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The next morning, Sophie breathed a relieved sigh to find Ally in the parlor taking a light breakfast.
“Where are Mother and the earl this morning? And Evan?” she asked.
Ally stopped munching on her scone and swallowed. “Evan and the earl had business to attend to early this morning, and Mother has decided to sleep late. I was planning the same thing, but Junior here kicked me until I woke up.” Ally petted her belly.
Sophie smiled. “Only about a month and a half to go now. Are you still hoping for a little boy?”
“Well, Evan doesn’t have a title to pass to a son, so it doesn’t rightly matter what I have. I just want a healthy baby, but I know Evan would adore having a son, so for him, I’m hoping for a boy.”
“If I know Evan, he’ll be happy with a healthy baby as well,” Sophie said.
Ally smiled. “You’re probably right.”
Sophie’s cheeks warmed as she gathered her courage to ask Ally the questions she’d been thinking about since yesterday. She was more confused than ever after reading those excerpts from Monsieur Becklard’s book.
“Ally…”
Ally looked up, continuing to chew on her scone.
“I was wondering…if I could ask you…a few things.”
Ally swallowed again. “Of course.”
“Well, before you and Evan married, you told me once that you had done a lot of…reading.”
Ally’s golden eyes gleamed. “Dear Sophie, are you finally blossoming?”
“Blossoming? What are you talking about?”
“The stirrings, my dear. Has a young man caught your fancy?”
Sophie blazed with heat. Yes, a certain man had caught her fancy—and had undressed her yesterday in a hidden alcove on this very estate. Not only that, he had breached her private place, and he had smacked her bum. She heated even further at the memory of those stinging little slaps.
“I have no stirrings, Ally. I am merely curious.”
“What do you wish to know?”
“You know I’ve resigned myself to spinsterhood.”
“Pishposh. You just haven’t met the right gentleman yet. He will come along.”
Perhaps he had already. “Ally, I’m four-and-twenty years old. Everyone knows the prime time for marriage for women is ages nineteen to twenty-five. I’m nearly too old already.”
“For goodness’ sake, where did you get such an antiquated idea?”
“From a book I found in the library—Monsieur Becklard’s Physiology…or some such.”
She remembered well the passage:
The proper age to marry, all the world over, is between twenty-five and thirty for men, and nineteen and twenty-five for women; and in fact, previous to the ages of twenty-five and nineteen they are, as a general rule, inadequate to the requirements of matrimonial intercourse.
“Becklard? That French fool? Why, that book is complete rubbish.”
“You’ve read it?”
“Yes, a couple of years ago. I found a copy at the duke’s estate. I couldn’t believe what I was reading, but then I found other treatises that were much more accurate.”
“Treatises? Which ones?”
