Chapter 25

In an attempt to recoil the young couple, Abraxas did not think it would be a bad idea if they were to go away for a while on their own and he thought the place where they should go would be back to Germany. The pair of them had been so happy when they had been there.

What they both needed was to find a way back there, to the time when their love was fresh and unspoiled. The two of them had been more in love than he had ever thought they would be even if they were not willing to say the word. But then he knew he was being too optimistic.

The most they were going to be able to do would be to remember how they had felt when they had been there for no matter how much they wanted to they were not going to be able to get back to how they had been there truly. The past was gone.

But the two of them were bound together and they were going to be for the rest of their lives, so they were going to have to come to an agreement if they were going to be happy together once more.

"Since I have been wed, I have missed far too much time off work to take Narcissa off now," his son said to him when he suggested gently that he might want to go away with his wife for a while.

"Lucius, if you will not go under your own steam then I will order you to do so. As you have said, we have coped perfectly well since you have been married. You taking a few days to grieve with your wife is not going to bring the company crashing down about our ears." He said as he raised his eye brows.

He had seen his son trying to push away the suggestion but he was not going to let him do so it for his own peace of mind. He did not know why but since the girl had been his son's wife and part of their family, he had got obsessed with the idea things had to be settled with the future of the estate and the dynasty secure.

If he had to displease his son to get that aim, then he was going too.

Lucius looked at him and he knew for a moment he was considering arguing, but the boy knew the look on his face only too well from his childhood and he knew there was no point in doing so.

His father had the idea in his head and that was what he had to do now.

The only good thing about it was it was going to get him away from his father.

()()()()

Narcissa sat in her drawing room with a book, dressed in a simple cotton black gown, her hair uncommonly left down. She had not had the energy of the patience to put it up that day. Grief was such a strange thing.

It was not so long since she had been mourning her dear mother – in fact, she still was. Yet in some ways, the largely unspoken grief she had for her child was worse for she felt as if she had no one to share it with. Her husband was so far away from her and her sister, she was beginning to think, did not have a maternal bone in her body. She would never understand what she was going through.

And so she was on her own with her grief – and she did not even have fond memories to comfort herself as she had when she had lost her mama.

It was so quiet all the time in her head and it broke her again and again.

She had thought of writing to Izzy, or to Chris, but they would not know how she felt and so what good would they be to her?

No, she just had to try and deal with what she was feeling on her own the very best she could.

She had been sitting there for quite some time when there was a knock on her door.

"Enter," she said her eyes not straying from the window where she had been looking.

"Wife."

The velvety voice that greeted her ears made her long for his touch. But neither were going to run in to one another's arms as they had done in the past.

He looked at her as if she was quiet different to the women he had wed.

She knew when she had held her tongue as she much as she had of late; things had changed between the two of them.

"My lord," she nodded, the strict formality keeping the barriers she had hoped never would be between them up.

"My father has come to me today and he had requested that the two of go away for a while together – he think it would be good idea for you to recuperate in Germany."

She nodded. She was not quite sure what she thought to that. She had been so happy when the two of them had been there before - she thought to go back there would only make the grief she felt more intense as well as taint the happy memories which existed there.

"We'll leave tomorrow if that is agreeable to you," He said and she nodded.

She knew if he and Abraxas had cooked this up together then there was going to be precious little she would be able to say or do to get out of it. And she did not have the energy too try...

And maybe if Lucius was reminded of a time when the two of them had been so happy together he might be more inclined to forgive her for what she had done.

Perhaps the two of them might even conceive...

"Of course – I will get the house elves to pack for the two of us." She said to him and he nodded.

When he had said what he had come to say he had thought that he was just going to leave straight away but he did not. He could not turn from the room or from her.

It was as if he was trying to find some words to say to her.

Something to make it slightly better.

But his presence there was making her feel awkward as if she was meant to say something to him.

She had been about to say something when he turned to her. "Cissy," he sighed. In his eyes, she could see his grief. But so consumed was she by her own she did not think she was yet able to comfort him.

It was so hard when the two of them had been so close to be so far apart and it made her want to cry for both of them as well as the beloved child they had both lost.

"I am going to give you a son – a son to keep for our own for all eternity," she said to him and he sighed. He seemed to lose his own train of though.

"I want you to know – I want to say again I do not blame you for what we lost."

She nodded – she had known it to be the truth but it did help to hear.

"Will you not come back to our room? Back to our bed?"

"You are still weak after you ordeal, you need to rest. As soon as your health returns, so will I," he said to her as he turned to the door, only to turn back.

Once more he had the look on his face that said there was something which he felt was unsaid between the two of them – but then, of course, there was. There were a million and one things that the two were yet to say to each other.

Walking back over to her he bent down – for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her on the lips – but he settled for her forehead.

Reaching up she caressed his cheek, enjoying the first moment of affection between the two of them since they had had such great misfortune.

"We are going to leave tomorrow," he said to her once more before he turned from her and walked away. Yet for the first time in a long time she had hope in her heart that things were going to go well for the two of them eventually.

()()()()()

Narcissa, unlike the first time she had been to Germany, did not pack all her fine jewels and her pretty dresses. When they had been there it had been ball after ball, trip after trip, the opera...

She was going there this time to get over the death of her baby and so she was not going to twirl and dance as she had with her husband beforehand.

Simple gowns of mourning were packed in to her trunks. She wondered how she was meant to mourn something which had never belonged to her.

Walking into the lodge she saw someone had had the good sense prepare for her and their lord arrival. The fires were lit. It was warm and inviting, or would be if she felt Lucius wanted to be there. Now the two of them had left though she found that she was once more questioning whose idea it had been to go away together. She did not think it had been her husband's.

No, she got the feeling that he wanted to be at home with Rod so that he might go and hunt and go to Death Eaters meetings and let his anger at the world out that way. Not sit away with her while she grieved in her own quiet way which she did not think was good for him.

He was a quiet storm and he had been since they had met. And if things got too quiet then he was bound to blow a foul wind she thought.

Nevertheless, now they were there was nothing else to do but get on with it even if she knew she was not going to be a lot of company for him.

Removing her fur lined cloak she looked around her and put it on the sofa.

The last time she had been here she had been the happiest she had ever been in her entire life. And now she was the most desperate.

"I am going to change," said her husband and he left the room and so her alone.

()()()()

It seemed to Lucius nothing had changed from when they were in England to when they were in Germany. The child was dead and she had still kept the knowledge they were going to be parents from him.

He had thought she had been more honest than anyone else in the world.

As the week grew on the two of them still found different ways to occupy their days. And when they went to bed at night they slept on the other side of the bed. No touching – and the lack of affection disturbed Narcissa greatly.

If he did not touch her then how was she meant to conceive again and heal the rift that had come between them.

As the nights of their holiday drew on it was not as if Narcissa did not try to persuade her husband to come to her as he had when they had been besotted by one another. But he said she was still to unwell, even when she did not feel it.

"Please say I am repugnant to you if that is the truth for I am not so ill anymore," she said after her attempts to seduce her husband had once more failed. She got out of the bed. She would go to another room that night rather than be treated as a leper in her marital bed. She would not let him do that to her.

"You are not repugnant in the least to me – don't be ridiculous."

But to her it did not feel as if she was being ridiculous. It was a very real fear.

"Don't talk to me as if I am a child," she said as she put on her dressing gown.

She remembered when they had fought over Chris. It seemed so trivial now and she wished she was back there.

"Get back in to the bed," said her husband softly but she shook her head.

"I do not know how to do this. I do not know how I am meant to please you and grieve the loss of the child!" she said as she felt the tears well in her eyes.

She knew there was always going to be a hole in her heart.

As much as she loved her husband and any other children they may or may not have together, he was not going to be enough for her. He was not going to heal that for her.

Not when he was being cold and aloof. He could only soothe and repair her with the tenderness she knew he was capable of.

Knowing he was still being too distant, he reached out for her. As the time had gone on he had begun to think that things were as they were and he had to accept it. Yes, she had kept something from him but that had only reaffirmed to him that his wife was very human whereas he had been looking at her as if she had been a saint which no women was. It had been cruel of him to think of her as such as she would never match up.

"All you have to do is grieve the baby," he said to her but he knew that was not going to help her.

The thing she could do to help him would be to be who she had been in his eyes but that was not going to happen.

As she looked at him, he wondered what she was thinking and how he was meant to help her.

"When we get home this is going to make a lot more sense and we are going to be able to work it all out."

It was the wrong thing to say.

"Don't you understand? We came here to work it out Lucius! Or at least I thought that was the point of us going away together! This is not a question of whether or not I was right or not to tell you about the baby anymore and nor is it a question of how hurt we both are over the lost of it - not anymore."

"So what is this damn question?" he blurted out in frustration.

"Love, Lucius – if we can find a way through this and love one another as we always have... for I have always loved you."

For the first time since they had got there, she knew she had got through to him. Ever since the two of them had started their courtship she had so rarely been the one to talk of love to him. She knew now as she looked back that maybe that had been a little cruel. But there was nothing she could do to take back the way she had been now. And she knew she would not be different for if she had then she new she might never have loved him or had him to herself. And maybe it was better to have loved as they had for one sun lit season than to have never known one another at all.

Knowing she had got through to him did provide her some happiness but it was not enough. And she knew she had to now give him time to think of what he wanted. She knew what she did. She wanted what she had always wanted. For the two of them to love one another forever.

"Goodnight husband." She said as she left the room and shut the door hoping when she opened it again it would be her Lucius who was waiting for her on the other side.

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