Page 77 of My Deceitful Duchess
“Knows what?”
“That there’s going to be a baby. He had his head”—his palm slid down the bed, settled over her belly—“just here. For at least an hour.”
“Did he? Do you think a dog can know such a thing?”
“I think Charlie must. Perhaps he’s cleverer than most dogs.” Still he held his fingers there, so softly. “It must be very small just now.” A gentle pressure, a curious sort of examination, as if he were searching for a sign of the life within her.
“Yes, I imagine so.” But it would grow. And so would she.
His breath stirred the wispy little hairs near her temple. “I never thought I would have a child, but I want this one very much.” And still that gentle pressure of his palm over her belly, like a promise he made to her, to their child. “I have been reading,” he said, and she snorted becauseof coursehe had, “so that I might compile of list of things the baby shall need. Clothing, furniture, toys, a nanny, a governess eventually—”
Good God. The poor child would have his—or her—life planned out in its entirety before his first breath. By a father so afraid of being thewrongsort of father that he would chart out every step, every action, lest he undertake the wrong one.
“Love,” she said, laying her hand over his where it rested still upon her stomach. “First and foremost. That’s what babies need most, I think.”
His fingers slipped upward through hers. “That—that I donothave to plan for,” he said. “That simplyis.”
And Jenny found that she believed him. Perhaps as much as three percent more.
∞∞∞
“People are staring,”Jenny said in alow murmur. There weren’t so very many people on the street so early as this, butthefew passersbydidgawk.Which was not something Sebastian seemed to care overly much about. But the attention they received was a bit unnerving to her.
After all, it was something approaching scandalous to be walking hand in hand like this. “Let them,” he said. “It’s half-scandalous at best. There’s been an announcement in the papers.”
“Has there?”
“Mm. Mum is rather eerily efficient like that. You didn’t know?”
“I don’t read the papers if I can at all avoid it. I’ve read enough nastiness about myself to last a lifetime.” A delicate shudder slipped down her spine.
“They’re quite complimentary lately. You’re the toast of London.” Except that she had never cared to be that. She had cut a tragic figure straight through the ugliness with which those same papers which now lauded her had once tarred her. A duchess in hiding, tortured by the cruel accusations with which she had been slandered. Now those very papers curried favor with the woman they had torn to shreds with every terrible word—and she couldn’t have cared less for any of it. Her reputation, ragged and tattered as it once had been, had been restored with her vindication.
She supposed that it could survive a morning walk, hand in hand with the man to whom she was presently engaged.
Charlie prowled ahead of them, a small bruiser of a mutt, scanning the streets ahead for any hint of a threat. Every so often he paced back to nudge himself against Jenny’s side as if to assure himself of her safety. But his tail began to wag the closer to the bakery they got, and soon his whole backside was dancing in his excitement.
“Greedy boy,” Jenny said, scratching him between the ears. “I suppose you’d like a profiterole. Perhaps I would, too.”
Sebastian’s head jerked toward her. “Profiteroles? Are you certain?”
“I haven’t had them in weeks and weeks.” Despite the fact that he’d sent them to her every day—at least until she’d expressed a preference for the brioche instead. “I think I would like to try. Though the pastry cream might well turn my stomach.” It seemed the baby was not quite as fond of sweet things as was she.
“All right. I’m certain Charlie would be happy to finish off anything you cannot.” He was fishing in his pocket for coin before she could tell him that she had money enough of her own to purchase her breakfast—but he withdrew something else as well. A silk handkerchief, folded around something, which he pressed into her hand.
“What is this?” she asked.
“A contingency,” he said. “In the event that you wanted nothing else.” And he disappeared inside the shop to make his purchase.
She peeled back the outer layer of the handkerchief to find—toast. Which he had carefully prepared, wrapped up, and tucked away in his pocket. Just in case she’d wanted it instead.
∞∞∞
“Are you certain you want to do this?” Sebastian’s hand squeezed hers, and she suspected he must have felt the cold clamminess of fingers. There had been a moment of trepidation as they had crossed the threshold of the Magistrates’ Court, a brief but terrible flutter of distress.
But then Sebastian’s fingers had clasped hers so firmly that it had driven it from her mind. She had nothing at all to fear—not any longer.
Though she suspected concessions would have been made to allow her to visit with both of the Amberleys, she had decided against seeing Nerissa. It had been enough, she thought, to have vanquished her publicly, as she had done the last evening that Nerissa had come to Ambrosia. There was some sort of poetic justice in it—that Nerissa herself had given Jenny the rope with which to hang her.
