He went to work on the buttons at the back of her frock and was halfway down when all of a sudden a thought popped into his head. “Wait,” he said. “Can you?”
“Can I what?”
He stopped, frowning as he tried to count it out in his head. Oughtn’t she be bleeding? “Isn’t it your time?” he asked.
Her lips parted, and she blinked. “No,” she said, sounding a little bit startled—not by his question but by her answer. “No, I’m not.”
He shifted position, moving back a few inches so that he could better see her face. “Do you think…?”
“I don’t know.” She was blinking rapidly now, and he could hear that her breathing had grown more rapid. “I suppose. I could…”
He wanted to whoop with joy, but he dare not. Not yet. “When do you think—”
“—I’ll know? I don’t know. Maybe—”
“—in a month? Two?”
“Maybe two. Maybe sooner. I don’t know.” Her hand flew to her belly. “It might not take.”
“It might not,” he said carefully.
“But it might.”
“It might.”
He felt laughter bubbling within him, a strange giddiness in his belly, growing and tickling until it burst from his lips.
“We can’t be sure,” she warned, but he could see that she was excited, too.
“No,” he said, but somehow he knew they were.
“I don’t want to get my hopes up.”
“No, no, of course we mustn’t.”
Her eyes grew wide, and she placed both hands on her belly, still absolutely, completely flat.
“Do you feel anything?” he whispered.
She shook her head. “It would be too early, anyway.”
He knew that. He knew that he knew that. He didn’t know why he’d asked.
And then Francesca said the damnedest thing. “But he’s there,” she whispered. “I know it.”
“Frannie…” If she was wrong, if her heart was broken again—he just didn’t think he could bear it.
But she was shaking her head. “It’s true,” she said, and she wasn’t insisting. She wasn’t trying to convince him, or even herself. He could hear it in her voice. Somehow she knew.
“Have you been feeling ill?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Have you—Good God, you shouldn’t have been playing with the boys this afternoon.”
“Eloise did.”
“Eloise can do what she damn well pleases. She isn’t you.”