Page 41 of The Lost Lord
“What are you doing here, Lizzie?” Richard snarled. He moved a few inches in front of Miriam as though to protect her.
“Richard, darling, you should know very well what I am doing here. I am holding you to your obligations as the father of our child.” Lizzie placed her other gloved hand over her small, flat abdomen.
Miriam’s world swam sickeningly. The ship rolled, and where a few minutes ago she would have moved with it, she now stumbled. Behind her, Mrs. Kent gasped.
“Your child?” Miriam stared at Richard with shock and accusation. “When were you planning to tell me?”
“Ideally never, dear heart. Lizzie is quite mad. She may not even be pregnant. I haven’t touched her since before I met you, and she appears no further along than she did...”
“At lakeside house.” Lizzie finished for him, smirking. “You didn’t tell her, I see. It isn’t entirely true, either. You last touched me the night you met Miriam. I took up with Spencer the next day.”
Richard’s jaw worked. Miriam had come to recognize this as a sign that he was trying to bite back words.
“If there is a child, I cannot even be certain that it is mine. You were with your husband at the shore.” Richard’s voice cracked slightly with barely-restrained emotion.
Appalled, Miriam’s gaze glanced between her friend and new spouse, one gloating, the other twisted in miserable fury. This was the true nature of the man she had married?
Married. A sick feeling curdled in Miriam’s stomach. This had to be the reason why Richard refused to come to her bed. She glared at him in accusation. Richard met her gaze sidelong and jerked his head away.
No.But the truth shimmered almost tangibly between them. Hot tears blurred Miriam’s vision.
“Oh, it’s your baby,” Lizzie snapped. Miriam jerked her gaze to her friend’s hard face. What kind of woman had she been friends with all these years? Foxy Lizzie, her detractors had called her. Well. It appeared Miriam had been thoroughly outfoxed. She’d never experienced this side of Lizzie. Her friend’s –formerfriend’s – manipulativeness wounded her almost as deeply as Richard’s betrayal.
Not now. She would think of it later.
“I believe her.” Miriam startled all of them by speaking.
“I don’t,” responded Mrs. Kent. For a second Lizzie looked like she might fly at Mrs. Kent and scratch her eyes out. Miriam’s nurse narrowed her eyes at the unwanted interloper, daring Lizzie until she brought herself under control.
“Dearest Miriam. I knew I could count on you to see reason. Why would I lie? I have nothing to gain. Do I, Richard?”
He stood stiffly, tight-lipped and silent, beside her. Richard glared at Lizzie with mute hatred and suffering naked in his eyes. Miriam edged away from him, closer to Mrs. Kent.
“Money. That is what this is about, Miriam. Lizzie wants money so that she can divorce her husband and free herself from her family’s influence. Specifically, she wants your fortune,” Richard snarled. His smile expanded into an arrogant, pained smirk. “I am afraid you’re too late, Lizzie. The money is tied up in our business venture. There is nothing for you to pillage.”
Lizzie’s face twisted again as if a demon possessed her body. Her features took on a feral ferocity. Miriam shivered. A metallic taste rose in the back of her throat at reality sank in. Miriam’s one true friend had never been a friend at all. That fact broke her heart.
“I’d have given you the money if you asked for it, Lizzie,” Miriam said softly.
“This is about our love, Richard. It’s about your fatherly obligations,” Lizzie returned evenly.
“I would never ignore my responsibilities as a father.” Richard spoke quietly, yet his body radiated tension. “I have promised to support you and the child financially. I never said I would marry you.”
Silence fell over them all, broken by the harsh calls of sailors around them and the snap of sails in the strong wind, taking them ever closer to a shore Miriam no longer wished to land upon. Richard turned to Miriam, his eyes and voice pleading. “I swear I had broken with Lizzie before I courted you. She may not have believed me, but I told her quite distinctly that we were through. The first time I kissed you was a revelation.”
Miriam listened to her husband as though from a very great distance. Now that the cold shock had worn off Miriam was beginning to understand what a tremendous fool she had been. Lizzie had known just what her dreams were. They had shared a dormitory together. All the girls at boarding school had all talked about their hopes and dreams. They’d shared stories of first kisses stolen at parties and warned one another of men with wandering hands. Everyone had known about Miriam’s condition, and had probably even seen an attack or two in progress.
Richard was every girl’s dream—handsome, aristocratic, and kind, when he wasn’t seducing girls out of their fortunes or impregnating and abandoning married women. Yet underneath Richard was nothing but a snake. And she had fallen for him like a rock sinking into the ocean, fast and irretrievable.
“Correct me if I am wrong. The plot was to seduce and marry me, wait until I die of an asthma attack, and marry a newly divorced Lizzie a few months after the funeral. Am I correct?” Miriam asked.
“That was not my plan,” Richard insisted.
“But you agreed to it,” Miriam clarified.
Richard didn’t speak. He shook his head. “I...” He snapped mouth shut.
She had her answer. Miriam inhaled sharply. She’d told herself this man might be a fraud. A cheat. A liar. But it did not stop the truth from cutting into the quick of her soul.
