All Who Are Lost (Ashmore's Folly Book 1) (47 page)

And then I panicked, and I said it. I don’t know why I said it. “There isn’t a baby, Richard,” I said, “not anymore.”

He moved so quickly that I didn’t see it coming to get out of the way. Not that he hit me, oh, heavens, no, not Richard Ashmore. But within a second, he had me pinned up against the wall, and not because we couldn’t make it to the bed fast enough. “What did you do?” he said, and I think he shouted, and I do remember that his hands bit into my shoulders. “God, Diana, what did you do?”

I tried to twist away, but he held me there. And then I exploded.

I don’t remember everything I said. The only thing that sticks in my mind is that I said that the whole idea of having a child sickened me, that I couldn’t take a child as smug and self-righteous and bloody
perfect
as he was, and that I would never, ever let him get me pregnant again. I truly don’t remember anything else. I know I said more, because, more than anything in the world, I wanted to smash that exquisite coolness of his before I completely smashed his face in.

I shocked him. His face went white, whiter than I’d ever seen it, and in his shock, he let me go. I scooped up my suitcase and flew out the door.

And the next morning, after spending the night on the sofa at the clarinetist’s, safe from the telephone, I drove myself to the clinic.

I sat in the parking lot for a long time. I don’t know how long. Then, finally, I got out of the car, and I went in—

No. Time to hit that button. I can’t talk about it.

~•~

It took a disaster for me to go back to him.

I blew off school. I drifted for several months into the fall semester, crashing on spare sofas, experimenting with drugs even some of my group members hadn’t discovered yet. I managed to make it down to see Daddy once, when the twins were away on a class trip (I made sure of that, because no way was I going to let on to that brat Francie that anything was wrong). I partied, I met men with time and money to spend on me, and I broke my marriage vows, not once but several times, and not twice with the same man. One, I believe, was a professor of mine, but I’d had a lot to drink at that particular party, and I don’t really remember.

Peggy tracked me down one day, probably through Lucy, since I hadn’t laid eyes on Richard, and, to my admittedly hazy knowledge, he hadn’t seen me either. She expressed concern about our separation, and I managed to fob her off. From what she said, Richard hadn’t told her about the baby, and that relieved me. I wasn’t in a mood to listen to condemnation or get dragged off to confession or have the priest summoned to give me the Last Rites before she burned me at the stake. I said not to worry, Richard and I were just having a few problems, we’d work things out.

Peggy must have called Daddy, because within a few hours he knocked on the door of the sax player’s apartment.

He wanted to know the truth. I parried. He opened a bottle of wine, and then another, and then another. We drank. I told him how miserable I was with Richard. He told me about a woman he had been seeing (which surprised the hell out of me). I admitted to him that I had slept around on Richard.

He reminded me that he’d predicted Richard wouldn’t satisfy me for long.

I told him how I wanted to go to Paris and live a musician’s life.

He said over his dead body.

We opened another bottle of wine.

We talked about Ireland and the old days of vagabonding around Europe, before Mama died.

He told me what he had done that day long ago.

I told him I remembered.

We drank some more.

He confessed the truth about Mama’s death.

I confessed that Francie and I had witnessed the whole thing.

He said I must never tell anyone.

I said I’d only told Richard and he would be silent as the grave.

He said he didn’t trust Richard an inch.

I said I trusted Richard implicitly, and that surprised me, because I realized I really did.

He said he should have broken Richard and me up back in high school.

I offered him a joint.

We drank some more.

He told me how much I resembled my mother.

I told him I wanted to be known as more than a second-rate soprano and first-rate slut.

He slapped me hard across the face.

Then he broke down in my arms.

I don’t want to talk any more about that night.

~•~

For months, I paid no attention to anything that was going on. In the world, around me, or inside me.

Then, in the space of one weekend, I couldn’t zip my jeans.

I panicked. I cried.

Then I calmed myself down with a joint, and considered my options.

My future was shot. But then, after the way I’d neglected my voice and my studies, it probably was anyway.

Another
procedure
was out of the question. I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t face that terrible emptiness, those raw scars on the soul. I couldn’t face another voice in the night.

And a little voice kept saying,
How bad can one baby be?

It certainly couldn’t be any worse than not having one.

But what could I do? I couldn’t go to Daddy, and no one else was likely to want me in the shape I would shortly be in. I knew myself well enough to know that I couldn’t cope on my own.

And, damn it, I was married. I wasn’t supposed to have to deal with IT alone.

So I went to the law library, looked up the laws on paternity, and made a decision.

I called Richard and asked him to meet me at our favorite restaurant.

I scarcely recognized my ardent young husband when I saw him. He had changed in those months apart; he seemed colder and harder. Although he stood politely for me when I approached the table where he was waiting, he didn’t reach for my hand, he didn’t take me in his arms… he acted as if I was an old girlfriend to whom common courtesy dictated that he be polite. I had fixed myself up very nicely, but clearly I had wasted my time. He wasn’t the least interested in my new hair style, the new fullness of my breasts artfully emphasized by a soft sweater, anything about me.

But he did listen. I told him that I wanted to come home, and I knew that he wanted to believe me. I caught him flicking a look at my breasts, and knew that I still had some power left. I knew him too well; he loved me (still) too much to turn me away. As I talked, as I let a tear slip down my face, I saw him soften, start to forgive, start to tell me that he wanted me home….

But Richard surprised me. He said, very levelly, that we needed to talk about the abortion first.

I had no choice but to tell him about the baby. He was so cold! I trembled the whole time I told him what I had done those months, and I guess, looking back, who could blame him? But, oh, God, if he could have known how I felt – I was falling apart, and I needed him – I needed
someone
—

And, of course, I didn’t tell him that. I became defensive, and he got angry, and within the space of a minute, we were fighting again. Quietly, because other people were around, but more viciously than we ever had before. Because now Richard’s anger came from that cold spot inside him, and not from the heat he had felt for me. And I – I told him things about himself he had never heard before.

I told him that he was a bloody selfish little brat who had never considered anyone but himself in his entire life. I told him that he wasn’t the crown prince of Ashmore Park to me, he was just another stupid, arrogant male who thought he could mount me on the wall like some god-damned trophy. I told him that, compared to the men I’d seen those months, he’d grown careless and lousy in bed because he was so busy studying and being Mr. Perfect, he never had any time for me… oh, who knows what else I said? I spilled years of resentment in those few minutes. I never knew some of the things I said had actually lived in my heart all those years.

Then, before I could finish telling him off, he stood up. “Give me your address, Diana,” and it was a command from the arrogant male I had just accused him of being.

“What the hell do you care?” I said, and I didn’t bother to keep my voice down. I saw someone look over at me and hoped to God it was no one I had screwed.

“Because,” said Richard with his awful courtesy, “I want to know where to serve the divorce papers.”

Well, that snapped any anger I felt right in half. When I had considered my options, that had not been one of them. For the first time, I got served notice that he was not going to forgive me, that I might truly be stuck with this. He might actually divorce me. I could be divorced, alone, pregnant, with my future completely ruined, at age twenty.

Faced with him putting on his jacket, preparing to leave as I had left him, I made my only smart move to date. I gambled that Richard, still loving me, no matter that he wished he didn’t, would not be proof against the sight of his pregnant wife weeping her eyes out.

I was right, to a point. He left me sitting there sobbing. He told me to let him know if I needed money and, being Richard, couldn’t resist adding the parting shot that he hoped that I wasn’t stoning my poor baby into oblivion. Through my tears, I pictured him wearing his coffee, but somehow, that day, the vision failed to cheer me up.

Between the door and the parking lot, he had second thoughts. He was waiting for me at my car.

“I doubt we can get a divorce right now. I’ll wait until after you have the baby.” That didn’t sound encouraging, but it was better than having to slink home to Daddy. “You’d better come back, Di. I’ll sleep on the sofa. But—”

He asked the one question I didn’t want to answer, and I told him so.

“Too bad, Di.” And he asked it again.

Fine
, I thought,
you bloody, bloody,
bloody
self-righteous bastard.

So I told him.

Chapter 16: Knocking on Forbidden Doors

“LAURA.”

Richard’s voice filtered through her dreams, rich and soothing, irresistible and inviting, a lure towards the world of the real. Against her cheek, his hand brushed her, and in her slumber, she sought that warmth, turning towards it eagerly, reaching out when it slipped away. She sensed him nearby, a rustle of fine wool, a trace of after-shave lingering all these hours, even the disconcerting aroma of a recent cigarette. He sat at the edge of the sofa, bending over her, his breath a mere whisper on her face.

I wish I’d stayed asleep.

She barely opened her eyes, just enough to see him, but Richard caught her. “So you’re awake,” and she must have imagined the tenderness. “What on earth is going on? Is Diana here?”

She closed her eyes against the barrage. “Richard,” she mustered up all the normal irritability of being wrenched from a sound sleep, “if you have to wake me up, let me
wake
up, all right?”

Silence, and then he laughed. “Okay, sleepyhead.”

He reached out to haul her upright, brushed her hair out of her eyes, pulled the lapels of the bathrobe together, and tucked the blanket back around her. As if she were five years old! She loved every moment of the warmth of his hands, the brush of his breath. She rearranged the blanket to suit herself and gave him her most Cat Courtney-like look.

He didn’t notice.

“All right,” he said, settling back against the sofa, “what’s going on?”

“Di’s sick. We were over at Daddy’s, sorting out old clothes—”

“I know,” he said surprisingly. “Julie called me in Charleston and said something was wrong at the house. I came back as soon as I could.”

“Di got sick, so I ran her to the doctor—”

“Sick?” He looked over at the stairs leading up to Diana’s bedroom. “What’s wrong with her?”

She picked one of Meg’s favorites out of the air. “Female problems.”

“Female problems?” Richard sounded amused. He had probably written as many excuses for gym as she had. “Very original, Laura. Now what’s going on?”

He waited only seconds for the answer she didn’t have. Then he rose, quick, economical movements, and disappeared into the dark of the stairs, leaving her behind, still wrapped up, nervously waiting for the moment when he saw Diana and realized—

But he didn’t. She heard the door to Diana’s room open softly, but she heard no foot treads across the muffling carpet, no shocked words of discovery. Of course, Diana’s room was shrouded in shadows – she’d drawn the draperies earlier – and Diana herself still cocooned under the blankets, her telltale wrist hidden. Diana’s secret, and her own, remained safe for the time being.

No sounds, no words, nothing filtered down to her. She couldn’t resist the lure of that silence; she kept the blanket around her as she climbed the stairs, warding off imaginary chills and not-so-imaginary alarm, drawn by the mystery of the marriage unfolding above her.

At the top of those stairs, the prince of her childhood had come again to the chamber of his princess.

I’ll look at your face. I’ll look, and then I’ll know. Maybe Francie lied. Maybe it was her idea. Maybe she suggested it, and you were so caught up in your fight with Di that you didn’t take her seriously. No one but me ever did.

Maybe, for one instant, you agreed, and you never dreamed she’d follow through. I’ll believe that, I will believe anything, and I will forgive anything. Just let me look at your face, and I’ll know.

I’ll know if you still love Diana.

The door stood ajar, the hallway empty. She halted in the doorway, and looked at him, and knew.

Oh, dear God, she should never have looked into Pandora’s Box. She was sick with the answer. He’d moved to the bedside, where Diana slept sprawled out on her stomach, her head turned away from him, her hands mercifully shoved up under her pillows. He didn’t touch Diana, reach out his hand to caress her hair, whisper her name; he didn’t have to. He merely stood there, watching her sleep in her large bed, his eyes lifting slightly to travel around this room, as if he’d never seen it before.

She felt that she’d come upon them in the privacy of their marriage chamber.