My Estranged Husband Demanded A Divorce—Then Discovered My Six-Month Secret
Part 2
He took a slow unsteady step backward.
The back of his knees hit the edge of the desk.
His knuckles turned white as he gripped the wood.
His chest rose and fell in shallow erratic jerks.
He breathed out the math.
Six months.
I confirmed it with a defiant nod.
He let out a jagged ugly noise that was half laugh and half sob.
He roared that it was his child.
He stalked toward me.
The sharp scent of wet wool and expensive scotch hit me like a wall.
I barked a cynical laugh.
I told him not to talk to me about rights.
I reminded him I was just the incubator that kept failing.
I pointed out he had already checked out.
He stared down at me with a trembling jaw.
He asked if it was healthy.
He asked if I was bleeding.
The sheer traumatic panic in his voice stripped away his hardened exterior.
It left only the man who had held my hand while I lost our previous children.
I quietly told him there was no bleeding.
I told him the heartbeat was strong.
His hand dropped instantly.
He dragged his hands through his damp hair.
He paced the short expanse of the rug.
He accused me of taking a settlement to raise his child in secret.
I yelled back that I did it because he didn’t want me.
I finally pushed myself to my feet.
I told him he wanted an heir but never wanted a wife.
I accused him of running to Paris because it was easier than looking at a broken woman.
I wasn’t going to let him taint this child with his resentment.
He flinched as if I had slapped him.
The anger slowly drained from his face.
It was replaced by a profound agonizing devastation.
He whispered an awful question.
He asked if I really thought he resented me.
I plainly stated that I thought he resented my failures.
He looked away into the sputtering fire.
The silence stretched thick and suffocating.
He finally turned back to me.
He picked up the heavy stack of divorce papers.
He tossed the entire stack into the sputtering flames.
The words burned to ash.
He told me to pack my things because we were going back to London.
He burned the divorce papers right in front of me, but could we ever rebuild a marriage from ashes?
Part 3
Rain lashed against the warped window pane of the drawing room, dissolving the rolling Yorkshire hills into a wash of gray sludge.
Megan didn’t look out.
She stared instead at the thick parchment resting on the mahogany desk, its heavy wax seal fractured straight down the middle.
Dan’s crest.
He was arriving today to sign the papers, to sever the final rotting thread holding them together.
Her hands shook, not from heartbreak, but from the sudden vicious kick beneath her ribs.
Six months gone, and he had absolutely no idea.
The fire in the hearth was struggling, sputtering against the damp soot that clogged the chimney of the old manor.
Megan adjusted her posture in the wingback chair, stifling a grimace.
Her lower back throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache that had become her constant companion since November.
She shifted her weight, feeling the heavy, unyielding pull of her belly beneath the voluminous layers of black wool.
She was in mourning for her uncle.
It was a convenient tragedy.
The excessive yardage of crepe and bombazine required for proper bereavement effectively swallowed her altered silhouette, hiding the swelling truth of her condition from the sparse staff at Oak Haven.
A draft swept through the floorboards carrying the scent of wet earth and stale lavender.
Megan pulled her woolen shawl tighter around her shoulders.
She felt gross.
Her ankles were swollen, pressing painfully against the stiff leather of her boots, and a thin sheen of nervous sweat coated her nape despite the freezing room.
This wasn’t how a duchess prepared to face her estranged husband.
There was no tragic beauty here, no porcelain skin and dignified silence.
There was only exhaustion, a sour stomach, and the metallic taste of anxiety in her mouth.
The distant rhythmic crunch of gravel reached her ears over the sound of the rain.
Megan’s breath hitched.
She pressed a hand flat against her abdomen.
“Stop,” she thought, a silent plea directed at the life churning inside her.
“Just be still for 1 hour.”
The heavy thud of the oak front door reverberated through the floorboards.
Muffled voices echoed in the entryway.
Her aging butler, Craig, and the sharp, clipped baritone that made the fine hairs on Megan’s arms stand up.
“Dan.”
She closed her eyes, listening to the heavy tread of his boots on the stairs.
He walked like a landlord coming to collect rent.
Efficient.
Relentless.
“His Grace, the Duke of Somerset,” Craig announced, his voice cracking slightly as he opened the drawing-room door.
Megan didn’t stand.
She couldn’t.
The sheer physical effort required to hoist herself up from the deep chair without looking like a stranded beetle was beyond her current capabilities.
Instead, she lifted her chin, fixing her gaze on the doorway.
Dan stepped into the room.
He looked exactly the same and entirely different.
He wore a dark riding coat, its shoulders darkened by the rain, smelling strongly of wet wool, horse sweat, and the sharp, clean scent of cold air.
His dark hair was plastered against his forehead, and his jaw was shadowed with stubble.
He looked tired.
The skin around his eyes was bruised with exhaustion, pulling taut over his cheekbones.
He didn’t look at her immediately.
His gaze swept the room, taking in the peeling wallpaper, the smoking hearth, the threadbare Persian rug, judging it, judging her exile.
“Megan,” he said.
His voice was gravelly, devoid of inflection.
Dan.
She kept her hands folded over her lap, hidden beneath the cascading fringe of her shawl.
You made good time despite the mud.
I rode ahead of the carriage.
The roads are turning to soup.
I wanted to get this over with before the river floods.
He stripped off his leather gloves, slapping them against his thigh, scattering a fine mist of raindrops.
He finally looked at her.
Megan braced herself, expecting the familiar sting of his contempt.
But there was only a flat, terrifying blankness in his eyes.
They had spent 3 years tearing each other apart.
Screaming matches that shattered porcelain.
Quiet, venomous remarks across dining tables long enough to seat 20.
And finally, the suffocating suffocating silence.
The fire had burned out.
Only the ash remained.
You look pale, he noted, stepping toward the desk where the papers lay.
He didn’t ask how she was.
He stated a fact.
The country air agrees with me.
Megan lied smoothly.
It’s merely the lighting.
Dan didn’t push.
He didn’t care.
He pulled a silver flask from his inner pocket.
Unscrewed the cap and took a short, sharp pull.
He didn’t offer her any.
He set the flask down beside the divorce decree.
My solicitors have drawn it up exactly as we discussed, Dan said, pulling out the heavy leather chair opposite her and sitting heavily.
The settlement is generous.
Oak Haven is yours, along with the London townhouse on Berkeley Square.
An allowance of 5,000 a year.
You forfeit the title, naturally, and any claim to the Somerset estates.
Megan stared at the thick stack of paper.
The finality of it felt like a physical blow, heavier than she had anticipated.
She had wanted this.
She had begged for this back in May, throwing a crystal decanter at his head when she found out about his trip to Paris, the trip he took while she was recovering from her third miscarriage, the trip he took without her.
“5,000 is more than adequate,” she said, her voice sounding thin even to her own ears.
“I don’t want you starving in the damp,” he muttered, pulling an inkwell closer.
He unstoppered it, the sharp scent of iron gall filling the space between them.
“I just want this done, Megan.
I want to move on.”
“To an heir,” she said.
The words slipped out before she could bite them back.
Bitter, cynical, unnecessary.
Dan’s hand froze.
He looked up slowly, a muscle ticking in his jaw.
The blankness fractured, revealing a flicker of the old, familiar resentment.
“Don’t do that,” he said, his voice dropping an octave.
“Don’t play the victim, not today.
We both know why we’re sitting here.
We are toxic to each other.
We built a graveyard out of a marriage.
Let’s just bury it and walk away.”
Megan swallowed hard.
Her throat clicked audibly in the quiet room.
He was right.
It was a graveyard.
She had buried three tiny, unnamed ghosts in the family plot.
And now, ironically, miraculously, when the marriage was a rotting corpse, her body had finally decided to hold on.
She felt another sharp roll in her abdomen, a heel, perhaps, pressing against her bladder.
She squeezed her eyes shut for a fraction of a second, digging her fingernails into her palms.
“Not now.”
“Pass me the pen,” she said quietly.
Dan held the silver fountain pen out to her across the expanse of the desk.
He didn’t lean in.
He forced her to reach for it.
Megan hesitated.
To sign the paper meant reaching across the table.
It meant shifting her weight, leaning forward, and compromising the careful fortress of wool and shadow she had constructed around herself.
Megan.
Dan’s tone was clipped, impatient.
It’s just ink.
It won’t bite.
She clenched her jaw.
grabbing the arms of the chair, she pushed herself forward.
The sudden movement sent a spike of searing pain through her round ligaments.
She gasped, a short, sharp sound that she couldn’t suppress, and slumped back into the upholstery, her hand flying to her side.
Dan frowned, the pen still hovering over the desk.
What is wrong with you?
Nothing.
Megan panted lightly, trying to breathe through the sudden cramp.
The room felt unbearably hot now.
The sputtering fire seemed to be baking the air, suffocating her.
A cramp.
The damp settles in my joints.
You are 24, not 80, Dan snapped, though his eyes narrowed, lingering on her face.
You’re sweating.
Have you caught a chill?
I am perfectly fine, she hissed, defensive anger flaring.
She hated that he was looking at her.
She hated the vulnerability of her body, the way it betrayed her at every turn.
Just give me the damn pen, Dan.
He didn’t hand it to her.
Instead, he placed it on the parchment and sat back, crossing his arms over his chest.
Sign it, then.
Megan took a deep breath, fighting the nausea rolling in her stomach.
The metallic smell of the ink was making it worse.
She leaned forward again, slower this time.
The heavy black wool of her morning gown bunched up around her waist.
She reached out, her fingers trembling slightly as they closed around the cold silver barrel of the pen.
She dragged the papers toward her.
The legal jargon was a blur of black script.
Irreconcilable differences.
Annulment of duties.
Severance of bonds.
“Read it first,” Dan said, watching her intently.
“I don’t want your lawyers crawling out of the woodwork in 6 months claiming you were coerced.”
“I don’t care what it says,” Megan muttered, dipping the pen into the inkwell.
A drop of black fell onto the mahogany, soaking into the grain.
“You’ve bought me off.
We both have what we want.”
“Do we?” he asked softly.
Megan paused, the nib hovering a millimeter above the signature line.
She looked up at him.
The sheer exhaustion in his voice had caught her off guard.
“You want your freedom,” she said, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
“You want a clean slate.
A new, young, healthy wife who won’t bleed out your heirs before they can draw a breath.”
Dan flinched.
It was a microscopic movement, just a tightening of the skin around his eyes, but she saw it.
“That isn’t fair, Megan.”
“Fair?”
A bitter, ugly laugh escaped her lips.
“Fairness left this house a long time ago.
You left me in that London bedchamber crying over blood-soaked sheets while you went to France.”
“I couldn’t watch it again.”
Dan’s voice cracked like a whip in the small room.
He leaned forward, planting his hands flat on the desk.
The stoic veneer vanished, replaced by a raw, jagged grief that made Megan’s breath catch.
“I couldn’t watch them carry out another bloody basin, Megan.
I couldn’t watch you die a little more every time, and I couldn’t stand the way you looked at me afterward, like I was a monster for putting you through it.
“You were a coward,” she spat, her own chest heaving.
The baby, agitated by her elevated heart rate, began a frantic drumming against her ribs.
“Maybe,” Dan admitted, his voice dropping to a defeated rasp.
He sank back into his chair, rubbing a hand over his face.
“Maybe I was, but I’m here now, doing the decent thing, setting you free.”
“Setting yourself free,” she corrected him.
“Fine.
Setting us both free.
Just sign the paper, Megan.
Please.”
She looked down at the paper.
Megan Eleanor Harrington, Duchess of Somerset.
She would never write that name again.
She pressed the nib to the paper.
M A R G A sharp, violent spasm ripped through her abdomen.
It wasn’t a kick.
It was a contraction.
Braxton Hicks, the midwife in the village had called them, but this one was vicious.
It stole the breath entirely from her lungs.
Megan dropped the pen.
It clattered against the desk, splattering ink across the parchment.
She doubled over, clutching her stomach with both hands, a low groan escaping her clenched teeth.
The shawl slipped from her shoulders, pooling on the floor.
“Megan?”
Dan stood up, the chair scraping loudly against the wood floor.
“Megan, what is it?”
She couldn’t speak.
The tightness radiated from her back around to the front, squeezing her like a vice.
She turned away from him, curling inward, burying her face in the upholstery of the wingback chair to muffle her breathing.
“Craig!”
Dan shouted toward the door, his footsteps heavy as he rounded the desk.
Craig, get in here.
No, or Megan gasped out, forcing herself to sit up, holding a hand out to stop him.
No, don’t call him.
I’m fine.
It’s passing.
Dan stopped a few feet from her.
He looked down.
Without the thick draping coverage of the shawl, the cut of her morning dress did very little to hide the truth.
She was slumped backward, her posture defeated, and the solid, undeniable mound of her abdomen pressed taut against the black wool.
The silence in the room became absolute.
The ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall sounded like hammer blows.
Dan stood entirely still.
His eyes were locked on her stomach.
The color drained from his face so rapidly, Megan thought he might actually pass out.
The raw, angry energy he had carried across the room evaporated, leaving behind a hollow, terrifying stillness.
He didn’t ask, “What is that?”
He wasn’t a fool.
He knew exactly what the shape of a pregnant woman looked like.
He had seen it on her three times before, though never quite this large.
What?
Dan started, his voice a broken, raspy whisper.
He cleared his throat and tried again.
What is this?
Megan pushed herself upright, her hands still resting instinctively over the crest of her belly.
The contraction had faded, leaving her trembling and utterly exposed.
There was no hiding anymore.
The rot was pulled back, and the truth was sitting right there in the damp, freezing room with them.
“I’m pregnant,” she said.
She aimed for defiant, but it came out exhausted.
Dan took a slow, unsteady step backward until the back of his knees hit the edge of the desk.
He leaned against it, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the wood.
He stared at her, his chest rising and falling in shallow, erratic jerks.
Six months.
He breathed, doing the math.
His eyes snapped up to her face, wide and manic.
Six months.
May.
Before I left for Paris.
Yes.
Honey, he let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob.
A jagged, ugly noise.
You are six months pregnant, and you didn’t tell me.
Why would I?
Megan shot back, her defenses slamming into place.
The adrenaline made her hands shake.
We haven’t spoken a single word to one another in half a year.
You sent your lawyers to communicate for you.
You packed me up and shipped me to Yorkshire like a broken piece of furniture.
It is my child!
He roared, the sudden volume making Megan flinch.
He pushed off the desk, stalking toward her.
He stopped just inches from her knees, towering over her.
The smell of cold rain and scotch radiating off him was overwhelming.
It is my heir.
You have no right to hide this from me.
Right?
Megan barked a cynical laugh, looking up at him without blinking.
Don’t talk to me about rights, Dan.
I am the vessel, remember?
That’s all I ever was.
The incubator that kept failing.
Well, congratulations.
The incubator finally took, but you had already checked out.
Dan stared down at her, his jaw trembling.
He slowly reached a hand out, his fingers hovering inches from the black wool covering her stomach.
He looked terrified to touch her, as if she might shatter, or worse, burn him.
Is it He swallowed violently.
Is it healthy?
Are you bleeding?
The question hit her harder than his anger.
The sheer, traumatic panic in his voice stripped away the duke and left only the man who had held her hand while she lost their previous children.
No.
Megan said quietly, the fight draining out of her.
She slumped back into the chair.
No bleeding.
The midwife says the heartbeat is strong.
It kicks constantly.
It’s it’s healthy, Dan.
Dan’s hand dropped.
He staggered back, dragging his hands through his damp hair, tugging at the roots.
He began to pace the short expanse of the rug, his boots thudding against the floorboards.
You were going to sign the papers.
He muttered, talking more to himself than to her.
He stopped and pointed an accusatory finger at the desk.
You were going to take a 5,000 lb settlement and walk away with my child.
You were going to let me divorce you, ruin your reputation, and raise my son in secret?
It might be a girl.
She pointed out dryly.
I don’t give a damn what it is.
He shouted, kicking the heavy mahogany leg of the desk.
The inkwell rattled.
It’s mine.
How could you do this?
How could you sit there and let me talk about annulments and settlements while you’re carrying my child?
Because you didn’t want me.
Megan yelled back, finally pushing herself to her feet.
Her joints screamed in protest, but she stood, planting her feet wide for balance.
She met his furious gaze, her own eyes burning, though she refused to cry.
You want an heir, Dan.
You never wanted a wife.
You couldn’t handle the mess of me.
The grief.
The blood.
You ran to Paris because it was easier than looking at a woman who was broken.
So, I decided to spare you the trouble.
You get your clean slate, and I get the child.
I wasn’t going to let you taint this one with your resentment.
Dan flinched as if she had slapped him.
He stared at her, the anger slowly draining from his face, replaced by a profound, agonizing devastation.
“You think I resent you?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
“I think you resent my failures,” she said plainly, the cynical truth tasting like ash in her mouth.
Dan looked away, staring into the sputtering fire.
He stood there for a long time, the only sound in the room the harsh drumming of the rain against the glass.
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating.
The divorce papers lay on the desk, the ink from her dropped pen slowly bleeding across the parchment, obliterating the word irreconcilable.
Finally, Dan turned back to her.
He didn’t look like a duke.
He looked like a man who had just watched his entire world view collapse.
He walked over to the desk.
He didn’t say a word.
He picked up the heavy silver pen, wiping the ink from the barrel with his bare thumb, not caring about the stain it left on his skin.
He grabbed the thick stack of divorce papers.
Megan watched him, her heart hammering against her ribs.
“What are you doing?”
Dan walked past her, ignoring the question.
He stopped in front of the fireplace.
With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the entire stack of parchment into the sputtering flames.
The dry paper caught instantly.
The fire flared bright and hot, illuminating the harsh lines of his face as the wax seal melted and the words burned to ash.
“Get your things packed,” Dan said, his back still to her as he watched their separation burn.
“We are going back to London.”
Acrid smoke billowed from the fireplace, carrying the sharp chemical scent of melting sealing wax.
Megan stared at the blackening edges of the parchment curling in the flames.
Her chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven intervals.
He had burned them just like that.
Three months of agonizing negotiations, the solicitors, the silent carriage rides, the finality she had spent half a year wrapping around herself like a bruised armor, reduced to a pile of gray ash currently floating up the chimney.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Megan said.
She gripped the armrests of her chair, her knuckles bleached white.
“You don’t get to march in here, burn my autonomy, and issue orders.”
Dan turned slowly.
The frantic terror from minutes ago had been shoved down, replaced by a cold, rigid authority that Megan recognized all too well.
It was the face he wore when a horse broke its leg and needed shooting, or when a tenant farm went bankrupt.
Pragmatic.
Absolute.
“You are pregnant with the Duke of Somerset’s heir.”
Dan said, his voice flat, though a slight tremor in his fingers betrayed him as he buttoned his damp riding coat.
“You’re living in a drafty, rotting manor 50 miles from a competent physician.
The roads are turning to slurry.
You’re coming back to Berkeley Square where I can ensure you do not die in a puddle of rainwater.”
“I have a midwife in the village, Mrs.
Higgins.
She delivered half the county.”
“Mrs.
Higgins is a peasant who likely washes her hands in a horse trough.”
Dan snapped, stepping toward her.
He didn’t yell this time.
He didn’t have to.
The quiet intensity in his baritone was infinitely more suffocating.
“You are packing a trunk, Megan.
If you refuse to walk to the carriage, I will have Craig help me carry you down the stairs.
Do not test my resolve today.
I do not have the stomach for it.”
He meant it.
The sheer, terrifying stubbornness in his dark eyes left absolutely no room for debate.
Megan swallowed the bitter taste of defeat.
Her lower back was throbbing again, a dull rhythmic ache that promised misery.
She was tired.
The adrenaline crash was hitting her hard, making her limbs feel like lead.
The thought of fighting him physically was exhausting.
Two hours later, she was wedged into the corner of the Somerset crested carriage.
The rain had intensified, drumming a relentless chaotic beat against the lacquered roof.
Inside, the air was thick, smelling of damp leather, Dan’s wet wool coat, and the faint sour tang of her own nausea.
The carriage jolted violently as the wheel caught a deep rut in the mud.
Megan gasped, her hands flying to the sides of her swollen belly.
Pain, sharp and immediate, flared in her pelvis.
Dan, sitting rigidly on the opposite bench, lunged forward.
His hands hovered over her knees, his face pale in the dim light filtering through the rain-streaked glass.
Are you all right?
Are you bleeding?
Stop asking me if I’m bleeding, she hissed through gritted teeth, squeezing her eyes shut until the ache subsided to a dull throb.
It’s a rut, Dan.
The baby bounces when the carriage bounces.
It is deeply unpleasant, but I am not dying.
He slowly withdrew his hands, sinking back against the squabs.
He looked out the window, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscle jumped beneath his skin.
I told the driver to keep a steady pace.
He’s driving like a damn drunkard.
He’s driving through a foot of Yorkshire mud.
You are the one who insisted on leaving today.
I insisted on getting you to a sterile environment, he muttered, running a hand over his face.
He looked ragged.
The stoic Duke had completely unraveled.
He kept glancing at her midsection, his eyes darting down and then quickly snapping away as if looking directly at her pregnancy was like staring into an eclipse.
“You haven’t asked.”
Megan said quietly, the rhythmic creak of the leather harnesses filling the silence between them.
Dan looked at her.
“Asked what?”
“If it’s a boy.”
“I don’t care.”
The response was immediate, sharp, and defensive.
Megan let out a short, cynical breath.
“Of course you care.
It’s the entire point of my existence, isn’t it?
The heir, the spare, the legacy.”
“Stop it.”
Dan warned, his voice dropping dangerously low.
“Stop talking like that.
You think you know everything I’m feeling right now, Megan, but you don’t have a clue.
I watched you bleed out three times.
I watched you turn into a ghost.
You think I care about a title right now?
I am trying to keep you alive.”
“You left.”
The words hung in the suffocating air of the carriage.
They were the truest, ugliest thing she could say.
Dan’s face hardened.
He looked away, staring into the gray sludge of the passing landscape.
He didn’t defend himself.
He couldn’t.
“I know.”
He said softly, the sound almost lost under the drumming rain.
“I know.”
The rest of the journey to London took three agonizing days.
They stopped at roadside inns where Dan bullied innkeepers into giving up their best rooms, demanding extra fires, boiling water, and fresh linens.
He stood guard outside her door like a rabid dog.
He wouldn’t let her carry so much as a teacup.
It wasn’t affection.
It was an aggressive terrifying overcompensation.
It was a man trying to physically wrestle fate into submission.
And it was exhausting.
The London townhouse smelled exactly as Megan remembered.
A cloying mixture of beeswax, expensive dust, and heavy forced air heating.
When Craig opened the grand front doors, the shock on the faces of the staff was palpable.
THE END
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Disclaimer
This story is a work of fiction inspired by real events. Names, characters, and details have been altered. Any resemblance is coincidental. The author and publisher disclaim accuracy, liability, and responsibility for interpretations or reliance. If you would like to share your story, please send it to [email protected].
