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Authors: Megan Chance

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BOOK: An Inconvenient Wife
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“Moira!”

The maid rushed through the curtains, her face pale, her light eyes wide with fear. “Yes ma’am,” she said, curtsying quickly
before me. “I’m sorry, ma’am—”

“Where have you been?” I asked her. “How often must I ring a bell before you come? I won’t tolerate this, I tell you. I cannot
tolerate this—”

“Lucy, darling.” William had my arm. He pulled me against him, whispering sternly in my ear, “Contain yourself,” and then
in the next moment, louder, “My dear, my dear. It’s all right. Moira had gone to get a package from Charles’s carriage.”

I pulled loose from my husband. “I don’t care where she was. She should have come. I rang three times. They are prostrate
with thirst—how long must we wait for tea?” Such a shrill voice, but I couldn’t call it back. I couldn’t make it stop.

“Perhaps you should rest, darling,” William said. He tried to pull me to one of the fringed horsehair chairs in the hall.

“I don’t want to rest. I want obedience from my servants. Is that too much to ask?”

“No, no, of course not,” William said. He glanced at our guests, who were standing at the edges of the hall, haunting the
doorways, looking disturbed and embarrassed. “She’s overwrought,” he said. “The journey home . . .”

Millie reached past William to touch my arm. “Lucy, why don’t we go upstairs? I haven’t yet seen your new gown.”

“My gown?” Her words confused me, coming as they did through my anger.

“Yes. The green one.” She moved behind me, and I felt her gentle push, and then I was going with her down the hall, past Moira
and my husband to the stairs, and my indignation fled as abruptly as it had come. I felt weak; I did not think my legs could
hold me. My temples were throbbing. The gaslight left heavy shadows on the stairs, so I could barely see what had been until
that moment a familiar passage.

Millicent took my hand as if I were a child. She led me to the bedroom, with its familiar scents of lavender and rose sachets,
and paused. I heard the strike of a match, then the gaslight went bright, bursting painfully before my eyes. I threw my hand
up as a shield.

“Hush,” Millicent said, and the hiss of gas weakened as she turned it down. “There now. You’ll feel better soon.”

She was right; already I felt better. There, in the sanctity of my bedroom, I was calm again, my nervousness gone—not for
long, I knew. It was never gone for long.

The pain behind my eyes abated. I sagged onto the chair flanking the fireplace. My bustle jammed hard against my spine, but
I was too tired even to relieve that irritation. I passed my hand over my eyes. “I cannot think,” I whispered.

“Then don’t think,” Millie said. Her presence was soft and comforting. “William said you were doing so well.”

“I was. I was.”

“What did the doctor say?”

“Which one?”

“Did you see one in the country? No, I suppose you didn’t. What about the last one you said William was taking you to?” Millicent
hesitated delicately. “The one here in the city?”

I closed my eyes. I thought of Dr. Little’s thinning hair, his probing fingers, his hopelessness. I thought of the one before
him, who’d prescribed laudanum, and then still another, who’d thought chloral would be best, and the first:
There is a mass,
he’d told William.
An ovariotomy is the best course.

Millicent rushed on, obviously embarrassed. “I don’t mean to probe, Lucy, you know I don’t. But I . . . have you considered
going back to Elmira? The water cure seemed to do you good.”

“No,” I said. “It made no difference.”

“William would send you again if you wanted it. He would do anything for you.”

As if William’s generosity was a benefit. I had begun to think of my husband’s solicitude as the cold wrap at the water cure:
tightly wrapped in cold sheets, water constantly running over my skin, wet and cold and warmth, constant touch, air and motion,
always there, always hovering, never still. I wanted stillness. I wanted time to stop, motion to end. I wanted to sit for
hours in this room, to watch the ceaseless waver of light trying to escape from the lily-shaped globe near my bed.
I understand,
I wanted to say to it.
I know you want to run. What I don’t know is why you must go, or where you will escape.

Millicent went to the rose brocade drapes and pulled them aside. “It’s starting to snow again,” she said, and then, as if
that thought led logically to the next, “There are weeks left in the season, Lucy. How will you bear it?”

I could not help myself; I laughed. “It’s not I who must bear it, Millie, but you and William and everyone else. You tell
me, can you bear to be around me? Or will you withdraw too, as the others have?”

“They are all there for you, Lucy. All you have to do is call them back.”

I laughed again. “Oh yes. No doubt that’s true. Especially after that little scene with Caroline Astor last spring.”

Millicent looked uncomfortable. She let the curtain fall. “William explained that you were not yourself.”

“Not myself.” Even the dim light was too bright, and the hiss of the gas made a ceaseless buzz in my head, the smell of roses
nauseating. I wished for darkness and peace. “I am perpetually not myself.”

“Perhaps . . .” Millicent paused. “Perhaps . . . another doctor could help. If there were a child—”

“Yes, yes, yes. If only there were. Millie, there’s a bottle on my dressing table. A brown one. Will you bring it to me?”

I heard the swish of her skirts as she moved over the carpet, then the clink of glass as she lifted the bottle from the perfumes
and powders and lotions there. I heard the little pop of the cork, her sniff.

“It calms my nerves,” I explained. To my tired, aching eyes, Millicent was a blur of burgundy and gold fringe, ghostly skin
and hair that disappeared in the shadows around her. She did not look quite real. “Please, Millie, bring it to me.”

“There must be a spoon—”

I waved the words away and took the bottle. “I know how much,” I said, and I brought it to my mouth, taking a whiff of the
medicinal, faintly spicy scent before I sipped it. It rolled over my tongue, cinnamony-sweet, leaving bitterness behind as
it went down my throat. I corked the bottle and handed it back to her, and then I rose and went to my bed. “I must leave you
now, Millie,” I told her. “I will be quite blurry soon.”

She looked worried but said nothing, just sighed and set the laudanum back on my dressing table. By the time she reached the
door, I was already languishing in anticipation of my shattered nerves dulling, my restlessness puddling into drowsiness.

“I’ll tell William you’re better,” she said, and I could not keep from chuckling.

“Yes, tell him I’m better,” I said. “Tell him to come kiss his princess good night.”

I did not hear her answer.

When I came to myself again, I was not sure how long it had been, only that the lights were put out and I was undressed and
in bed, though I had no memory of how this had come about, and no real concern—it was not unusual. The sound of my door opening
had awakened me. William came inside. He carried a candle for a soft light, and it haloed and shadowed his face so that he
looked like a demon. He was still dressed, and the smell of cigar smoke came with him, filling the room. I turned away.

“I’m tired,” I said.

I heard him set the candleholder down, and then I felt the mattress giving way beneath his weight, his warmth as he sat beside
me. “How much laudanum did you take?”

I spoke into my pillow. “Enough.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then, “What did I tell you about making a scene tonight? Thomas Sykes could be very important to
me—to us. It took me an hour to reassure him.”

“I find it hard to believe he’s never seen a woman scolding her servants before.”

He took that overly patient tone again. “I doubt he’s ever seen it done quite that way.”

“Tell him who my father is. That’s placated them well enough before.”

“He knows who your father is.”

Of course Thomas Sykes knew. That he was a newcomer to New York City meant he was probably more aware of it than the people
who had watched me grow up in the shadow of my father’s wealth and position. But they too were all old families with Dutch
names, as secure in their place as I was in mine. Thomas Sykes and people like him needed us: our influence, our money, our
social position. It was, I suspected, at least half the reason William had married me.

“I’m tired,” I said again. “Please leave me, William.”

But he did not go. Then I felt his hand, large and warm, on my back, through my nightgown, his fingers curving against my
spine, a soft caress that nonetheless had me stiffening.

“No,” I whispered.

He didn’t stop. ‘’Perhaps we should try again. To have some hope . . . I should think it would soothe you.” He leaned toward
me, whispering, so I felt his warm, moist breath against my hair. “Think of it, Lucy. A child of your own.”

I felt his hand as a steady pressure, moving me, pulling me toward him, a familiar and irresistible force. I closed my eyes
and listened to him unfasten his trousers, the soft snap of buttons, the
sssshhhh
of fabric as it fell to the floor, and then he was crawling into bed beside me, pushing up my nightgown, his hands rough
and steady, unassailable.

I let him have his way. I had fought him only once, on our wedding night, when he came to me and I had not known what for.
I had been afraid, and naive, and when it was over I lay there in terror, humiliated beyond bearing. But now I knew what to
expect. Now I knew my duty. Now there was the hope of a child to sustain me. So I lay still, revolted and tense, passive as
he forced apart my legs and entered me. I felt the rush of his breath against my throat, the grip of his fingers on my hips,
and I turned my head to look at the wavering candle and waited impatiently for him to spend himself.

It did not take long. He collapsed on me, and I pushed him off and pulled my nightgown down again to cover myself.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, as he always did. He leaned over and blew out the candle, then hurried from the bed to hastily dress.
“I’m sorry, Lucy, to inflict such brutishness on you. You know I am. If it wasn’t necessary . . .”

I made no reply.

“You’re an angel,” he whispered. “My sweet angel.” He kissed me chastely on my forehead and was gone.

I grabbed the laudanum bottle in my shaking hands and took another sip, lying alone in the darkness until the blessed drowsiness
overtook me.

Chapter 2

T
o say I remember when I first saw William would be not quite true. It is more true to say I remember the constant
presence
of him. One day he was not there, and the next he was, and always thereafter. I can’t remember when I first thought him compelling,
when it was that his laugh first arrested me, when I first took note of how beautiful his voice was as he accompanied me at
the piano. That winter is like a blur around me, with him never far away, adjusting my wrap as it fell from my shoulders at
the opera, murmuring in my ear, standing at the hearth with his elbow knocking the ruddy pears and yew set to decorate the
mantel at Christmastime.

What I do remember is how ubiquitous he was, then how completely he disappeared that summer when we removed to Newport. How
the days lingered on moist and heavy air that even the soft sea breeze could not completely dispel, and the hours dragged
on and on without end, without diversion. I missed him terribly and was startled that I did—he was only my father’s stockbroker,
no one I should even take account of, much less miss. But miss him I did, so that my friends remarked at how dour I was, how
dull. There was something lacking in the air, I told them; the vibrance was gone.

Then, one day in the late summer, only a few weeks before we were to return to the city, I sat alone on the beach. It was
near twilight, with the sun setting pink and peach on the water and the thin waves breaking on the shore, barely nudging the
mass of seaweed that seemed forever to mark the end of the surf at Bailey’s Beach. Music from somewhere—a supper I had been
invited to but could not remember where—had started, and it lingered on the air, underscoring a seagull’s flight as the bird
hovered and drifted, borne backward by the currents. I wondered whether he would rise or fall, land on the water or the shore,
and then I heard the footsteps behind me, shoes scrunching in the loose sand.

I didn’t bother to turn around. I was annoyed at the interruption—no one should be here this late, no one should have found
me.

“How alluring. You look like a mermaid cast on the beach. Will you trade your fins for legs, my lady?”

I twisted to glance over my shoulder, startled at the sound of his voice, breathless with surprise and pleasure. “William!
When . . . ? I didn’t know you planned to come.”

“Earlier than this, actually,” he said. “But I couldn’t get away.” He leaned against the wall of the bathing pavilion, settling
his shoulders against weathered wooden planks, crossing his arms over his chest. “What are you doing here so late? I had a
devil of a time finding you. I probably wouldn’t have done so at all if not for him.” He nodded toward the watchman, who stood
impatiently at the gate, his gold-laced uniform glinting in the sun.

BOOK: An Inconvenient Wife
7.31Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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