Page 156 of A Duchess for his Family

“Nathaniel,” Benedict warned.

“I am going.” He turned. Then called over his shoulder. “You have approximately thirty seconds before Marjorie comes herself.”

Benedict watched him disappear. Sophia leaned against him, laughing.

“I believe he has become worse.”

“He has.”

“You love him.”

“I tolerate him,” he corrected her affectionately.

“That is what Amelia says liking means in this family.”

Benedict sighed. Sophia smiled up at him. He looked at her, then his gaze dropped, instinctively, to the gentle curve still hidden beneath her gown.

His expression softened. Sophia followed his glance. Her own smile changed. They had known for almost three weeks. Three weeks of keeping the news between them. Three weeks in which Benedict had occasionally awakened in the night merely to place his hand carefully against her stomach and marvel that something so small could already rearrange his understanding of the future.

Once, the thought of loving another person terrified him because love created something else to lose. Now the knowledge of their child filled him with fear of an entirely different kind. It was a tender fear. It was also a hopeful fear, the kind one accepted because the alternative was never loving anything enough to be frightened for it.

Sophia touched his hand. “We should go back.”

“Yes.”

Neither moved. She raised an eyebrow. He kissed her forehead, then offered his arm. Sophia slipped her hand through it. Together they walked toward the drawing room. Before Benedict opened the door, he stopped.

Sophia looked up at him. His heart gave the same deep, impossible pull it had given when she first told him. There would be another child… their child, another voice inside Rivermere, another person to love without guarantee. He found he would not have traded the terror of it for safety.

“Come along, Duchess,” he whispered lovingly. “I believe it is time we told everyone about the baby.”

Epilogue

Two Years Later

“No higher,” Benedict warned.

Marjorie looked down from the oak tree with considerable indignation.

“You said that three branches ago.”

“And I meant it three branches ago.”

Sophia stopped on the garden path and laughed. Benedict stood beneath the old oak, his arms folded across his chest. The effect was somewhat diminished by the small child sitting upon his shoulders. Eveline had one fist tangled securely in her father’s dark hair, while the other held half a biscuit.

Their daughter was eighteen months old, round-cheeked, brown-haired, and possessed of hazel-green eyes which had not yet decided which parent they intended to resemble. Her smile, however, was entirely Sophia’s.

Benedict insisted otherwise. Sophia suspected it was because admitting their daughter had Sophia’s smile would force him to acknowledge how completely powerless he became whenever Eveline used it on him. The child had discovered this weakness several months earlier and exploited it with extraordinary efficiency.

She also possessed an alarming determination to go wherever Marjorie went and do whatever Marjorie did. This had made Benedict’s life significantly more complicated.

Amelia stood beside him with a book tucked under one arm. At eleven, the twins had begun to grow into the people Sophia had always suspected they might become. Amelia remained quieter, thoughtful and observant, though she had acquired a dry wit that Benedict blamed entirely on Sophia. Marjorie remained Marjorie… only taller, and therefore capable of reaching more dangerous branches.

“Papa.” Eveline pulled Benedict’s hair. His expression tightened. Sophia smiled.

“Yes, darling?”

Eveline pointed upward. “Up.”