Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Tamsin woke to the soft, golden light of autumn filtering through a small gap in the heavy velvet curtains, and memories of the night before filled her with languid happiness.
Rowan was still in the bed beside her, his warm skin pressed against hers.
He stirred, his eyes opening slowly, and his lips curved in a warm smile.
“Good morning, wife,” he murmured, his voice husky with sleep. It occurred to her that after all these days, she was finally his wife in truth.
“Good morning, husband,” she replied, but any further endearments were cut short by a sudden, frantic commotion from somewhere deep inside the house. Something heavy hit the floor, a child gave a high-pitched shriek, and a woman called out commands with cheerful authority.
Rowan bolted upright, his brow furrowed. “What in the name of—”
A sharp knock at the door preceded Stephens’s voice, which sounded more harried than Tamsin had ever heard it. “My lord? My lady? I am terribly sorry to intrude, but Lady Julia and Lord St. Claire have just arrived. With the children, my lord.”
Rowan let out a low chuckle. “My sister, Julia. I sent her a letter when we wed.” He turned to Tamsin, a look of sheepish apology on his face. “She lives in the wilds of Northumberland. She’s probably been traveling here since the moment she received it.”
“How lovely,” Tamsin assured him. And she meant it.
She was so glad that his sister had come to visit, as she’d been very concerned that no one had come to support him on their wedding day.
The fact that Julia had headed toward London the moment she’d received her brother’s letter proved that he did have people who loved him.
Also, that he’d cared enough about his wedding to alert them.
“I wanted to stay in bed with you all day,” he said, giving her a quick, passionate kiss. “She has the worst timing. But I suppose I must get dressed and go down to greet them. You can meet us down there once you’re ready.”
He pushed out of bed and strode naked toward the door that connected their suites, and her face flushed at the sight of his bare backside. Had there ever been a finer specimen of a man? Somehow, she doubted it.
At the door, he paused, turning back to face her, his gaze sweeping over her. “I had a wonderful time last night.”
“So did I,” she assured him.
A wide smile curved his lips, and he left the room.
For a moment, she just lay there, her mind racing with thoughts of the night before. She was truly a woman now, his wife in every meaning of the word. She pressed her hand to her stomach at the sudden, unsettling thought that she could already be carrying his child.
If that were true, she’d be happy, but she suddenly found herself hoping for just a little more time to explore the wonderful passion between them. She wondered what new delights he’d show her tonight? Something deep inside her clenched at the very thought.
At last, she forced herself out of bed and rang for her lady’s maid.
An hour later, Tamsin descended the stairs, her heart racing.
She had dressed in a simple, elegant sage-green morning gown, but she felt incredibly nervous.
Meeting the staff was one thing; meeting the sister Rowan adored was another entirely.
He’d said Julia had been the only good thing about his childhood, and Tamsin desperately wanted to make a good impression.
The sitting room was a scene of delightful chaos. Two small children—a boy of about five and a girl slightly younger—were currently chasing each other about the room, while a tall, jovial blond man with the look of a country squire laughed heartily at their antics.
Standing in the center of it all was a woman with Rowan’s dark hair. Her green eyes crinkled with immediate warmth when she saw Tamsin hovering in the doorway. “You must be the woman who finally brought my brother to heel,” she cried, rushing forward to pull Tamsin into a crushing hug.
Tamsin froze, uncertain how to handle such a warm welcome. Quite frankly, it was the last thing she’d been expecting. She’d thought his sister would be furious that her brother had been forced to marry someone he barely knew.
“Let her go,” Rowan said with a laugh. “I think you’re scaring her.”
“Oh, hush!” Julia said, releasing Tamsin to give her brother a brisk kiss on the cheek.
“I must say, Rowan, I nearly fainted when I got your letter. I thought you’d sooner jump into the Thames than marry.
But to find out you’ve bound yourself to someone as eminently respectable as Tamsin Fairchild?
Perhaps there is hope for you after all.
” She gestured to her husband. “This is George, and those two heathens are Thomas and Clara.”
George bowed to Tamsin. “A pleasure, my lady. Forgive the intrusion. Julia insisted that if her brother had finally been caught, she had to see the woman brave enough to do the catching before the month was out.”
“You are more than welcome,” Tamsin said, looking at the children and then at Julia. “We were just about to have breakfast. Please, join us.”
Julia tucked her arm into Tamsin’s, leading the way toward the morning room as if she hadn’t just traveled for days. “You must tell me everything, Tamsin. How did he manage to convince you to marry him?”
Rowan followed behind them, catching Tamsin’s eye.
He looked slightly dazed by the whirlwind of family, but more than that, he looked profoundly relieved that she and his sister were getting along.
Tamsin squeezed Julia’s arm, feeling a surge of gratitude.
She wanted to see how he was with those whom he loved.
He’d said he didn’t know how to love, but she could already tell that he absolutely adored his sister and her children. As with so many other things, she realized that he’d definitely sold himself short.
That afternoon, Rowan and Tamsin accompanied Julia’s family to Hyde Park so that the children could burn off a bit of the energy they’d built up from being cooped up in a carriage for the last few days.
The sun had done little to warm the brisk breeze skimming off the Serpentine, but Rowan found himself unbuttoning the top button of his greatcoat regardless.
It was the exertion, mostly. Or perhaps it was the unfamiliar, persistent tightness in his chest.
“Again, Uncle Rowan! Higher this time!”
Five-year-old Thomas came barreling through the damp grass, his small boots caked with mud, holding up a crude, wind-whipped wooden hoop.
Before Rowan could summon a properly stern, aristocratic refusal, the boy was already scaling him like an oak tree, utilizing Rowan’s knee as a foothold to launch himself into the air.
Rowan caught him effortlessly, swinging the laughing boy up onto his shoulder with a grunt as Thomas flung the hoop as far as he could.
“You are going to ruin his coat, Thomas,” Julia called out, though her voice lacked any real bite.
She was strolling a few paces behind, her arm neatly tucked into her husband George’s.
George, looking thoroughly content and mildly disheveled—having already lost his hat twice to his three-year-old daughter, Clara—merely offered Rowan a sympathetic, knowing grin.
“Let him, Julia,” Rowan said, adjusting his hold on his nephew as Thomas gleefully yanked at Rowan’s cravat as though it were reins, and Rowan was the horse. “The coat will survive. My dignity, however, is rapidly deteriorating.”
“Nonsense. It suits you,” Tamsin murmured from his left. He glanced down at her, memories of the night before making it suddenly difficult to concentrate on his nephew’s antics. Bloody hell, she was gorgeous in the sunlight.
Clara was currently attached to the hem of Tamsin’s walking dress, clutching the rose-colored silk with chubby fingers and babbling a story that he couldn’t understand a word of.
Tamsin seemed to, though. She hadn’t pulled away once.
Instead, she was looking down at the little girl with such unhurried, gentle patience, matching Clara’s miniature strides with her own, that Rowan felt a sudden, sharp ache right behind his ribs.
He had always viewed the prospect of an heir, and the domestic chaos required to produce one, as a regrettable duty. A necessity to ensure the Haversham title did not fall to some distant, spendthrift cousin.
But as Thomas clambered to get down and then pulled him toward a bird’s nest that had fallen to the ground, and Clara proudly presented Tamsin with a rather crushed dandelion pulled straight from the park soil, he realized maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Tamsin accepted the weed as if it were a rare botanical specimen, tucking it carefully into her reticule, and he knew he’d chosen the mother of his children well.
All the things she’d been saying about the kind of parents she wanted them to be suddenly made sense, and he was proud of his little sister for having broken the cycle of their own unhappy childhood.
This is what it could be like. Walks in the park and children shrieking in the house.
He dropped to one knee, so he was at eye level with his nephew.
“Right then, Thomas,” Rowan said, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper as he adjusted the boy’s cap. “Shall we race to that grand oak tree by the water?”
Thomas cheered, immediately setting off at a frantic, uncoordinated sprint.
Rowan stood up, dusting off his knee, and caught Tamsin watching him. Her lips were curved into a small, secret smile, her gaze holding his with an intensity that made the passing carriages, the gossiping promenade, and his sister’s amused laughter fade into background noise.
“Uncle Rowan!” Thomas cried, suddenly realizing Rowan wasn’t behind him.
Rowan winked at his wife and took off at a run.
Tamsin watched her handsome husband abandon all sense of propriety and race Thomas across the park, and her heart leapt with happiness. This afternoon had been eye-opening in the best possible way.
“He’ll be a wonderful father,” Julia said softly, coming up beside her. “I’ve always thought so.”
“I think so, too,” Tamsin admitted, turning to look at her new sister-in-law. “We’ve talked a bit about having children, but he seemed a bit… uncertain.”
“I don’t think he’s ever believed that he deserved to be happy, or to have the love of a woman and children,” Julia confided, watching her brother and son play with a faraway look in her eyes. “Our parents never showed either of us any love at all.”
“He told me,” Tamsin said, laughing as Rowan slowed so that Thomas could win.
“He did?” Julia looked at her speculatively. “That surprises me. He rarely talks to anyone about his childhood. He must care about you a great deal.”
Heat rose in Tamsin’s cheeks. “I don’t know about that. We hardly know each other.”
“Do you care about him?” Julia asked, her expression suddenly serious. She obviously cared a great deal about her brother.
Tamsin forced herself to meet her new sister-in-law’s gaze. “So much, it terrifies me,” she assured her. “Did he tell you about the Brazen Belle’s article? About how we came to be wed?” As much as she’d prefer to keep that scandal a secret, she wanted Julia to know the truth of it.
Julia nodded but showed no signs of judgment. “He did.”
“He’s so much more than the gossips give him credit for.
I was so afraid that he wouldn’t take our marriage seriously, that he’d go back to his rakish ways before the first week was out.
” She glanced over at him, knowing her heart must be in her eyes.
“But he’s been so kind. We’re becoming great friends.
The more I get to know him, the more I like him. ”
“Still, you’re afraid he’ll break your heart,” Julia surmised.
She sighed and then scooped up Clara, preventing her from toddling into a fresh pile of horse manure.
“I won’t tell you that’s not a possibility.
We haven’t spent as much time together as I’d like since I wed.
I certainly don’t know the man that gossip columnist wrote about.
But if he’s still anything like he was when we were young, I don’t think he’ll betray you. He’s very loyal.”
“Thank you,” Tamsin murmured, gazing at her husband as he and Thomas knelt by the water, staring at something floating past very intently. “I really needed to hear that.”
Julia laughed and gave her a quick one-armed hug, hampered somewhat by Clara. “I’m really glad he decided to settle down, and I think you can make each other very happy.”
“I hope so,” Tamsin murmured as George caught up to them, and they went to join Thomas and Rowan.