Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
Almost a week later, they arrived at Sommerleigh at two o’clock in the afternoon. As the carriage came down the drive, Alasdair checked his watch.
“Yer sister and the earl may be busy.”
Arabella snorted. “Harry is always busy with the conjecture.”
“They might be busy some other way.”
“With the children?”
“Well, yer sister has had a bed put in her room where she does her mathematics.”
“A bed?”
“So they might be busy the way we have recently been busy.”
Arabella goggled. “Harry? In the daytime?”
Alasdair laughed. “Yer sister is about to have her third child. Ye surely are under nae illusions how that might happen, day or night.”
“I know, but—yes. Well, good. We will play with the children until they are not busy.”
The carriage stopped, and they could hear Paterson speaking to a footman about where the stables were and how the luggage should be disposed of.
Indeed, the earl and the countess could not be easily accounted for by the household staff, so Arabella and Alasdair did go to the nursery. Almost three-year-old Hypatia and Richard at twenty months knew the doctor. However, they were both shy of Arabella.
Arabella knelt on the floor.
“Do you know who I am? I am your Aunt Arabella.”
“Anchabella?” dark-haired Hypatia said, with a look of recognition. “Mama says you live far away and are very brave. You fight dragons.”
“Mama!” said Richard, clapping.
“Papa got me a doll what looks like you.” Hypatia whirled away and brought back to Arabella a wooden doll with painted blue eyes and golden hair.
“What is her name?” Arabella asked after admiring the doll.
Hypatia turned her head and squinted at her and Arabella could have sworn it was the same look Harry used to give her when she had very briefly taken over Arabella’s very rudimentary mathematical training.
“Anchabella. Of course.”
Arabella laughed.
“Aye,” Alasdair said, squatting down and putting his arm around his Arabella’s shoulders and kissing her on the side of the head. “She is very Harry-esque in her condescension to us mere mortals but nae sign of mathematical obsession just yet.”
“Richard, do you have a toy to show your Aunt Arabella?” Arabella asked. But Richard was pulling at the crotch of his high-waisted trousers and didn’t answer.
Alasdair murmured, “And Richard definitely takes after his father.”
There was only about half an hour between the Andrews’ arrival and the appearance in the nursery of the very pregnant and flushed Harry and the slightly perspiring Thomas Drake. Harry’s hair was falling down a bit, and Thomas’ shirt wasn’t quite tucked into his trousers all the way around.
Arabella went to Harry immediately and was about to ask permission to hug her sister and was surprised to have Harry throw her own arms around her neck. Arabella could feel the tears pricking her eyes.
Harry whispered to her, “I have been well recently, but I was tired of waiting for you to remember what you really wanted and deserved. And I was tired of Alasdair pining for you. Don’t be angry at your soror ex machina.”
Arabella pulled back from her, astonished. She had never spoken to Harry of her secret feelings for Alasdair. And she would have never thought this sister might be the one to sense anything about Arabella’s desires.
Harry shrugged and looked at the ceiling. “You’re welcome.” Then she spoke more loudly. “You can touch if you like. She’s moving around a lot right now.”
Arabella felt Harry’s stomach, and the baby, which Harry insisted was a girl, was indeed kicking. Then Alasdair, as Harry’s physician, had to feel, and so did Thomas. Even Hypatia reached up and felt the underside of her mother’s belly for a moment before running away to pull her brother’s hair.
“I hope you got married in Scotland before coming here,” Harry said, gazing at her husband’s waistcoat buttons. “Otherwise, there will be such a fuss over you two sharing a bed when Mama Katie gets here.”
Arabella sputtered, “Harry!” and turned to her husband.
Alasdair was blushing and holding his hands up. “I didnae say anything. I have been with ye the whole time.”
“I take it that congratulations are in order?” Thomas asked and shook Alasdair’s and Arabella’s hands with a large grin.
“Yes, your mother and Jamie have planned to come in a week. Though once we send word to Middlewich that you are here, I wouldn’t be surprised if your mother comes as soon as she gets the message. And Mary and David are coming as well.”
“Yes,” said Harry. “So you all can distract Tommy while I work on the conjecture. I have a lot to do before the baby comes.”
“Harry,” Arabella said. “You are not going to work on the conjecture with your whole family here, are you?”
Thomas laughed. “When Richard was born, Harry was making notes between contractions. She says labor wonderfully concentrates the mind.”
The Andrews spent that night at Sommerleigh, but the next day, after Paterson had left to start his long trip back to Edinburgh, Alasdair took Arabella to his house in the village.
A few months ago, he would have been overwhelmed with anxiety to have her see where he lived.
But he had been in her cottage in Dunburn and saw she knew how to live modestly.
And she was bound to him now. Still, he wanted her to be happy.
She walked through the house, looking carefully at every room. His housekeeper had kept the place tidy and dusted while he was away. But what would Arabella think of it? He promised himself to make no apologies for anything she might find amiss. She turned to him and smiled.
“It’s lovely, Alasdair. Let’s spend tonight here.”
“Do ye think we might have pink curtains on the windows in the drawing room?”
She laughed. “I’ll sew some for the nursery.”
He knew it was too early to know if she was with child, but her plans for a nursery made him very happy indeed.
That night, the lonely bed in the lonely house was no longer lonely.
The next morning, they were enjoying the sunshine while slowly walking to Sommerleigh, having promised to join the Drakes for luncheon. Alasdair was glad the road was empty because he was finding it extraordinarily difficult to keep his hands off his wife whilst in public.
It was fortuitous then that he was not stroking her heart-shaped bottom through her dress or brushing the back of his hand against her breast or leaning down to kiss her pink lips when a rather grand carriage with several footmen and a large team of white horses overtook them on the road and then a slowed a hundred yards or so ahead of them, coming to a rather abrupt stop.
A small figure spilled from the carriage while it was still moving, not waiting for a footman to open the door or assist with steps. It was a woman, and now she was running back towards them.
“Mama,” Alasdair heard Arabella say, and his wife picked up her skirts and was also running down the road. The women fell into each other's arms, and Alasdair wisely slowed his stroll even further so he would not interrupt the reunion.
When he reached them after several minutes, the mother and daughter were no longer embracing but holding hands, faces wet with tears, and smiling.
“Yer Grace,” he said and bowed.
“Thank you, Dr. Andrews,” Catherine said. “I understand you brought Arabella home. You have rescued another of my daughters.”
“Nae, she has rescued me.”
Catherine looked at him and then looked at Arabella, and Alasdair realized Catherine must not know yet they were married. Arabella had not told her, still fearful of her reaction.
He steeled himself for what might happen next. “Yer Grace—” he began.
Arabella interrupted him. “I am Mrs. Alasdair Andrews, Mama.” She let go of her mother’s hand and came to his side and put her arm around his waist, and suddenly his own arm was also around her, with his palm on her shoulder blade, his fingers curling into that delicious piece of flesh between her arm and her ribs, the place he considered the beginning of the breast. The place where she had warmed his hands in the lodge.
The place where he put his hand when she would fall asleep on her stomach, as she had done last night in his bed.
No. In their bed.
“We are married,” Alasdair said, and Arabella couried into his side, as much as one can courie while standing.
Alasdair remembered Catherine had been a noted actress, but he was still impressed there was nary a beat of hesitation between their shared announcement and Catherine’s smiling reply.
“I am very happy for you. Both.” Catherine embraced Arabella and shook Alasdair’s hand and then went up on her tiptoes and pulled him down for a kiss on the cheek.
James, the Duke of Middlewich, carrying a tow-headed three-and-a-half-year-old boy on his shoulders, was coming up the road behind Catherine.
He was grinning as he put his own hand on Catherine’s shoulder.
“I’m not used to seeing my wife kiss a man who’s not me on a country road in the middle of the morning. ”
Alasdair felt himself start to blush. He was not used to being teased by a duke.
“Yer Grace.” He bowed.
“Jamie.” Catherine turned to him. “Arabella and Dr. Andrews are married.”
Her voice was calm and sweet, but Alasdair noted the duke’s hand came off her shoulder and grabbed her hand and squeezed it quickly.
“Wonderful! Congratulations to all. Let me kiss you now, Arabella!” James put his son Sebastian down and leaned over and kissed Arabella’s cheek.
“Thank you, Middlewich,” she threw her arms around his neck, “and thank you for taking care of Mama.” Now it was James’ turn to blush.
As Alasdair shook hands with James, Arabella bent at the waist to speak to her half brother. “Sebastian, I am your sister Arabella. Can I pick you up?” He nodded and held up his arms. She picked him up and put him on her hip, and he touched one of her golden curls by her face.
“Oh.” Catherine exhaled. “These days, he won’t let anyone pick him up except Jamie and me and Nurse Davis.”