She fell onto her back. “I might have known where she is by now if you had not abducted me.”
“Perhaps.”
“Very probably.”
“Or you might have been molested on the road traveling alone. Or assaulted by whomever you followed.” He moved so his face met hers in the dark. “I also would have been denied your company these last days and nights.”
“You would have busied yourself with another.”
“Eventually. Not for some time, I think.” A good while, he suspected. “What did you and the ladies talk about after Stratton pulled me away?”
“Their journal.”
“Ah. I thought perhaps you spoke about me.”
“You really are very conceited.”
“Did they warn you off me? Predict utter ruin for you?”
“Nothing that I am not already well aware of. But we did speak about the journal as well. And you and Stratton? Did you two drink whisky and complain about the trouble women cause?”
“Brandy, and we talked about his son. Or he talked and I listened. The child has little to recommend him yet. He is very tiny and mostly sleeps.”
“Have you ever held him?”
“Of course not. Why would I do that?”
“Babies are very nice to hold. Like puppies, only better.”
“Perhaps I would have, if I had known that. I like puppies.”
“You will have your own son someday. You must hold him. He will not remember that you did, but he will know it.”
“It is my duty to have a son and no doubt I will, in due course. But I do not look forward to being a father. All those lectures about right and wrong and such. I’m not sure I have it in me.”
“Then do not lecture. You will be a fine father. You have already been one in a way, with your brother. If you care for a son the way you cared for him, you will be quite the devoted father.”
He tried to picture that. Would he be as besotted as Stratton? Probably not. Stratton’s joy came in part from sharing the experience with a woman he adored. Gabriel did not expect anything similar in his own marriage when he finally made one.
The thought of that match left him cold. He did not know women well and preferred male companionship. He doubted he would be blessed with a wife whose company he preferred to that of Stratton and Brentworth. Women talked about things that bored him, and few displayed much wit in doing so. Other than with Amanda, he had rarely had true conversations with any women.
He gazed down at her. She spoke blithely about him marrying and having an heir. He resented the circumstances of their meeting and the necessity of their parting. He hated how pending loss tinged everything they did and said now.
Her expression changed suddenly. Her eyes grew large. She pushed at him hard and scrambled out from under him. “Of course,” she cried while she fought her way free of the linens. “Of course.”
She ran to the dressing room. “Stay there,” she called. “I will bring it.”
She emerged from the dressing room with a lit candle and a paper that she waved. “The last letter. Look at the bottom.”
He opened it and read it again while she held the candle close. Her finger pointed. “See? She underlines this word along withlove, but the line breaks the way they do at times when you draw a long one with a quill. It was the same on the other letters. I had not even thought about it, but with what you told me tonight, I kept seeing it in my head. And before you ask, yes, it is just the sort of thing she would do.”
“Seeing what in your head?”
“Read only the letters that are underlined in the last word.”
WithloveandDevotion.
D e v o n.
