Page 43 of The Scarred Duchess Deal
Tessa laughed. “It is a rather comical picture to witness.”
Leo wrapped one arm around his wife and the other around Mortimer. “Well, we might as well get started. There is much to do.”
A loving wife, a family, friends, and now a new venture to help those around them… what more could a man ever need?
Epilogue
ONE YEAR LATER
“This is my very first party, I will have you know. I think that I am allowed to be a little nervous under the current circumstances.” Tessa confessed as she fussed over the same flower arrangement for what felt like possibly the hundredth time. Over and over again she had meddled with them. She had had the whole thing replaced yesterday even. “The servants likely think that I have gone mad…that I have lost my mind.”
Leo leaned against the nearest wall with his arms folded across his chest as he watched her work. “I doubt it. They are all impossibly fond of you, I will have you know.”
“They were fond of me before, you have no reason to think their good opinion of me still stands given how hard I have been on all of them for the past few weeks,” Tessa said with a hint of exasperation.
“I am unsure as to why you have allowed yourself to get quite so worked up over this whole ordeal,” Leo commented.
Tessa shot him a look over her shoulder that said she would murder him right now if he did not amend that statement.
Leo chuckled. “I only mean that it is just a dinner party for our closest family… it is not a ball. Even if something were to somehow, some way go wrong, they would not hold it against you. Besides, as Sophie has declined the invitation I have a feeling that you are about to be named honorary daughter of Anna just so that she has someone that she can speak to.”
Tessa’s shoulders slumped. “You are joking… I hope–”
“Yes. I am joking.” Leo pushed off of the wall and walked toward her. He cupped her shoulders in his hands and massaged them softly. “What is really the matter? I have never seen you like this. Perhaps if you would allow me to be in on the secret that you are wishing to share with everybody tonight then I can be of some assistance to you? I offer myself up to you, Darling, whatever you need.”
“If I tell you now, then it would hardly be a surprise would it?” Tessa teased but finally stopped messing about with the flowers. She reached up and placed her hands on top of Leo’s shoulders. “I just want everything to go perfectly.”
“There is nothing wrong with that, Darling. However, working yourself up into a tizzy is not going to help. I can have the servants draw you a hot bath if you should like?” Leo offered. “I would even be more than happy to accompany you into said bath–”
Tessa grinned and shook her head. The doctor had advised her to be careful with how many hot baths she took so early into the process. She had never done this before… everything was all new. In truth, she was dying to talk to Leo about it. The doctor had advised her to wait. He had said that with all of the trauma she had in her medical history that she needed to wait until she had missed her courses for three months before sharing the news with anyone… just in case.
“There is something that you are not telling me, My Love,” Leo said when she did not answer him. “I will not pry as to what it is… but I hope that you know that whatever it is that is troubling you so is a burden that I will gladly help you carry. You never need to face anything else alone – never again. Whatever it is, you only need to let me know how to help you.”
Tessa looked deeply into the eyes of the man that she loved. “I know. I am not keeping anything from you… I merely wished to make my announcement to the whole family at once but now that the day is here… I am so nervous that I am nearly tied in fits.”
Leo was not sure where this was going and allowed her room to talk.
Tessa inhaled slowly and pulled Leo’s hands from her shoulders and lowered them instead to the space just below her belly button. She placed his hands above her womb and held them there.
Even then it took Leo a moment to understand.
“I know that you might feel disappointed at first… it was not the future that you said you wanted even though it is one of my fiercest desires. Now that it has happened it might take you time to come around to the notion… but I understand. I am prepared to give you whatever time you need to come to terms with how our lives are about to change yet again. I hope in time you come to think of this as a change for the better–”
It clicked halfway through her rambling. Leo’s eyes widened slowly as he fully registered. She was with child. They were going to have a child. He was going to be a father. He felt as if he were in a frozen state of shock for a long moment. His fingers slowly splayed over her abdomen as he sank slowly to one knee in front of her.
“You are with child?”
Tessa stopped talking and simply nodded. “Yes. The midwife and the doctor are certain. We believe about three months.”
“We are going to be parents?” Leo had never once envisioned himself as a parent. He had never considered what he would be like apart from the deeply ingrained desire to be absolutely nothing like his father. Some small irrational part of his brain had resigned himself to the possibility that he was simply unable to have children as he and Tessa had been consummating their marriage regularly. He had started, on some level, to refer to the promise that he had once made to his mother as a curse instead. She had cursed him as being unable to have children. It was something he reminded himself of any time that he and Tessa so much as disagreed on something.
Curse broken.
Tessa was with child. She was going to have their child. A small human that looked like a mixture of the two of them was soon to be out walking this world. A smile stretched from ear to ear.
Every bit of the promise he made and how firmly he had clung to it… modeled his life around it seemed so absolutely silly now that he had all of the things that had once terrified him.
“We are going to be parents.” Leo pulled the fabric of her dress taut over her stomach as if somehow he would see a bump or swelling that had not been there earlier this morning when they had made love before breakfast. Naturally, there was nothing there but her normal skin – but he imagined that he could feel it. He turned his head to the side and pressed an ear into her stomach happily as he laughed in disbelief. “We did it. Hello, little one, you cannot hear me yet… but I am going to be your father in only a couple of short months!”
