She was nearly to him before he lit on the perfect, undeniable request.
“Tessa,” he said casually, staring indifferently out on the Thames, “if you would permit it, I should like to meet the baby. When you are ready.”
Chapter Fourteen
Two days later, Tessa was situated on a blanket in Hyde Park, arranging a picnic basket. Her hands shook, despite the mundane task. She blew out a breath, irritated by her nerves. She and Christian had enjoyed the park from the vantage of this very blanket, beneath this very maple tree, all summer long. Today would be—
Well, today would be marginally different.
Today would steer the entire rest of their lives.
Tessa took three quick breaths, telling herself she had accommodated Joseph’s request to meet the baby. She’d wanted to gush,Oh, but let us rush home so you may meet him immediately!But this was the Old Tessa’s answer. The New Tessa did not gush or rush. The New Tessa knew the meeting should occur when Christian was happy and rested, where Joseph would feel the least overwhelmed or confined.
Christian tended to be happy on his blanket in the park, and they would not have the stuffy interruption of servants. Best of all, perhaps, Joseph could arrive (and then subsequently depart) in a manner that made him feel the least... trapped.
Trapped.It was a horrible term, and Tessa had danced around the risk of it. But she quite liked her new policy of simply calling things as they were. Joseph had been trapped. There were times when Tessa herself felt a little trapped. The potential for a negative reaction was very real—hence, the park. Who could feel trapped in a park?
“Oh, but you’re not so demanding are you, Dollop?” Tessa asked the baby.
Christian lay on his stomach in the center of the blanket, gainfully lifting his chin and sucking on his fist.
“Well, perhaps just a bit,” she corrected. “When you are hungry. Or wet. Or tired. Or stuck on your stomach when you would like to flip onto your back. But these are all significant frustrations, aren’t they? Who doesn’t become demanding when faced with challenges such as these?”
She chattered away, smiling down at her son as she unpacked a strawberry tart and ate the berry from the top. Purposefully, she did not scan the open green behind her nor the paths to the right and left.
She would not watch for him, she had told herself. She would not fidget or check the timepiece in her basket or, God forbid, stand up and pace. She would be calm and contained, the serene picture of experienced motherhood, just as she had been for every other outing to the park. A young mother and her baby, enjoying the sunshine. In no way should she appear to be rapidly unspooling inside because her beloved son was about to meet the man she herself once loved and wanted to love again. The man who he might refer to as Papa.
Christian made a signature squawking noise and lashed out a slobbering hand, rocking to his side. “Oh, you almost have it,” encouraged Tessa, smiling at the baby’s favorite new trick. Any day now, he would rock himself over from his stomach to his back. Christian squawked again and lashed out an erratic hand, grabbing a fistful of beige silk.
“Oh, but let us not eat Mama’s dress?” She tugged, preventing the fist’s unerring progress to Christian’s mouth. “It’s horrid, I know, but the dye may not be safe. Here, let us find Goose...” She dug in the bag for his toy.
Perry and Sabine had tried to persuade Tessa to wear one of her old dresses, but Tessa resisted. Not today, when the most important interaction with Joseph Chance would take place.
Joseph had been very stoic at the docks, but it had been obvious that he regarded her bland, suffocating new dresses with confusion, if not outright distaste. But her appearance had no bearing here; what mattered was how Joseph regarded her son.
With this in mind, Christian had been carefully dressed in a gown of bright white with blue embroidered dots around the collar and hem. He wore a white cap with the same blue embellishment, and if the day turned cold, there was a matching blue jacket.
Tessa’s one concession to her own appearance had been her hair. When Perry had volunteered to braid it loosely and rope the yellow plait across the crown of her head, Tessa had complied. She did not think she could bear the tight bun or a dour bonnet today—not in the shade of the park. The last warm days of September would give way to autumn soon, and she would allow herself to enjoy a small straw hat while she could. Besides, the stiff bonnet brim got in the way when she lifted her son to her mouth for a kiss.
Perry had been delighted and pinned the straw hat and a whirl of ribbon to the left of the plait, a pretty little flourish, a bit of whimsy. Tessa almost wept at her reflection. She patted the braid now, delighting in the freedom from the bite of pins at her nape.
“Tessa?”
Her hand froze above her head.
She looked down at Christian, chewing on the beak of Goose. She looked at her half-eaten tart.
He is a decent man,she reminded herself.He will not reject a baby.
He hasn’t even rejected me yet, not really.
Her heartbeat increased to an accelerated pound. She drew a shaky breath and then looked up, shading her eyes.
Joseph Chance sat mounted on a chestnut stallion, staring down at them from the path. He wore an emerald green coat, grey waistcoat, and ivory cravat. His breeches, molded to his muscled legs, were tan, and the sun glinted off black Hessians. His hat was rakishly low. The combination of elegance and easy confidence in the saddle was not lost on her, and she thought absently of how the Old Tessa would have appreciated that look. Now she only cared how he would or would not appreciate her son.
“So you have found us,” she said lightly. She put a palm on her son’s warm, soft back.
“So I have,” he said, unmoving. His eyes did not leave hers.
