“You are good with him,” she said instead, nodding at David. “Is that really just because of Arabella?”
Julian looked down at the baby with something soft and unguarded in his expression. “Not only that. All my friends have children. I have spent the better part of five years being handed somebody’s baby at somebody’s country party. One becomes practiced.” He paused. “Did you ever want children? Your own, I mean.”
“Always,” she said, without hesitating. “I always imagined—yes. A husband, and children and a house that was full.” She stopped. “You?”
“I assumed I would have them eventually. One always does assume.” He was quiet for a moment. “Though I confess I know rather less now about what eventually looks like than I once did.”
The words settled between them. They both looked at David, who had fallen asleep against Julian’s arm with the sudden completeness that only very small children can manage.
“I promise you,” Julian said quietly, “that I will do everything in my power to make sure your wishes still come true. In whatever form that eventually takes. You will have what you wanted.”
“You cannot promise that.”
“I am a duke,” he said, and there was a wryness to it but also, she thought, a sincerity beneath. “I am influential. I have been known to make things happen.”
She smiled despite herself as she remembered his speech at the House of Lords. She looked at him and felt, with a kind of quiet alarm, the image she had carried for years of her future beginning to shift. It had always featured a husband whose face she couldn’t quite make out. She had assumed it would resolve itself into Benjamin.
Though, in that moment, the image that revealed itself wasn’t Benjamin at all.
She looked away and focused on her ice. She told herself that she was being extremely foolish, that she was in an unusual situation under unusual pressures, and that any woman would find herself confused in similar circumstances.
She told herself this several times.
It didn’t help as much as she would have liked.
CHAPTER 17
The following Sunday, Julian escorted Clara into Hyde Park. It was refreshing to be able to walk with a young lady without the accompaniment of an attendant, somewhat daring even. Although for all the world, they were an ordinary couple now. Still, inside, it felt like breaking a taboo.
“It would be quite agreeable if you took my arm,” Julian said to her, and proffered it. She took it at once, and they continued on through the gates and into the park. It was a warm afternoon, and the park was bustling with people. A governess attempted to bring three rowdy young children under her control while nearby, a young couple accompanied by their chaperone sat in the shade of an oak tree.
Groups of young women were congregating nearby, each positioning themselves to look their very best in front of the passing gentlemen who were riding and walking by on the sunny Saturday afternoon. Clara, he noted, drew more than a few glances herself.
He looked at her and smiled. She looked radiant in her yellow gown with its pretty puff sleeves and the little sash that accompanied it. It was the bonnet that caught his eye, however. Something on it was familiar in a way he couldn’t quite place, and then he could.
“Are those the wildflowers from your wedding bouquet?” he asked.
She nodded, her smile warm. “They were so pretty. I decided to dry them, press them, and put them on my bonnet. I’m afraid they will not last very long, but they were too pretty to throw away.”
“I’m glad you liked them.”
“Even had they been less than attractive,” she said, “I still would have liked them for the thought alone.”
Something in the depth of his stomach erupted—a warmth that spread to his chest before he had any opportunity to contain it. She meant those words. He knew it. He was pleased—more pleased than he had any particular right to be—that he had done something nice for her.
“I am glad,” he replied.
They had been back in London for almost a week now and had made sure to be seen, either the two of them alone or with David, and it seemed to be working. The first scandal sheets had beenwritten in a salacious manner when their union had first been announced, but the tone had shifted of late. Now they spoke of what a handsome pair the Lyndens made and how well suited they appeared to one another.
It was odd and yet comforting. The plan was working. David was safe for now. If only he knew the same to be true for Arabella. They had received no word yet from the gentleman he had hired—a man of very high intellect and character—but of course, these things took time. Nathaniel, whom they were meeting today, had likewise engaged a man he trusted implicitly after coordinating with Gideon. James, Rhys, and Lucian remained in the dark for the time being.
“I believe David smiled this morning,” she said, and his thoughts returned at once to the matter at hand.
“Did he? Is he not too young to smile?”
“I should not think so. It certainly looked like a smile.” She paused. “And it rather resembles yours.”
He glanced at her sideways. “Now you are merely flattering me.”
