“She sounds like a lovely person. How long…?” Margaret swallowed. She turned around to stare up at him.
“Our marriage lasted eight months. Bethany died in childbirth.” His fingers trailed along Margaret’s arm now and he spoke softly as he remembered. “The midwife didn’t arrive in time. Only her maid and I were present to help her. There was no time. She didn’t suffer long… It happened in a matter of minutes.”
Margaret squeezed his hand. “You must have been terrified.”
He nodded behind her, and she felt him swallow hard. “So much blood. And the child…” He trailed off and Margaret sensed he was done speaking of it. She rubbed his hands and then his wrists and forearms.
She remembered how much she had bled. Her and Lawrence’s baby had been a boy. So very tiny and so very perfect in every way but one. He had failed to take a single breath.
Stillborn, the doctor had pronounced almost cruelly.
In that moment, she’d wanted to bleed and bleed and bleed.
“My mother was a godsend.” Who did he turn to after his wife and baby died? “She wouldn’t allow me to wallow. Did you meet my mother, when you were in London?”
“I was presented to her once. Oddly enough, it was George who introduced me. But afterward, he warned me to steer clear of the Dragon Danbury.” He chuckled. “Are you going to wear feathers sticking out of your head when you are in your dotage?”
She laughed. Her mother had been dead barely a year and a half, and it always made her sad to be reminded of it. But the memory of her mother’s hundreds of feathers and her elaborately styled hair made her smile. Imagining wearing her hair in a similar fashion made her laugh.
“Oh, definitely,” she answered.
“I think red and yellow would suit you best. Or perhaps a rainbow. You can add to your height that way.”
“I think that is partly why my mother wore them. She was not very tall and could not abide being overlooked.”
“I have some ideas for when you wear those feathers. I’ll pluck them out and most definitely not overlook any part of you.” Even joking, he had the ability to make her squirm.
In a most delightful way.
“Not to tickle me.” She slid her eyes toward him sideways.
“You mean like this?” Sebastian’s hands slid around her waist and he ran his fingers along her ribs.
“Stop!” She giggled as she made a half-hearted effort to push his hands away. It was easier to go on the offense, so she danced her fingertips down his abdomen. By the time they paused, their antics had them both laying down, facing one another with their heads on the same pillow, breathing hard but staring into each other’s eyes.
“Truce.” He traced her hairline with one fingertip. “I promise to never tickle you if you promise the same.”
“Truce.”
What would her mother say about what she was doing now? Her mother was above all, proper in all things… and yet, in a moment of clarity, Margaret was certain her mother would have adored Sebastian.
“My mother cared more about her children’s happiness than her own. She tried to send me away to London when she realized that she was ill. Thank God I did not go.”
“You were with her in the end?”
“I was, and I am so very glad for it.”
He kissed her on the forehead. “I’m sure she must have been, as well.”
Indeed, her mother would have liked Sebastian.
“Do you get on well with your parents?” She knew him intimately, but she knew so little about his life when he was in London, his family, his history.
“My father has always been a duke first and a father second. And we disagree on some very fundamental things.” He opened his fingers and then threaded them between hers. “But we tolerate each other. My mother is a mother first and a duchess second. She disapproves of my plans to sail. She thinks I ought to be happy enough in London.”
“She is a mother.” Margaret was not, and yet, she could imagine her fears. Margaret could not allow herself to imagine that in a few months he would be at the mercy of a wooden ship in the middle of the huge ocean. It was unimaginable.
“My uncle thinks it’s folly.”
