“Good, sir.”
I lift my brows. “Is that…so?”
“Indeed. I’ve received word from his caretaker. He’s improving, slowly. They don’t expect him to heal miraculously, but they have reason to believe he’ll hang on a bit longer.”
I turn and spot Emma in the garden. Perhaps we have time, after all. To try. To learn the scope of what our relationship could be.
It’s then that I remember what Callie said, about making her more at home here.
“Pete,” I say, watching the wind dance through Emma’s honey hair. “There’s someone I’d like you to get out here. Discreetly.”
“Yes, sir. What is the name?”
“Lilly Claire.”
15
Emma
Over a week passes, and Malcom and I don’t share a bed again. I don’t know what I expected. Anger, perhaps? Dismissal? A confession of mad love? A marathon of mind-blowing sex?
I let him simmer. All the while, I try to move along like a leaf in a current. I don’t trust myself anymore. Because half of me wants to build that fantasy I’ve been picturing. To fall in love with him, to live here at Rosehill, to make this world mine. The other half wants to leave. Because if I can’t provide Malcom a child, I am of no use to him. I am detriment, as I was to Trevor. As I will be to any man I ever call mine.
The gloom resides in me, a new and apparently permanent fixture. It’s a snag of nausea, a strange, deep seed. I do what I can to ignore it. Instead I focus on poetry. On the garden, the library, the flow of spring and renewal and new birth.
One morning I wake, sweat-damp. I’d been dreaming of him. His body, his soft laugh, his mouth and tongue and fingers. Upon waking, I feel, more acutely than ever, the cold absence of him in my bed. My fingers outstretch, searching. Finding nothing.
And then, like a coarse sea wave, the sickness hits. I rush to the bathroom, barely closing the door behind me before I’m brought to my knees. I retch vividly, gripping the bowl, until there’s nothing left inside me to scrape up.
Then I sag against the wall, catching my breath, sweat beading along my hairline.
It takes me a moment to put it together—but it can’t be, can it? It’s impossible. It was impossible for so long.
I can’t be, can I?
Am I pregnant?
* * *
Two days pass, and still Malcom doesn’t say a word about it. Not my confession, or what followed. The expanse of unspoken things between us is becoming unbearable. We live in a house of secrets and impossible promises. A haze of want always faint in the air, clinging to us like perfume.
Still, he stays at Rosehill. He never says it’s to keep me safe, or to keep me close. In fact, we barely spend a moment together. I realize, belatedly, that he’s avoiding me.
Why?Becauseof the confession?
Because of what followed?
He doesn’t say a word—and neither do I. The sickness that’s woken me from dead sleep at dawn for the past three days doesn’t let up. I remember my mother saying that as soon as she found out about me, she was sick too. That the first trimester was rocky, but the rest was a breeze. I’ve reflected on those words for so many years, they feel mythic. I’ve never once been pregnant, not even briefly.
And every day that the sickness comes, so does a tidal wave of tentative, desperate hope.Pregnant. Me?I can’t wrap my head around it, so I don’t even try. And I don’t even dream of telling Malcom. Even if I was sure—which I’m not—I couldn’t.
His coldness to me the last few days only proves what I know to be true—I cannot fall in love with Malcom Walker. Even though every night I fall asleep imagining his hands on my body, his mouth, his powerful arms. Even though I catch him watching me over and over, through the windows while I walk the gardens, down the hall as I sneak into the library for a moment of silence. Once I came down for dinner too early, and caught him still eating. He dismissed himself without a word, like my presence was too much to bear.
So, over a week after my confession, I’m surprised to be summoned to the parlor. He stands at the window, looking out at the hills. Another spring day, fat lazy clouds and piercing blue skies, the sea for once calm and not thrashing. The garden is in full, stunning bloom, met by clouds of butterflies and bees.
I hesitate as I enter. “You needed me?”
He turns, but as soon as he meets my eyes, averts his. I don’t think I imagine the gentle pink that touches his cheeks—and I know I don’t imagine the thrill it sends vibrating down my spine.
