She wondered whether these few hours were the first truly restful moments of sleep he had received in all his life. Until now, he had been guided by resentment and bitterness over his abandonment. So much explosive anger, but thankfully directed,compelling him toward the path of good instead of toward a path of destruction.
He now had her and the possibility of children of his own.
Perhaps it would take more than one night for him to fully accept the changes in his life, to plan for a future with the new family they would make together.
There was an edge to him even as he slept, an aura of power.
But this was Gideon. He was a force that could not be ignored, not even in sleep.
For the moment, he seemed to be at peace.
She closed her eyes and snuggled against him, breathing in the lovely sandalwood scent of his skin and seeking comfort in his warmth. The man was a furnace.
She drifted back to sleep for another hour, and this time when she awoke, he was looking at her. It was the softest look, a completely loving look. “Good morning, kitten,” he said, propping himself on one elbow as he stared down at her stretched out beside him.
She smiled at him.
This was going to be a wonderful day.
And a wonderful life.
He rolled her under him and they set about creating a little duke.
Epilogue
Duchess Square, London
June 1828
“Uncle Bonham! AuntSuzanna! Come quick,” little Archibald George Knight, the seven-year-old Marquess of Brent—also known as Gideon’s son—shouted over the stone wall separating their properties. “Mama’s going to have a little girl!”
Gideon ran downstairs and out into his garden to pick up his son and bring him back into the house. “Archie, we don’t know yet whether you’ll have a brother or a sister.”
“Oh, no. I am sure it is a little sister,” said his son, who looked like a miniature of himself with his dark hair and penetrating gray eyes. “I talked to her in Mama’s belly, and she said she was a girl.”
Bonham now climbed onto the wall and hopped over to Gideon’s side. “Suzanna’s running around to the front with our Millie,” he said, referring to his daughter, who was a year younger than Archie—but you wouldn’t know it, because she was such a bright little thing. “I thought I’d take the shortcut. Archie, your sister talked back to you?”
The boy nodded earnestly. “I put my hand on Mama’s belly and told her to move around if she was a girl, and she did. We’re going to name her Lucinda…Lucy for short, but Papa said we would have named her Lucifer if she was a boy.”
Gideon burst out laughing. “No, I was just teasing your mama about that. Your brother may be a little devil, but he’ll have a saintly name because your mother is a saint to put up with me.”
Archie cast him a stubborn look. “But she’s going to have a little girl.”
Gideon indulged the lad. “All right, it’s to be a girl. But if it’s a boy, we are going to name him Raphael.”
“It’s to be a girl,” Millie said, breaking away from Suzanna and running toward them. She had an impudent, upward tip of her chin as she supported Archie’s statement. The two children were thick as thieves and always defended each other, much as Gideon and Bonham had always done for each other as children.
Gideon laughed and held up his hands in surrender, for a six-year-old girl had to be far wiser than the dense adults around her. “Fine, Millie. If you say so.”
Suzanna joined them in the garden. “Good morning.”
Archie gave her a hug. “It’s going to be a girl. Her name will be Lucy, not Lucifer. We’re naming her after my grandmother,” he said, referring to Berry’s mother, who had passed on so many years ago.
“How wonderful. Would you like to spend the day with me and Millie and Uncle Bonham? Your mama and papa are going to be quite busy and it might get dull for you around here. Perhaps we can go for ices or have a picnic in the park?”
Archie nodded.
“Good, and we ought to bring along Miss Jergens,” Suzanna said, referring to Archie’s capable governess.
