Chapter Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Seven
Paris at Christmas
Four Years Later
Pregnancy doesn’t suit me,” I told Colette, feeling surly and rotund.
“Nonsense, I’ve never seen you more beautiful!” she said, kissing my cheek. From several rooms away, a child’s voice rose to a screech. “My piglet! Mine, mine, mine!”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Colette said, jumping to her feet. “What will I do if my next child is as loud as Aimée? We’ll be deaf by the time he or she grows up.”
“Petal est mon petit cochon!” Aimée shrieked from the depths of the mansion.
“She reminds me of you,” I said, smiling up at my dearest friend. “My shoes! Mine!”
Colette laughed and ran away, her feet clad in silk slippers crosshatched and sewn with tiny violets. She too was with child, but at the stage where her waist had an enchanting curve.
In contrast, my stomach jutted before me like the prow of a ship.
I had to visit the water closet two or three times an hour.
My feet were too swollen to wear any of Countess Marmont’s exquisite slippers.
And I was hungry all the time. I’d eaten twenty-four oysters at one sitting just a few days ago. Twenty-four.
Colette’s butler, Monsieur Barbier, opened the drawing room door and permitted my husband and Lance to stroll in unannounced.
Godric’s eyes came straight to me; he smiled when he found me just as safe and irritable as when he left me two hours ago.
A small girl dodged around Barbier and ran into the room, a piglet clutched in her arms, its legs dangling, with Ophelia—now a dazzling eighteen-year-old—in hot pursuit.
Barbier shuddered, backed into the entry, and closed the door.
He considered himself rather put upon, reigning over a household as chaotic and joyous as that of the Count of Marmont, though I had the shrewd opinion that he loved being associated with a couple so adored by both royalty and the public.
“Aimée!” Ophelia called. “Please don’t run with Petal in your arms. What if you fall and injure her?”
Colette’s daughter paused to consider that idea and then said, with complete confidence, “Petal likes it when I run, and she wants to see Tante Rosie.” She veered to the right and threw herself (and Petal) at my sister, who put her book aside just in time.
With no regard for her exquisite morning gown, Rosie tucked Aimée into the crook of one arm and Petal into the other. Being a peaceable animal (just like her mama, Peony), Petal gazed amiably around the room. Aimée dropped her head against Rosie’s shoulder and popped her thumb in her mouth.
My sister smiled at me and rubbed her cheek against Aimée’s hair.
Four years ago, when I returned from Scotland with a new husband along with tales of ghosts and murder, Rosie had been horrified to think that I’d married an evil man in exchange for her dowry.
But I’ve come to realize—and have convinced her—that my decision hadn’t been merely for the dowry, although I told myself it was.
In reality, I had been paralytically bored by dances and musicales, and Burnsby offered an escape. In the last four years, Godric and I have created a home full of math and law books, with a drawing room suited for reading books rather than entertaining callers.
I dipped into polite society when Rosie debuted, but since a young, blue-eyed duke fell in love with her on their second waltz (not the first!), I soon bowed out. Ophelia had finally decided to make her debut next spring, but thankfully, Rosie would do most of the chaperoning.
Now I leaned back against my husband, loving the warmth of his solid body behind mine as Lance recounted an upset in the French courts.
The two of them had recently opened the first transcontinental legal concern, the only such group to navigate English and French law.
It was also the only legal concern headed by a French count and an English viscount.
(In case you are wondering: Yes! I do like being a viscountess.)
Godric’s fingers curled around my shoulders, and I felt a surge of desire. I tipped my head back and smiled at him. “I thought that you’d be gone all day.”
One of his eyebrows snapped up. “I couldn’t stay away.
Time for the future maman to take a nap?
” he asked, a husky note in his voice. “Monsieur Bergeret is most insistent that you rest.” Just as Colette had decreed years ago, we had traveled to Paris for my confinement, where her family doctor was close at hand.
I leaned on his arm as we climbed the stairs, feeling like a whale trying to walk on land. “I am larger than Colette ever was,” I told him morosely.
“Monsieur Bergeret thinks he hears two heartbeats,” Godric reminded me. When we reached the door of our chamber, he picked me up and brought me to the bed, kicking the door shut behind us.
“You’re not even panting,” I observed.
“I’m very tired,” he said, his eyes gleaming. “I must join you for a nap.”
He began to tear off his clothing in a manner that would shock his legal colleagues, who consider him a model of icy, albeit impassioned, control. I watched from under my lashes, loving the way his eyes roved over my body, as if all parts of me were delectable, belly included.
“Was any English mail delivered?” I asked, enjoying the sight of his broad chest as he tossed his shirt aside.
Godric’s hands stilled on his waistband. “Lance’s mother has fallen ill. She may have passed away by now.”
I blinked. “Mima?”
“Apparently, she caught pneumonia after opening her window, perhaps in an effort to climb out. Lately, she has been convinced her baby is to be found on the ramparts.”
“Ophelia will be saddened by the news,” I said. Our daughter still wrote to Mima, though she’d never received a reply.
Godric pulled off his breeches. “The Marquis Guyet bent my ear for half an hour today because his heir is pining for love of Ophelia. She can cheer herself up tomorrow by breaking the heart of yet another gullible Frenchman.”
My husband threw himself on the bed, leaned close to me, and stared into my eyes. “How do you feel?”
“Like an elephant,” I said. A flush rose in my cheeks as blood raced through my body. Nothing about my size had reduced my thirst for my husband—and I know he could read my desire.
“I’m so lucky to have found you,” Godric said, his voice deep and true.
I held out my arms, shameless (and happy). “Come here, husband.”
So he did.
Later that night, so did Gillian and Hugh.
In that order.