But—and she was absolutely, completely ashamed to admit it—the tears in her eyes weren’tjustabout that happiness. Not when they came with a pang of jealousy, too.
Because, yes, she and Hector might be aiming to produce an heir. But that was business. It was practicality. If such a child came to be, it would be born because of the laws of English primogeniture.
Phoebe and Aaron’s child would come from nothing but the force of their parents’ love.
And that was something Clio would never have. Not for herself, nor for her child.
It was an incalculable loss.
But she couldn't contemplate it now, not when she needed to be here, to be happy for her family, whom she did love with all her heart.
“Thank you,” Phoebe said, grinning at her husband. “As Aaron has pointed out, some of the changes of incipient motherhood have made me a little?—"
“Difficult,” Aaron said.
“—tempestuous,” Phoebe finished, giving Aaron a betrayed look.
“Yes,” he amended without missing a beat. “That was what I meant to say. Well done, darling. You phrased it perfectly.”
Phoebe gave him a chiding smack to the chest, but she was grinning, practically blooming under his praise and easy affection.
Clio felt a wrenching feeling inside her so sharp that she wondered if she might be dying.
“How long have you known?” she asked Phoebe, partially out of genuine interest, partially to distract from the icy pit that was opening in her chest.
“I’ve suspected for a while,” Phoebe admitted. “But I was only certain recently. Of course, I didn’t mention anything to your brother until I knew, since he can be?—"
“Difficult?” Clio provided, just to make them laugh.
“Well, I was going to say overprotective, but I like yours better,” Phoebe said, while Aaron pulled a face, pretending to be offended.
Clio looked at her brother and marveled at the changes that had overtaken him since he’d fallen in love with Phoebe. He was practically a different man—or, no, that wasn’t quite right, because he was still the Aaron he’d always been, beneath it all. He was just …
Happy. It was as simple and as wondrous as that.
“When is my little niece or nephew going to make their debut?” she asked. It was getting harder and harder to keep her focus on the scene in front of her, rather than on her own troubles. “I plan to spoil them rotten, so I’ll need to start scheming immediately …”
For the following hour, Clio tried to lose herself in the happy chatter of her family as they discussed the names of potentialoffspring, and as Phoebe lamented that pregnancy had made too many of her favorite foods suddenly unappealing. Throughout it all, Clio kept her smile fixed.
She would grieve later, she told herself. She would grieve this thing that she knew she was missing, that she wouldn’t get back. But for now, she would bask in the light of someone else’s love, since that was the closest that she’d ever come to having her own.
CHAPTER 26
“Ye realize that if ye scowl much harder at that paper, it’s going to burst into flames, don’t you?” Ramsay drawled from where he leaned against the doorjamb of the study.
Hector jerked his head up to scowl at his friend instead. Ramsay, who didn’t care to use the good sense the Lord gave him, just laughed and held up his hands in a gesture of supplication.
“I bear you no ill will, your most high duke sir,” he said, which was such an idiotic mishmash of titles and formal addresses that Hector had to roll his eyes. “I am just here, your humble servant, to point out that you seem to be in the devil’s own mood.”
“You’ve never been humble a day in your life, let alone anyone’s servant,” Hector grumbled—though he couldn’t quite refute Ramsay’s words.
It was all Matthew’s fault, this bad mood of his. Or, rather, Matthew’s and their fathers. The two of them were cut from the same cloth, after all. The pair of them had been absolute disasters at record-keeping, though Hector couldn’t be certain if this arose from laziness or a purposeful effort to outright kill Hector by burying him beneath paper. That would be one way to get Matthew the title with little fuss.
The whole thing was ridiculous. He’d found a letter of complaint from a tenant, which his father had ignored, of course, and now Hector had to manage, because it wasn’t the crofter’s fault that the late duke was a tightfisted bastard—stuck atopyet anothertailor’s bill for Matthew. They could afford it—for all his father’s sins, which were manifold, at least he hadn’t emptied their coffers—but how many goddamned waistcoats did one man need?
Yes, that was the source of Hector’s ire. Matthew, their father, and London, with its self-important Society.
Not Clio. Certainly not that he’d disappointed Clio. Not because he knew that it was pride, rather than good sense, that made him hide his troubles from her. Not when he knew he’d hurt her by refusing to accompany her on her outing.
