Page 77 of To Woo and to Wed
“You have no appreciation for romance,” Jane said, crossing her arms, though her frown slipped a bit when Penvale winked across the table at her.
Sophie glanced down the table at West and caught his eye; he offered her a small, private smile. On the first anniversary of their own wedding, earlier that summer, she had awoken to a single rose in a vase beside her bed, next to a handwritten itinerary for the day, including items such asEat as many breakfast pastries as you canandCompromise your husband’s virtue out of doors. (This had been a particularly enjoyable one to check off.)
Nora, as if sensing that her parents had mentioned her, gave a brief squawk in Sophie’s arms; she glanced down, startled, to see the baby blinking up at her, her face growing more red by the second.
“Why does she look like this?” Sophie asked, alarmed, with a glance at Penvale and Jane. Despite the abundance of—entirely beloved—babies in her life, she was not remotely sorry that there had been no sign of one forthcoming for herself and West.
“She always looks like that,” Penvale said, even as he rose to come collect his daughter. “She inherited it from her mother.” He skirted Jane’s chair, successfully dodging her attempt to elbow him in thestomach, and scooped Nora from Sophie’s arms. He sniffed, then grimaced. “Or there might be another reason.”
“Aren’t you looking forward to the miracle of parenthood?” James asked Violet, as Nora began to squall in earnest. For a moment, the others—so distracted by Nora’s cries, which seemed to be spreading to the two other babies, like some sort of alarming plague—took no notice. After a couple of seconds, however, West blinked, then slowly turned to his brother and sister-in-law, who were seated next to each other at one end of the table.
“Do you mean…?”
“I hope so,” Violet said, smiling. “Otherwise I’ve been feeling decidedly awful for no reason at all.” She did, now that Sophie looked at her more closely, seem a bit pale, something that, if Sophie had noticed it earlier, she’d thought nothing of; it had been two years since Violet and James had reconciled, with no sign of a baby. Sophie hadn’t liked to pry, but she knew—thanks to one tearful confession, some months earlier—that Violet was growing concerned.
“Oh!” Emily squealed, and flung herself out of her seat (“Don’t jostle the baby!” Belfry howled, as she passed Theodore to him hastily on her way) and into Violet’s arms, nearly knocking her from her chair. “I’m so pleased for you.”
“Emily, for heaven’s sake, don’t knock her over or she’ll be sick all over you,” Diana said, with a faint shudder and an expression of grim recollection. She, too, however, rose to squeeze Violet’s shoulder. West, meanwhile, had clapped a hand on his brother’s back, and was now murmuring something in James’s ear, even as the rest of the room joined in the chorus of congratulations. West leaned back in his seat after a moment, making space for Jeremy to reach over and ruffle James’s hair affectionately; James, for his part, had a bit of color in hischeeks, and looked absurdly pleased. Sophie felt an overwhelming rush of fondness for her brother-in-law; unbidden, the memory arose of a ride in Hyde Park two years earlier, Jeremy by her side. They’d been in the process of ending their short-lived affair when they’d crossed paths with Violet and James, clearly in the midst of some serious discussion. James had proceeded to behave like an utter lunatic; bizarrely, that encounter had led to everything that had come after, up to and including this moment.
There was movement next to her, and she started; she’d been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed that West had risen from his seat and made his way to her side, sinking down in the empty chair next to hers. He reached an arm out, resting it on the back of her chair, his hand toying with the spot where the short sleeve on her evening gown met the bare skin of her arm. Gooseflesh rose in the wake of his touch, and she glanced sideways at him, smiling.
“Are you regretting hosting yet?” she asked, tilting her head toward him so that she could be heard amid the cacophony of well-wishes and crying babies.
The lines around his eyes deepened, and one side of his mouth curved up. “No.” He leaned over, unheeding of whoever might be looking, and pressed a quick, soft kiss to her lips. “I don’t regret a single moment that has passed since the day you agreed to marry me.”
Sophie regarded him skeptically. “Not even accepting Penvale’s invitation to go swimming in the Serpentine on Christmas Day?”
West grimaced at the memory. “It was invigorating.”
“I recall some more colorful language being employed at the time.”
“It certainly taught me a lesson about the merits of cold-water swimming.”
“Oh?” Sophie tilted her head. “Which are?”
“The lesson,” West said, straight-faced, “is that there are none.”
Sophie let out a peal of laughter at that, and West smiled—a real smile, one that lit his face and made him look years younger.
And then she said—because it was true, and the first thing that sprang to mind, even if it did sound slightly mad—“I’m so glad that Violet decided to feign a case of consumption.”
West’s smile softened slightly as he gazed at her. “I am, too.”
Soon, the babies would be retrieved by their nannies; later, the group would retreat to the library for a game of charades and ill-advised quantities of brandy and sherry; even later than that, West would take her by the hand after bidding the last of their guests good night, leading her up the stairs and along the winding corridors to their bedroom, where he would remove her clothes slowly, and take her to bed while moonlight spilled into the room through an open window. The next morning, she would awaken to sunshine and the knowledge that her sisters would soon be here, and she would wander downstairs to breakfast with a smile on her face that she could not suppress, possessed by the joy that filled every corner of her life.
But for now, she sat with West’s arm curled around her shoulders, in a noisy room surrounded by their friends—and this, in and of itself, was enough.
