Page 79 of The Viscount and the Vixen
“I have been tired of late, but I just thought it was because I was working so hard to get things ready.”
“There you are then,” Minerva said. “I’d say Marsden is going to get the grandchild he craves.”
He’d waited as long as he could. When the ladies didn’t return straightaway to inform him that all was well, he headed upstairs and barged into his bedchamber without bothering to knock. That Minerva and Julia were sitting on either side of Portia, holding her hands, caused cold dread to wash over him. While he’d never witnessed a deathbed scene, what he saw was exactly how he imagined it would be. Portia’s cheeks held no rosy hue. Her eyes didn’t light up with challenge at his arrival. His father liked Portia immensely. He didn’t know if his sire would survive losing her if she were to succumb to an illness and become another woman who had died too young within this residence.
“I’ll send for a physician,” he barked, despising that he seemed unable to react with any sort of rational thought.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Minerva said, rising to her feet, smiling softly.
The smile unmanned him. “What’s wrong with her then?”
“We’ll let her tell you.”
As Minerva and Julia walked out, he tried to take solace in the fact that neither of them seemed particularly worried. Yet he seemed unable to get his heart to stop its thundering within his chest. As he began striding toward the bed, his wife pushed herself up. He quickened his pace, getting to her in time to help fluff up the pillows behind her back. Straightening, he stood stiffly before her. “So what illness has befallen you?”
Her lips turned up ever so slightly. “I’m not certain I’m ill. Rather there may be a chance that I’m with child.”
If he hadn’t braced his legs, locked his knees, he might have stumbled back. Instead, he merely stared at her, wondering why there was suddenly no air to draw into his lungs. He didn’t want a child cutting his time with her short, didn’t want to consider that like his mother she might die in childbirth. It had taken his father three years to get his marchioness with child. Locke suddenly realized he wanted at least that long with Portia. More. “So soon?”
She flinched, lowered her gaze to her lap, and plucked at a thread on the duvet. “I thought the same thing but it has been pointed out to me—by you yourself come to think of it—that it could have happened as early as the first time we came together.” She lifted her eyes to his. “I did admit to being fertile, after all.”
The tartness in her tone set his world back to rights. She wasn’t his mother. And she’d already survived bringing one child into the world. He leaned against the post at the foot of the bed, crossed his arms over his chest, wishing the damn tremors cascading through him would cease. “So you did.”
But still he hadn’t thought she’d bethisfertile.
She tilted up her chin. “I do hope your father is happier about it than you seem to be.”
“He will be.” He grimaced. “It’s not that I’m not happy; it’s just sooner than I expected.”
“Which is quite stupid on your part considering how many times you’ve spilled your seed into me.”
He couldn’t help grinning. He hadn’t liked seeing her so vulnerable, but she was returning to herself, and as she did, so the tightness in his chest eased. He was no doubt worrying for nothing. “I don’t recall your objecting.”
“Arrogant—” Suddenly she blanched, tossed back the covers, scrambled out of the bed, and made a mad dash across the room.
Alarmed he shoved himself away from the bedstead. “Portia?”
She came to a stop at the washstand and bent her head over the bowl. Cautiously he approached, well aware of her not moving, but breathing in short gasps. “Portia?”
Shaking her head, she held up a hand. He placed his on her back and began moving it in slow circles. “Relax. It’ll be all right.”
“My stomach... keeps lurching, but nothing comes.”
“This is how you know you’re with child?”
“That and I haven’t had my menses.”
He was well aware of that fact as he’d been able to have his way with her every night. Damn. His seed probably had taken root the first time.
She closed her fingers into a fist; her breathing became easier.
“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well,” he murmured.
“This is nothing compared with what’s to come.”
He didn’t want to contemplate what she would endure to bring his child into the world, the risk she was taking to give him a bloody heir. He rather wished he’d kept his trousers buttoned. “Was it very painful bringing your first child into the world?”
Beneath his fingers, she stiffened. “Whatever a woman suffers is worth it.”
