“I want to move you permanently into my bedchamber,” he mumbled, nuzzling her neck. “I want you to take your place as my wife in every possible respect.”
Her lips curved in a sleepy, contented smile. “Forever?”
He kissed them deeply. “I want every day of it.”
EPILOGUE
Three months later
Isadora caressed the bump of her stomach under her gown as she twirled before the mirror. The empire neckline of her dress largely hid her pregnancy, at least from this angle, but it wouldn’t be long until the world noticed.
Sophia, perched on the bed, took a bite of peach, juice trickling down her chin. “You look very pretty, Mama,” the girl said solemnly.
“Thatshe does.” Nicholas gestured his daughter to a bowl of water. “Though you mustn’t tell anyone.”
Sophia rolled her eyes, though she scrubbed her fingers in the warm basin, anyway. The remnants of her peach—a delectable summer treat straight from the estate’s greenhouses—went into the bin. “I won’t need to tell anyone,” she explained. “Everyone will know.”
“Today is about Marie,” Isadora added, adjusting a bow on her bodice so the ribbons fell down over her stomach, concealing it a little more. The sickness and fatigue she had suffered over the last few months had finally disappeared for the day, and she felt full of more energy than she could ever have expressed to Nicholas.
If he had his way, he would have shut her in this room the moment she had revealed to him that she was with child. But nine months of isolation was too much even for Isadora to agree to, and so she had pushed back, demanding that she be given the freedom to which she had become accustomed.
When the physician said she ought to take to bed rest, she would, but until then, she would continue about her ordinary life.
The only thing now was that she wanted no one to know of her condition. Such things were increasingly difficult to hide—it was as though overnight, her stomach had expanded—but Marie’s wedding day was not abouther.
An early autumn wedding was perfect. Across the fields, the wheat was being harvested, the sun was still hot and heavy in the sky, and the world was preparing for the winter. Marriage in autumn was good luck in her books, but it would also give them some time before the next social season began.
In the mirror, Isadora glimpsed Nicholas crouch on the floor before Sophia, who leaned forward with a grave expression and very carefully tied his cravat. Once, Isadora had tried something similar, but she had been unable to get the style she wanted.Sophia, however, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, turned the stiff, starched fabric as though she had been born to it.
The end result was perhaps not as fine as if Fletcher had done it himself, but it was perfectly passable.
“You know,” he said, turning to Isadora with a soft smile, “we did this for our wedding, too.”
“Oh, Iknowmore than you could possibly think,” Isadora nodded, biting back a smile. “It was the only thing about you those days that made you feel approachable. Sophia informed me about it later at the wedding breakfast too.”
That had been the moment she understood a little of what she was getting herself into, and exactly what it meant for her. Sophia and Nicholas were a family, and although he struggled sometimes to understand his daughter, he had always loved her. Theirs was not the absent, distant relationship many fathers had with their daughters. He involved her in his life, and in seeing that, Isadora had felt the first stirrings of warm emotions.
As he approached, she raised her arms and twined them around his neck. “I think that was the first time I thought this deeply unserious marriage might work out, after all,” she giggled.
He held her tighter. “Mine was the moment I saw you walking down the aisle toward me in the church.”
“In my mother’s old dress?”
“Oh, you were rather bold for letting me purchase you a new wedding gown and then replacing it with another that was three decades out of fashion. But you looked so content in your choice… and beautiful.” He brushed the hair back from her face. “And I knew that you were the perfect lady for me to marry, and that I would regret nothing by taking you as my wife.”
“Nothing, hmm?” she teased with a finger to her chin.
“Well, I haven’t.” He glanced over at Sophia. “Doyouregret anything, Soph?”
“Only that you didn’t marry sooner so we could go to the beach for my birthday,” Sophia answered, tugging at one of her curls and giggling when it bounced back into place. A maid had spent a long time with a curling iron to get her hair to curl quite so perfectly, and Isadora was quite sure it would not last until the wedding.
“That was the first time you thought youcouldfall in love with me?” Isadora asked, tiptoeing to peck a quick kiss on Nicholas’s mouth. They were never overtly affectionate in front of Sophia, but they both believed it was good and proper to show her a marriage of affection where both parties clearly adored and respected one another.
After all, in a decade or so, Sophia would be looking for a husband herself, and Isadora desperately hoped she would find someone as good for her as Nicholas was toher.
“It was,” Nicholas answered, grasping her waist.
“Then, when was the first time youactuallyfell in love with me?”
