Alice started to think she ought to take the wise cook’s advice. After all, Adam was nothing like Richard. He had already spent many more hours telling her and showing her how he felt. There was still another concern.
“What if his family doesn’t like me?”
Mrs. Georgie tucked a stray wisp of hair behind Alice’s ear.
“No worries about that, m’lady. Everyone has always liked you, some too much, and that was your problem. You didn’t gather the wheat into the garner and burn up the useless chaff.” She stroked her cheek. “Lord Diamond is the wheat.”
“I know.” Alice wanted to give in beyond anything.Could she really take a chance that Gerald would leave her alone?After all, it had been two years since she’d fled.
“Besides,” Mrs. Georgie added, “now that you’ve fallen in love, and I’ve seen how happy you are, I cannot let you be a dried-up governess again. Go be Lady Diamond, as you were born to be.”
The next tap upon the door, which was still open, proved to be Adam, his beloved face coming around the opening.
“I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“You didn’t, m’lord. You are in the right place,” Mrs. Georgie told him, “and just in time.”
Adam knew he likedthe cook. Whatever she had said to Alice, she’d changedsomething. How Mrs. Georgie could shift his lady-love from being dead set against marrying him to melting into his arms and agreeing toconsiderbeing his wife, he didn’t know. Yet the woman had done it.
“We must have another discussion,” Alice said when they were seated together on her bed, a place Adam preferred to every other place in the house, perhaps in the entire world.
“I am not certain you have thought about this all the way through,” she said, sounding more like a governess than a lover. “I oughtnotto marry you, you understand.”
“Why not?” he asked, leaning over to nuzzle her neck.
“You will be an earl,” she reminded him, pushing ineffectually at his shoulder. “Don’t you want an heir? If so, then you should look to someone like the dewy Lady Susanne.”
“Are you saying you are too old to bear children?” He laughed. “I would have to gainsay you, Alice, for my mother was older than you when she bore the last two of my sisters.”
She shook her head. “But what if I cannot?”
“What if pigs can talk and horses can fly?” he asked.
She sighed at his nonsense. Adam grasped her hand and fell backward onto the mattress taking her with him.
“I am an uncle to two boys already. The Diamond earldom shall not die out, and if Clarity’s son became the next earl, then finally, we would have a family name different from our titled name. Viscount Hollidge, the Earl Diamond. It has a pleasant enough sound to it.”
She turned to look him in the eyes.
“Are you saying you don’t mind if the earldom slips from you to your sister’s family?”
“My sister’s familyismy family. We are all one. You will learn that when you become a Diamond. It wouldn’t matter if it were Clarity’s son or Purity’s son. They are all my blood, and I’m sure either would make fine earls. I honestly don’t see the difference, although right now, they are both naughty, mischievous boys. And so was I, once.”
Her eyes widened to saucers. Adam knew she’d never heard of a titled nobleman being so cavalier about his primogeniture rights. But he was surprised by her look of utter disbelief.
“My late husband made certain of my virginity,” she said.
Adam wished he didn’t have to think of her with Fairclough, but he simply nodded. It was a common practice when there was a title or a fortune involved.
“He told me he had to be certain any issue came from his seed,” she added.
Adam winced. It would do no good to be jealous of a dead man, something he had to keep reminding himself.
“Fortunately, there were none,” Alice said. “And that begs the question, was he unable to have children, or is my body barren?”
“If he drank a lot as you said—” Adam began, thinking the man probably had a lobcock at best.
Suddenly she smiled. “It wasn’t only that. He and I were hardly ever intimate. I vow you and I have already swived more than occurred over the course of my entire marriage. He was exhausted from drink and too spent from his mistress.”
