“It’s panic with footnotes.” Edmund clapped him on the shoulder. “But panic born of love, which is the best kind.”
After Edmund left and Catherine had retired to her room to dream of vows and honeymoons, Adrian and Marianne retreated to their chambers. The room was warm from the fire Sarah had built up, casting everything in golden light.
Adrian helped Marianne undress with practised gentleness, his hands reverent on her changed body. Each button was undone with care, each lace loosened with attention. When she stood in her shift, the firelight making the thin fabric translucent, he knelt before her, his hands cradling her belly.
“Hello, little one,” he murmured. “Your mother and I have been preparing for you. Your aunt is behaving absurdly about mathematics and wedding arrangements, and I, apparently, am hovering. But we’re all waiting.”
“You’re talking to the baby again.”
“Some say it does them good to hear familiar voices.”
“Some say many things.”
“Do not mock my process, woman. I’m being thorough.”
She ran her fingers through his hair, dark silk against her pale hands. “You’re being wonderful.”
He looked up at her, and the expression on his scarred face made her heart ache. “Am I? Because it feels as though I’m failing constantly. Not protecting you enough, protecting you too much, preparing badly—”
“Adrian.” She cupped his face, her thumb tracing the familiar scar that had become as dear to her as all the rest of him. “You’ll be a wonderful father.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because you already worry like one. Because you care so much it frightens you. Because you’ve learned to love when you once thought you couldn’t.”
He rose, drawing her back against his chest, his hands spread over where their child grew. “I love you both so much it almost hurts.”
“That may be indigestion.”
“Marianne!”
“What? You eat too quickly when anxious.”
“I’m having an emotional revelation, and you’re critiquing my dining habits?”
“Someone must keep you grounded.”
He turned her in his arms and kissed her—slow, deep, and entirely consuming. When at last they parted, both breathless, he rested his forehead against hers.
“Soon, Catherine will be married.”
“You’ve mentioned.”
“She’s my baby sister.”
“She’s two-and-twenty.”
“She’s still my baby sister.”
“Who’s marrying a man who adores her.”
“Who writes mathematical poetry.”
“Which she loves.”
“Which is deeply disturbing.”
“Adrian?”
