“Oh, Courtland,” Harmony said. She used his formal name in public, even though she’d trained him to answer to Benny now. “Look who’s just arrived.”
“I know. I was looking for a place to hide.”
Harmony forced him over to greet her brother Stephen and his wife, the Lady Meredith. After smiling embraces, Meredith and Harmony put their heads together and Court could guess of what they spoke. Meredith’s eyes went wide. “Oh, that’s marvelous news. Now our child shall have a cousin close in age.”
“A cousin?” Stephen overheard this and exclaimed without couth, “You are having a baby too?”
Harmony shushed her brother. “Must you blurt it out like that, here in the middle of a crowded ballroom?”
“I suppose not,” he said good-naturedly. “But congratulations.” And to Court, “Good work, old chap.”
Court managed, despite his pained sensibilities, to manage an answering smile. “I suppose everyone will know shortly,” he said to Harmony as the Barretts moved away. “Oh, my dear. There is someone you must meet this very minute.” He led her over to an older gentleman who had just arrived.
“Your Grace,” said the man with a bow. “I am so grateful for the invitation. And this must be”—he swept into a deeper bow, nearly to the floor—“your wife Her Grace, the Duchess of Courtland.”
Court turned to Harmony and nodded at the guest. “Madam, it pleases me to introduce you to Mr. Michael Thomas Burgermeister.”
“Oh!” Harmony’s initial flush of embarrassment soon receded into comfortable conversation. After all, the studious scholar and his well-read patroness had much to discuss. From Hertfordshire, two month ago, Court had decided to support the gentleman’s expedition, only for the pleasure his published research might bring to his wife.
“My dear,” he said when the old man began to sag under her volley of questions, “perhaps you should allow Mr. Burgermeister to mingle with some of the other guests.”
“Oh, of course,” she said, blushing beneath her curls.
Court squeezed her hand once the gentleman left. “You must share a dance with Mr. Burgermeister later. He is one of the few men in town who will not take offense at your talk of Mongol hordes.”
Harmony laughed behind her fan. “Thank you for inviting him, my love. And for being…understanding. Patient. Wonderful.”
“Reasonable?” he suggested lightly. “I thought you should meet him face to face before he sets off on these adventures you have financed.”
“You financed them, not I.”
“Because I had a debt to pay.” He touched her waist, deeply aware that she carried their future nestled within her. “Perhaps we can accompany him on some other expedition, next time when you are not…in the family way.”
She put a hand over his. “Everyone will know our secret if you stand and gaze at me so, with your hand over my waist.”
“Everyone will know because you told your brother and his wife,” he teased. “And my mother already knows. See how she beams at you the entire length of the ballroom.”
“She beams more often at my father. Look at how she hangs on his arm and sets everyone whispering.”
He chuckled at the scandalized look on his wife’s face. “Let them be the object of gossip for a while,” he said. “I have tired of it. We have become a very conventional couple, don’t you think? I daresay we will retire to Hertfordshire all too soon to raise the Courtland heirs on a steady diet of rapscallionism and history texts.”
Harmony laughed out loud. “There is no such thing as ‘rapscallionism.’”
“Isn’t there?” he said, eyeing her. “I disagree.”
She looked away from him, her mouth turning down at the corners. Oh, no. The little thinking lines. “What if I have a girl?” she asked.
Court leaned closer to her. “I wish on every eyelash for it to be so. The world needs more ladies in your mold. Wild, stimulating ladies to draw the stuffy peers of the realm out of their misery. And if it is a girl, we shall have no choice but to keep trying for a brother.” He gave her an edifying look. “It will not be so bad.”
She gazed into his eyes, with that liquid, emotional expression she sometimes had, and he readied his handkerchief in his pocket. But she managed to govern herself, smiling instead with the bright intensity that lit up all his days.
“I love you so dearly,” she whispered, only for his ears. “I know it is not fashionable, but I do love you so.”
Court brushed a secret kiss against her cheek. “Let us not be fashionable, then,” he whispered back. “Because, God help me, the depth of my love for you is not to be believed.”
Epilogue
Five years later
Newcastle in late summer was the most beautiful place on earth.
Court lounged on a blanket across from his wife near the old Roman wall, enjoying the bright day. Now and again Harmony leaned back to peer at the sky.
“Lie down,” he finally said to save her neck. “No one will have anything to say about it. We are quite alone.”
She scanned the immediate environs. They were not actually alone. Three shouting little boys grappled and tumbled on a nearby carpet of grass while two nursemaids warned them to be careful of their clothes. Court chuckled as the Marquess of Raymore, his first born, scattered handfuls of grass over his younger brothers’ heads and then led them both on a merry chase beside the ancient, crumbling wall.
“Wherever do they find the energy?” Harmony mused, following their darting movements. “I am exhausted.”
He ruffled fingers through her hair. “You are not expecting again? We’ve been taking precautions.”
“I don’t believe so.” She took his hand and pressed a kiss to the center of it. “I am merely tired of travel. It will be pleasant to go home again.”
“I agree.” He leaned back on an elbow, watching his rambunctious sons with equal parts pride and amusement. “Next time I take it in consideration to visit Greece with three young boys in hand, followed by a side trip to the north of England, you will kindly dissuade me.”
“Or?” she asked.
“Or you shall pay the price,” he warned, nudging her over and landing a furtive smack on her backside.
Harmony grinned, not at all intimidated, and pointed at the clear sky. “It looks the same,” she said. “Don’t you think? It looks almost exactly the same as it did the first time we were here. Do you remember?”
“How could I forget? You were full of wonder that day.”
“Wonder?”
“I wonder this. I wonder that. You wondered about everything. It was charming.”
His wife pulled a face. “I am certain you were anything but charmed, considering you’d just found yourself saddled with me for all eternity.”