Chapter 6
A sense of unease slipped through Rob as he propped himself up on one arm in the great bed which dominated the ducal bedroom. Rare winter sunlight had just begun to spill through the window and onto the Aubusson rug. The night before had been perfection. Now. . . he could not fight back the worry that had been slipping through him the last days.
“Are you unwell, my love?” he ventured, attempting to keep his deep concern from his voice.
She sighed, then strode back to the bed, her night rail slipping over one shoulder. She looked quite pale and she took up the glass decanter of water beside the bed and poured herself a glass. Slowly, she took a delicate sip.
“Harry?” he prompted.
“It is just my stomach,” she confessed.
Rob’s brow furrowed with inescapable worry. His happiness had never been sound and now that he had it, he had to make every effort not to fear its loss.
For days, Harriet had leapt from the bed and scurried away, seemingly unwell. In fact, it happened several times a day recently and then she would quite recover. Plus, she had taken to quick naps on a chair in their rooms, something that she had never done before.
He tossed the blankets back and padded barefoot over the Aubusson rug to her side. Carefully, he smoothed her blonde curls back from her face.
“You look a bit done in, my darling.” He gazed down at her lovingly, not wanting her to sense his true concern. “Should we send for the physician?”
“It is nothing,” she protested easily, placing her glass down.
“But you’ve been unwell—”
Gently, she took his hands and carefully studied his face.
His heart slammed with terror for, surely, she was contemplating how best to tell him some piece of bad news.
Rob swallowed. “Harry. . . please tell me you are not. . . ill.”
“I am not ill,” she said quickly and, suddenly, her face bloomed with a bright smile. “Quite the contrary. I am in robust health.”
He shook his head, struggling to understand. “Then why?”
Her eyes all but sparkled. “I am with child.”
He stared at her, his mouth dropping open. All his wits abandoned him then. “W-w-with—”
“Child,” she finished for him. She bit her lower lip. “Are you pleased?”
It had been a mark of darkness between them in their early marriage. He had been utterly determined not to have a child, to end the Blackstone line. With her help, he’d managed to come to terms with his fears, and he’d agreed to the possibility.
Now that it was here?
His hearted hammered against his chest. Then without further thought, he was grinning. Harriet’s child. His child. Theirs.
“She will look exactly like you,” he proclaimed. “And no other child shall be as loved.”
She sighed with relief. The breath that exhaled was a long one and the tension that had held her evaporated under his words.
“Harry, this is the best Christmas gift I could ever receive,” he said softly, holding her close.
She laughed. “It is not my doing, the timing of it, but it is a marvelous present for us both.”
He folded his arms about her waist. “I cannot countenance how lucky we are.”
“Nor I,” she agreed, slipping her hands up his shoulders.
“The whole world should be as happy as we are,” he declared, so full of love he wished such a state for everyone.
“Indeed, it should,” she agreed. “What say you? Should we partner up all of mankind?”
Rob laughed again. How he loved her turn of mind. “Whenever would we find the time?”
She pursed her lips in thought. For it was true. Both of them were immersed in never-ending meetings, councils, charities, political dinners, and attempts to make England and, thus, the world a better place.
“True,” she sighed. “Perhaps then, we should just find a husband for Mary.”
Rob shook his head. “Dear wife, let me take in our news before we go on to greater ventures.”
Harry leaned forward and linked her hands behind his neck. Heart swelling, he held her carefully, amazed that such a thing could be happening to him, and gazed down into his wife’s perfect visage.
“I thought,” she whispered. “I thought—”
“Yes, Harry?” he encouraged, sensing her need to be soothed.
She nibbled her bottom lip then she began, “I thought coming here. . . that fatherhood. . . that it might. . .”
He caught her chin. “Darling Harry, there is no going back. I have seen those dark ways and have no wish to traverse them again. You took me by the hand and led me out of the shadows. With you, my love, there is only one place in which we shall go and that is forward. Forward with our love and forward with our family.”
A sheen of tears filled her eyes, but they were tears of joy as she replied, “I love you, Rob.”
“And I you, with every beat of my heart.”