Page 106 of Her Ice-Hearted Duke
“Your sisters have shown me how different a family can be though. How loving,” Theodore remarked softly. “How protective.”
“You were always protective,” Margaret reminded him. “Even before you made the effort to get to know my sisters the last few months.”
“There is more to it though.” Theo smiled. “You have shown me what else a family can be.”
She knew what he was referring to. More than once over the last few months her sisters had been invited to stay at the house. If they were not laughing and playing card games, or battledore outside, then they were off walking. Sometimes they just collapsed in the sitting room as Louisa read aloud, and Evelina complained how uncomfortable she was, and how much she couldn’t wait for her baby to arrive.
They were happy memories. On many of those occasions Margaret had seen Theo watching them all, with a smile on his face.
“Are families not so scary now?” she teased him, to which he chuckled.
“Indeed, they are not.” He nodded slowly. “Seeing Gabriel’s and Evelina’s excitement too for when their child arrives, it has made me think…” Then he trailed off, shifting his weight between his feet.
“Wait.” Margaret blinked. Surely Theo wasn’t suggesting what she thought he was suggesting. “Theo, are you saying that someday you may… that you think you… you want ababy?” Her voice squeaked in surprise.
She had shut down that hope long ago. Was it possible that Theodore had changed his mind? That he would give her the family she had always wanted to have after all?
“I’m saying,” Theo paused, making her wait with a mischievous smile on his face.
“Do not keep me on tenterhooks now!” She practically bounced on her toes, prompting him to laugh.
“I’m saying that maybe I’m read.”
“Maybe? Is that a yes? Or a not?”
“Ha! You really want to make sure nothing can be misunderstood here, don’t you?” He caught her hand and raised it to his lips, kissing the back. He maintained the connection of their gazes between them, tantalizing her with the softest brush of his lips across the back of her knuckles.
“Indeed, I do,” she whispered, rather breathlessly. “Are you saying that you would like to try for a baby, Theo?”
He turned her hand over, moving his lips to kiss her palm and the inside of her wrist. There was just a thin white line across her wrist now, a reminder of the day he had returned to her life, pushing his mother’s brutality away from the pair of them for good.
“I like the idea of starting a family afresh. Of having a child to love, to raise right this time.” He nodded at the house behind them. “Plus, with all the changes you have made, it’s only right that this house become a proper home for a child, isn’t it? A place of happiness.”
Margaret flung herself at him with such fervor that she nearly knocked him over. He caught her in the embrace, laughing as he found their balance and rocked her from side to side.
“Shall I take that as a ‘yes’ then, Margaret? Was that you saying you too would also like to try for a baby of our own?”
She leaned back far enough in his arms to look up at him and capture his lips with her own. They kissed softly, their lips moving together in unison.
She forgot the house behind them, hectic with the guests that had gathered for the ball and all the staff who were running to and fro balancing glasses of champagne. She forgot her father and how his addiction still plagued her family. She even forgot the stress of trying not to make Louisa fear her debut so much. In that moment, all she could think of was Theo and the future he was now offering up before her.
“It is a yes,” she whispered as she pulled back, gazing him in the eye. “Thank God you are the man I walked in on that day my gown fell apart, Theo.”
“Well, I did find it very annoying,” he said playfully. “My obsession for neatness just wanted to set the dress straight again.”
“That is all you can say?” she laughed and tapped him around the arm in reprimand. He caught her arm, chuckling as he pulled her back toward him, and kissed her again.
The End?
