Page 108 of Duke of Iron
May stared at the wall. “You do not have to say anything, Logan. It is over.”
“That is precisely the problem.” He bit it off, then tried again. “I do not want it to be over.”
She gave him a look. “You do not want an heir, nor a child, nor a wife who complicates your life. I am not an idiot, Logan. I understand what you want.”
He stepped forward, unable to keep still. “What I want is for you to be here. With me.”
May shook her head and pressed her lips. “You want a companion when it suits you and nothing more.”
“Untrue.”
“Then what do you want from me?” her voice quavered, but she did not drop her gaze.
He drew a deep breath. “I want you to trust me. To tell me things. To stop hiding in the hallway whenever you think I am in a foul mood.”
She looked at her lap. “You frighten me, sometimes.”
Logan felt something twist inside. “I would never hurt you.”
She glanced up, brief and bright as a comet. “Not in the way you think.”
He reached out, but she flinched away, gathering Rydal closer.
Logan dropped his hand. “I am sorry,” he said again, this time almost inaudibly.
She stood, rocked the baby a few more times, then placed him in the cradle. “If you will excuse me, I am quite tired. The air in the park is exhausting.”
He nodded, and she left.
Thirty-Four
“You cannot be serious.” June, who had never encountered a secret she could not dissect and display, abandoned her half-eaten scone and nearly launched herself across the picnic blanket. “You are in the family way? April, you must swear it on pain of—of sororal exile!”
“I swear,” said April, hands held in a dramatic fan at her cheeks. “It was confirmed this morning by Dr. Entwhistle himself.”
Evangeline Richfield, the elder of May’s new friends, gasped with delight. “How divine! You will be the very first of our set with a proper baby.”
Martha, too shy to speak above a whisper, simply clapped her hands and turned an eager gaze to May, as if expecting the Duchess to declare the whole event a joke or a miracle.
But May found that her voice was caught somewhere behind her ribs. She managed a smile, forced the corners of her mouth intoplace, and said, “April, that is the best news imaginable. I am so happy for you. Truly.”
April, well-schooled in the art of reading her sister’s soul, reached across the tea things and squeezed May’s hand. “Oh, darling. I know you have not been yourself. I am so sorry?—”
“Do not be sorry!” May laughed, and this time it nearly sounded right. “I am simply stunned. You will be a magnificent mother, April. The best!”
June cackled. “She will be an absolute terror, you mean.”
“I will have you know,” April declared, “that I intend to run a model household, starting with the nursery and radiating outward in waves of tidiness and good manners.”
“The baby will eat you alive by Christmastide,” said June, “and you will deserve it.”
Evangeline held up her lemonade glass. “To April! And to all of us, for surviving her.”
The toast was seconded by a flurry of cups, and even May managed to join in the clink and chorus of voices. But then she found herself the object of a different sort of attention. Every few moments, someone would glance her way, as if expecting her to speak.
She deflected with smiles, nods, and the liberal application of cucumber sandwiches to anyone who looked peckish. But the pressure built regardless, a tide she could not hold back.
After an hour, she excused herself on the pretense of needing to walk Rydal.
