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Gasping, she pulled back to look at Stella, and they both laughed.
Mrs. Robertson, Clara thought to herself again and again during the carriage ride. It wasn’t too much to dare anymore, and she reveled in the sound of it.
She spent the rest of the afternoon with her attention on packing until she sat down for a rest and nodded off. Pink tinged the top of the sky by the time she woke, dazed and with a pasty mouth. She had just enough time to sup and tidy herself before he arrived.
She was in her back parlor making sure that Stella’s erotic texts were well and properly locked up when the visitor bell rang. Whatever her staff knew about her life now, she didn’t need for a thorough dusting or outright snooping to reveal her reading material!
Loudon opened the door, and James looked surprised to find her waiting in the foyer.
He also appeared tired, yet his delight at seeing her took years off—until he spied the stack of three trunks behind her, ready for her departure in the morning.
“Come,” she urged with a smile, extending her hand to him. “I’ll explain upstairs.”
He took her hand, his look of apprehension softening when he saw her radiant smile. “Upstairs? Och, I was hoping to get another look at the bird collection.”
She laughed. “Forgive me for my rudeness as a hostess,” she jested even as they made their way to the stairs, “but I shan’t be entertaining you in the parlor this evening.”
Loudon melted away after closing and locking the front door. The rest of the servants had cleared in anticipation of James’s visit.
Even so, they waited until they were in her bedchamber before Clara launched into James’s arms. He pulled her in close. Her fingers gripped him tightly as he burrowed his nose into her hairline, breathing hard.
“How are you faring today, Clara? Tell me that, first.”
“Better today than last night.” She shared what happened in the carriage. “I wonder what he did with the hat!”
James chuckled, pulling back enough to look at her face. “You’re smiling, lass, even after last night. Thank God. After your plan didn’t work out, I wasn’t sure…”
“I’m smiling because I’m happy, James. I’m with child.”
He didn’t move, not even to breathe.
Never thought of it, he’d answered some time ago when she asked whether he thought to have a family. Had she made another mistake in her foolish, love-fueled assumptions?
In a single powerful movement, James swept her up into his arms. His face jubilant, he twirled her around the carpet for a circuit before they stopped, holding each other.
“A bairn.Ours.”
Clara leaned her head on his shoulder, almost weak with relief. “We’ve spoken of marriage but not of babes,” she said hoarsely. “Only of efforts to prevent them.”
He took her face into his hands gently, his tears illuminating the gold flecks in his hazel eyes. “Let there be no doubt, Clara. I’m a happy man. You’ve seen the number of chambers in my house. We’ll fill every one.”
She smiled.
He grinned. “Now, Clara. All that’s left is for us to reach a new agreement. I have new terms.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What do you propose?”
“I propose marriage—and soon.”
“Yes!”
“That’s why you fainted,” he said suddenly.
She shook her head. “I fainted when I stopped breathing, owing to Lord Denton’s stench.”
“It was poison, like the man himself,” he agreed distractedly. Then he groaned. “Your brother. If marrying you wasn’t enough to make his blood boil—”
“I know.” She took in a deep breath. “Perhaps with time, the idea of more family willdiminishhis anger. And he can scarcely deny the need to marry now.”
