Page 52 of Unearthing the Smuggler's Heart
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"Pregnant?"Mathias repeated, for the third time. It still sounded impossible to his ears.
"Will youstop?" Isabelle snapped, giving a swift kick to his shin under the table. "I didn't do it to amuse you."
"You didn't?" he said in mock horror, touching a hand to his cheek and winning himself another kick to the shin. "Ow! That one is going to bruise."
"Good. Ugh." She sank her face into her hands, bracing her elbows on the galley table. "I can't have twins. I don't know if I can manage even one!"
"Of course you can," he said, patting her on the back as Cook emerged from the kitchen with two steaming bowls of porridge, which alerted Mathias to the fact that they were alone. "Where is Jade?"
"Since when do you call her anything butMiss Ferris?" Isabelle asked, peeking a single eye through her fingers. "She is awake. I'm sure she'll be along shortly."
"It isn't like her to be tardy," he replied, dropping his spoon in his breakfast with a frown.
He had waited for her last night too. He had thought she would come find him once they were all safely aboard theHarpy. He had thought she'd know to come to the cargo hold, where they had met in private before, and when she never appeared there to meet him, he had wandered the deck, incredulous, until at last he accepted that she had retired with no thought of him at all.
He had never quite drifted completely off in his hammock, alone again.
"I didn't tell Charles," Isabelle said with a heavy sigh. "I don't know what business he had that kept him in Marseille, but it is at least one less reaction to manage. What if I just continue to get more and more fatigued until the little devil arrives?"
"Well, then at least you will sleep through most of the pregnancy?" Mathias suggested, bracing for another kick.
Jade's entry into the galley was a quiet, unassuming thing, as though she was too distracted to command her usual presence in this room. Her fingers were tangled in a strand of pale orange beads around her throat, her expression pensive.
"Good morning, Mr. Tennyson," she said upon reaching the table, a furrow in her brow as she accepted her bowl from the eager cook. "I lost track of the time."
"We noticed," Mathias said as she took her seat. "I was hoping to speak with you last night, but I took the liberty of making an assumption while setting our course. Presumably you’d like to see your new property with your own eyes."
She hesitated, a spoonful of porridge a breath from her lips, and looked up at him with those big, green eyes. "We’re going to...to Spain?" she asked, sounding as disbelieving as she was hopeful. "Oh, Mathias, really?"
"Mathias," Isabelle repeated, raising her eyebrows. "Are we going to Spain,Captain?Even though I haveextremelypressing business back in Britain?"
"I will get you back to Britain," he assured her, patting her hand. "You've got several months, after all."
"Mathias, I want to get back to tell my husband and experience those monthswithhim."
"What?" Jade said with a tiny gasp. "Isabelle, are you... Are you saying that you're...?"
"Expecting?" she replied with a tired chuckle. "It turns out I am. Yes. Explains all the sleeping, doesn't it?"
"It does?" Jade replied, seeming fascinated by this revelation. "Oh, Isabelle, this is very important. I couldn't possibly delay you."
"Jade's parents are in Spain," Mathias said, a little louder than he needed to. "As are the Oliviers."
"What!" Isabelle exclaimed, a wide grin blossoming on her face. "Oh, Jade! You can finally meet your father!"
"Oh. Yes, I suppose," Jade said quietly, her cheeks pinkening. "And I do quite miss my mother, but I can make my way to Spain at any time. It doesn't have to interfere with your return home."
"Oh yes it does!" Isabelle snapped. "We can't stay too terribly long, of course, but I haveearnedthe right to be there when you see your parents again, Jade. I may have slept through an embarrassingly large portion of this venture, but I am still a part of it!"
"Yes, of course you are, Isabelle. Of course you are."
"Which is why we must tell you about what we found in that house," Mathias said with a dimpled grin. "We are in the presence of quite the heiress, you know. Miss Ferris is, as they say in theton, sickeningly rich."
"Oh, I'm not..."
"Is that so?" Isabelle said, waving away Jade's protestations. "As someone who discovered a very similar thing about herself some years ago, I must congratulate you. Your life is about to get significantly easier."
