CHAPTER 10
Marcus heard James crying from his room.
He lay awake, listening to the child’s screams, knowing that he should go and check on the baby, while unable to bring himself to do so.
What will checking on the child even accomplish? I will only make it worse if I do. It is as if James knows how hopeless I am, as if my mere presence upsets him.
Besides, Helga will be there shortly to help. She is far more capable than I could ever be.
Blessedly, the cries soon ceased, and Marcus exhaled with relief, while doing what he could to push down the feelings of cowardice that consumed him. He did the right thing by adopting James, but his actions since had left much to be desired.
Even this marriage, done for the right reasons, felt like a mistake. Lucy had told him herself that she was not exactly experienced when it came to child rearing, and he doubted that she was possessed of some motherly instinct that would appear once she met the child.
So, why did I even marry her? It is an easy thing to say that I had little choice… that she was the best of a bad option… but that feels like an excuse.
It was an excuse he had no choice but to accept. Desperate to find a mother, presented with an opportunity that he could not pass up, he had acted as he thought was best. Not the most resounding of reasons, but it would have to do for now.
Sleep did not come easily after that.
Mostly, it was the stress of this marriage that plagued his thoughts. While Marcus wanted to distance himself from Lucy as much as possible, he could not escape his sister’s warning. If this marriage was to work, he and Lucy would need to find some sort of middle ground to work with. They would never be close, but they might be companionable. If not for their sake, for that of the child.
Not that Lucy’s behavior so far promised such a thing.
He chuckled to himself as he remembered how cantankerous she had acted today. She was angry with him. She seemed to blame him for this circumstance. And he wondered if she would find itwithin herself to get past her annoyance with him. If she even wanted to.
But what do I want? Putting aside James. Putting aside how this marriage started. What do I really want from this union?
The easy answer was that he wanted nothing. Marcus did not believe in the foolish notion of romance found in marriage. His parents had certainly never shown such a thing. Marriage was a business, a contract with purpose, and he had found that purpose in Lucy. That was all he needed from her.
And yet…
As his eyes closed, as sleep started to take him, his mind drifted back to their final interaction. Not her hostility. Not her stubbornness. Rather, the look on her face when he joked about them sharing a room. If he did not know any better, she had almost agreed to it.
A smile found his lips as sleep consumed him. The bed was comfortable. The blanket was warm. As he drifted into a deep sleep, it was thoughts of this singular moment that rocked him gently into a slumber.
* * *
“Good morning.” Marcus walked into the breakfast room, surprised to find Lucy already seated and eating. “Did you sleep well?”
He asked the question, even though an answer was not needed. While his wife was a beautiful creature, her appearance this morning might have taken umbrage with such a categorization as that. She looked a fright. Green eyes that were sunken. Red hair a bird’s nest atop her head. And while her plate was filled with toast and eggs and strips of mutton, she poked idly at it, lost in a daze as if she might fall asleep at the table.
“Wonderfully,” she said icily.
He stopped at the end of the table. While Marcus often broke his fast first thing of a morning, finding his wife already at the table gave him pause.
It was a tightrope that he walked. On the one hand, he knew that he had to at least try and be companionable, and that sharing breakfast with his wife was certainly that. While, on the other, he was not ready to commit to such a thing yet.
She certainly does not want me to. Why, I have no doubt that if I sat down, she would stand right up and excuse herself. If for no other reason than to show me that she can.
All that was to say that he and Lucy needed to have a good long talk. Now that they were married, it would do to establish rules and boundaries. Not the most romantic sentiment by any means but it wasn’t supposed to be. This marriage was a business, and it needed to be treated as one.
“When you are finished, I would like to see you in my office,” he said.
She balked at the comment. “Excuse me?”
“My office,” he repeated simply. “It is upstairs, on the third level, just down –”
“I am not asking where it is,” she cut him off angrily. “I wish to know why you think it is acceptable to order me about. I thought I was free to do as I wished? You said as much.” She raised a questioning eyebrow at him.
