“Admit what, Nicholas? I tell you that I had a most unusual pregnancy. It was so unusual, in fact, that I began to worry that something was wrong with my baby when I was seven months pregnant and saw a woman only five months pregnant who was twice my size.” She took a deep breath. “Uncle Jason assured me that my grandmother was the same way. People hardly knew she was pregnant until the babies were born. He said he and his brothers were all born just as tiny as Thomas was, and look how they turned out. And he was right. Thomas is growing in leaps and bounds, perfectly formed, perfectly normal. He will probably turn out just as large as his father one day.” She finished, out of breath, still furious, but a little relieved. She had told him all of it. What he believed or didn’t believe was up to him.
“That was a good, original story, love, certainly better than I expected.”
Reggie shook her head. He had formed his opinion and wasn’t going to let go of it.
“If you don’t want to claim Thomas as yours, then don’t. I really don’t care what you think,” she said simply.
Nicholas exploded. “Tell me he is mine! Tell me in plain words.”
“He is yours.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Fine.” She nodded her understanding. “Now if you will excuse me, my dinner is getting cold.”
He stared in amazement as she passed him and headed for the door. “You won’t try to convince me?”
Reggie glanced back at him and hesitated. His bewildered, faintly hopeful look almost made her relent. But she had done all she could. The convincing would have to be up to him. “What for?” she answered. “Thomas doesn’t need you. He has me. And he certainly won’t lack for male attention, not with four great-uncles to dote on him.”
“Not bloody likely!” he bellowed. “I won’t have those autocratic bastards raising my—” He clamped his mouth shut, glaring at her furiously. “Go eat your dinner!”
As she returned to the nursery Reggie smiled, her humor greatly restored. Well! That certainly gave her something to think about, didn’t it?
Chapter 29
NICHOLAS sat up slowly, frowning at the unfamiliar noise that had wakened him. He shook his head and lay down again, but in no more than a moment he was fully awake. The infant was crying. He was hungry, wasn’t he?
He had identified the noise, but he remained wide-awake, wondering how often this business of having one’s sleep disturbed occurred. But it didn’t matter. Tomorrow he would pack them all back to Silverley. And if he stayed there as well, his rooms were farther away from the nursery there than here.
Ifhe stayed? Why shouldn’t he stay? Miriam had kept him from Silverley for years, but Miriam had already done her damage in telling Regina about his birth. That done, the rest of the world finding out didn’t matter anymore. Miriam couldn’t hurt him now. And he certainly wasn’t going to let Regina keep him from Silverley. Silverley was, he reminded himself fiercely, his home. He still had some rights in this world!
The house was quiet now, the infant no doubt being fed by his wet nurse. Had Regina been awakened? He pictured her in the next room, curled up in bed, probably sound asleep. She was probably accustomed to these disturbances and slept right through them.
Having never seen her in bed before, he couldn’t get a clear picture of her. Would her hands be clasped under her chin like a child’s? Would her dark hair be loose or tucked into a nightcap? How longwasher hair? He had never seen it other than formally arranged. What did she wear to sleep in? He didn’t know anything about her, and she was his wife.
He had every right to walk the few steps to her room, wake her, and make love to her. He wanted to. But he never would. She was no longer the passionate but innocent young woman who gave him her maidenhead on a warm summer night. She would reject him, treat him with contempt and scorn. He wasn’t going to let himself in for that.
But…she didn’t have to know if he tiptoed into her room and looked at her, did she? Nicholas was out of bed and into his robe before the thought was finished. Soon he was in the hall between Regina’s sitting room and the nursery. Her door was closed and there was no light beneath it. The nursery door was ajar and soft light spilled out. A woman was softly humming a familiar lullaby.
Nicholas paused with his hand on the closed door, Regina’s door. But he felt a strange pull coming from the nursery. The wet nurse wouldn’t like being disturbed, yet he suddenly had a powerful urge to enter that room instead of Regina’s. He hadn’t gotten a good long look at the boy earlier. What better time than now?
Nicholas nudged the nursery door open. The nurse, Tess, was fast asleep in a cot against the wall. A small lamp glowed on a table next to a stuffed armchair. In that chair sat Regina feeding her son.
It brought him up short. Ladies of quality did not suckle their children. It wasn’t done. She was in profile to him, her head bent to the child, softly humming. The fashionable short curls of the day framed her face, while the rest of her hair was long and gleaming, spilling over the back of the chair in midnight waves. She wore a long-sleeved sheer white robe, open, revealing a nightgown of the same material, pulled down on one side enough to bare one breast. The infant’s mouth was greedily working, and one small hand rested just above the nipple, as if holding the breast in place.
Nicholas was mesmerized. Out of his depth, unfamiliar feelings assailed him, tender feelings, holding him spellbound. Even when she sensed his presence and looked up, he didn’t move.
Their eyes met. For a long time, they simply stared at each other. She showed no surprise and no anger. He felt none of the old hostility. They seemed to touch each other without hands, a current passing between them that transcended their differences.
Regina was the first to look away. “I’m sorry if he woke you.”
Nicholas shook himself. “No, no, it doesn’t matter. I…didn’t expect you’d be here, though.” Then he asked shyly, “Couldn’t you locate a wet nurse for him?”
Reggie smiled. “I never looked for one. When Tess told me my mother defied tradition and nursed me herself, I decided to do the same for Thomas. I haven’t regretted it for a moment.”
“It’s rather confining for you, though, isn’t it?”
“I have nothing to do, nowhere I want to go that would keep me away from Thomas for any length of time. Naturally I can’t make many calls, but that’s no hardship for me.”
