Page 76 of To Woo and to Wed
“Mr. Edwards drove a hard bargain, though,” Sophie said cheerfully, taking a sip of her own brandy. It was liberating, she thought, to drink it from a tumbler, as the gentlemen did, rather than surreptitiously from a teacup, as had been her previous habit. “But it is safely ours now, and the duke can’t touch it, nor threaten to steal it out from under our noses.” She rolled her own eyes in turn. “No doubt he was mollified by the thought that we’ll be raising future generations of little dukes there.”
Something about her tone must have tipped her hand, for Violet looked at her curiously. “Won’t you be, then?”
Sophie’s gaze flicked to West, who was regarding her steadily, warmth in his green eyes. “I’m not certain,” she said lightly. “I wasn’t fortunate in that regard in my first marriage, you know, and…” She trailed off, the idea of voicing this thought to anyone other than West suddenly very frightening. But this was Violet and James—they were family. And why should she be frightened, or ashamed, when nothing about her own inclinations and wishes felt shameful to her? “And I’ve never felt terribly maternal,” she said, her voice still light. “So if we are not so lucky, I don’t know that I’ll be all that cut up about it.”
Violet’s and James’s eyes remained on her, thoughtful, not straying to West, and for this Sophie was grateful; she didn’t know what she’d been expecting, precisely—for them to turn to West and exclaim at his courage in daring to wed a woman who might be barren? Who, even if shewereto have children, was not at all certain she’d enjoy it terribly much? Instead, Violet merely nodded consideringly. “Having witnessed Emily’s experiences with being enceinte so far, I think youmight have the wiser philosophy, Sophie,” she said. Emily had apparently been quite ill that winter, in the early days of her pregnancy; there was something slightly wistful in Violet’s voice, however, that told Sophie that her sister-in-law would be willing to risk that condition, should she be so fortunate in the future. James dropped his hand from Violet’s shoulder and reached down to squeeze her hand instead, dropping a kiss onto her head.
“Not,” Violet added more brightly now, though her hand was still gripping James’s tightly, “that now would be a terribly convenient time for us to have a baby anyway—we’ve pyramids to see!”
“There aren’t pyramids in Italy,” James said patiently. He and Violet had travel plans for the end of summer and autumn, once the Season was over; Violet had always been curious to see more of the world, and wildly indignant that ladies were not offered the opportunity for a Grand Tour the way gentlemen of means were, and so James had resolved to take her on an extended journey across the Continent. Violet had spent much of the past fortnight since the plan was announced trying to convince him to take her to increasingly remote locations; in addition to the Egyptian pyramids, Sophie had personally heard her advocating for both Constantinople and, to James’s mild horror, Boston.
“Violet,” he’d said in pained tones, “I getseasick.”
“Which means you’ll keep yourself quite occupied below deck for the duration of the journey, leaving me free to explore the ship without you underfoot,” she’d said cheerfully. The actual journey—rather than the increasingly elaborate one that Violet was fabricating in her imagination—would take them to France, Switzerland, and Italy, as Sophie understood it. She personally thought the entire undertakingsounded equal parts thrilling and exhausting, and was herself looking forward to a quiet autumn at Rosemere instead.
At this juncture, Violet was summoned by Diana, while James wandered over to have a word with Risedale about the racing stables they were planning to open on his estate in Oxfordshire, leaving West and Sophie momentarily alone. West met her eyes, and tilted his head at the open French doors onto the terrace.
“Fancy a stroll in the garden?” he asked in a low voice.
Sophie rose to her feet as West followed suit. “Are you trying to seduce me in the open air?” she asked, reaching out to flick an invisible speck of dust from his shoulder. He reached up and caught her hand tight in his. The lamplight loved the angles of his face, casting his cheekbones into sharp relief, and turned his green eyes warm as they locked with hers.
“Perhaps.” The word was lazy, low. “Are you amenable?”
She lifted her face to press a quick kiss to his mouth, not caring who saw—not here, in the safety of the home they shared, surrounded by their friends. “Perhaps.”
And then she kissed him again, and allowed him to lead her onto the terrace, into a shadowy corner hidden from view, where he did several shocking things with his hand without so much as dislodging her bodice, and where she in turn demonstrated—to their mutual satisfaction—the delightful effect that a bit of friction in precisely the right location could have.
Some time later, as they stood, a bit breathless, leaning against the wall, gazing up at the night sky, his arm keeping her tucked close to his side, she said, “I wondered, you know—whether it would have been worth it. Worth seven years, and all the pain. Whether I’d builtyou—us—up into something in my mind that reality could never match.” She shook her head, letting out a half-incredulous laugh at the joy coursing through her. “And yet, it’s even better.” She turned her face up to his. “Can you believe it?”
He turned to look down at her in the shadowy darkness, just outside the edge of a pool of torchlight. “Yes,” he said quite simply. “I’ve always believed it.” He didn’t say anything else; he didn’t need to.
And Sophie reached up and kissed him again, alight with joy at the simple knowledge that she could.
Epilogue
One year later
September was Sophie’s favorite monthat Rosemere. The heat of summer had passed and the days were growing shorter, but the afternoons were still warm and sunny, the hills that surrounded the house still green. It was the perfect month for long walks along the river that the house overlooked, for quiet evenings before the fire in the drawing room, for long nights spent—sleeping or otherwise—in a warm bed, with a window open to admit the increasingly chilly night air.
It was also the perfect month to host a house party—something Sophie had suggested with great anticipation, but which she was now having cause to regret, when faced with the prospect of explaining Pass the Bread to her friends.
“Does this not seem like it might be dangerous for the baby?” Belfry demanded, once Sophie had finished explaining; much to everyone’s surprise, fatherhood had turned him downright paranoid about anything that might vaguely be construed as a threat to the health and safety of baby Theodore, including—but not limited to—Emily’s cat Cecil Lucifer Beelzebub, overly warm days, overly cold days, dangerously quick pushing of the pram, and, now, flying baked goods.
“It’s bread, Belfry, not a cannonball, don’t be hysterical,” Diana said impatiently. “I do not think fatherhood is good for the brain,” she added severely, though she smiled a gentle smile down at her own daughter—born just a couple of months earlier—currently cooing in the arms of her entirely besotted father.
“We shall be certain the twins give all the babies a wide birth,” West assured Belfry, who looked only somewhat mollified, though he was distracted at this juncture by the sight of Emily slipping a scrap of food under the table for Cecil, who most assuredly wasnotsupposed to be in the dining room, and did not protest further.
It was the first evening of the house party, and none of Sophie’s sisters had arrived yet—they, and the rest of the guests, were expected the following day. Tonight, however, it was merely James and Violet, Diana and Jeremy, Emily and Belfry, and Penvale and Jane. They had finished dinner and the plates had been cleared, but they were lingering over glasses of wine as the candles burned low. The various small, chubby offspring had been brought in by their nannies for a few minutes with their parents before being tucked away in the nursery; Sophie, at the moment, was holding Penvale and Jane’s daughter, who was frowning up at her wearing an expression eerily reminiscent of her mother.
“Isn’t Harriet expecting again?” Jane asked with a frown, making the mother-daughter resemblance even more pronounced. “I cannot imagine wishing to do anything more active than necessary in that state.”
“I could not agree more,” Diana said, and she and Jane exchanged glances of dark empathy; both had been horribly ill during their own pregnancies, to the point that Diana had flatly informed Jeremy that, if they did not have a boy on a second attempt, “the title can go to a sentient turnip, for all I care.” Having observed Jeremy in the companyof baby Isabella, who already had him wrapped around her (exceedingly tiny) finger, Sophie did not think he cared much about having an heir.
“And yet,” Penvale said to his wife, “youdidmanage to muster sufficient energy to arrange a one-night encore performance of the haunting of Trethwick Abbey, a mere month before Nora was born.”
“I could not allow our wedding anniversary to pass without marking the occasion,” Jane said serenely.
“Yes,” Penvale said darkly. “What a special treat.”
