Temperance’s lips curved slightly, though her tone remained composed. “That is a very practical way of approaching something that is not entirely practical.”
“I find that practicality tends to be reliable.”
“And yet this is not only a matter of reliability,” she said. “It is also a matter of whether it is wanted.”
“It is,” he agreed. “Which is why I am asking you.”
She did not hesitate then.
“I think,” she said, “that it is very much wanted.”
He watched her, as though ensuring that she meant it.
“You are certain?”
“I would not say it if I were not,” she replied. “And I do not see any reason why we should delay something that we both clearly intend.”
“That was my conclusion as well.”
“I thought it might be.”
A brief pause followed, though it was easy, unforced.
“And Joseph?” she added, her tone softening just slightly. “He would like it?”
“I believe he would,” Harper replied. “It would be a good thing for him to have a sibling.”
“Then I see no reason not to begin considering it properly,” Temperance said, as though concluding something that had already been decided between them. “If we are agreed, it would be rather unnecessary to treat it as something distant.”
“I see no reason either,” Harper replied.
“Then we are decided.”
Two Months Later
Two months had passed since the wedding, and yet Temperance found that there were still moments in which she paused, as though expecting to feel confined or altered in some irreparable way, only to discover that she felt neither, but rather something far more settled than she had ever allowed herself to anticipate.
That morning, however, something was not as it ought to be, though she could not immediately say what it was, only that there was a peculiar lightness in her head and a faint unease in her stomach that refused to be ignored, even as she attempted to dismiss it as nothing more than a passing inconvenience brought on by poor sleep or insufficient food.
When she rose from her bed, she found herself forced to steady her hand against the post, the room tilting in a most disagreeable manner that she had never before experienced, and it was in that moment, as she stood quite still and allowed the sensation to pass, that the thought came to her—not abruptly, but with a quiet certainty that settled rather than startled.
There had been signs, she realized, though she had paid them little mind at the time. A certain fatigue that lingered longer than it ought, a restlessness that was not quite discomfort but not entirely ease either, and the absence of something she had not consciously noted until now, though it had clearly been missing long enough to matter.
Temperance exhaled slowly, her hand lowering from the bedpost as her thoughts began to arrange themselves into something far more deliberate.
“No,” she murmured, though there was no real denial in it, only the acknowledgement that the possibility was no longer something to be dismissed.
It would be foolish, she told herself, to draw a conclusion without confirmation, though even as she thought it, she knew that she was not uncertain.
Still, she rang for her maid.
The girl entered promptly, though her expression shifted at once upon seeing her mistress standing so still, her composure intact but her attention clearly elsewhere.
“Your Grace, are you unwell?” she asked, her tone cautious.
“I do not believe so,” Temperance replied, though she did not attempt to sound entirely convinced. “But I should like you to send for the physician.”
“At once, Your Grace?” the girl asked, clearly surprised.
