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He shut the door with a soft click and sidled her way. “You could redecorate yours—I said as much when we arrived.”

Flashing a cheeky grin didn’t feel quite natural . . . but it felt right. “Or we could just spend our nights in here instead.”

Amusement twinkled in his eyes—praise be to heaven. “Are you wooing me, Duchess?”

“Just trying to win that bet.” She held out a hand and prayed he’d take it.

He did, and sat down beside her on the bed with a sigh. “I’m sorry. I know I should have come last night, I just—”

“Shh.” Both her hands around his, she lifted his hand and pressed a kiss to the broad palm. “Ye needna explain it to me. I understand. And I want to give you space, as ye’ve given me. But . . . but we’ve made such progress this week. I dinna want to lose it.”

“I don’t either. I don’t.” He tugged his hand free but then wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close, onto his lap. Rested his head against hers. She couldn’t remember when last she’d felt so safe. “I just didn’t want to come to you with such thoughts as I have ricocheting through my head. Worthless, all of them, and I know it. But I can’t silence them all.”

At least he was trying. And trying to protect her from them. It was more than she’d done for him, really. Much as she’d thought herself trying, she hadn’t gone about it the right way, had she? She had been just as guilty as he of not entertaining the possibility that she had been wrong. Of believing a curse was stronger than anything they could build together. “I’ve been so terrible to you. So quick to believe the worst, about you and us.”

Laughter rumbled in his chest. “Well, I
am
so perfect it’s beyond reckoning.”

“And verra annoying.” She looped an arm around his neck and tugged his head down so she could press her lips to his. And, oh, how perfect it felt. “Brice . . . I still dinna ken which of us is right about Catherine. But I want to say here and now that, if it’s a choice between helping her and peace with you . . . I choose you.”

He went so stiff on the mention of her name that he needn’t even speak to convey his thoughts on that. But he held her close. And he sighed. “I don’t know either. Everything in me shouts that she is dangerous, every bit as much as her husband was, and as we both agree her brother likely is. But it occurs to me that I don’t know
why
she is the way she is. Yet I have been assuming her beyond redemption. That is surely wrong of me, regardless of which of us reads her aright. I ought to be praying for her. And . . . and I ought to be willing to grant that perhaps the Lord revealed something to
you
, so that you could help her. So that we could end this in a way I never anticipated.”

She tipped her head back so she could look into his face. “What are ye saying?”

Another sigh, and his eyes slid shut. “If you feel you should go and visit her . . . if you are convinced that you must . . . then do. With my blessing.”

Relief swamped her, even as she wondered if she should turn down the offer on principle. But she couldn’t. She would always wonder, if she did, whether she could have helped. Whether she had turned her back on someone in need.

She pressed her hand to Brice’s cheek, savoring the feel of his stubble against her palm.
Her husband
. How had it come to be so? And how had she passed so many weeks at his side without giving in to the urge to lean over and feather a kiss onto his lips? “I
do
feel I must. But I swear to you, I’ll go in with my eyes open. After much prayer. And I’ll not go again, not unless the Lord makes it clear I should and providing you agree about that.”

His arms tightened around her. “I want at least two able-bodied men with you in the carriage or car. And someone to go in with you.”

At that, she shook her head. “The men, aye—but if anyone goes in with me, it’s certain she willna speak honestly.”

His jaw clenched. For a long moment, he made no other move. Then he swallowed. “All right. But position yourself before a window, and we’ll make sure one of the men can see you. If you are in distress at any time, you must make a signal.”

“I will. I promise.”

He stroked a hand through her hair . . . and down onto her back as she so loved. “I can’t lose you now, darling. I can’t. Tread carefully when you go, and know that I will be here praying from the moment you leave until the moment you return.”

“Ye willna lose me. Our life is only beginning.” She rested her head against his shoulder and looked to the rich tapestry above his bed. The soft pillow bidding her snuggle in. Her pulse kicked up a bit. It was different, somehow, planning to spend the night in
his
room. Different, but she wouldn’t relent from her course. She could trust him. She could rest with him.

She could love him.

“You must be exhausted. I heard you tossing and turning all last night. My fault, no doubt, and I am beyond sorry.” He shifted them, turned, and lowered them both together until the pillows welcomed her head. “Everyone was so glad to see you today.”

Her lips smiled even as her eyes closed. “A bit suspicious though, I think, when I was so choosy about what I ate.”

“Mm.” His nose traced the curve of her jaw and made little tingles whisper over her. “I daresay it won’t take them long to come to their own conclusions about it. We had better tell them ourselves.” His voice held no dread at the prospect. “Tomorrow at morning prayers? We can’t exactly hide for long that you’re still sick.”

Tomorrow? She sucked in a breath. Better to tell them than to keep dodging the question. And better to smile in joy than hide away in her room. Still . . . “Are ye certain ye’re ready?”

His hand moved to her stomach and rested gently upon it. Even that light pressure made her feel ill, but she’d never in a millennium say so. He sighed a bit. “I’m certain. This is my child—I will not keep the joy of that to myself.”

Rowena blinked back the burning brine. He was trying. So obviously trying, but so obviously not feeling that joy yet. “Ye needna pretend. Not with me.”

“I’m not pretending. I’m just . . . torn. Selfishly. But so sorry for what you suffered.”

She breathed a bit easier when he moved his hand and turned her head to look at him. “It was a nightmare—as ye well ken. But I’ll confess here and now that I’d more than resigned myself to the thought of a bairn. I’d come to want it—despite how this babe came to be, and that I wish it were yours instead. But it’s different for you.”

“No. If anything, it should be easier. I didn’t go through what you did. But still I received the blessing of a beautiful wife and a child of our own.” He kissed the tip of her nose.

Her heart melted a little more. “It could well be a girl. If it’s a girl—”

“It doesn’t matter. Know that now, darling.” He smiled, and amusement returned to his gaze, as light as the finger he trailed over her arm. “I admit that I had the same thought, railing against the idea of another man’s son being the next duke, compromising the bloodline. But let’s be honest. Do you really think that in three hundred years of history, that’s never happened in the duchy before? I always rather thought the fourth Duke of Nottingham bore more of a resemblance to the portraits of the then-Earl of Ashford than his own father . . .”

It shouldn’t have made her laugh, but a giggle escaped. “I could hardly believe the third Duke is in your ancestry. Frighteningly ugly, wasn’t he?”

“And yet those features never show up again in the gallery—for which I may just owe my inconstant great-etc. grandmother eternal thanks, if she betrayed the old dog. I hear he was a foul-tempered, boorish man too.”

He would never advocate inconstancy—she knew that. But wasn’t it just like him to find the humor in a thing? Turning onto her side, she wrapped her arm around him. “I thought God had abandoned me, deemed me unworthy. But He led me to you . . . so I must be loved by Him indeed, to have been given such a blessing. I’ll be a good wife to you, Brice. We’ll have our own children after this one—

“This one is our own. I mean that. Girl or boy, this is my child.” His hand was in her hair, cradling her head. His eyes were as deep as Loch Morar but far warmer.

She’d thought it a curse when Lilias pushed her down that embankment. Thought it a cruelty when Father demanded they wed. But when his lips took hers, she knew it was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

Blessings already—Fire Eyes or no Fire Eyes.

Twenty-Two

A
baby?
A baby?
The words spun around Stella’s head, dancing with incredulity. A baby. His and hers. Nottingham’s and Rowena’s. They clasped hands as they said the words, gazing at each other rather than the collection of family and staff. The words that said all was over. All Stella’s chances gone.

A baby.

Charlotte squealed. Ella laughed in glee. They both flew from their seats to embrace the happy couple, words like
blessing
and
thrilled
ricocheting about the room.

But this was no blessing. This was nothing to be thrilled over.

“Oh.” Mrs. Granger grabbed Stella’s hand, blinked back tears that she smiled through. “Oh, I couldn’t be happier. Look at them—what fine parents they’ll make. Won’t they?”

How was one to smile into a face one had known all one’s life and convince her one was happy? But Mrs. Granger was scarcely paying attention, certainly not waiting for an answer. She was creeping forward with the other upper staff, waiting their turn to offer their sincere congratulations. Mrs. Granger, Mr. Child.

Even Father, beaming the smile of the ignorant. Of one who had no idea what this news did to his daughter. Who, if he
did
know, would scowl and lecture and ask her for the millionth time why she couldn’t be content with what he’d given her, like Geoff.

A baby
. It would surely look odd for her to sink to the cushions of a chair when everyone else was on their feet, but her knees were shaking. She leaned on the wall to cover it.
A baby
. They were together so little until Her Grace took ill . . . had only a time or two seemed to even tolerate each other, there in Yorkshire. And oh, how green and oily her heart felt when she stopped to consider how it all came to be. Their arms about each other. Lips upon each other.

No. No, it wasn’t right. They weren’t in love—wasn’t it obvious? They had no business creating a child. But they must have conceived right away, to be so sure already of . . .

Wait.
Stella straightened again.
Wait, wait, wait.
What was it that brute of a Scot had said when he barged his way into the castle? The words certainly weren’t spoken in the accent McLucky had used at school in their impromptu Gaelic lessons, but they had been clear enough. Could he have said . . . ?

Yes!
A baby
—Kinnaird had spoken of a baby. And not Brice’s, to be sure.

Her lips curling up, it was an easy matter to slip from the room, from the house. Around to the little cottage their family had always called home. Fetch a coat, fetch a hat. Borrow a horse. A quick trip to Brighton and Lady Pratt, and this little bump would disappear. Not that loosing the Highland brute on them was a
good
plan, but what choice did she have?

Precautions could be taken to make sure Nottingham wasn’t harmed. But Kinnaird must come. He would, at the least, drive a wedge between them. He would shout the truth—or the possible truth, anyway—to the world, and the lie would be shattered. Their marriage would shatter with it, for even Nottingham wasn’t so good that he would forgive his wife for trying to pass another man’s babe off as his. That would be that.

And at the most . . . at the most, Kinnaird might end the marriage more quickly than a divorce or annulment would. And then who would be there to comfort the bereaved widower?

The wind blew brisk and steady off the Channel, a harbinger of autumn. Then winter, and then her new post would begin, and she would leave here.

But she couldn’t, mustn’t. Once she was gone, her chances would go with her. She must act now. Before this smoldering fire inside grew to fever pitch. Before he forgot their love in the excitement of a child and a wife who looked at him as Rowena had been doing that morning. Before all their history, all their years together, all those dreams turned to dust.

Kinnaird.
He would solve it all. Though Stella didn’t dare try to get in touch with him herself—if Nottingham found out, that would be the end of her newfound hopes—but Lady Pratt could take care of that. Then it would all be finished.

Twenty minutes later Brighton came into view, bright and golden in the morning light. Gulls cried overhead, horses clopped, the occasional automobile puttered. Stella steered her horse around a parked milk wagon and entered into the town she’d always called her own. She’d come here countless times during her life, but her favorite trips had always been by Ella’s side, where she could pretend that her purse were as heavy with silver as her friend’s. That they were sisters, duke’s daughters both, with the world at their feet.