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Ortham was suddenly quiet. I recognized the game—he was like a woman waiting for a man to pop the question. Waiting out hypotheticals until the proposal was properly on the table.
“Would you consider it, Lord Ortham?” Xavier asked finally. “You know the estate and the land better than anyone else. You’d receive a share of the profits, of course, and I honestly can’t ask anyone else to do it. Not even Frederick. Not after what’s happened.”
I recognized courtesy in the use of the title. This was a job for Lord Ortham, not just Bernard Douglas.
Lord Ortham was quiet for a moment, and then a smile, deep and genuine, spread across his kindly face.
“Why, Your Grace,” he said softly, almost reverently. “Xavier. I would be honored. I shall do my very best to guard and protect what is yours until you come back to claim it.”
THIRTY-ONE
Viscount Ortham finally left after another celebratory drink and our assurances that a contract for his oversight would arrive in Kendal within a few days. Xavier and I finally crawled into bed together sometime near midnight. He had been quiet all evening, even more so after Ortham had departed. My man was deep in thought, and I knew better than to try to pull him out of it.
I yawned, nuzzling into one of the down pillows, unable to hold my exhaustion at bay any longer. Though I wasn’t as tired as I’d been during the first trimester, this baby was definitely taking more out of me than Sofia had. Or maybe it was just the stress surrounding his conception and everything that had happened since.
“Go to sleep, babe,” Xavier said as he reached out to stroke my hair. “It’s been a long day.”
“It has not,” I argued with a sleepy grin. “We played games with Sofia, you made the world’s easiest ramen, and then we watched a movie this afternoon before Bernard dropped by. We’ve basically been on vacation.”
“Convalescence is not the same thing as vacation. We’ve all been recovering. That will tire you out.”
I couldn’t really argue with that. Even so, sleep didn’t quite come peacefully after the events of the evening.
“I’m glad she didn’t get what she wanted,” I said a few moments later. “Georgina, I mean. Taking away your title.”
“Mmm. I suppose.”
He was agreeing with me. Sort of.
Maybe not really?
“You don’t sound very convincing,” I pointed out.
Xavier sighed and rolled onto his back. “Iamglad she didn’t succeed. I wouldn’t have like losing the title. That way, at least.”
“What do you mean ‘that way’?”
Xavier cast me a sidelong glance. “Can you really tell me there isn’t a part of you that wouldn’t like to leave it all behind us?”
I pushed myself up on one arm so I could look down at him face-to-face. “If you are suggesting for one second that I ever hoped that horrible, traitorous woman wouldwin—”
“No, Ces.” Xavier was oddly calm, though the dimple in his left cheek appeared. “But I do appreciate the loyalty.”
I slumped back onto my pillow. “You’d better. You’re stuck with it for life.”
His smile warmed me to the core. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? I chose you, babe. And you chose me. ’Til death do us part, but wechosethat vow.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want Georgina to rip away the title. But either way, it was out of my hands. I had no choice in the matter. No part of my future with the British aristocracy was ever up to me. Not when I was nineteen. Not now either.”
“You have a choice,” I insisted. “After all, no one says you absolutely have to take a seat in the House of Lords, right?”
He just stared at the ceiling. “Ah. No, not officially. But the evidence that Georgina offered them was obviously enough to warrant a hearing. Should they ever decide to, it could easily be brought up again.”
“Do you really think Lonsbury or Ortham, or any of the others who havechosento look the other way, would refuse aquid pro quo?”
We both knew the answer to that. Throwing out Georgina’s absurd claims was the gentry’s version of “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” Prior to last week, the committee had been split, and the half that had defended Xavier had done so with the presumed expectation that the errant son of Rupert Parker, His Grace the Duke of Kendal, would be taking up his father’s former position as one of the remaining hereditary peers. They couldn’t afford to lose positions. Any more than Xavier could now afford to displease them.
Just another day at the office.
“You could abdicate,” I said, though even I knew that wasn’t really a viable option. “Or whatever the term is. But you could tell them to take it away. You told me yourself the same committee has the power to do that.”
