Page 93 of Wedded to the Beastly Duke
“You want to have children soon?”
“Do you not?” He tipped up her chin, looking at her. “My father wanted more children from my mother than she could bear, and it hurt her to lose them. Even when I was a child, I recognized the toll it took on her. If you rather wait, if there is a reason you donotwant children now, then we can take steps to?—”
“No.” She covered his mouth with her fingers. “Not that. I want children, and I want them with you. The sooner the better.”
The sooner they could put this mess behind them, the better.
Thinking about how their marriage started, the fact that she wanted nothing more than a quiet life with him, raising their children and making a difference in the lives of the people who lived on their estate, was almost crazy. And yet there was nothing she wanted more.
Adam. A family. A family that was free from the betrayal and the pain that he’d endured so far. A family he could pour his love into and that he could learn to heal with.
Time would help. She would help. A new beginning would help.
* * *
“Nicholas will be tried soon,” Adam said over dinner.
“Oh?” Emmeline paused, setting her spoon down.
“I said I would testify.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “But I don’t know. He hurt you. And he is the reason my brother died.”
“An accident, if you believe him,” Emmeline said, nodding. “Are you having a change of heart?”
“I hardly know. Should I?”
“That’s not a question I can answer, my love.” She offered him a sad smile. “He was your friend, and he betrayed you. I believe he loved your brother, but he killed him, even if it was an accident. Can you forgive him?”
“I don’t think I can. But should I let him be tried and hanged for his crimes? He has no money to secure safe passage to the Continent.”
“Perhaps.” Emmeline tilted her head. “You have time to decide.”
“And what about his wife?”
That was another thorny subject, and one Emmeline was not wholly sure how to address.
She pursed her lips. “I suppose it depends on what happens to Nicholas. If he is not hanged, I think I ought to encourage her to divorce him.”
Adam’s eyebrows rose. “Divorce?”
“Unconventional, I know, but not unheard of, and given the provocation, perfectly understandable.”
“She is with child.”
Emmeline frowned. That was true, and that the child was Nicholas’s, there was no doubt. And his wife did not have it in her to take another lover.
As a divorcee, the Viscountess would not have any financial support or protection.
“Well,” Emmeline said slowly. “Her father may step in. Or perhaps we could take her in?”
“Emmeline.” Adam groaned. “What makes you think we can afford to house her and the baby?”
“Who else will take her if her father does not? And you are a duke—you could sponsor her, and she would find another match in no time. She’s young and pretty and meek. Qualities most men look for in a wife.” She winked across the table at her husband. “Present company notwithstanding, of course.”
* * *
More days passed by, then a week. Lady Sarron’s father agreed to take her back, although there was no discussion of a divorce at present. Adam knew that Nicholas was likely to be hanged for his crimes, but although he knew he would never forgive the man for what he had done to his brother, a little sympathy for him also crept in.
He had known, briefly, what it was like to live without Emmeline—it had been as though a part of him was missing. A void inside him that, no matter how hard he tried, he could not fill.
