Vicar's Daughter to Viscount's Lady (Transformation of the Shelley Sisters 2)

‘Shocked?’ He grimaced. ‘Stunned is more the word. And utterly in awe of the courage and endurance of women. Men fight and suffer pain in hot blood most of the time and call it courage. Your sex just gets calmly on with producing the next generation without complaint.’

‘I seem to recall complaining. Bitterly,’ Bella said. ‘I think the memory must fade with time. I do not think I would like to do it again for a while, though. But tell me, Elliott. When I knew she was a girl I thought you would be happy.’

He was struggling with himself, like a man trying to confess his sins. Bella snuggled the baby closer and squeezed his hand tighter. Her family, all together—now she must keep it like that.

‘I was so relieved it was a girl,’ he said finally, as though admitting to a crime.

‘I know.’ The way he had felt about the prospect of a boy had made her miserable and apprehensive for months, even though she could understand it and had tried to hide her feelings from him. But why was he not happy now?

‘I have been praying it would be a daughter because I did not want Rafe’s son to inherit, but ours—yours and mine. You know that. And that is dishonourable of me. I should have been able to put that aside, to be certain I could love and care for his child.’

Male honour! Bella wrestled with what to say that would not make things worse. Elliott looked, and sounded, as though he had been caught cheating at cards or some other masculine enormity. She loved him, but sometimes she simply did not understand him. ‘I understand why you felt like that. But it is difficult for me to comprehend why you think it is so wrong,’ she said carefully. ‘I can see that you do, but it seems perfectly natural to me. Men are territorial and possessive—this is your estate now, your land, your title. Of course you want your son to inherit.’

He seemed taken aback by her lack of condemnation. She wished they had been able to discuss it during her pregnancy. It seemed the shock of the birth had removed his inhibitions. ‘I am certain that if Rafe had married you and then died and I had been the child’s guardian I would have felt none of this.’

‘Because you never expected to inherit,’ Bella said. ‘Life never turns out as we expect it. We cannot punish ourselves for things that might not have happened.’

‘No.’ But he did not seem totally convinced.

‘Elliott, do you think you can grow to love her?’

‘Yes,’ he said, reaching to touch the baby’s cheek again and this time letting his finger linger, so gentle for such a big man.

‘Then, for her sake, can you not forgive yourself for how you felt? You were ashamed of it, you fought against it—must you be perfect?’

‘What a cockscomb I would be if I thought that,’ he said with a reluctant chuckle. There was silence while she could almost feel him thinking. The baby wrapped its fingers around his index finger and he went very still. ‘Yes, for her sake I can forgive myself,’ he said. ‘And for you, if you ask it.’

Bella reached out and touched his hair, then the baby began to stir and she put it to her breast, shaken all over again by the intensity of her feelings for the child. There was nothing soft there—she would die for this little scrap.

Long, precious minutes passed then she said, ‘We must think of names for her.’

‘Rafaela?’ Elliott suggested, startling her.

‘Truly? You would name her after Rafe?’

‘Would you mind so very much? I just feel she should have something of her father’s, however little he deserved it. Perhaps not as her first name. People knew he and I were not close. But as a second name it would arouse no suspicion. What was your mother’s name?’

‘Annabelle. My sisters are Margaret and Celina.’

‘And my mother was called Margery. M…How about Marguerite? She is a little flower, after all. The Honourable Miss Marguerite Rafaela Calne?’

‘Oh, yes! Marguerite, listen to what your papa has called you.’ She glanced up and caught Elliott’s expression. ‘I am sorry, I should not have said Papa like that. I was presuming—’

‘Correctly. I have already explained to our daughter that she must listen to everything her papa tells her and she stopped crying and stared at me very obediently. A trifle cross-eyed, perhaps, and she was dribbling, but I am sure it was dutiful.’

Bella giggled and Elliott turned until he was lying against the pillows, too, and could put his arm around her. She twisted her head to look up at him, but she could not see his face. Something tense in the line of his jaw made her frown for a moment, then she dismissed it. He was tired.

A family, she thought, sleepily, beginning to nod off again. We are a family. It is perfect. And then the recollection came to her that it was not quite perfect, that this man here beside her did not love her. But he was fond of her, she knew that. And protected her and cared about her. He would take pleasure in her body when he returned to her bed. Perhaps that was enough. It would have to be—it was more than many women had.

Elliott tightened his arm around her. He is so tired, she thought. But there was something else to be decided that they had not discussed.

‘Who will be her godparents?’

‘My great-aunt, I think.’

‘And Anne Baynton.’

‘Your sisters? You could stand for them in church.’