On Saturday afternoon, Faith hung back with her husband as they watched their daughter scamper through the flower-lined paths and towering statues of the Bagnigge Wells tea-garden.

After all these years, she had finally married the man who had haunted her dreams for a decade, yet this moment was the first time that actually felt like courtship.

He wasn’t behaving like a rakish buck afraid that someone should espy him flirting with the wrong element. Nor was he acting like an autocratic husband, laying out mandates without regard for her feelings or opinion.

Indeed, in the weeks since they had been wed, Hawkridge had been treating her like a… beau.

It was an exhilarating sensation. More so than the wedding had been, which was nothing more than a ceremony required by law.

Escorting her and Christina to a public tea-garden was something he had chosen to do. Gazing down at her time and again to ensure her comfort or her happiness, something he could not help but do.

Such attention was more than heady. He made her feel like she mattered. Like he didn’t care who knew he had married her, because he had chosen her and she was wanted. She and Christine both.

She curled her fingers tighter about his arm. If their future together were half as peaceful and sweet as this moment, perhaps they could make it.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you.” He slanted her an amused glance. “I had no idea you were a miracle-worker.”

“A what?” She looked up at him in bafflement.

“My mother,” he said, as if the word alone was more than explanation enough. “She can be…difficult. And she has not been fair to you. Yet I saw her immersed in a card game with you as if you’d been bosom friends for decades.”

“Oh, that.” Faith widened her eyes innocently. “Easy. I promised she could throw the cards at my face.”

“What?” Hawkridge choked in horror.

“I’m teasing.” Faith squeezed his arm. “I understand your mother. When I became your marchioness, I realized that the one thing the dowager hated more than me was feeling useless. She was bored and frustrated and lonely. From her perspective, the only thing worse than having Chris and me around would be not having us around. We were better than staring at the wall.”

Hawkridge blinked. “You and Christina?”

“Chris has been asking to play the throwing-card game for years. When she was younger, I worried the maths would be too complicated. But I figured, if I happened to teach Christina in your mother’s sitting room, where your mother couldn’t help but overhear the rules of the game…”

“Clever.” Hawkridge grinned. “But how did you convince her to play?”

“I didn’t,” Faith answered. “Christina did. She simply asked the dowager if she’d like to join us.”

“And won her over just like that?”

“Being cold to an upstart commoner one fears will ruin the life of one’s son is one thing. Being rude to an innocent child is another. Your mother has better breeding than that.”

“You used good breeding against her,” he breathed in awe. “Diabolical.”

Faith laughed. “The game did the rest. It’s addictive. Who doesn’t enjoy tossing playing cards in the air and gloating at one’s opponent?”

“No wonder my mother loves it,” Hawkridge said wryly. He gestured to a fully bedecked table in the path just ahead. “More tea?”

She shook her head.

Now that the subject of familial relations had been broached, perhaps this was as good a time as any to have a long overdue conversation. She and Hawkridge were within eyesight of Christina but out of earshot of the other passersby. Faith swallowed her nerves. In an environment as peaceful as this, perhaps they would not argue.

“Christina seems to have taken to you,” she began quietly.

Hawkridge’s entire face lit up. “I adore her. You have raised her brilliantly. She is smart and thoughtful and kind.”

Faith blushed with pleasure. “Thank you. Right now, she is also the center of my world.”

He frowned. “Our world.”

“For now,” she allowed. “I presume you will soon want heirs.”

His brow furrowed. “It is my duty to ensure the continuation of the line.”

She nodded. “That is not in question.”

“Then what is the question?” He gazed at her down at her. “Please speak plainly.”

She took a deep breath. “I do not want Christina to feel that your legitimate children are more important to you than she is. Even if by Society’s standard, that’s exactly what they are.”

His eyes shuttered. “Our legitimate children.”

She nodded miserably. “Exactly. Chris should not suffer just because she was first.”

He turned to grasp her urgently by the shoulders, his gaze intense and his voice adamant. “Christina will never hold a lesser place in my heart than any other child.”

Faith glanced away to blink the sudden stinging from her eyes.

He did not let her go. “Are you listening? Birth does not matter. You have never meant less to me because you were not born to the aristocracy. I am jealous of your relationship with your parents, and their love for each other. You are richer than me even without counting money.”

She forced herself to meet his eyes.

“That is what I want for Christina,” he continued, his gaze fierce. “She will never doubt her place in our hearts because we will not give her reason to do so. She has been raised in love, and I hope that never changes. She will be Aunt Christina to our heirs, and I will give her reign to spoil them or chastise them as she sees fit. They in turn will have no choice but to love her, probably more than they will love their strict and domineering father. Christina will not be lesser. She will be the favorite. Of her own siblings.”

Faith bit her lip. That sounded lovely, but these were dreams and not certainties. “Will she have the same advantages? Will her peers not view her as intrinsically inferior?”

“You cannot know how much it pains me that it is too late to give her the protection of my name.” His voice was hoarse. “But that is the only thing she will ever lack. Her gowns will be as lovely, her education as complete, her dowry not a shilling smaller, her place in the family as secure as yours or mine.”

“What kind of education?” she pressed. “Chris was going to attend the Fitz-Dwyer Academy, which is the finest finishing school in the area. Now what shall we do? Will we employ the cheapest governess we can find, after we remove to one of your entailed estates in the countryside?”

Hawkridge took her hands. “All decisions about our children will be made by the two of us together. I may have the legal right to rule my house as I please, but that kind of house is not a home. We are a family. So tell me, is it your opinion that we must send Christina to the illustrious Fitz-Dwyer Academy?”

“I don’t know,” Faith said miserably. “Of course we should. For Christina. But I cannot bear to be without her for six months or more at a time, when I have never been away from her for a single night. The wait between visits would be torture. I don’t know if I am strong enough to say yes, even though my parents have already promised to fund her tuition.”

He ground his teeth. “I do not intend to ask your parents—”

“Then you shall be glad to know you shouldn’t have to. They made this decision before they knew you were back in my life. This decision has nothing to do with you or your finances, but rather with what is best for Christina.”

“Then you do think the academy is the wisest choice we could make for our daughter?” He held her hands to his chest. “Would it affect your decision to know that we may no longer need to remove ourselves to the country estate?”

Her breath caught. “I thought we could not afford—”

“We could not. But family can do unexpected things.” The corner of his mouth lifted as if recalling a pleasant but mystifying memory. “We can afford the townhouse a few more months, at least.”

Her shoulders drooped. He didn’t mean they could stay in London forever.

His expression was pensive. “If we find someone to rent the last unoccupied cottage, we could perhaps remain in London for the rest of the year.”

Slim hope. Renting the entailed cottage had thus far proved difficult, because the property required more repairs than the Hawkridge estate was currently in a position to offer.

Which meant it was likely to become their new home.

He met her gaze. “Please don’t be glum. By next season when my port has opened, we could find ourselves in much nicer circumstances than I can currently offer. More importantly…” His face blossomed into a hopeful grin. “Much closer to Christina.”

Faith’s heart melted as she realized Hawkridge wasn’t just courting her. He was trying to court her and Christina both. He had not only married the two of them in a package deal, but had also welcomed them into both his home and his heart.

How could she fail to do any less? Making this marriage succeed required both of them working together. Even if opening herself back up to him terrified as much as thrilled her.

“These future legitimate children,” she murmured hesitantly. Her heart began to flutter. “Christina’s future nieces or nephews.”

“Mm-hm?” Hawkridge rubbed his thumb against her cheek.

Faith took a deep breath. “Do you plan to sire them this century?”

His thumb froze on her cheek and his gaze heated. “Perhaps I will start tonight.”

“Oh?” She leaned her face into his palm and smiled up at him coyly. “Perhaps I will look forward to it.”