Patrick slept so soundly that he hardly even turned over in the night. Sophie knew how well he slept, because she left the door between their rooms open, just a crack. He must be exhausting himself. But Sophie couldn’t drum up any real anger over Patrick’s activities.

Instead of anger, what she felt was a trickle of fear. While she hadn’t wanted to discuss her monthly schedule with Patrick when they were onboard the Lark, even she couldn’t help noticing that she hadn’t bled once since Patrick climbed the ladder to her room. It seemed that she took after her mother in all things, Sophie thought bitterly: in immediate pregnancy, and in failed marriages.

The baby was already changing her body. Her breasts were larger and more tender; her stomach had a tiny, sweet curve that she cherished in private. She had begun to sleep longer and longer in the morning, but there was no one to notice except her maid.

Soon she would grow fat and unpleasing, and then Patrick, who was already amusing himself elsewhere, would never come back to her bed. So Sophie wept huge, wrenching sobs into her pillow, not precisely because Patrick was cavorting with other women, but because she was so shamefully lustful that she wasn’t even happy about the babe she thought she had wanted. It didn’t seem fair for it to come so soon. Patrick had already lost interest in her body, and he wanted only one child. Now he would have no reason to return to her bed, ever.

That meant years of marriage spent exactly like her mother’s, meeting one’s husband at dinner and parting immediately thereafter, going to house parties and having hostesses automatically separate your bedroom from your husband’s bedroom, putting you at opposite ends of the corridor or, even worse, on separate floors.

Part of the problem was that whenever she saw Patrick, a prickling warmth blossomed in her stomach and spread down her legs, a dizzying, hungry heat that was all the more shaming for being so clearly unshared. That night Sophie lay in bed, the blood pulsing in her veins, and it was all she could do not to creep next door and throw herself on Patrick’s sleeping body.

But pride came to her rescue. Would she go to a man who was exhausted from being with another woman? What if he flatly rejected her? What if he smelled of another’s perfume? What if he said … The possibilities were endless, and equally terrible. Sophie stayed where she was, in her own bed.

Chapter 19

Chapter 19