Chapter 2
The rest of the morning passed in a daze. I tried talking to Max, but he said that he needed time to consider ‘the situation’ and to think. So I deemed it wise to let him alone.
In the late afternoon, I couldn’t wait any longer and went to his study. He was writing a letter. From the rapid pace of his quill and the hunch of his shoulders, I deduced it was about ‘the situation’. But to whom was he writing that could help us?
I stood in the doorway, watching him, and eventually couldn’t stand the suspense. ‘Who are you writing to, dearest?’ I enquired.
‘My lawyer’ came the curt response.
His lawyer! The back of my neck prickled.
‘W-why?’
Max stopped writing and glanced at me. ‘I am inviting him to stay with us. I need his expertise on a certain matter.’
‘More unexpected guests,’ I muttered nervously.
‘Fliss, please come in and sit down. We need to discuss something.’
The serious way Max was looking at me suggested I was not going to like what he was about to say.
‘Ah.’ I edged backwards. ‘Can it wait? I need to go and talk to Cook and make sure we have enough food to feed everyone.’
‘It cannot, I’m afraid,’ said Max seriously, his countenance grim.
Dutifully, I entered the room and sunk onto the sofa.
Max joined me and held my hands. Then he kissed me on both cheeks, which worried me greatly. He was not an unaffectionate man, but for him to be so overly demonstrative in the middle of the day meant he was about to drop a cannonball on me.
‘Dearest’, he began, ‘I have considered the best thing to do for Lucy—’
‘Isn’t that for her parents to decide?’ I interrupted.
‘Seraphina doesn’t want to involve Tobias. She hasn’t told him the real reason why they’ve come to Derbyshire. She thinks he would either hunt Dorian down and invite him to a duel or stab him forthwith without even giving him the courtesy of accepting the invitation.’
It was not out of the question. I knew Tobias to be hot-headed and wholly capable of doing such a thing. It was what I had been worried about with Max—wasstillworried about, in fact, as he was so dour-faced.
‘So in the absence of a male protector, I am stepping in,’ he continued.
‘Surelyyou’renot going toinvite him to a duel?’ I whispered.Is that why he needs his lawyer—to update his will?‘Darling, I know you learned fencing when you were younger, but you haven’t picked up a sword in years ...’
Max’s lips twisted into a rueful smile. ‘No, I am not going to duel with him. Perish the thought. As much as I despise Dorian right now, I have no wish to kill him and face the gallows.’
I tightened my grip on his hands. ‘I am glad to hear it.’
‘No, I have another way to help Lucy ...’
He fell silent, and I waited, my feeling of dread increasing by the minute.
Max looked at our joined hands and seemed to be steeling himself to speak. ‘Darling, are you very against having a child?’ he murmured.
‘Why?’ I asked somewhat sharply, as I had grasped where this conversation was leading.
‘I know you do not want to go through childbirth. But what if you did not have to give birth? Would you be wholly against raising Lucy’s child as our own?’
I gazed into Max’s eyes and saw there was a beseeching element in their depths.
‘You have already made up your mind,’ I said in surprise. ‘You want the child.’
