Tessa considered the bed. She thought of being tossed. “That sounds exciting, actually,” she said.
Joseph squeezed his eyes shut. “It is exciting, and we will get to that—but first, you and I will take things very slowly. We willpause, as I’ve just said, to make sure that I am always in control of my passion and that you feel very safe.”
Now Tessa considered this. “And one day, I will say when we pause and when we are excited. One day, I shall be in control,” she declared.
“God, I hope so,” he sighed, and he kissed her again, and she realized with relish that the pause had ended, and she pounced on him.
After five minutes, when Joseph’s cravat hung loose from the chair and Tessa’s hair was a tangled blonde cape around them, they heard the distinctive sound of a baby’s hungry cry.
“Christian excels at pauses,” Tessa sighed, pressing her forehead to Joseph’s.
“Well, that makes one of us.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Joseph helped Tessa feed the baby, and then he carried him downstairs and walked the grounds of the inn. Tessa remained inside, working with Perry to change from her traveling suit and repin her hair. Joseph had expected some challenge when he’d offered to take Christian, but both mother and maid had leapt at the offer.
To Joseph’s delight, the baby seemed to recognize him from his days of calling to Belgrave Square. Tessa had pulled a woolen hat low over his head to protect him from the cold, and the infant clearly objected to this precaution. He scrunched up his eyes and swatted ineffectually at the tight, low cap with chubby fists.
“Agreed, mate,” said Joseph when they were free from the women. “I avoid resemblance to a mushroom whenever I can,” and he peeled the hat from the baby’s head. Christian smiled at him, a genuine smile, with wet gums and eyes that were nearly pushed shut by the roundness of his cheeks. Joseph felt himself smile back.
The innkeep walked by in that moment and said, “That’s a fine-looking son you’ve got there, Mr. Chance. Very fine, indeed. I knew when your wife arrived that it was the family you were expecting. I seen that baby, and I says to myself, ‘That’s the spitting image of Mr. Chance.’”
“Thank you,” Joseph said, and he leaned down and kissed the top of the baby’s warm, un-hatted head. Christian made his signature squawk and bobbed up and down. Something new and unfamiliar began to grow in Joseph. It took a moment for him to identify it, but as he walked away and his chest swelled and his shoulders straightened, Joseph identified it as...pride.
Christian was an alert and curious baby, eyes big on the horses in the stable, the yellow and red autumn leaves on the garden’s lone tree, and most fascinatingly of all, a fat white cat with swishing tail who sat in a windowsill.
“You are smart, like your mother,” Joseph told the baby as he circled back to the horses. He’d offered to have an open carriage hitched so that he and Tessa could tour the town, but Tessa had balked at the idea of riding again so soon and asked if they could walk instead. Joseph agreed and reserved a carriage for later in the week. He’d scouted a property for sale in the surrounding countryside and was anxious for Tessa to see it. He’d contacted the owners and scheduled a visit.
“There you are,” called a voice from behind them.
The baby jerked around at the sound of his mother’s voice.
“Hello, Dollop,”Tessa sang. “What have you seen with Papa?” She lifted Christian into her arms.
Joseph blinked at the intimate name, and he suddenly had trouble meeting Tessa’s gaze. He had no idea how to be a father but he wanted, earnestly, to try. He cleared his throat, ready with a story about the cat, when he caught his first full view of the transformed appearance of his wife.
“Tessa,” he said. It was all he could manage.
She wore a day dress in chalky blue, two shades lighter than her eyes. Her hair had been styled in two thick braids, coiled at her crown with a small blue hat perched at a jaunty angle. She wore an ivory shawl and an ivory silk pin in the shape of a gardenia on her lapel. Pearlescent leather gloves hugged her hands and disappeared into the sleeves of her dress. Tiny pearls traced her collar, sleeves, and hem. She looked like a sketch in one of Perry’s fashion periodicals. In addition to the pretty dress, she seemed to step lighter, to speak with more lilt, to smile more easily. Joseph’s thoughts rolled back to their first meeting on the street in Pixham.No woman is lovelier.
“You look refreshed,” he said. Women grew weary of men who gushed. He allowed his eyes to do the gushing. He could not look away.
“Thank you,” she said. “Perry is coming to take the baby. I trust he was well behaved. But where is his hat?”
“We grew weary of the hat.” Joseph pulled it from his pocket in a wad. “He and I were discussing our impression of Hartlepool.”
“And what conclusion did you reach?”
“We concluded,” he said, “that we shall like it ifyoulike it.”
“This sounds suspiciously compliant.”
“A father and son can comply without it being suspicious, can’t we?”
Tessa went very still. She stared at Joseph.
“Does it distress you, Tessa, for me to call Christian my son?”
