She could hardly tell him here with Henry’s eyes on them. “Can I call on you?”
“That’s not a good idea, little bird.” Jacob tossed a glance behind them at her brother. “Your guard dog might not approve.”
“He does not control me.”
“Perhaps not, but it would be unwise to provoke him.”
He was being infuriating and she set her jaw. “Very well. Be like that.”
Jacob offered her a mocking bow, but she noticed his eyes were bleak. “Shall we find the Duke?”
Annabelle had no choice but to accept his arm and let him lead her away, Henry following close on their heels. Evidently now was not the right time to ask him if he would marry her.
The rest of the opera passed in a blur, Jacob still distant for all he played the role of attentive fiance, and by the time she returned home with Nathanial, her head ached and she wanted nothing more than to go to bed.
As soon as they stepped inside Norfolk House, however, she knew something was wrong. The silence was a little too profound, as though the house and all its occupants were holding their breaths.
“Theo?” Nathanial called, his voice echoing in the cavernous space.
One of the footmen stepped forward, his face impassive. “Her Grace was taken to bed earlier, Your Grace.”
“To bed?” Nathanial frowned, already taking off his hat and gloves. “What happened?”
“Nothing too extreme, Your Grace, but she expressed a wish to see you as soon as you are home.”
“Of course.” Without waiting for Annabelle, Nathanial strode for the stairs. Annabelle handed her bonnet to William, the footman, and hurried after him. Theo had looked ill for the past couple of weeks, but she rarely allowed herself to be put to bed.
In fact, the last time she had been, she had been poisoned.
Annabelle broke into a run.
Her fear was entirely unjustified; she knew that even as she hurried through Theo’s ajar bedroom door.
Theo looked up, exasperated, from where she was reclining on the bed. “You too? Really, the both of you. I am not dying.”
Nathanial folded his arms from where he stood by her side. “Forgive me for my concern over the condition of my wife.”
Annabelle said nothing, but she could still remember Theo’s waxy face and uncontrollable way she had vomited, body shuddering, delirious with fever. She did not think she would ever forget.
“You do not usually take to your bed,” Nathanial reminded her.
Theo looked into his face with such soft adoration, Annabelle felt as though she was intruding on something deeply personal. The pain in her chest heightened, reminding her that Jacob had, briefly, looked at her like that, shortly before he had insisted she leave his house.
She made to leave the room but Theo threw out a hand. “Wait, Anna. Stay. This concerns you too, a little.”
“How so?”
Theo took a deep breath, glanced at Nathanial, and said, “I’m with child.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The physician who came to visit Theo proclaimed that her ill health had been due to her pregnancy, and he recommended that she leave London. Nathanial made plans to do so immediately, his only concern his wife’s health. The only question that remained was whether Annabelle would accompany them or move back in with her mother and Henry.
The answer to that question depended largely on Jacob. She would, of course, travel back to Havercroft, Nathanial’s estate, before the baby was due. But the end of the Season was in just two months; if she could prevail upon Jacob to marry her before then, she would stay in London until that date.
If she could not . . . she would leave, and she would break their false engagement.
Her heart hurt at the thought.
