Mark brushed her hair away from her face. “How do you feel?”
Taking a deep breath, she murmured, “I think it may be working.” Indeed, her muscles had grown lax, the heat of their bodies enveloping her in a soothing cocoon. “Tell me about Olivia.”
Mark paused, then his voice became low, rhythmic, as if he were a master storyteller. “I have moved Olivia and Rose into the house.”
“Already? How did that go?”
“Smoother than I anticipated. Rose had told Olivia about Stella’s death right after it happened. We kept my first meeting with Olivia brief. And the second. Then Rose brought Olivia for a visit, and they examined the rooms. Olivia only wanted to know if she could bring her own toys and to see the garden. They moved in two days ago.”
Judith stroked his arm, and his hand pushed a little harder against her stomach. The warmth and weight felt so comforting, she found herself worried he might pull away. She covered his hand with hers.
“Were your servants startled?”
“The servants were startled when I added a nursery. They knew some plot lay ahead.”
Judith felt herself drifting, her thoughts jumbling. The laudanum. “Are they settling in well?”
“Olivia has already made fast friends with Clara, my head housemaid, and has convinced Cook that treats should be given after ever visit to the garden.”
Judith yawned, closing her eyes. “Children can add such joy to a home. I am surprised the servants did not start a rumor that you were about to marry, once they saw the nursery.”
Mark fell silent.
“But I am glad they have welcomed them. That is not always the case with a”—Judith swallowed, searching for a word without an insult built into it—“an unexpected child.”
“True. And Howe would have squelched any rumor about marriage. He knows well how and why the institution would not suit me.”
Judith felt herself fading, the grogginess of sleep overwhelming her as the pain in her body vanished. “Never?”
Mark remained quiet as Judith’s breathing evened out and the peace of sleep ended the conversation. Only barely did she hear his last three whispered words.
“Only with you.”
*
Mark had notmeant to say those last three words, and he held onto the idea that Judith had been fully asleep when he said them.
He had not meant tosaythem.
But he hadmeantthem.
Mark had once dreamed of marriage, as he supposed most young men did, before being thrown into the Marriage Mart at the age of twenty, where he discovered most of the young debutantes differed from his mother and sister Daphne in the same way that fine wines differed from ciders. Wine and cider both delighted the palate and quenched thirst but in vastly varied ways. He had grown up bantering with his mother and Daphne, wits sharpened by sarcasm and education. Daphne had been a dedicated and determined reader, consuming books on every possible subject and driving her brothers as well as her governess mad with questions. Mark’s dance partners at various balls could not compare, and his sharpest questions andwickedest barbs often met with blank stares or expressions of pure confusion.
This woman, whose soft, tortured body now lay so close to him, had conjured up Thomas Savery’s invention of the pistonless steam pump in the midst of her pain. On the dance floor, no matter how hard he pushed, she met him step for step, barb for barb. She enjoyed their sexual play and seemed ready for more. She had met his announcement of a daughter, a by-blow, with grace and openness. She had understood his nightmares, showing no fear at all.
Yet she had come at him, claws bared, when she thought he had harmed her family.
He did not want to live without her.
But too much lay ahead, too many problems yet to be resolved, for either of them to consider marriage. While the quilt she had sent helped, the nightmares still plagued him. Her family’s finances still lay in tatters. And the Blackwell ball awaited them, with its fragile scheme that could risk both their worlds. At that thought, a line fromRichard IIcrossed his thoughts, and he whispered. “‘But time will not permit: all is uneven, And every thing is left at six and seven.’”
Judith stirred but did not waken.
Mark smiled, watching her sleep.I bet you would know where that came from.She probably would have read Shakespeare’s play, even if she had not seen it.We must get through this. We must.
With that thought in mind, Mark snuggled a little deeper beneath the covers, pulled Judith closer, and rested his head against the pillows. It would be a long night.
Chapter Twenty-One
