy knows her perfume and probably knew every single time that you saw her.”

Max knew that overpowering scent well
, but he had become so accustomed to it that he hardly even noticed it now.

“Dear Lord!” he sat down
again, realising what a fool he’d been to trust such a woman. He couldn’t blame Lucy for being so withdrawn from him. Right now, he didn’t want anything to do with himself.

“Why couldn’t you just tell Lucy the truth?”

“She said that after we were married, she never wanted me to speak about my mistresses.”

“I meant about the fact that you love her, idiot!”

“I do tell her!”

“When?”

“When…” he thought for a moment then sighed. “When we’re in bed.”

“It’s easy to be overcome with emotion then,”
May insisted. “Have you ever said anything when you weren’t naked?”

“
May!”

“Well have you?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Oh Max.” He looked so forlorn that she came up to him and put an arm around his shoulders. “She loves you too, you know.”

“Then why doesn’t she ever say so?”

“Probably because she thinks you don’t mean it, but she was so upset at the thought of you having a mistress, that she couldn’t see straight to walk downstairs. If she didn’t love you, she wouldn’t care.”

“She loves me like a sister, I’ll admit-”

“Max, for God’s sake, just go and tell her what really happened that day.”

“She won’t believe me,” he said, sounding downhearted.

“You have to try. You can’t let her go on believing that you only married her for her money and reputation.”

“She thinks that?”

“That’s what she heard you say that day.”

“The script!” he jumped to his feet and ran from the room, hurrying to his bed chamber and rummaging through his coat pockets. He was sure he had tucked the play into his coat that day, he just wasn’t sure which coat he’d been wearing.

Finally his hand touched on a sheaf of papers and he pulled them out.
May came in was he was skimming the contents for mention of children. If he remembered rightly, there was only one page that mentioned them and that must have been the page that Lucy had heard him reading.

“Ah ha!” he cried, then pushed
May aside and went in search of his wife.

“It was a set up,” Max
said as he came into the library, holding the papers out to Lucy.

“Pardon?”
Lucy looked away from the book shelves she was browsing, her gaze cool and detached.

“What you heard me say that day, it was lines from a play.”

Lucy shook her head. “I should have known that any sister of yours couldn’t keep a secret.”

“Lucy, please, listen to what I'm saying.”

“Why should I? Max, this is a marriage of convenience, nothing more. I don’t care if you have a string of mistresses.”

Her glare made him angry so he
strode up to her, taking hold of her shoulders to hold her in place as his mouth plunged hers, almost as though he were trying to devour her.

Lucy struggled in his grip, her fists balled up against his chest as she tried to push him off her but he
was too strong. Instead she stopped fighting, going completely still and finally Max ended the kiss and released her shoulders.

Her fist connecting with his jaw took them both by surprise and made Max stagger back a little.

“What the hell was that for!” he asked, cupping the left side of his jaw with his hand.

Lucy felt awful for striking him but she couldn’t show weakness, not when she was so hurt.

“Because you deserve it! Max, I knew you were many things but to father a child out of wedlock? How could you.”

“Lucy, it isn’t what you think.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot? That I am some innocent fool who has no clue when you have been with one of your women? Just because I don’t say anything doesn’t mean that I haven’t noticed.”