Hope for Tomorrow Read Online Free PDF

blame.
    “ How are you?” he asked, his voice full of the warmth and tenderness that she remembered from the early days in their relationship. She saw his gaze drop to her swollen belly before returning to her face.
    “ I've just been fired, how do you think I am?”
    “ You don't need this job,” Lucien tried to comfort her, for he could see that she was upset. “I will rent a home for you and our child, somewhere nice where you can be happy; perhaps a cottage with a small garden.”
    Martha looked at him, confused, as though he had just spoken in another language.
    “ Please, Martha,” He stepped closer to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “You must know how sorry I am about what I said that day. Can you ever forgive me?”
    Martha found it hard to process his words, for in her mind they didn't make any sense. She shrugged his hands off her shoulders.
    “ Your way of apologising for calling me a whore that day is to get me fired and make it publicly known that I am a fallen woman?”
    Lucien knew her well enough to realise that he was on shaky ground.
    “ You don't need this job,” he reassured her. “You don't ever need to work again.”
    “ Except as your whore,” she spat. “What did you think, that you could come in here, ruin the fragile life that I've built for myself, pay my master off and offer to make me your mistress for the rest of my life and that I would somehow be grateful?”
    Lucien hadn't thought of it that way.
    “ I just want to look after you,” he assured her.
    “ No, what you're talking about is possession, not care.”
    “ Surely you don't want to work in a cotton mill for the rest of your life?”
    “ I don't care where I work, as long as it's good, honest labour and I don't have to be anywhere near you.”
    Lucien dashed a hand through his dark hair and sighed. His instinct was to argue and pressure her into coming with him but he knew her well enough to realise that wouldn't work so he tried to calm down.
    “ The baby is due soon, at least let me take care of you until it arrives.”
    “ Then what?” she asked.
    “ I don't understand.”
    “ After the baby comes, then what? Have it adopted? Give it to the workhouse? Try and convince me to become your kept woman? Or maybe you'll just take it from me and raise it as your ward.”
    “ I don't know, Martha! All I know is that I can't bear my life without you in it and-”
    “ Well I actually quite like my life without you in it,” she interrupted him. “So please turn around and go home.”
    “ That's my child in there,” he said, pointing at her stomach. “I have rights.”
    “ No, you don't,” Martha gave a wry laugh. “Had you done the unthinkable and married the housemaid, you would indeed have the rights of ownership that you so dearly crave over both me and the child but as you rightly pointed out, how do you know this child is yours? If you try and force my hand or interfere in my life in any way, I will deny that this child is yours until my dying breath. Do you understand?”
    Once again, Lucien looked perplexed. He had prepared for her being difficult because after all, he had said some nasty things; what he had not counted on was her flat refusal to accept his help.
    “ Martha, I love you?”
    “ Love seeks to nurture, not to own.”
    “ Please.”
    “ Goodbye, Lucien. I hope that you and your title will be very happy together.” She turned to leave.
    “ Wait,” he pleaded, reaching out and grabbing her hand. “How can you just walk away? Did I really mean so little to you.?”
    Her expression softened for a moment as she frowned.
    “ No, Lucien. You meant the whole world to me; I would have done anything for you,” she answered honestly, her voice soft as for a moment as she allowed herself to remember just how very much she had cared for this man. “Then you made it clear that I would never be more than a dalliance to you, a youthful fling. You killed any feelings that I had for you