White Lace and Promises (35 page)

She compressed her lips and folded her arms over her breasts.

“Beth, it’s the reasonable thing to do.” The words seemed to resonate with hollow effect. But damn it, his proposal was completely rational.

Her throat moved up and down and she closed her eyes.

His stomach clenched. Christ. What the hell was she going to say now?

She nodded. “All right.” Her voice shook. “If it means that much to you—if it will help prevent damage to your reputation—I will stay in New York. But I want Ruth and her daughters to come and live with me.”

“I’ll find her a house of her own.”

“That’s not necessary. I shall have plenty of room in a mansion of my own.” Her lip curled up. She was becoming defensive, slipping into former patterns. He hated to see it.

“Beth, I think you need some independence from your family—”

“How dare you dictate to me on this? You understand nothing about caring for family. You want everything in its own neat little partition, under control. But there is no room for compassion or understanding.”

“Better said, your family needs independence from you. You need your own life.”

Her face went white. “As your second cast-off wife, what life have I now?”

Her stricken eyes threatened to weaken his resolve and tightness burned through his stomach. This had to be the single worst moment of his life. But it had been inevitable from the start. He struggled for the right words to delineate the differences between their marriage and his first. “I told you. I never cast Juliana off. She left me. She went home to her father. I am not casting you off. Our differences are driving us apart.”

He clamped his jaw, afraid that he’d say more and permanently damage the situation, send her fleeing back to Philadelphia. Back into the destructive life she’d lived under the poisonous influence of Cornelia Hazelwood and being taken advantage of by weak, selfish Charlie McConnell. Or, worse yet, she’d become Dr Joshua Wade’s mistress. The burn in his stomach increased, as if he might vomit. He should leave now. Talking wasn’t going to help anything. They both simply needed time to adjust to the new terms of their relationship. “Beth, I’ve got to go. We shall discuss the details later.”

Her lip curled up higher and she nodded. “Of course.”

The pain in his belly rose to centre in his chest, tight and burning. A brittle pain, as if his heart were breaking. But such dramatic reactions weren’t necessary. This wasn’t the end. It was simply a change, a new start. A way to make their marriage into something he could navigate.

They would both adjust.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Maybe it’s for the best.”

Beth resisted the urge to snap in response to Ruth’s statement—she was only trying to be helpful. And one couldn’t expect a woman married to a man who also kept a wife in England and whom she only saw once a year or less to understand the pain of being sent from Grey’s house. Beth turned away from her sister to stare again at the floral and vine pattern of the wallpaper in her bedchamber. Grey had left for Albany for a few days. He seemed to have recovered quickly from their decision to part ways.

“He’s so arrogant. So tyrannical. You’ll be better off on your own. And it will be all right. He has to provide for you. If he don’t, you can go to the courts and they will force it.”

“Ruth, shut up. Please.” Beth closed her eyes. Had their quarrel even affected Grey at all? He’d downed a hearty breakfast the day he’d left. Yet she felt miserable. Tired, queasy and unable to eat a thing. How long could this sort of grief last?

At a knock on the door, Beth’s heart skipped a hopeful beat. Maybe he’d reconsidered his position. Maybe he was coming to say he didn’t want her to leave. She curled her lip.
Pathetic—utterly pathetic, Beth.

Ruth’s skirts rustled and the door opened. “Oh, thank you for coming.”

“Of course, any time.”

It was Joshua’s voice.

Beth bolted upright in the bed, clutching the sheets to her neck, covering her shift-clad body. “What the devil is he doing here?”

“Ah, that’s the cousin I know so well,” Joshua’s voice rang out with his customary charismatic cheer. He took Ruth by her ample hips and pulled her out of the way.

Ruth slapped his hands. “You watch yourself, Dr Wade.”

A lurch of nausea made Beth groan inside. Was there a female alive who didn’t fawn over him?

“I sent for him, Elizabeth. You’re not well.” With that, Ruth slipped out of the door, a broad smile on her flushed face.

“Close the door, sweeting, let me properly examine your sister, and then I shall come and alleviate your worries”—he glanced at Beth, his eyes strangely serious—“I hope.”

Ruth giggled and flustered, her eyes twinkling back at Joshua.

Beth stared as the door closed behind her sister. Doctor or no, Joshua was the last person who should be here. However, Joshua knew how to prevent an oncoming illness. She’d seen his preventative pills work for Mrs Hazelwood time and time again. And how could Beth tell Ruth the truth of the matter? How could she explain if she suddenly ordered Joshua out of here?

What did it matter if Joshua was here now? Grey already thought the worst of her. He had grasped at that possibility first. That had hurt so much—how could his further suspicion possibly touch her?

She had already lost Grey. Everything from here out was simply a formality. She knew Grey—he would be painfully polite, civil and above all generous. But it was all over between them—they saw life too differently.

A chill went straight to her bones.

“I’ll just take a look at you, Beth,” Joshua said as he approached her. He sat on the edge of the bed.

“Well, you were correct—he has decided to build me my own house, in Long Island.”

“Why do you bother telling me that? Surely you’re not going to give up that easily.”

“I don’t know what else I can do—he is set in his mind.”

 
Joshua sighed. “Beth, God help me. I am so ashamed of the man I have been thus far. If I hadn’t been such a coward. If I had stood up to my mother, you and I would be married now. And none of this would have happened to you.

“But it did happen and now…” Her voice broke. She coughed and cleared her throat. “And now I have made a disaster of things.” She gave a sad shake of her head. “He wants me gone.”

Joshua frowned. “Then let him go.
I
shall take care of you from now on, the way I should have before. And I do not care what anyone thinks. I shall get my freedom and we shall be married.”

“No, no, no.” The words forced themselves out with such stridence that it made her breathless in their wake.

He clutched her hand. Squeezed it tightly and brought his face very close to hers. His brown eyes blazed with emotion. “No, Beth, listen to me. I can prove myself to you. You must let me prove myself before you decide that things can never be good between us again.”

“I love him.”

“You only think you love him. You and I loved each other so well neither of us could ever love anyone else.”

“I love
him
. I shall never love you again, not like that.” She hated to go on. Didn’t want to tell him but it had to be said. “I never loved you as I love him. I couldn’t know that when we were together but I know it now.”

Joshua flinched. Then he blinked several times. “Dear God, my girl, I forgot how blunt you can be.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Joshua. I did at one point, but now I don’t. I forgive you for what you did but I can never forget. You treated me like a doxy. I am done being a gentleman’s plaything.”

His brows rose. “Well then…”

He turned away from her, his shoulders hunched up, a rigid looking stance.

“I love you, Joshua, but only as a cousin now.” She touched his arm.

He jerked away.

“A very dear cousin,” she added.

“As you say, you can never forget. I cannot blame you. I shall never forget, myself.”

“You must forgive yourself. We were both young. We were foolish.”

He turned back to her, the hint of a smile playing over his lips. “One of us was very foolish and that was I.”

He studied her a moment and then grimaced.

“You look awful, Beth.” He reached out to touch her. “Now let me have a closer look—as a doctor.”

She held her body stiff and kept a wary eye on him as he put his fingertips to her throat. He was in his doctor mode, his fingers soft and supple, sure and deft. But they inspired no reaction from her. Once she would never have believed he could touch her and she wouldn’t react.

Her love for Joshua had not died on his wedding day but it
had
died—a slow, painful death. She couldn’t imagine her love for Grey ever fading or dying. She would love him for the rest of her days, whether she spent those days with him or parted from him.

Joshua nodded to himself, probing along under her jaw. “You’re turning sick, Beth—you must take care. You’re going to become ill unless you begin taking excellent care of yourself as of this very moment. You must stay in bed and coddle yourself.”

“You can give me some of your special preventative pills.”

He glanced down over his spectacles with a wry expression. “Please tell me you know better than that.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You mean they are a sham?”

He probed around the back of her neck. “Sham is a hard word, Beth. Let’s just say they make some people’s minds easier when sickness is about. And they generally work only to keep a healthy person healthy. You’re not exactly in the pink at the moment.”

“But I have a ball to plan and attend.”

He removed his hands from her neck and sighed. “You shall have to cancel it, my dear.”

“But Grey is depending on me.”

“Shall I speak to him?”

“Goodness, no!”

He glanced down at her bodice. She glanced down, too, to where her cleavage showed between the straining buttons. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you quite done here?”

He rolled his tongue in his cheek. “Your face is showing signs of weight loss.” He picked up her hand and felt her wrist. “Oh yes, you’ve definitely lost some weight—and yet your pretty little breasts are getting positively bovine.”

Anger boiled through her blood and she glared at him. Fuck! He’d hit the absolute limit. She’d humoured Ruth’s good intentions for long enough.

“Get out.”

He regarded her for a moment.

“Watching you get married was the single most painful thing I ever had to go through in my life. It changed me, Beth—I swear it.”

She arched a brow and tilted her chin down.

“You don’t believe me? Well, I can’t fault you.” His face had turned grim and he took her hand. “But on that day I realised for the first time what it must truly have felt like for you to see me marry Annie. I knew then why you wouldn’t continue with me.”

She’d heard enough. This was his problem and he was going to have to sort his life out for himself. She had troubles enough of her own.

He grew quiet, his expression sobering. He turned away to stare into the fire, the flames reflecting on his spectacles.

“Beth, I am positive you are pregnant.”

She caught her breath and her heart began to beat very hard and loud in her ears. No, he shouldn’t say it aloud! She couldn’t let him. “You shut your mouth with that sort of talk.”

“When were your last courses?”

“Over six weeks ago.” She chewed her lip again.

“Is it… Have you been sharing yourself with him, Beth?” His voice became unsteady.

“Yes.”

“Then we’re talking about a probability, not a possibility.”

At his certain tone, she balled her fists on the coverlet. “But, as you say, I am turning sick. It used to happen when I was a girl and I got tonsillitis.”

“But you’re no longer a girl—you’re a wife.”

No, he was wrong. He had to be. She was simply overtired, ill. There was no child. There couldn’t be—not now.

But what if he was right? She shivered and hugged her shoulders.

 
“Rest all you can.” He patted her leg through the coverlet. “I shall be in town and available. You need only send word and I shall come. For any reason.”

He stood and she watched him collect his bag and leave. Ruth came in as he left. Beth’s stomach sank a little. Her sister must have been listening at the door. She must have heard every word.

“What did he say?” Ruth plopped down beside her on the bed. As if she didn’t know.

“He’s says I shall be fine.” Beth made her tone hard, hoping Ruth would take the hint and not pry into matters.

Ruth cast a sly glance at the door. “He still fancies you.”

“So he does. What of it?”

“You could have him—and your wealthy life, if you played things right.”

Beth studied her nails. “I’ve no interest in playing at anything.”