Page 166 of A Scandal for the Beastly Earl

“And I meant it.”

“He’s already arrested. Again. With guards who know which end of a pistol to hold this time.”

“Then I’ll kill him in prison.”

Julian sighed. “You realise that’s still a crime?”

Lucien stopped pacing. “He put her in danger.”

“She put herself in danger,” Julian said dryly. “As she tends to do. You married a woman who runs toward burning buildings, not away from them.”

Lucien’s jaw tightened. “Not anymore. We’re leaving this wretched city. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere safe. Without fires, criminals, or...”

A faint, exhausted voice interrupted. “Lucien.”

He turned so fast Julian barely caught the smirk.

“Come meet your daughter.”

Lucien froze. “Daughter?”

Julian rolled his eyes. “You might want to move before she changes her mind.”

In an instant, Lucien was at her side. Arabella lay pale but smiling, a tiny bundle cradled in her arms. The child was so small he was afraid to breathe too close, as though the world might bruise her.

“We have a daughter?” he said, as if repeating it would make it real.

Arabella’s tired laugh filled the room. “A month early. Dramatic entrance. Already scowling at the world.”

Lucien bent, touching one impossibly small hand. “She’s perfect.”

“She’s tiny.”

“She’s ours.”

Arabella’s gaze softened. “She needs a name.”

Lucien looked from mother to child, the chaos of the past weeks fading into something fragile and infinite. “Then let’s find her one worthy of surviving all this.”

The baby yawned, as if unimpressed by his dramatics.

“Matilda?” he suggested softly, his voice a low murmur as he brushed a fingertip along the baby’s cheek. “For the woman who brought us together, in a roundabout, entirely unintentional sort of way?”

Arabella arched a brow, too tired to laugh but too stubborn not to jest. “Matilda Thistle Blackthorn?”

Lucien made a face. “We are not naming our daughter after the dog.”

“He saved us,” she countered, her tone equal parts weary and amused. “Again, if we’re counting rescues.”

“Still not naming her after him. I refuse to have a daughter whose namesake eats table legs.”

“Middle name, then?”

“Arabella...”

She cut him off, her expression soft but firm, that same unyielding spark he’d fallen for shining through the exhaustion. “Matilda Margaret Blackthorn,” she said, pronouncing each syllable as if it were already etched in stone. “After the sisters who never got to be.”

Lucien’s reply came after a long pause, his throat tight. “That’s perfect.”