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Claire rolled her eyes at him. “You know very well how I am at all times, Ronald. Don’t ask me questions you already know the answers to.” She brushed down a lock of hair on the top of his head. It had a tendency to stand up straight and always had. He smiled at her. “You heard the exchange with my father.”
“Your father, now, is he?” Ronald grinned.
Claire sighed heavily. “I suppose he is.”
“How is the babe you carry?” Ronald asked softly.
Claire placed a hand to her stomach. “How did you know about that?”
“Do you remember that I told you what’s done in the dark will always come to the light?” He nodded toward her belly. “I think your light is going to shine on you whether you want it to or not.”
Claire sat down and toyed with the leaves of a nearby bush. “Tell me what to do, Ronald.”
“Have you told him yet?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know how.”
“Why don’t you try this: ‘My dear husband-to-be, I have a surprise for you.’”
Claire laughed. “How do you think he’d take it?”
“How do you think he’d take it?” He glared at her.
“Do you think he’ll be angry?” She chewed on her lower lip.
“The man’s in love with you, Claire. You could stand on your head in the middle of crowded ballroom and sing ‘One Fae Night,’ and he’d probably join you.” Ronald gazed up at her. “Don’t let what happened with your parents affect your future. Your grandfather put the wheels of change in motion before he died because he wanted to unite the two worlds. Don’t let his efforts be in vain.”
“How’d you get to be so smart, Ronald?” Claire asked. Ronald was full of pride, and his chest puffed up even more when he received compliments.
“When you’ve lived a few hundred years, you learn a few things.”
“Why didn’t you ever marry, Ronald?” Claire asked.
“What makes you think I didn’t?”
Ronald disappeared into the foliage as quickly as he’d arrived. Ronald, married? It couldn’t be. She’d always seen him as solitary. Perhaps she was wrong.
Claire walked back to the house and asked a housemaid if she knew where she could find her father. Forming a relationship with him was as good a place to start as any.
“I believe you’ll find him in his paint studio, my lady. He goes there most afternoons.”
The maid pointed her toward where her father was located in the big manor house, and Claire went to find it. She stood in the doorway and knocked softly. “Father?” she said.
He smiled. “Did you need something?”
“Not really. I just wanted to see what you’re painting.”
He turned the easel toward her and showed her a family portrait he was working on. “It’s not done yet. But it’ll look like this when I’m done.” He held out a sketch drawing. It was Lord and Lady Ramsdale, her mother and father, she had to remind herself, and all their children. “I thought we might hang it in the grand salon.”
Claire sniffled.
“Do you want to help me mix some paints for it?”
