“One more ‘but,’” he teased, “and you’re going to start to sound like me.”
Daphne’s mouth fell open. Simon wasn’t surprised by her reaction. It was the first time in his life he’d ever been able to make a joke out of his difficulties.
“The letters can wait,” he said, just as they fell off her lap onto the floor. “I’ve just finally managed—thanks to you—to boot my father from my life.” He shook his head, smiling as he did so. “Reading those now would just invite him back in.”
“But don’t you want to see what he had to say?” she persisted. “Maybe he apologized. Maybe he even groveled at your feet!” She bent down for the bundle, but Simon pulled her tightly against him so she couldn’t reach.
“Simon!” she yelped.
He arched one brow. “Yes?”
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to seduce you. Am I succeeding?”
Her face colored. “Probably,” she mumbled.
“Only probably? Damn. I must be losing my touch.”
His hand slid under her bottom, which prompted a little squeal. “I think your touch is just fine,” she said hastily.
“Only fine?” He pretended to wince. “‘Fine’ is so pale a word, don’t you think? Almost wan.”
“Well,” she allowed, “I might have misspoken.”
Simon felt a smile forming in his heart. By the time it spread to his lips, he was on his feet, and tugging his wife in the general direction of his four-poster bed.
“Daphne,” he said, trying to sound businesslike, “I have a proposition.”
“A proposition?” she queried, raising her brows.
“A request,” he amended. “I have a request.”
She cocked her head and smiled. “What kind of request?”
He nudged her through the doorway and into the bedroom. “It’s actually a request in two parts.”
“How intriguing.”
“The first part involves you, me, and”—he picked her up and tossed her onto the bed amidst a fit of giggles—“this sturdy antique of a bed.”
“Sturdy?”
He growled as he crawled up beside her. “It had better be sturdy.”
She laughed and squealed as she scooted out of his grasp. “I think it’s sturdy. What’s the second part of your request?”
“That, I’m afraid involves a certain commitment of time on your part.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she was still smiling. “What sort of commitment of time?”
In one stunningly swift move, he pinned her to the mattress. “About nine months.”
Her lips softened with surprise. “Are you sure?”
“That it takes nine months?” He grinned. “That’s what I’ve always been told.”
But the levity had left her eyes. “You know that’s not what I mean,” she said softly.
“I know,” he replied, meeting her serious gaze with one of his own. “But yes, I’m sure. And I’m scared to death. And thrilled to the marrow. And a hundred other emotions I never let myself feel before you came along.”
Tears pricked her eyes. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“It’s the truth,” he vowed. “Before I met you I was only half-alive.”
“And now?” she whispered.
“And now?” he echoed. “‘Now’ suddenly means happiness, and joy, and a wife I adore. But do you know what?”
She shook her head, too overcome to speak.
He leaned down and kissed her. “‘Now’ doesn’t even compare to tomorrow. And tomorrow couldn’t possibly compete with the next day. As perfect as I feel this very moment, tomorrow is going to be even better. Ah, Daff,” he murmured, moving his lips to hers, “every day I’m going to love you more. I promise you that. Every day . . .”
Epilogue
It’s a boy for the Duke and Duchess of Hastings!
After three girls, society’s most besotted couple has finally produced an heir. This Author can only imagine the level of relief in the Hastings household; after all, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a married man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of an heir.
The name of the new babe has yet to be made public, although This Author feels herself uniquely qualified to speculate. After all, with sisters named Amelia, Belinda, and Caroline, could the new Earl Clyvedon be called anything but David?
LADYWHISTLEDOWN’SSOCIETYPAPERS, 15 December 1817
Simon threw up his arms in amazement, the single-sheet newspaper flying across the room. “How does she know this?” he demanded. “We’ve told no one of our decision to name him David.”
Daphne tried not to smile as she watched her husband sputter and storm about the room. “It’s just a lucky guess, I’m sure,” she said, turning her attention back to the newborn in her arms. It was far too early to know if his eyes would remain blue or turn brown like his older sisters’, but already he looked so like his father; Daphne couldn’t imagine that his eyes would spoil the effect by darkening.
“She must have a spy in our household,” he said, planting his hands on his hips. “She must.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t have a spy in our household,” Daphne said without looking up at him. She was too interested in the way David’s tiny hand was gripping her finger.
“But—”
Daphne finally lifted her head. “Simon, you’re being ridiculous. It’s just a gossip column.”
“Whistledown—ha!” he grumbled. “I’ve never heard of any Whistledowns. I’d like to know who this blasted woman is.”
“You and the rest of London,” Daphne said under her breath.
“Someone should put her out of business once and for all.”
“If you wish to put her out of business,” Daphne could not resist pointing out, “you shouldn’t support her by buying her newspaper.”
“I—”
“And don’t even try to say that you buy Whistledown for me.”
“You read it,” Simon muttered.
“And so do you.” Daphne dropped a kiss on the top of David’s head. “Usually well before I can get my hands on it. Besides, I’m rather fond of Lady Whistledown these days.”
Simon looked suspicious. “Why?”
“Did you read what she wrote about us? She called us London’s most besotted couple.” Daphne smiled wickedly. “I rather like that.”
Simon groaned. “That’s only because Philipa Featherington—”
“She’s Philipa Berbrooke now,” Daphne reminded him.
“Well, whatever her name, she has the bloodiest big mouth in London, and ever since she heard me calling you ‘Dear Heart’ at the theater last month, I have not been able to show my face at my clubs.”
“Is it so very unfashionable to love one’s wife, then?” Daphne teased.
Simon pulled a face, looking rather like a disgruntled young boy.
“Never mind,” Daphne said. “I don’t want to hear your answer.”
Simon’s smile was an endearing cross between sheepish and sly.
“Here,” she said, holding David up. “Do you want to hold him?”
“Of course.” Simon crossed the room and took the baby into his arms. He cuddled him for several moments, then glanced over at Daphne and grinned. “I think he looks like me.”
“I know he does.”
Simon kissed him on the nose, and whispered, “Don’t you worry, my little man. I shall love you always. I’ll teach you your letters and your numbers, and how to sit on a horse. And I shall protect you from all the awful people in this world, especially that Whistledown woman . . .”
And in a small, elegantly furnished chamber, not so very far from Hastings House, a young woman sat at her desk with a quill and a pot of ink and pulled out a piece of paper.
With a smile on her face, she set her quill to paper and wrote:
Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers
19 December 1817
Ah Gentle Reader, This Author is pleased to report . . .
The 2nd Epilogue
Mathematics had never been Daphne Basset’s best subject, but she could certainly count to thirty, and as thirty was the maximum number of days that usually elapsed between her monthly courses, the fact that she was currently looking at her desk calendar and counting to forty-three was cause for some concern.
“It can’t be possible,” she said to the calendar, half expecting it to reply. She sat down slowly, trying to recall the events of the past six weeks. Maybe she’d counted wrong. She’d bled while she was visiting her mother, and that had been on March twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth, which meant that . . . She counted again, physically this time, poking each square on the calendar with her index finger.
Forty-three days.
She was pregnant.
“Good God.”
Once again, the calendar had little to say on the matter.
No. No, it couldn’t be. She was forty-one years old. Which wasn’t to say that no woman in the history of the world had given birth at forty-two, but it had been seventeen years since she’d last conceived. Seventeen years of rather delightful relations with her husband during which time they had done nothing—absolutely nothing—to block conception.
Daphne had assumed she was simply done being fertile. She’d had her four children in rapid succession, one a year for the first four years of her marriage. Then . . . nothing.
She had been surprised when she realized that her youngest had reached his first birthday, and she was not pregnant again. And then he was two, then three, and her belly remained flat, and Daphne looked at her brood—Amelia, Belinda, Caroline, and David—and decided she had been blessed beyond measure. Four children, healthy and strong, with a strapping little boy who would one day take his father’s place as the Duke of Hastings.
Besides, Daphne did not particularly enjoy being pregnant. Her ankles swelled and her cheeks got puffy, and her digestive tract did things that she absolutely did not wish to experience again. She thought of her sister-in-law Lucy, who positively glowed throughout pregnancy—which was a good thing, as Lucy was currently fourteen months pregnant with her fifth child.