cry, if you please. I did not mean to cause you distress, and surely it is not good for your condition.”
“I do not know why I am weeping,” she said.
But this, too, was a lie. For she did know why. She was miserable. And it was a misery of her own making. No one had made her kiss Tom in the moonlight. No one had forced her to take him as her lover. She, alone, was to blame.
He had not asked her to love him.
She had chosen to leave him.
And now, she was alone. Alone, with his babe in her belly. Whilst he was next door, happily cavorting with golden-haired Aphrodites. Completely unware of her plight.
“You are weeping because you are pregnant, my dear,” Lottie said. “My older sister Caro wept for a full month straight when she was carrying my nephew. And my cousin Elizabeth could not stop eating chocolate cake and pickled herrings.”
Chocolate and fish made Hyacinth want to vomit.
But most things seemed to in the last little while.
“I hate him,” she said, her words choking on a mortifying sob.
“Of course you do, darling.” Lottie nodded and rubbed her back, as if Hyacinth were making perfect sense.
Which she knew quite well she was not.
“But I also love him,” she admitted on another sniff.
“You must tell Lord Sidmouth about the baby, dearest,” Lottie told her. “He is the child’s father. He has a right to know. Even if you have no wish to marry, he deserves to be told.”
“No.” Hyacinth shook her head vehemently, the notion of approaching Tom and telling him he was going to be a father making something inside her seize.
“Hyacinth, I love you like a sister, but you must see reason,” Lottie pressed, her tone a rare one for her—disapproval.
“Do not take me to task, I beg of you.” She pressed a hand to her roiling stomach, staving off another attack of nausea. “I have seen reason, Lottie. I am not meant to be the merry widow. I tried, but it is not in me. And now that I am carrying a child, I have been thinking about what I must do for the babe. Not just for myself. I am going to go away, to the countryside where no one knows me.”
“You cannot mean it, Hyacinth.” Lottie looked aghast. “What of Town? You have scarcely been here but two months’ time. I refuse to believe you will leave me so suddenly. I need you.”
She smiled sadly at her friend. “You are being silly, Lottie. You do not need me.”
No one needed her. No one except for the tiny life growing in her womb.
A child. The knowledge still took her breath. She was going to be a mother. It was something she had never believed possible for herself. Something she had longed for, once upon a time. Something she had told herself she would be content without. She had accepted that she was barren. Accepted that her marriage was a failure. Accepted she would never know true happiness.
“Of course I do.” Lottie bumped elbows in a teasing fashion, attempting to lighten the mood. “Who shall accompany me on all my shopping excursions? And how shall I woo the Duke of Brandon without you? Most importantly, who will have tea with me whenever the notion strikes me? Who shall tell me when I am wearing something garish? You know I favor bold colors, and no one else will tell me the truth save you.”
She smiled and nudged her friend in return. “You may visit me in the country if you like.”
Lottie shuddered. “More blaspheme.”
They were silent, seated together, nothing but the steady thrumming of a mantel clock to interrupt the quiet.
“It is what has to be, Lottie,” Hyacinth said at last. “It is for the best. You shall see.”
In time, she hoped that she would as well.
Because there was still a splinter of doubt lodged deep in her heart, refusing to go. A splinter that told her Tom deserved to know she was carrying his child. That she should swallow her pride and go to him.
But she would excise that splinter, blast it. She had to.
“You look like a drowned puppy,” Brandon observed grimly as he took in the sight of Tom, dripping and bedraggled, in his front entry.
“I went for a walk,” Tom said, as if doing so were a perfectly commonplace activity for him. “And it began to rain.”
Brandon shook his head. “Towels, if you please,” he called to his servants, none of whom