Everyone was watching the opera exceptNicholas.
More than once, she had felt his gaze lingeron her.
“Are you unwell, Alexandra?” he said.
She closed her eyes. If only she could feignsleep so she did not have to answer him. The insides of her stomachrioted a silent tattoo.
“I know you’re not sleeping,” he continued,pitching his voice low so he did not disturb the others. But thatdidn’t happen and to her embarrassment, Cornelius watched her too.Nicholas stretched his leg so his boot brushed against the side ofher slipper. “You haven’t answered my question.”
Alexandra opened her eyes, half begging himto leave her alone. If only he wouldn’t pay so close attention toher. “What question?”
He muttered something under his breath.“Your pallor concerns me. I asked if you were unwell.”
It was their first time in public and shedidn’t want to disgrace herself or Nicholas. Quiet. That was allshe needed…and to lay down. Would the room ever stop rotating? “Iam fine, my lord.”
“Liar.”
Her eyes flared at his rudeness. She ignoredthe small fact she was lying to him.Let me suffer with mydignity intact.
The muscles in her throat constricted.Alexandra clamped her hand over her mouth and ran from the box.Where could she seek privacy? A footman whirred past her. She moveddown a long dark corridor. Bile rose-up her throat. Too late. Sheemptied the contents of her stomach in an urn. Knees shaking, sheplaced her hand on the wall willing the spinning to cease so shewouldn’t faint dead away. A handkerchief was handed to her.
“When were you going to tell me?”
Nicholas.Oh, he had witnessed herhumiliation. Dabbing her lips, she took her hand off the wall,turned, lifting her gaze to him.
Dear heavens, the tropics could be frozenbeneath his narrowed cobalt eyes. Had he assumed she had kept thepregnancy from him? She wrapped her arms around herself, loathingthe trembling of her limbs, and waiting until her breathing evened.“I just found out.”
He crossed his arms in front of him, waitingfor an explanation.
“I have been ailing for weeks, believing Ihad caught a ship-born malaise. This afternoon, I was ill in frontof Rachel, so she arranged to have her physician examine me. Heconfirmed I was to be a mother, and I wanted to wait until we werealone to surprise you with the news. And now I have disgracedmyself and you are angry.”
She wanted to cry, to be anywhere but here.“I-I don’t understand why. I thought you wanted a child.”
Nicholas stood thunderstruck. “I thought youcouldn’t have children.”
“The physician said the doctor in Deconshirewas either addled or superstitious and that a fall wouldn’t preventme from having children as evidenced by my condition.”
Nicholas hauled her into his arms.
“What if someone sees us?” A door openedfurther up the corridor and she pushed from his arms. DukeCornelius. Thank goodness, he headed the other way.
Nicholas murmured into her ear. “To hellwith everyone else. We are going to have a baby and we are goinghome. You must rest.”
His quarrelsome bellow teased a smile fromher lips. “Nicholas, I’m not dying. I’m having a baby and thedoctor said I was to maintain a normal routine until I started toshow.”
“How long?” he demanded.
“We have seven and a half months before ourchild is born.”
“You should be in bed.”
She giggled from Nicholas’ magnanimouspontification and allowed him to escort her back to the box, tomake their goodbyes, happy the Duke of Westbrook had notreturned.
Rachel tapped her closed fan on her lips andarched an eyebrow. “Nicholas knows?”
“You are leaving so soon?” asked Nicholas’sfather, standing and shooting a suspicious glance overAlexandra.
Heat rose to her face.
