The Viscount's Runaway Wife. Laura Martin

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ