Page 100 of Duke of Emeralds
“Aye, but ye’re stuck with me.”
“Stuck is not the word I would use,” she said. “But I will allow it for today.”
He was about to return to the sketch when she shifted in her seat, dropping her chin in a mock sulk. “Do not start again. I have lost the thread of your grand composition,” she said though her eyes were bright with mischief.
“Maybe we need a new subject,” he said then, deciding, he added, “What would ye draw, Hester, if it were up to ye?”
She pondered for a moment. “I would draw us,” she said, “not as a duke and duchess but as people. You with your hair always too long, me with the ink stain on my thumb, both of us surrounded by as many foundlings as we can keep in line.”
“Ye think we’re people, do ye?”
“I think we are almost a family,” she said. “A real one. I know you worry about it sometimes, but you need not.”
He moved to kneel before her, the air between them suddenly charged with an old, sweet urgency. “Ye really believe that?”
She reached for his hand, anchoring him to the earth. “I do. We are, Thomas. Even if we have to practice at it every single day.”
He let himself believe it. For a man who had built his life on plans, it was strange to trust a thing that could not be measured or mended with a tool.
“Well, then, let’s get back to practicing,” he said.
But before he could resume, she cleared her throat with such pointed intent that he nearly missed the glint in her eye.
“What is it?” he asked.
She straightened her posture, pressing her hands to her lap as if preparing to make an announcement in Parliament. “I think,” she began, “that we ought to finish this particular portrait with some haste.”
He cocked a brow. “Since when are ye in a hurry?”
“Since now.”
He grinned. “And why is that?”
She drew a long, theatrical breath. “Because I do not wish to spend weeks being sketched only to begin again.”
He laughed. “You’re impossible, Duchess.”
But she did not return the smile. Instead, she reached out, took his hand, and placed it firmly on her own. He felt the tremor in her fingers. “Because, if we are not quick about it, I will begin to show,” she said.
He stared, not understanding at first. Then the world snapped into focus.
“Hester.”
She nodded, the movement barely visible.
He was afraid to hope. “Ye mean to say?—”
She squeezed his hand, holding his gaze. “Yes, Thomas. I mean to say exactly that.”
The next instant, he had her in his arms. The stool went toppling; the sketchbook scattered its pages to the floor. He kissed her, face, hair, anywhere he could reach, with a joy so fierce it startled even him.
When he finally drew back, he pressed his palm to her stomach, as if daring himself to believe it. “I’ll draw ye every day until it’s born,” he said, awed. “And then I’ll draw all three of us together.”
She laughed, and it was the sound he would remember on the worst nights for the rest of his life. “At this rate, you will fill the entire castle with portraits before you even meet the child.”
He shook his head. “I’m going to be a father,” he said, testing the words. “I’m going to be a father, Hester.”
“You are,” she said and kissed him, her arms winding tight around his neck.
