Page 13

Normally, Henrietta would have agreed without a second’s thought. But this evening they were invited to Lady Rawlings’s house, and there was Mr. Darby. Not that he showed any interest in meeting her again.

But it would be amusing to see him play off his airs and graces with their neighbors. It would be worth it to have a front-row seat when they realized that a swan had found its way into their little backwater.

< 5 =

Infamous Esme

Shantill House

Limpley Stoke

Lady Esme Rawlings wasn’t feeling very spry. She stared at her ankles. Through her entire life, her ankles had been a point of pride. When she debuted, she was deliciously aware that gentlemen clenched their jaws at a glimpse of their slender elegance. After the first picture of a Frenchwoman with her skirt looped up at the side arrived on British shores, Esme lost no time looping up her skirts as well. But now . . . Her ankles were fat and bulgy. She reached forward with a little grunt and poked at the place where her ankles used to be. Her finger sank into puffy flesh. It was unbelievable. Not that it mattered. The only body part in which anyone showed interest was her belly, as demonstrated by the fact that it was regularly mentioned. “Aye, missus, belly’s getting on a fair treat, in’t it?”

No one had ever discussed her belly until she embarked on this task of carrying a child. In the regular course of life, ladies’ bellies were unmentionable.

With a sigh she leaned back in the chaise longue and placed her hands on the rug that covered her belly. When she lay on her back her belly rose straight in the air like an island 34 Eloisa

James

starting from a river. Thin January sunshine shone on her closed eyelids. Beneath her hands there were faint stirrings. Well, Miles, she thought, here’s your babe. Perhaps.

In the distance she could hear Helene calling. But she didn’t feel like answering, so she lay still, tracing with her fingers the house in which her baby lived, trying to sense whether there were two wee babes there.

The old woman who ran the creamery in the road to the village was fond of predicting that she was carrying two. The idea seemed possible because she was so large. And unlike many women, she knew precisely when she had conceived the baby—well, she had it narrowed to two nights, one after the other. That meant she was precisely six months along: no more, no less.

Yet she was growing bigger by the moment. Her belly looked nearly as large as some women’s did at birth—and the babe wasn’t due to be born for another three months. Twins was an absorbing, terrifying thought. How could it be? How could it not be twins?

One boy and one girl, she thought. Or two girls. Or two boys. They danced behind her closed eyelids, in the golden warmth of sunshine, small girls in pinafores with ribbons in their curls, boys with rumpled hair—

No! She had accidentally given the boys golden hair. You don’t have that hair, she told them silently. You have Miles’s nice, brown hair. For a while anyway. Your father didn’t have more than a few strands left.

She reshuffled the pictures in her mind. Now she had boys with sweet round faces and rumpled brown hair, already looking a little thin on top although they were only a year or so. That’s better, she thought sleepily. Brown hair, Miles’s boys. A cool voice cut into her sleep. It was her friend Helene, or Countess Godwin, as she was known to the rest of the world.

“You have visitors, Esme.”

Fool for Love

35

“Visitors?” she said, struggling against the impulse to sink into a sleepy daydream.

“Your nephew has arrived for an unexpected visit.”

There was a sharp note in Helene’s voice that caught Esme’s attention. She struggled to a sitting position. “Darby is here? Darby? Truly?”

“He drew up in a traveling coach with his sisters. Looks as if he’s been on the road for days.”

“What on earth is he doing here?”

“He says the children needed air.”

Esme stood up, with just a little help from Helene.

“Esme!” Helene said. “Don’t you understand why Darby has made this visit?”

“I wrote him a note suggesting that London air was insalubrious for children. He refused to rusticate himself initially, but he must have reconsidered.” She began walking up the slope toward the house.

“Why?” Helene demanded. “Why would Darby change his mind about visiting you?”