Who: Lucia When: Jan 4th What: Some random thoughts on her current situation. Rating: PG? Note: I had this saved for a little while because I was maybe going to do something else with it, buuuut since activity check is on and I've been on hiatus for a while, I figured maybe this is a good way to jump back in! Just a random Lucia splurge.
Lucia was not a stupid woman. Perhaps she was not intellectual like Patrice. Perhaps she didn't enjoy reading or collecting knowledge, and would much rather spend the day with her daughters playing in the snow than practising their French, but she was not unintelligent by any means. She noticed things.
Things like thousands of galleons gone from his accounts without the excuse of a donation to a library. Things like weekends away to work while he left the majority of his research in his study at home, untouched. Other things, more telling or obvious, like gifts he presented her with for no reason at all, or a lingering perfume which did not belong to her, were remembered from months and years past, stored in Lucia's mind. She could not, and would never dare, comment on mere suspicions, however. What right had she to question how he spent his money, or his career? She had no proof, and furthermore, she had no reason beyond women's intuition to suspect.
Besides, of late she wore a permanent pair of rose tinted glasses. He was treating her well. He was affectionate and kind, and even more surprisingly, engaged and attentive. He paid attention to her, and worried for her well-being, and inquired of her health and the health of the child. He was the perfect husband. What use was there in worrying? Worrying she wasn't enough, as she had spent enough hours and years doing in the past, would only make her miserable when she had no reason not to be happy.
Patrice loved her. She truly believed that. Perhaps he hadn't said it, but he took care of her and it was clear she was important to him. Perhaps she wasn't the sun which dictated his days the way Lucia lived her life by him, but it was enough. It had to be, because she knew, after eleven years, that the way things were right now were as good as they were going to get.
And really, could she complain? He made her happy with his care, and their relationship was stronger now than it had ever been. He was a good father and a good man. Truly a match her father had been ecstatic to secure for her. Lucia was lucky.
She was lucky, and so she squelched the feeling that her luck was fleeting, momentary, and somehow too good to be true. She was happy now, and she deserved to be. She wouldn't take that away from herself with baseless doubts. She had always known her inability to produce an heir was her one great failing. Perhaps now that she was carrying his son, things would really be perfect.