“Should I have told you first?” she asked.
He had waited only for the door to be shut, however, before turning her almost fiercely against the wall beside it, the weight of his body holding her there. In the dim light of the candle burning in a wall sconce on the other side of the door, she could see his eyes burning into hers. Then his mouth found hers and ravished it while one of his arms pushed behind her shoulders and the other came about her waist and her own went about him.
“Phil,” he murmured into her mouth. “Ah, Phil. It is almost too soon. It has all happened just as it was planned. You were married in haste, you were impregnated in haste, and now you are—or may be—with child before our marriage is quite a month old. Just as though you have no other function in our union. As though you are not a person. As though I do not love you with every breath I draw into my body.”
She pressed her hands against his shoulders until there was a little space between them.
“No one forced me into anything, Lucas,” she said. “Least of all you. I married you because I wanted to. I lay with you because I wanted to. I love you because... Well, because I want to. And because I justdo.And I am so happy about being with child, though I am not quite, quite certain, of course, that I do not know quite what to do with all my happiness.”
He cupped his hands about her cheeks and gazed intently into her eyes again. “You are sure you forgive me?” he asked her. “Eventhough I once called you soiled goods and robbed you of your youth and ruined your life for many years?”
It was hard to look back on those years, hard to believe they had even happened. But she would not belittle the suffering, just as she would not belittle what he had suffered after overhearing that very private argument between his parents when he was emotionally unfit to deal with what he learned. Sometimes life just happened, whether a person was ready for it or not.
“I am quite, quite sure,” she said. “My life at this moment is everything I could ever want it to be.”
He sighed and leaned into her again. He kissed her lips.
“I meant what I said,” he told her. “I would love, love,loveto have a daughter with you.”
She smiled. “But a son first,” she said. “Veryfirst, though, Lucas, we have a supper to attend as the guests of honor at our own wedding ball. The music has just ended.”
He kissed her again before stepping back and drawing her hand through his arm. “Let us attend what remains of it, then,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Five
There was a lily pond to the west of the grand stone mansion that was Greystone. It was slightly below the level of the rose arbor, which had been built beside the house, and it could be viewed from there on a warm summer day while one relaxed on one of the wrought iron seats and breathed in the scent of the roses. Today was not such a day. There were no roses in late February. No lilies either. It was a sunny, chilly day with clouds scudding across the sky. The brisk wind that moved them was held at bay from the pond, however, by a band of trees to the north and west of it and the arbor and house to the east. Only to the south was there an open view of the park stretching into the distance. The prevailing winds did not blow from that direction.
Lucas was standing beside the pond, his hands clasped behind his back, his gaze upon the countryside, which would soon lose its faded winter look and brighten with the delicate colors of spring. He loved the changing of the seasons, but he always looked forward most to the coming of spring. Especially this year.
Philippa was heavy with child. Aunt Kitty had declared just yesterday that she must be carrying twins at the very least. But the dowager countess, who had come to spend the last weeks of the confinement with her daughter, had said that she herself had been more than usually large with all five of her own children.
“But I never did give birth to twins or triplets or more,” she had added with a smile of reassurance for Philippa. “Though a cousin of mine had two sets of twins in little more than a year, poor thing.”
Aunt Kitty had come to Greystone with the duke and duchess two weeks after the Strattons’ wedding ball last year, though the journey home had stretched over a week and a half and had been one of the most tedious things ever, she had told Lucas privately. She had remained with them ever since and nursed Grandmama through a stubborn winter chill, which had settled on her chest and refused to budge. The duke had not caught it from her despite the fact that he had openly defied the advice of the local physician and the pleadings of his daughter to stay away from her.
“Nonsense,” he had said, according to Aunt Kitty’s report. “After almost sixty years with your mother, Kitty, I would not know how to stay away from her. Stop fussing.”
Aunt Kitty had stopped.
Both grandparents were now in what Lucas would call middling health. They were apparently well, but he could see a difference even from last year. Inbothof them. He had spent a thoroughly agreeable summer and autumn at Amberwell with his wife and sister—and Stephanie. At the end of October they had arranged for a neighbor and friend to stay with Jenny for a few weeks and gone to Ravenswood in Hampshire for the christening of Gareth Ware, Viscount Mountford, son of Devlin and Gwyneth. They had left Stephanie there when they returned home. Lucas loved Amberwell, and fortunately Philippa loved it too and was quickly taken to thebosom of all their neighbors, whom he had known all his life. They had come to Greystone soon after Christmas, however, for His Grace was restless, Aunt Kitty had reported, and Grandmama too wanted them there for the birth of their first child.
Jenny had accompanied them.
His Grace was not the only restless member of the family. For the past few days Philippa hadprowled, for want of a better word. She could not sit and she could not stand, yet lying down made her feel like alazy lumpor abeached whale.She could not read—andforgetwriting letters, usually one of her favorite activities. She could not get close enough to the escritoire to see what she was writing. Doing nothing was worst of all. She could not remain indoors, and she could not stay outdoors. At night she could not sleep—or stay awake. She could not lie on her back or on either side. Moving from one position to another was a major undertaking. She told Lucas that it would be better for both of them if he slept in the bed in the room that was nominally his though it had never been used. Yet when he asked her if that was what she really wanted, she informed him fretfully that if he did notwantto sleep beside her, then fine.Shedid not care.
He stayed in their bed with her and cursed himself for being a man and putting the woman he loved above all others through such hell. It was notfair, damn it all. And it was dashed humbling. Not to mention irritating.
“Lucas,” she said now from behind him. “Come and see.”
He turned to look at her. She was on the far side of the pond, up against the trees, half bent over something at her feet. It was impossible, of course, for her to bend fully, poor Phil. He went to look. She had one arm stretched out toward him, though she did not remove her eyes from whatever she was gazing at.
“Look,” she said when he came close and took her hand in his.
And he bent over to see a cluster of snowdrops blooming bravely in defiance of the lingering winter chill.
“Spring is coming,” she said, straightening up to smile dazzlingly at him.
“As it does every year,” he said, smiling back at her and watching as she frowned suddenly and briefly and spread a hand over her bulk, as he had noticed her doing a few times today.
