Page 40 of A Deal with the Rebellious Marquess
Fleur slid her a coy glance, her hand dropping to her stomach. ‘Well, maybe this one will be a girl. Jasper and I started after all of you. We’re not finished yet.’
‘I thought so!’ Emma cried joyfully. ‘I didn’t want to say anything, but then when you didn’t take any champagne...’
Fleur smiled, beaming. ‘We’re halfway there. Just four and a half months to go.’ She’d have preferred there be fewer years between Michael and this new child, but that was not to be. There’d been a miscarriage three years ago early in her term and she and Jasper had been careful after that not to conceive too soon. Then she’d not got pregnant as easily as she had with Michael.
Antonia squeezed her hand. ‘It’s wonderful news. A real blessing.’ One Fleur knew, boy or girl, she’d not take for granted.
‘This one will be our last, I think. I’ll treasure every moment of it.’ Fleur smiled at her friends, seeing the echo of her words in their eyes. They all knew the import of savouring each moment. They’d experienced the fragility of life and how quickly that life, the things one thought they could count on, could be swept away. They’d all made the journey to Holmfirth a couple of days past to see the flood marker at the butcher shop and to walk the streets. The homes on Water Street in Hinchliffe Village remained unbuilt, their absence a gaping hole and strong reminder of the power of nature and human vulnerability.
‘I am excited for this child, but a little sad, too,’ Fleur confessed. ‘I wonder if either of you will see him or her? I am happy for us, but I am unhappy that we live so far apart. It’s been what? Eleven years since we’ve been together other than through letters.’ Letters that came only twice yearly from Antonia. Tahiti was still a long way off.
Emma smiled, eyes sparkling. ‘Perhaps you will be seeing more of us. We’ve established an office in London as British importation of champagne has grown astonishingly. My brother will handle most of the day-to-day operations, but we’ll need to check in regularly. Julien’s been talking about a champagne Christmas here in London this year. He wants to give the children the same experience of growing up in both England and France that he had. You and the new baby will be up for visitors by then, I assume?’
Fleur laughed with gratitude. ‘If you’re angling for a Christmas invitation to Rosefields, you’ve got it.’ Jasper’s mother would be in her element with so many children to love, and Orion was perfect uncle material even if he wasn’t quite husband material...yet. She could imagine nothing better, unless it was Antonia being here, too, but that was too much to hope for. They would have barely reached Tahiti by December.
‘Would there be room for one more family?’ Antonia put in with a broad smile. Tahiti agreed with her. ‘Cullen told me today that he’s decided to stay through winter to work with the Duke of Cowden on expanding the South Seas arm of the company. The good news is that we can be together for Christmas. The bad news is that if Cullen is successful, and I know he will be, we won’t be back for another ten years.’ She gave a wistful sigh. ‘Matthieu-Phillippe will be nineteen by then, practically all grown up.’
‘Tahiti is good for you, Antonia. You belong there,’ Fleur consoled.
Antonia smiled. ‘I love it. I wish you could see our house with its thatched roof and bamboo poles and barely any walls. It’s big and airy and unlike anything I ever dreamed I’d live in, and I love it. The water is warm, you can swim all year. It’s a little boy’s perfect playground. I couldn’t imagine Manahau growing up anywhere better. I have everything I want.’
‘I’ll drink to that.’ Fleur raised her lemonade. ‘We are the luckiest of women. We have everything we want.’ Although there’d been a time, long, long ago, when she’d not thought she was lucky at all, that she hadn’t deserved the love of a good man. She was happy to be wrong. Today, she had a man who loved her, who had made her a true partner in that love and in the life they were building together one day after another, through good times and bad. Jasper had been right that night so many years ago when he’d argued for them. They were indeed better together.
