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“I could slap the monarchy in the face too. They who bestowed the title and the lands on my ancestors more than a thousand years ago. It would have about the same effect, I think.”
I shuddered. “Please don’t slap the Queen of England. That would be very, very bad.”
We both lay still, ruminating under the reflections of London’s lights blinking across the ceiling. I had a feeling we were thinking the same thing. If Xavier was going to be called back eventually, there was no way we could make the life in New York we wanted. An active member of the House of Lords couldn’t exactly conduct Parliamentary business from Brooklyn or wherever else we ended up. I couldn’t be an active duchess from New York City, either.
Xavier turned onto his side, then pulled at an errant curl tickling my cheek. “It’s not too late for you and the babes, you know. We could get an annulment, Sofia can’t inherit the title anyway, and the little one here could still be born out of wedlock…”
“After all that consummation?” I joked. “I don’t think so. Besides, this one needs his father.”
I pulled his hand down to rest atop my belly, which had only just started to poke out considerably this week, like a flower that knew it was safe to bloom.
Xavier’s palm flattened over it, as if to cover the evidence of our coming child. His coming heir.
“I know you don’t want to live here,” he said. “And I don’t want to force you and the kids into a life you didn’t choose. But honestly, Ces, I don’t know how I can get out of it. Hereditary positions…fuck me, it’s alifeterm. Maybe after a few years they would allow me to step down and come to you, but that’s years of you waiting in New York. And then there is always the possibility they’d call me back.”
“I would never do that,” I said automatically, even as the dream of our home in New York, surrounded by family and friends, slipped away. “If you have to stay, you have to stay, but that means we stay with you. We’re a family. No matter what.”
“You didn’t choose this, though. Neither of us did.” His entire body tensed at the thought of it, making the dragon’s claw over his chest grip the skin.
“But I choseyou, Xavi,” I told him. “And you me. Yes, I want to be in New York. Yes, I would prefer to raise our family there with my siblings and my grandmother around. ButI chose you.That means taking things as they come together. As a real team.” I reached over to cup his face, urging him close so I could kiss the end of his long nose. “If you have to stay, we all have to stay. We’ll work it out in the end. I know we will.”
He examined me for a long time, then slipped his own hand around my head to deliver a long, bittersweet kiss. His tongue twisted around mine in a terrible, sad dance that still made my breath come up short.
God, I loved him.
Perhaps life as a duchess would be hard, but it would never hurt so much as being without him.
I knew that now.
“I am so fucking lucky to have you,” he whispered against my lips. “So bloody fucking lucky.”
“We make our own luck, Your Grace,” I whispered back before licking the edge of his mouth with my tongue.
He laughed and kissed me again.
“Well, there’s no law that says a duchess can’t be a professor.” He shrugged. “The upside is that I suppose every university in the country will be scratching their eyes out to have you. Might as well take advantage of the benefits, yeah?”
I tried to look hopeful. He wanted so badly to give me something to be hopeful about.
And so I kissed him again, willing myself to get lost as his big hands slid around my waist, pulling me into the shelter of his body.
Whatever the future, we’d be hopeful about it together.
* * *
Hope wasn’tenough to help me sleep, though. After showing me justhowlucky he felt to have me—twice—Xavier fell into a deep sleep, arms crossed over his chest like a carved knight atop a medieval sarcophagus. I, however, tossed and turned until finally, I padded out to the kitchen, made myself a cup of herbal tea, then sat on the couch in the hopes that Henry’s journals might lull me into some kind of slumber.
“What were you hiding here, Henry?” I murmured as I pulled the first out of the bag and flipped it open.
I expected something about Rupert. Maybe complaining about his older brother’s partying ways, his irresponsibility, perhaps his demeaning manner—all the things that had lurked in subtext before. Maybe I’d get lucky and discover Henry’s true thoughts at last.
I had no idea.
30 March 1986
Masumi had the baby this morning. Five-fifteen. Fourteen hours of labor—she was brilliant.
I know all fathers say this, but he really is perfect.
