AN: It seems that every time I update this story, I have to preface it with profuse apologies for the length of time between updates! So, before you read this shamefully short addition to the corpus, insert much grovelling from yours truly...
Graham Pearce stared out blankly over London's grey streets. It was the end of January - cold, wet and altogether miserable. His breath frosted against the glass of the drawing room window as he sighed. They had taken up residence in this house a week ago, their marriage having provided them with access to the money left in trust for Graham by his mother upon her death. When he had first brought his bride here, he had borne her over the threshold in his arms, despite her protests, for the first time feeling like a man of worth. But still…
"Helen, do you ever… have regrets?" he asked quietly.
His wife looked up, startled, from her armchair and set aside her embroidery. "About marrying you?" she asked gently. "Never."
He sighed and returned to her side, kneeling beside her. "But, we are not so very prosperous as I would hope and there is the child to think of." The child that Helen had conceived before they had married, the child that would be brought into this world in only five short months. Her father had disowned her, of course. Mr Worth had called upon them again as soon as they had married, and expressed his displeasure. He had hoped that his daughter would be contrite, apologetic, conciliatory. He had been wrong. Helen had stood before her father and proudly declared her love for her husband - and for the child she was carrying. Graham could remember even now the look of furious disgust on Worth's face.
Helen reached forwards and gripped his hand tightly, bringing it to her lips to kiss. "I would rather live destitute with you, than in plenty with any other man. For richer, for poorer - do you recall?"
"But Fotherton - " he sighed.
His darling shook her head firmly, still looking down at their intertwined hands. "Richard Fotherton is a soulless brute," she replied simply. "I should have been crushed in that house, Graham." A light blush mantled her cheeks. "And once I had… given myself to you, the thought of lying in a bed of duty with him was impossible." There was a pause, and then she murmured, "Do you regret what we have done?"
"Never," he replied warmly, cupping her face with his free hand and raising it so that he could look into her eyes. "I have a beautiful, brave, kind-hearted wife who is carrying my child, and I am determined to give you both a better life than I have had thus far."
She bit her lip. "If your father knew of the child - "
Her husband's mouth tightened noticeably and he looked away. "The last time we spoke my father cast such aspersions on both of us that I cannot forgive him for them."
"What did he say?"
"I won't - it doesn't signify."
She raised her eyebrows and he pursed his lips, displeased. "He believed that you were merely an amusement to me," Graham managed at last. "That I would abandon you once I had - once we had - "
"Once you had seduced me," she supplied quietly.
Graham nodded, flushing with embarrassment. Helen gave a queer little half-smile, and asked archly, "Can you truly say that he was not in some part right? Can you truly say that when my brother introduced us, your first thought was not as to how you might ingratiate yourself into my bed?"
Her husband's mouth dropped open in surprise at her words. "Darling - !"
Helen's lip quivered and she began to laugh. "Your faults are no secret to me, husband," she reminded him. "And I find that I love you all the more for them, as strange as that may sound."
Graham sighed and then began to laugh. "I believe, my dear, that I have been a tremendously bad influence on you." He rested his hands on her shoulders, the laughter dying away to be replaced by a serious expression that his father would not have recognised.
"Helen, never doubt me. Never doubt that I love you as I have never loved before."