Lucian watched her go, remembering the guilt he’d seen flash in her green eyes. Brynn had lied to him just now, he had no doubt.
His fists clenched involuntarily as he followed her retreating back. She had never shared her secrets with him in the beginning of their marriage, but lately, with the evolving of their relationship, he’d come to expect a measure of honesty between them. Perhaps he was a fool.
Lucian felt his features harden. He’d once suspected Brynn of complicity in her brother’s unlawful activities, but he’d determinedly quelled his suspicions, resolving to make a new start between them. Had he been too hasty? Why would Brynn lie to him? More critically, was this the first time? Or was it merely the first time he had caught her?
* * *
If Lucian was troubled to discover her lie, he was more disturbed the following morning when he encountered Meg hurriedly leaving his wife’s room with a chamber pot.
“Is something amiss?” he asked of the maid.
“No, milord. Nothing to fret about. Her ladyship is feeling poorly because of the babe, ”tis all.“
Lucian felt shock run through him. “Babe?”
Seeing him stare, Meg clapped a hand over her mouth in dismay. “Oh my, I wasn’t to tell. Her ladyship didn’t want you to know.”
He willed himself to smile. “Well then, it will be our secret that you told.”
After the maid was gone, Lucian stood in the corridor a long moment, feeling stunned. Was he truly to be a father? Was he one step closer to achieving the goal he had desperately longed for?
His emotions ran the gamut from pride to possessiveness, to wonder, to anger that Brynn would purposefully keep such a revelation from him. Why hadn’t she told him? Why had she permitted him to learn secondhand that she was pregnant with his child, especially when she knew how much it would mean to him?
And yet… perhaps there was a reasonable explanation. Perhaps Brynn simply wanted to tell him herself.
Forcing his suspicions aside, he rapped softly on her bedchamber door. When there was no response, Lucian entered quietly. Brynn was sitting before the fire, staring into the flames, a faraway look on her beautiful face.
Tenderness filled him as he watched her. A child bound them together in a way their marriage vows never could. Perhaps now Brynn would come to accept their union…
Lucian drew a slow breath. Only now was he realizing how desperately he wanted her acceptance. She had become increasingly precious to him, more precious even than the child she was carrying.
“Brynn?” he murmured.
She gave a start and looked up.
“Meg said you were feeling ill.”
Flushing, Brynn shook her head. “It’s nothing really.”
Feeling a sudden chill sweep over him, Lucian gave her a measuring look. She intended to keep silent on a matter of such import? Even when he gave her an obvious opening? “You’re certain you are all right?”
She tried to smile. “I’m fine now. Perhaps something I ate at dinner last night disagreed with me.”
Disappointment, sharp and bitter, stung Lucian, before another, more dreaded explanation occurred to him. Was it possible she planned to escape before he could learn about her pregnancy, so that he wouldn’t claim her baby? He’d warned Brynn he meant to keep his son with him, even if she wanted to live apart. Was that why she was determined to remain silent? She was planning to leave him?
Grimly Lucian forced his thoughts away from such a possibility. He couldn’t believe Brynn would serve him such a devastating blow, not when she knew how much siring a child meant to him.
Yet he found his trust greatly strained. Perhaps he was merely searching for excuses to exonerate her. What did he really know about his bewitching wife after all?
“Very well, then.” Willfully Lucian schooled his expression into passivity, but inside his thoughts were roiling.
Brynn was deceiving him, there was no question. And if she could conceal something as momentous as her pregnancy, what other secrets-perhaps even sinister ones-was she keeping from him?
Chapter Seventeen
Lucian stared blindly down at a dossier compiled about a dangerous French agent, not comprehending a word. Much of his intelligence work involved poring over boring reports, routinely searching for anomalies, coincidences, odd recurrences, clues- but he had never resented the tedium as much as now. He had weightier issues on his mind than enemies of the state: namely, his wife.
For the past week