But this was not the time to have a conversation about how safe it was for her to ride her horse.
She skirted a rut in the lane and looked across the meadow towards Woldenmere.
“I’m sorry. So sorry for upsetting everything. We can forget I ever said anything.”
“No. I don’t want to forget what you said.”
He spoke as he usually did, with very little emotion, but she knew better than to think he had no feelings on the subject.
“Would you mind terribly being a father again?”
He did not answer for a long time. He looked at the sky.
“Not if you’re the mother.”
She couldn’t help smiling. And despite wanting him to believe she was very much a grown woman and not a girl, she skipped a little, right there in the lane, right next to him.
She didn’t care he might only have been offering a tribute to her as a stepmother. She didn’t even care she still had no idea if he desired her.
She was so happy.
She had given him a way to escape, to retreat, and he hadn’t taken it. Oliver Hartwell, at long last, was going to bed his wife.
Fifteen
Aknock woke her from sleep.
“Come in,” she mumbled.
The door connecting her bedchamber to Oliver’s bedchamber opened. A lamp was lit in his room, and as she squinted into the light, she could see his tall, lean form standing in the doorway.
“Oliver?”
“I’m sorry to have disturbed your sleep. Good night, Henrietta.” The door started to close.
“No!”
If she had not been naked under the sheets, she would have leapt from the bed to drag him into the room.
She had departed the drawing room what must have been hours ago, giving him a hopeful look as she left. Lucy had put her in a nightdress and taken her hair down and plaited it, and once her lady’s maid had bid her goodnight, Henrietta had quickly stripped the nightdress off, shaken loose the plait, given herself a quick wash at the basin, turned the lamp down, and scrambled into bed to wait for Oliver in the dark.
Because when she had asked him for a child yesterday evening, she had also promised him the dark, hadn’t she? Eventhough she was dying to look at him. So she mustn’t put him off now with her flesh. She mustn’t remind him she wasn’t small and delicate like his previous wives. That might spoil everything.
“Please, Oliver.” She tried to keep desperation out of her voice. “I’m not asleep. Well, I drifted off a bit, waiting for you, but I’m awake now. See?”
The door stayed half-closed. “Yes.”
“Please, let’s get this over with. I’m awfully anxious.”
An odd, strangled noise came from the doorway. Had he laughed?
“Only you could be awfully anxious and still fall asleep.”
Oh. Oh. How delightful. She rubbed her toes together under the bedclothes in a little dance of joy. Her serious husband had teased her.
“You know me.” She’d meant to say it in a friendly way, but it came out as an almost-seductive purr.
He cleared his throat. “Forgive me. I’m very nervous myself.”
