“I cannot feel anything yet,” she teased, amused by his concentration.
“I know. But it is there. Our child.” Wonder roughened his voice. “What do you suppose it will be like?”
“Stubborn, certainly. Dramatic, given its parentage.”
“Brilliant. Beautiful. Perfect.”
“You are already besotted, and it is hardly larger than a pea.”
“I am besotted with its mother. The child is merely an extension of that obsession.”
She laughed, settling deeper into his hold. “Catherine is right. We should think of names.”
“Adrian, if a boy.”
“Absolutely not. One Adrian in this family is quite sufficient.”
“Edmund, then—after your father.”
She stilled, touched. “That is… actually lovely. And for a girl?”
“Something strong. That announces she will take no prisoners and suffer no fools.”
“Like Catherine?”
“Not another Catherine, thank you. One is plenty.” His tone was fond. “Something that is wholly hers.”
They drifted through possibilities—Rose and Anne and Margaret; James and William and George—discarding each for reasons both sensible and absurd.
“We have time,” Marianne murmured at last, sleep tugging at her. “Months yet.”
“Months,” he agreed, though his arms tightened. “Months of watching you grow round with my child. Months of keeping you safe.”
“Months of you driving me to distraction with hovering.”
“That too.” He kissed her hair. “Sleep. You need rest. The physician said—”
“Adrian?”
“Yes?”
“If you quote Mr Peterson one more time, I’m sleeping in my old rooms.”
“You would not.”
“Try me.”
A beat; then, lightly, “He offered no opinion regarding sleeping arrangements.”
“Adrian!”
A brief, laughing skirmish with a pillow ensued, ending with them tangled together, breathless and foolishly happy.
“I love you,” he said suddenly, quite serious. “Both of you. Already.”
“We love you too,” she answered, laying her hand over his. “Always.”
They fell asleep like that, wrapped around each other and their secret, while elsewhere in the house, Catherine dreamed of architectural exhibitions and mathematical discussions, and London society prepared for another day of gossip and intrigue.
