Chapter Fifteen #3
“I did. He has graciously permitted me to court you—properly.” He coloured slightly. “If you are agreeable, that is.”
“I believe I might be persuaded to be agreeable.”
“Only might?”
“Well, that depends entirely on your definition of proper courtship.”
Adrian made a low sound that might have been a growl. Marianne elbowed him gently.
“I thought perhaps we might begin with the British Museum,” Lord Timothy said. “They’ve an exhibition on ancient architectural methods. And perhaps a walk in Hyde Park, if the weather holds?”
“That sounds delightful,” Catherine said, her enthusiasm shining through her composure. “Oh—and there’s a lecture at the Royal Society next week on mathematical patterns in nature. Would that be too dreadfully dull?”
“Dull? Hardly! I’ve been trying to secure tickets for weeks.”
“I have connections through my brother. I’m sure we can contrive something.”
They went on planning their outings with such scholarly delight that even Marianne felt a pang of fond amusement.
“They’re discussing mathematics,” Adrian murmured, scandalised. “As entertainment.”
“They’re perfectly matched,” she said.
“They’re perfectly odd.”
“Says the man who spent our courtship issuing threats and compromising me in conservatories.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“It was us.” He drew her closer, his hand straying, as ever, to her waist and then her stomach. “We are allowed to be unconventional.”
“So are they.”
Before he could argue, Lord Timothy rose. “I should take my leave. Lady Catherine, may I call tomorrow? Perhaps the museum?”
“I should enjoy that immensely.”
He approached Adrian with commendable courage. “Your Grace, thank you again for your trust. I shall not give you cause to regret it.”
“See that you do not,” Adrian said, though the menace had softened into resignation.
After Lord Timothy departed, Catherine all but danced about the room. “He wishes to take me to museums and lectures! He does not expect me to simper and prattle of fashion! He actually wants my thoughts on mathematics!”
“Riveting,” Adrian drawled.
“Oh, hush. Merely because your notion of courtship involved scandalising society at every opportunity does not mean we must all follow suit.”
“We did not scandalise society at every opportunity.”
“The conservatory? The opera? The assembly? That time you—”
“Those were isolated incidents.”
Marianne and Catherine exchanged a glance—and dissolved into laughter.
“What?” Adrian demanded.
“Nothing,” Marianne said, kissing his cheek. “Only that you are delightfully oblivious to your own behaviour.”
That evening, as they prepared for bed, Adrian was unusually quiet. He helped Marianne with her stays—something he’d taken to doing himself rather than calling Sarah—his fingers gentle against her skin.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, watching him in the mirror.
“Of what lies ahead. Catherine will marry Lord Timothy—it is all but inevitable. They will have their own household, their own life. And we shall have our child—perhaps children.” His hands stilled upon her shoulders. “Everything is changing.”
“Change is not necessarily bad.”
“No, but it is terrifying.” He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “A year ago, I was alone and determined to remain so. Now I have a wife, a sister who is mending, and a child on the way. It feels like too much happiness—as if something must go wrong.”
“Or perhaps you suffered your sorrows early, and now it is time for joy.”
“That is dangerously optimistic.”
“I prefer hopeful.” She drew him down for a kiss. “Besides, you have eight months to practise being terrified. By the time the baby arrives, you shall be an expert.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It is not meant to be. It is meant to be accurate.” She guided him to the bed. “Come. We ought to celebrate properly.”
“Celebrate?” His eyes darkened with interest. “But the physician forbade excitement.”
“He forbade excessive excitement. I believe we can manage the moderate kind.”
“Moderate,” he echoed, already loosening her remaining fastenings. “I do not do moderate.”
“Then you must learn.”
What followed was Adrian’s valiant attempt at “moderate”—a great deal of reverence and rather less haste—until, exasperated by his caution, Marianne took matters into her own hands, flipping him onto his back with a move that surprised them both.
“Marianne—”
“Hush. I am not broken. I am not fragile. I am carrying our child, as women have done since the world began.” She kissed him thoroughly. “Now cease thinking and let me love you.”
He yielded with a groan, his touch tender rather than demanding.
When they came together, it was with a quietness that brought tears to her eyes—not the desperate heat of their beginning, nor the playful fire of recent weeks, but something deeper; an acknowledgement of the change within her and between them.
After, he gathered her with her back to his chest, his hand spread protectively over her stomach.
“I cannot feel anything yet,” she teased, amused by his concentration.
“I know. But it is there. Our child.” Wonder roughened his voice. “What do you suppose it will be like?”
“Stubborn, certainly. Dramatic, given its parentage.”
“Brilliant. Beautiful. Perfect.”
“You are already besotted, and it is hardly larger than a pea.”
“I am besotted with its mother. The child is merely an extension of that obsession.”
She laughed, settling deeper into his hold. “Catherine is right. We should think of names.”
“Adrian, if a boy.”
“Absolutely not. One Adrian in this family is quite sufficient.”
“Edmund, then—after your father.”
She stilled, touched. “That is… actually lovely. And for a girl?”
“Something strong. That announces she will take no prisoners and suffer no fools.”
“Like Catherine?”
“Not another Catherine, thank you. One is plenty.” His tone was fond. “Something that is wholly hers.”
They drifted through possibilities—Rose and Anne and Margaret; James and William and George—discarding each for reasons both sensible and absurd.
“We have time,” Marianne murmured at last, sleep tugging at her. “Months yet.”
“Months,” he agreed, though his arms tightened. “Months of watching you grow round with my child. Months of keeping you safe.”
“Months of you driving me to distraction with hovering.”
“That too.” He kissed her hair. “Sleep. You need rest. The physician said—”
“Adrian?”
“Yes?”
“If you quote Mr Peterson one more time, I’m sleeping in my old rooms.”
“You would not.”
“Try me.”
A beat; then, lightly, “He offered no opinion regarding sleeping arrangements.”
“Adrian!”
A brief, laughing skirmish with a pillow ensued, ending with them tangled together, breathless and foolishly happy.
“I love you,” he said suddenly, quite serious. “Both of you. Already.”
“We love you too,” she answered, laying her hand over his. “Always.”
They fell asleep like that, wrapped around each other and their secret, while elsewhere in the house, Catherine dreamed of architectural exhibitions and mathematical discussions, and London society prepared for another day of gossip and intrigue.
But in that moment, in their bed, there was only them—Adrian, Marianne, and the tiny possibility growing between them. It was terrifying, wonderful, and absolutely perfect.
***
The next morning brought a fresh challenge in the shape of Marianne’s father, who arrived unannounced just as she was attempting to coax down breakfast without surrendering to nausea.
“Papa!” She rose too quickly; the room spun.
“Sit down before you fall down,” Edmund Whitcombe said briskly, his keen eye missing nothing. “You are green as grass and swaying like a sailor. How far along?”
“I—what—how did you—”
“I have seen that shade of green before. Your mother had it for months with you.” His expression softened. “Besides, Harrowmere sent word yesterday. Wanted my advice on tonics and physicians, of all things.”
“He did?” Marianne looked to Adrian, who was attacking his eggs with peculiar intensity.
“You needed rest,” Adrian said defensively. “And I needed information. Your father was the sensible source.”
“And here I thought dukes knew everything,” Edmund said dryly, taking a chair. “Turns out they are merely men who panic when their wives start breeding.”
“I do not panic.”
“You sent me three letters yesterday. Three. The last asked whether strawberries were safe.”
Catherine choked on her tea. “Strawberries?”
“Marianne mentioned wanting some. I needed to be certain—”
“They are fruit, not arsenic,” Edmund cut in. “Still, I admire the concern. Shows you are taking matters seriously.”
“How could I not? It is Marianne. And our child.”
Something in his voice softened Edmund further. “Aye, well. You’ll do, Harrowmere. You’ll do.”
They were interrupted by the butler announcing Lord Timothy’s arrival for his museum outing with Catherine. The young man entered with barely contained excitement, a leather portfolio under his arm.
“I have brought the drawings I mentioned,” he told Catherine, then bowed to the others. “Your Graces. Mr Whitcombe.”
“Lord Timothy,” Edmund said, eyeing him with the look that had undone many a rival. “Ashford’s boy? The one studying buildings?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Practical study. Too many lads waste themselves on poetry and philosophy. A building stands. A sonnet leaks.”
“Mr Whitcombe!” Catherine protested. “Poetry has value too.”
“For wooing, perhaps. But can one live in a stanza? Keep dry beneath a metaphor?” Edmund’s eye twinkled. “Still, I suppose your young man might build you a house and write you verses—a most enviable combination.”
Lord Timothy coloured to the tips of his ears. Catherine’s flush matched. Adrian looked as though he were contemplating murder—then thought better of it.
“We should depart,” Catherine said quickly. “The museum awaits.”
“Take your maid,” Adrian said at once. “And Thomas.”
“Thomas is your valet.”
“He is also ex-military and could break a man’s arm in three places without breaking a sweat.”
“Adrian!”