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“In love?” she said, wonderingly. “I didn’t . . .”

“I am.”

“Me too,” she offered. “I love you too. I’m in love with you too. I will, I do.”

“I do, I will.”

Chapter Eighteen

At five in the morning, Lady Astley’s snug little house was silent. Hugo had the idea that he woke up simply due to the lack of noise. His townhouse was rarely silent; it was too full of children for that.

The castle was too old: It groaned and talked to itself; wind scoured across Lindow Moss, the bog that lay to the east of the castle, and then whistled through its turrets.

A moment later he realized that it wasn’t silence that had woken him but the patter of small feet. The door silently pushed open and a small creature dressed in a white nightie ran directly to the bedside.

He glanced over at Ophelia. Thankfully, after the third time they made love, he had donned the nightshirt provided by the butler, and Ophelia had pulled her nightgown back on, after which they had made the short journey from the guest bedchamber to Ophelia’s bedchamber next door.

For good reason, it seemed.

Viola stopped at the side of the bed and looked up at him. Soft brown curls made a halo for a sweet face, with hazel eyes and luxurious eyelashes.

You, his soul said.

You too.

It was the same feeling he had had after each newborn child was presented to him: the moment in which the world adjusted so that his heart could recognize one of his tribe. One of his beloveds.

He put a finger to his lips. “Mama is sleeping,” he whispered.

Her bottom lip quivered. “Mama?”

“She’s right here.”

Viola nodded. “Go, snow, cake.” She held up her arms.

Hugo wasn’t certain of the etiquette of inviting small females to one’s bed, albeit future family members. He turned and dropped a kiss on Ophelia’s cheek.

“No,” she murmured. “Later, Viola.”

“Viola is here now,” he observed. “I don’t think she wants to wait until later.” Indeed, by the time he turned back, Viola had dragged a small set of steps from under the bed, climbed up, and was crawling across the coverlet toward her mother.

“Mama!” she cried joyously.

Ophelia turned over and pushed herself up on her pillow, shoving back a curtain of tangled silken strands of hair. “Sweetie,” she said sleepily.

Viola crawled onto Ophelia’s lap and leaned back, examining Hugo. “Snow,” she said. She turned to her side and nestled against her mother, her thumb in her mouth.

“She recognizes you,” Ophelia said, beaming at him. “Yes, sweetie, he’s the gentleman whom we met the other day in the snow.”

“I should go,” Hugo said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “Return to my bedchamber.”

“The household doesn’t rise for another half hour,” Ophelia said. Viola appeared to have fallen back asleep.

“I didn’t expect this,” Hugo said, trying to find the words to explain what he meant.

“Viola?” Ophelia wrinkled her nose to him. “When she has a nursery with siblings, I suspect she’ll wake them up instead of me.”

“Joan is an early riser as well,” Hugo said. He looked at Viola to make certain she was truly asleep. “I had forgotten what making love was like. I had imagined it with you—hell, the image of you in bed was present in my mind within a moment of entering your carriage.”