Chapter Seven
Theresa cherished the meals with John’s family over the two days she stayed with them. The table hummed with life. Children’s chatter rose and fell like sparrows in spring; forks clinked; Felix told stories that had Maisie rolling her eyes and the twins dissolving in helpless giggles.
Theresa sat among them, not outside the circle but within it.
She passed the breadbasket before a spill could happen, steadied a cup before it tipped, and helped one little girl cut her potato into neat squares.
Her laugh came easily—too easily, she feared—as if she had always sat here, as if this table had always been hers.
It wasn’t. Not really. She belonged only in borrowed corners: the tower at Oxford, the hidden space between shelves, shadows where no one asked her name. Yet tonight, with children leaning against her side and candlelight soft on her skin, she wished she could belong in truth.
John saw it. She felt his gaze on her as surely as if his hand still brushed hers beneath the table. He watched the way she bent to listen, the way she smiled at the boy’s solemn recitation of Latin verbs, the way she never let the twins’ chatter pass unnoticed.
He laughed suddenly, warm and unguarded. “It suits you. This house. These rooms. You sit here as though you were born to it. Not like a servant, but like a lady of the house.” He recognized her impeccable manners.
His words seared her heart. If only he knew how desperately she longed for them to be true.
Maisie’s eyes narrowed, sharp as flint. “Comfort is not the same as belonging.” She kept her tone light but left her meaning unmistakable.
Theresa flushed and bowed her head, hiding in the glow of the candles, but John reached beneath the table, threading his fingers through hers. His thumb brushed her skin with a tenderness that made her mouth dry.
Her palm flattening against his. She wanted to belong. But it wasn’t only about her anymore. A child turned quietly inside her. Another secret she had yet to speak aloud. This was no longer only her longing, her risk. Everything she did now mattered for the two of them.
The twins giggled again, passing ribbons between them like treasure. One slipped hers into Theresa’s lap with a solemn nod. Theresa tied it around her wrist and smiled so hard her cheeks ached.
“You see?” John said softly, pride and wonder threading his voice. “They’ve already claimed you.”
She looked at him then, really looked—at the hope burning so fiercely in his eyes, at the love he did not hide—and her chest ached with a dangerous joy.
If I love him, I shall love his life. His family. His future. I must belong here. For him. For the child. For us.
She smoothed the ribbon on her wrist, blinking back tears she dared not let fall. “I only hope I can earn it.”
Maisie tilted her head, unreadable, but she did not argue. The silence felt like a verdict, or perhaps the smallest seed of mercy.
John squeezed her hand beneath the table, firm and confident. And though fear still pricked her heart, Theresa let herself believe, for this one evening, that belonging could be more than a wish but also a beginning.
*
Later that evening, John leaned against the paneled wall of the drawing room, the low murmur of voices drifting from the hall.
“They’ll dine elsewhere,” Felix said, calm as ever, spectacles glinting in the firelight. “Private room, private company. Cloverdale is large enough. You won’t cross paths, not tonight.”
John wanted to believe it. He tried to believe Hofst?tter and his wretched delegation would stay behind their doors, counting statistics and scribbling notes, far from this house and far from her.
But Felix’s reassurance could not steady the coil in his chest. He remembered the Vienna stories—the fists, the alley, the grave—and his gut told him danger rarely kept to one corridor.
Felix left, and the clock ticked. Coal shifted in the grate. His shoulders stayed tight.
Then Theresa stepped into the room, the rustle of skirts drawing his gaze before he even realized he’d moved.
She wore one of the dresses he had arranged for her—soft silk in a pale hue that caught the lamplight like dawn—, but on her it looked regal.
Her hair gleamed dark gold, her posture elegant, unforced, every inch a woman born to command a room.
His chest tightened.
His body hardened.
She saw him and paused, color blooming across her cheekbones, but her chin lifted. That combination—shyness and courage—undid him more than any ballroom beauty ever could.
Cloverdale could hold dozens of delegates, an army of physicians, and all the damned Hofst?tters in Vienna, and John would still see only her.
His thoughts turned reckless. He imagined her laughter muffled against his chest, her hair spilled across his pillow, her body tangled with his in the featherbed upstairs.
Quiet, so quiet—this house full of children and kin, of eyes and ears—but she would know, oh she would know how fiercely he wanted her to belong.
She crossed the room, skirts brushing the carpet, eyes fixed on him. He met her halfway, bowing slightly, masking his hunger in courtesy.
But when their hands touched, fingers threading lightly, he felt it spark through him—want, need, love, all indistinguishable. “You’re radiant. I thought I was prepared, but—no. You’ve undone me.”
Her lips curved, small and secret. “And here I only hoped to do justice to your house.”
“My house”—he tugged her hand just enough to bring her close—“is already yours.”
She startled, then softened, her gaze searching his face as if weighing whether to believe him. He held her eyes, willing her to understand he meant no jest, no passing fancy.
Let Hofst?tter rail. Let the delegates scribble and sneer. Tonight, with her hand in his, only this mattered: not titles, not scrutiny, but a woman who made the world stop turning every time she entered the room.