Phee set her book aside and slipped her hand into his, her heart swelling with warmth. “They are enamored of her, aren’t they?”
She’d never seen Juliet so happy, and Miles… well, he’d never been one to wear his emotions on his face, but there was no mistaking the tenderness in his dark eyes when he gazed at Juliet and their daughter.
“Enamored? Is that what you’d call it? It looks more like madness to me.” James sniffed, but a smile was twitching at the corners of his lips. “Just look at them. She’s going to snatch him bald.”
“He doesn’t seem to mind.”
“No, and that’s precisely my point. She’s plucking him like a chicken, and he’s laughing.Laughing!”
“Yes? What is your objection, my lord? Wait, I think I know.” She reached up and gave one of his dark curls a playful tug. “I shouldn’t worry. You have plenty to spare.”
“It’s the point of the thing. Cross was infamous at Oxford for being a disagreeable sort of gentleman but just look at him now. A perfectly good irascible earl, brought low by a tiny little bit of a human with drool running down her chin.”
“Do you intend to be a stern papa then, James?” She laid a tender hand on the slight swell of her belly. “Will you frown upon giggling, and forbid drooling?”
“God, no. I daresay our child will run roughshod over the both of us, and we’ll find it utterly charming. Daughters are the worst, you know. They wrap their poor papas around their tiny fingers.”
“Yes, and that’s just as it should be.” Her father had been a doting papa, hopelessly enthralled with his five daughters. He’d used to tell anyone who’d listen that they were the cleverest, kindest, and loveliest young ladies in England.
How she wished he were here to see them all now!
It was a lucky thing the drawing room at Steeple Barton was such a large one because a smaller one wouldn’t have held them all. Everywhere she looked— from the settees gathered in front of the fire, to the overstuffed chairs scattered about, to the large games table that dominated a corner of the room —she found a Templeton.
They had spread and multiplied until they covered every surface.
Tilly, Helena, and Harriett were lounging on the settee, their heads together, laughing over some story Helena was telling about her twin boys, Adrian and Etienne, who were dreadfully mischievous, and forever getting into some scrape or other.
Emmeline, Johnathan, and Johnathan’s three younger sisters had crowded into a window seat along with Kit, Gilly, and Adrian, and the eight of them were engaged in a rather noisy game of charades. Lady Fosberry had retired to an adjacent chair with baby Samuel in her arms, and was cooing nonsense at him, while he gazed up at her in wonder, his dark eyes wide.
There’d been a time, not so long ago when Phee had been certain her family wouldn’t recover from the blows they’d been dealt— that they’d continue to wither away until the Templetons were nothing but a memory, the family name dying alongside them —but fate, bless her, had a different future in mind for them.
Somehow, they’d been granted grace, and fortune had smiled on them.
Instead of withering, they’d grown, adding new faces to their family with every year that passed.
Fate willing, they’d continue to do so.
She stroked her palm over her belly. Next year, there would be one more new face. Perhaps more than one. Time would tell.
“Will you have a boy, Lady Fairmont, or do you fancy a daughter first?” James covered her hand with his own, smiling down at her. “What’s your preference?”
“I’d quite like a boy, one day.” Didn’t every lady with five sisters wish for a son? “If not this one, then the next. It doesn’t matter.”
“No, it doesn’t.” He pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. “As long as our children have blue eyes, then I’m content.”
“I daresay you’ll get that wish, as we both have blue eyes.”
“No, they must be dark blue. Not my eyes, butyours, Euphemia.”
Her breath caught at the slight tremor in his voice when he said her name, the warmth and love in his eyes when he gazed down at her, and… oh dear, her eyes were stinging, and she was certain her nose must be turning red.
She reached up and cupped his cheek in her palm. “I love you, James. More than words can say.”
“No more than I love you.” He caught her hand in his and brought her fingers to his lips. “You brought me back to life, Euphemia.”
“James,” Lady Fosberry called. “What are you saying to Euphemia that has her looking as if she’s about to burst into a flood of tears?”
“And as red as a peony, too,” Tilly added, with a sly grin.
