He approached Adrian with commendable courage. “Your Grace, thank you again for your trust. I shall not give you cause to regret it.”
“See that you do not,” Adrian said, though the menace had softened into resignation.
After Lord Timothy departed, Catherine all but danced about the room. “He wishes to take me to museums and lectures! He does not expect me to simper and prattle of fashion! He actually wants my thoughts on mathematics!”
“Riveting,” Adrian drawled.
“Oh, hush. Merely because your notion of courtship involved scandalising society at every opportunity does not mean we must all follow suit.”
“We did not scandalise society at every opportunity.”
“The conservatory? The opera? The assembly? That time you—”
“Those were isolated incidents.”
Marianne and Catherine exchanged a glance—and dissolved into laughter.
“What?” Adrian demanded.
“Nothing,” Marianne said, kissing his cheek. “Only that you are delightfully oblivious to your own behaviour.”
That evening, as they prepared for bed, Adrian was unusually quiet. He helped Marianne with her stays—something he’d taken to doing himself rather than calling Sarah—his fingers gentle against her skin.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, watching him in the mirror.
“Of what lies ahead. Catherine will marry Lord Timothy—it is all but inevitable. They will have their own household, their own life. And we shall have our child—perhaps children.” His hands stilled upon her shoulders. “Everything is changing.”
“Change is not necessarily bad.”
“No, but it is terrifying.” He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “A year ago, I was alone and determined to remain so. Now I have a wife, a sister who is mending, and a child on the way. It feels like too much happiness—as if something must go wrong.”
“Or perhaps you suffered your sorrows early, and now it is time for joy.”
“That is dangerously optimistic.”
“I preferhopeful.” She drew him down for a kiss. “Besides, you have eight months to practise being terrified. By the time the baby arrives, you shall be an expert.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It is not meant to be. It is meant to be accurate.” She guided him to the bed. “Come. We ought to celebrate properly.”
“Celebrate?” His eyes darkened with interest. “But the physician forbade excitement.”
“He forbadeexcessiveexcitement. I believe we can manage the moderate kind.”
“Moderate,” he echoed, already loosening her remaining fastenings. “I do not do moderate.”
“Then you must learn.”
What followed was Adrian’s valiant attempt at “moderate”—a great deal of reverence and rather less haste—until, exasperated by his caution, Marianne took matters into her own hands, flipping him onto his back with a move that surprised them both.
“Marianne—”
“Hush. I am not broken. I am not fragile. I am carrying our child, as women have done since the world began.” She kissed him thoroughly. “Now cease thinking and let me love you.”
He yielded with a groan, his touch tender rather than demanding. When they came together, it was with a quietness that brought tears to her eyes—not the desperate heat of their beginning, nor the playful fire of recent weeks, but something deeper; an acknowledgement of the change within her and between them.
After, he gathered her with her back to his chest, his hand spread protectively over her stomach.
