Emma, sitting nearby with a dozing Christopher, snickered.
Stifling a grin, Polly said, “I think your parents might want to keep him.”
“Mama and Papa don’t need him.” Livy’s green eyes flashed. “They haveme.”
“They have enough love for you and your brother,” Polly assured her niece, “and I think you will grow to enjoy Christopher’s company as well.”
Livy crossed her arms. “He doesn’t know how to do anything. He’s boring.”
“He won’t be boring for long,” Polly promised.
“Angel, how many times must I tell you that your brother is not for sale?” Livy’s papa, the tall, dark, and wickedly handsome Duke of Strathaven, crossed the room to ruffle her dark ringlets.
“I’m not trying to sell him, Papa, I’mgivinghim away. Since Aunt Polly doesn’t have a baby, I thought she might want one for her birthday,” the little girl said virtuously.
Even as Polly smiled along with everyone, she felt a pang.Out of the mouths of children…
Today she’d turned two-and-twenty, and it made her acutely aware that, after being out for four seasons, she was still unwed, without a fiancé—let alone a babe—in sight. As much as she rejoiced at her siblings’ happiness, loneliness stirred within her. Looking around the room, she saw the unique bonds shared between the married couples; over the years, she’d discovered that emotions such as anger and hate tended to be uniform, but love expressed its beauty in unique ways.
At the pianoforte, Thea was supervising as her stepson Freddy and Edward, Ambrose and Marianne’s son, played a rousing duet. Thea’s husband, the Marquess of Tremont, stood beside her, a possessive hand on her waist, adoration threading his aura with rich silver. The same silver flickered around her when she smiled at him. Strathaven, in the meantime, had joined Em, and the two were playfully bickering over something, attraction glittering between them like magenta confetti.
On a nearby settee, Rosie and Marianne were perusing the latest fashion plates from Ackerman's. They were debating the merits of various passimeterie choices when Ambrose came to sit with them, setting a casual arm around his wife’s shoulders.
“Tired, sweetheart?” Ambrose said.
Marianne, a glamorous silver blonde, gave a rueful smile. “A bit. I don’t recall being so peaked when I was carrying Edward. Pregnancy is a young woman’s endeavor, I’m afraid.”
It had come as a surprise to the entire Kent clan when the doctor had pronounced Marianne with child two months ago. As Marianne had explained it, she’d been feeling tired and achy and had thought she might have a touch of an ague. Instead, she’d discovered that she was expecting—fourteen years after she’d last given birth.
“You look the same as when we first married.” Ambrose pressed a kiss against his wife’s temple, his amber gaze and aura warm with love. “The most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes upon.”
Marianne laughed. “And you, my darling, have grown far more silver-tongued with age. I’m inflating like one of those hot air balloons. Soon I won’t be able to hide it.”
“I agree with Papa,” Rosie said. “You have a ravishing glow about you, Mama.”
“What a pair of flatterers.” Contentment infused Marianne’s emerald aura with radiant gold. “And how lucky I am to have you.”
As much as Polly adored her ever-growing family, being with them sometimes made her feel more alone. She knew she’d always have a place with any one of her siblings, but she didn’t want to be the tag-along sister forever. She wanted a home of her own. Of late, spending time with her nieces and nephews had also made her keenly aware of her own budding maternal instincts. Which meant she ought to focus on her plan of landing Nigel Pickering-Parks… but instead she couldn’t stop thinking about Revelstoke.
At night, images of the earl’s wickedness flitted through her dreams, and several times she’d woken to find herself sweaty and tangled in the sheets. Beneath her nightgown, the tips of her breasts had risen into stiff and tingling points. Lower, in the secret cove between her legs, she’d felt a pulsing ache and… a disconcerting glaze of wetness.
Dear heaven, what was happening to her?
She thought about asking her sisters, but the intimate nature of such questions—and what they might reveal about her—made her balk. The same thing occurred when she contemplated telling Rosie about how Revelstoke had mocked her in the garden all those months ago, and, more recently, what she’d seen him doing at the bathhouse. Justthinkingabout those events made Polly squirm with mortification, a rash of heat creeping over her insides.
Thus, her encounters with Revelstoke remained filed under the category of “Guilty Secrets.” She rationalized to herself that it didn’t matter: they weren’t going to see him again anyway. Despite Rosie obsessing over him, he wasn’t going to come calling. He was a cad and a rake, and as Lady Langley had pointed out (and he hadn’t denied) that long ago night in the garden, he had no interest in virgins—Praise Jesus.
“When do you want to open your presents, Polly dear?”
Em’s voice stirred her from her reverie. “Oh, um, whenever it is convenient,” she said. “Maybe after dessert?”
“That’s our Polly,” her eldest brother said, “the easy-going and patient one of the family. Since you were a little girl, you’ve liked to save the best for last—even when the best wasn’t much.”
The Kents hadn’t always lived in the lap of luxury. Mama had passed when Polly was six and Papa had fallen ill afterward, leaving Ambrose to provide for everyone and Em to run the household. As lean as times had been, however, the family had never been short on love.
“All of you have always made my birthday special,” Polly said with heartfelt gratitude.
“I baked your favorite cake.” A smile tucked into Em’s cheeks. She was a marvelous cook, and the fact that she was now a duchess didn’t prevent her from tinkering in the kitchen. “I doubled the icing since I knew Strathaven would insist on eating half of it.”
