Page 99 of The Last Duke She'd Marry
“Better?” he asked with a loving smile that threatened to make her cry all over again.
“Yes,” she managed to say through the emotion clogging her throat.
He dug around in the pocket of his dressing gown and produced a clean handkerchief. “Here.”
“Thank you.” She wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
“You weren’t really worried about my reaction to your news, were you?” he asked gravely.
She crushed the handkerchief in her hand and nestled close enough to hear his gallant heart beating through the silk dressing gown. “We’ve been so happy since we married, wandering from country to country, pleasing ourselves, living with no purpose but love. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about taking on responsibility for a new person. We’d never talked about having children.”
One dark eyebrow quirked upward. “We did plenty to ensure that offspring were more likely to arrive than not.”
Stupidly her cheeks heated, when after the excesses of this last year, she should have moved beyond blushing at anything. “I can’t get enough of you.”
He shifted to settle her more comfortably. “I feel the same. It’s no surprise that two such passionate people made a baby. I’m proud that you’ll be the mother of my children.” He regarded her with masculine perplexity. “By Jericho, that can’t make you cry.”
She gave a watery giggle. “I’m a little overwrought.”
He released a long-suffering sigh. “I’ll have to start carrying extra handkerchiefs.”
Lucas sounded so comfortable with everything. More confirmation that her qualms had been needless. “That’s a good idea.”
Juliet rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, picturing her husband devoting that practical good sense to raising their child. The thought was unaccountably moving. She’d long ago forgiven herself for misjudging him when they first met. Now she realized yet again that she’d underestimated the outstanding man she’d married. He’d make a wonderful father.
She was half-asleep before he spoke again. “Perhaps it’s time we went back. I’d like the baby to be born at Lancers.”
She stirred and forced her mind to work. “I was glad to leave London when I married you. I couldn’t bear how all the people who had spurned me toadied up, once we decided to wed.”
“I know. The world is a wicked place full of wicked people. But on the other hand, I’d love to show you Lancers. You’ve never been there. You’ll love it. And you’ll love putting your touches on the house. It desperately needs updating. Not to mention that you miss Portia and Viola. You can show the sycophants that they have no power over you. A happy life is always the greatest revenge.”
She sat up to examine his features in the last of the flickering candlelight. “You want to go home?”
His smile was rueful. “It seems I do, much as I’ve enjoyed crisscrossing the Continent.”
She put aside her misgivings. “Then we must go home.”
He subjected her to a probing look. “It’s time you made your peace with your father. After all, if he hadn’t cheated at cards to secure the perfect Romeo, you and I would never have met. At the very least, he deserves our gratitude for that.”
Her stomach knotted with the mixture of hurt and anger that the thought of her father always aroused. Once her engagement was announced, Papa had welcomed her back into the family. Then he’d paid without complaint for an extravagant wedding at St. George’s in Hanover Square.
But Juliet could never forget the way that he’d treated her at Afton Park. She’d stayed with Viola before the ceremony, and while both she and Papa had done their best to appear reconciled, under the surface, the bitter estrangement lingered. At least on her side. With his usual optimism, he’d assumed that everything was forgiven.
“Juliet?”
Her lips turned down. “You’re right.”
Lucas laughed with more of that devastating fondness. “You don’t say that very often.”
His teasing didn’t make her smile. The pain of her father’s rejection would never leave her. But as Lucas said, more was at stake here than her injured feelings. “I’d like our child to know him. He’s their only living grandparent.”
“I understand how he hurt you. I’m not playing that down. He doesn’t have to move in with us, but it’s time we mended fences. You know the rift in the family preys on your mind.”
It was her turn to sigh. “Pity the woman who marries a wise man.”
Lucas bent his head and kissed her. He knew that she’d relented. The kiss spoke of love and support – and sympathy for her contradictory feelings about her wayward parent. “So?”
The kiss went a long way toward easing the tumult inside her. “So perhaps we might leave visiting Naples for our next trip?”
