Page 49 of Innocent in the Prince's Bed

Her mother took the earrings out of the box and clipped them on Dove’s ears. ‘Beautiful. Grandmother would have been so proud.’ She took Dove’s hands, her smile softening. ‘Some day soon you may have your own daughter to pass them on to and you can tell her about the night you first wore them.’ She paused. ‘Your father tells me Percivale has made his official offer.’ They had not talked about what had happened in garden. Percivale had left and she’d gone up to her room to rest. Apparently, her mother and father had such confidence in her that they were not concerned Percivale had returned inside without securing an acceptance.

When she said nothing, her mother continued with a gentle prompt. ‘Percivale told your father you asked for some time.’

‘It’s too soon.’ Dove began the arguments she’d carefully rehearsed in her room. ‘I’ve been out less than a month. I won’t have the experience I need to be a duchess at eighteen with not even one Season to my name.’

‘My dear girl, come sit.’ Her mother led Dove to the edge of the bed. ‘Is that what you’re worried about? Not enough experience? Percivale understands that. He will show you everything you need to know.’ She squeezed Dove’s hand in reassurance and for a moment Dove wanted to collapse in her mother’s arms and spill out everything; her hopes, her fears, her feelings for Illarion. She wanted to ask; Had her mother ever felt this way? Had her mother been this conflicted? But she didn’t dare. Her mother would be so disappointed.

‘What if I don’t want to be shown? What if I want to discover my life on my own? I wonder if Percivale would wait for a year? Let me have my Season? I don’t think waiting until after mourning is a bad idea if it comes to that.’

Her mother gave her a serious look, choosing her words delicately. ‘There are other issues, too, Dove. He is too much of a gentleman to speak of it, but there are practicalities, too. He’s the only Ormond male. He does not have the luxury of a year, Dove. He has to look to his nursery, secure his succession. Is that what worries you? You will be a good mother. I’ve seen you with the village children.’

Her? A good mother? At nineteen? After only a few months of marriage and even fewer weeks of a Season? ‘It’s not that I don’t want children.’ She could imagine sitting in a field surrounded by children at her lap with drawing tablets and pencils, laughing as they worked. But those children had champagne hair and blue eyes. ‘I just don’t want them now.’ Certainly not next summer, Dove thought.

‘Once you hold your child in your arms, Dove, you will be ready and glad, whenever it happens,’ her mother assured her. But her mother had been twenty-eight when she was born. She’d had years to settle into married life, to settle into a husband, a title. She’d had years to hold other babies that had come before her. Her mother had craved the child she’d been. ‘What would you do for a year, anyway?’

Dove gathered her courage. If she didn’t say it now, it would be too late. ‘I’d like to travel and draw.’

Her mother relaxed, some of the shrewdness leaving her gaze. ‘Oh, is that all? You and Percivale will travel for your wedding trip. We can arrange for you to go to Bath to see your aunts, maybe up to Scotland to visit your cousins. Percivale may have other ideas. Perhaps the Lake District. It’s lovely in the summer.’

‘No, not Bath. Not Scotland,’ Dove said slowly. ‘I’d like to go to France and Italy. I’d like to study in Florence with a drawing teacher.’ Saying the words made her feel powerful, made the prospect of doing such a thing seem real for the first time. A dream was born in that moment, a new dream to replace the one she’d lost weeks ago. She would study abroad. Despite her panic over Percivale, a burst of elation took her. She wanted to shout her new dream to the world. She wanted to throw open the doors to her little balcony and cry out to London, ‘I want to go to Florence and draw!’

Most of all, she wanted to tell Illarion. She wanted him to go with her. It would be glorious; the two of them bashing around Europe with his poetry and her pencils. There could be more picnics, more pleasure. That was the dream now…

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