Page 48
It had been four days since the library – four days since his hands had quickly undone the laces of her corset and his mouth had quickly unraveled her composure entirely – and neither of them had spoken of it since. Even still, it appeared they had not needed to. The moments they had shared after dark now lived in the careful space between them, in the way his gaze would catch on her mouth and linger a second too long before he remembered himself, in the way her own pulse still fluttered absurdly whenever he entered a room.
They had settled, without either of them proposing it aloud, into a strange and fragile truce; courteous, even warm, but deliberately careful not to acknowledge what simmered beneath the courtesy. Anna told herself this was for the best. A marriage of convenience that had somehow acquired an inconvenient amount of longing was, she reasoned, still a marriage of convenience, provided she did not question the longing too much.
“You are rather quiet this morning,” Hudson observed, setting his cup down.
“I am merely tired,” Anna admitted with a sigh, willing herself to focus on his words and not so much the tone of his voice. “Timothy did not wish to sleep last night. I believe he has decided that two in the morning is a perfectly acceptable hour to test the full capabilities of his lungs.”
“Ah.” A corner of Hudson’s mouth lifted. “And here I thought Lucy was meant to be the difficult one.”
“Lucy sleeps like a log until she decides not to, and then there is no reasoning with her at all. In fact, I have reason to believe she finds loud noises soothing, which is why she hardly ever wakes up while her twin is trying to ruin our hearing. Timothy simply prefers an audience for his suffering.” Anna stated, though there was no real complaint in it. “I intend to spend most of the day in the nursery, if you wondered at my plans. I have a great deal of catching up to do with them, after last night.”
She said it plainly, the way she might have once said it as a means of excluding him – of drawing a line between what belonged to her and what she was willing to share. But that was not her intention now, and she found, to her own surprise, that she rather hoped he would ask to join her.
Hudson considered this for a long moment, his gaze thoughtful.
“I should like to join you, if I would not be intruding.”
“You would not be intruding in the least,” Anna said. “Truthfully, I had rather hoped you might offer, though I did not wish to presume upon your time by asking outright.”
“You may always presume upon my time, where the children are concerned,” Hudson replied, nodding sagely. “Or where you are concerned, for that matter, though I suspect it will take rather longer for either of us to grow accustomed to saying so plainly.”
Something in Anna’s chest fell open at that, warm and unfamiliar.
“You are welcome to join me, if you wish,” she told him, careful to keep her tone even, though she suspected she did not entirely succeed, given that Hudson’s eyes softened at whatever he saw in her face.
“Then I shall,” he nodded simply, and returned to his tea as though the conversation had reached its end.
It was strange, Anna thought, how much had shifted between them without either of them announcing it aloud. There had been no grand declaration, no single moment she could point to and say was the starting point of where they had arrived now. Only a slow accumulation of mornings like this one, of small acts of kindness and even smaller verbal admissions, until she found herself looking forward to his company rather than merely enduring it.
The tension of it – she could not deny that it was there, humming low and constant like a charge in the air whenever he was near – no longer felt like a threat. Instead, it was more like anticipation. Like standing at the pinnacle of a mountain before she had decided to disembark.
And like with most matters where her husband was concerned, she found that she was still far too unprepared to examine that thought yet.
Breakfast ended without much conversation, and Anna left the table first as she always did, and this time, instead of bidding him a good day, she lingered awkwardly for a moment, then she said,
“I suppose I will see you later, then.”
Hudson raised his gaze to her, nodding curtly with a cheeky smile.
“You most certainly will.”
His words held a promise of much more than she had questioned, but she had no intention of finding out what that was, instead opting to scurry away like a frightened animal. She retired to her bedroom to change into a more comfortable dress before she made her way to the nursery.
Miss Hill and the wet nurse were up and about arranging things in the nursery, seeing as there had been a sudden increase in clothes and toys ever since the duke had returned. He insisted on spoiling them, as was his prerogative; however, Anna wished he would not be so extravagant.
She watched over the children while the staff worked, wondering if she should change their clothes.
An hour later, true to his word, Hudson appeared in the doorway of the nursery, looking somewhat out of place amongst the cots and the baskets of linen, his tall frame folding itself carefully into the small chair Anna gestured him toward.
“You will want to remove your coat,” she advised, already unbuttoning her own sleeve. “Timothy has a talent for finding the worst possible moment to be unpredictable.”
Hudson raised a brow but obliged, draping the garment over the back of the chair with a particular care. Anna hid her smile and lifted Timothy from his cot, settling him against her shoulder before she passed him carefully into Hudson’s waiting arms.
“There,” she said. “You have him.”
Hudson held their son with the same steady confidence she had witnessed him approach everything else, one large hand supporting the small curve of Timothy’s back, though his expression betrayed a flicker of uncertainty when the baby squirmed and let out a thin, slight whimper.
“He does not seem convinced of my abilities,” Hudson stated dryly, regarding his son with thinly veiled concern.
