For the first time in his life, he thought,I would die for you, and he didn’t mean his mother.
*
“YOU’RE LATE,”OPHELIAsaid, her voice cold and precise, but without blame or ire.
“My apologies,” Prudence said, out of breath from walking as quickly as she could. “I overslept.”
“You missed a training run,” Ophelia said. “You can make it up this evening.”
Prudence winced. Of course Ophelia would insist on her not missing her exercise.
“I wouldn’t say she’smissinganything, Ophelia,” Justine said.
Eleanor groaned.
“Oh please, it was funny,” Justine insisted.
They sat down for tea in the drawing room. Prudence couldn’t keep herself from eating everything in sight. She was famished. It was the first time Leo had stayed past dawn. They were both exhausted from the multiple rounds of lovemaking. There was water tracking all over her suite from the bathing room, and wet towels were still moldering in her bed. But she didn’t care. Something was bursting inside her like sunshine through a bank of storm clouds. She was glowing, and she didn’t care. Of course she was glowing. Leo was... Leo was...hers.And she liked it.
“I have something of a delicate nature to bring up,” Ophelia said, after everyone’s plates and cups were filled.
Eleanor glanced over at Prudence, a questioning look on her face. Prudence smiled back, but Eleanor didn’t smile. She looked concerned. Oh. Oh dear. Eleanorknew.She might not knowwho, but she knew the look of a woman who’d stayed up all night having too much fun.Thatkind of fun.
But Prudence was a widow. She could very well do as she wished. And they had been discreet. Mostly. That was what she needed to talk to Leo about, and he hadn’t so much as apologized, but explained. And that was enough. She would do her best not to rub any of her time with other men in his face. But she had to if they were going to keep things quiet. Didn’t she?
Or maybe not? After all, Lord Grabe had called her aloof, or standoffish. Something like that. She could continue with that, and keep Leo in her bed, and all would be well. Next March they would be off to Switzerland, and that would be that.
“What could be so delicate?” Justine asked. “We already openly discuss our need for monthly rags.”
“Justine,” Eleanor complained.
“We do,” she insisted.
“I know, but must you be so vulgar as to say it?” Eleanor asked.
“I beg your pardon, but rags? What’s wrong with rags? Every person in this room requires them,” Justine challenged.
“Quite.” Ophelia cut both Justine and Eleanor off in the middle of their argument. “Which is adjacent to what we need to discuss.”
All of them quieted. Not even Prudence nibbled at her scone.
“We are entering the last two months that you may get... pregnant—” Ophelia struggled over the word. “Before our attempt.”
There was nothing but silence in the room. None of them even breathed.
“It is now July, and if you conceive—” again Ophelia’s voice strangled at the word, “—if you conceive this month, you will be in labor at the end of March. When we will be leaving for Switzerland. We may, depending on weather reports, leave earlier, if the journey seems arduous. We cannot miss the window for our ascent, and we must have adequate time to prepare.”
Prudence suddenly felt as if the scone was stuck in the back of her throat. She had dismissed their lack of use of a French letter. And the two subsequent times that night. Suddenly, the ramifications of her nights with Leo loomed large. Her involvement with him was a threat to them all.
She looked to Eleanor, who had gone pale. Ophelia and Justine looked to her, as the only married woman of the group. But then Ophelia shifted her gaze to Prudence, apologetic but thorough. “While this is of most concern to Eleanor, I must address this concern to you as well, Prudence. I know not, nor do I want to know of your dealings with the... other sex... butI would be remiss if I did not address this concern with you as well.”
“Naturally,” Prudence said, trying to sound more confident than she was.
“I know that some women claim that a situation—” Ophelia stumbled. “A pregnancy, I should clarify, helps them with physical activities. However, no woman can be certain what it will do to their bodies. Because of this, I would respectfully ask that neither of you become with child in the next months.”
The silence was broken by Justine biting into a crispy gingersnap.
“Of course,” Prudence said quickly, burying her face in the now lukewarm cup of tea.
