The Duke and His Duchess the Courtship by Grace Burrowes

Author:Grace Burrowes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2015-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

Three

“Esther, this remove to Town has you looking peaked and wan. Percival must be beside himself.”

Gladys had sent word that another day cooped up at Morelands would give her a megrim, and Tony, apparently having a full complement of prudence and a mortal fear of his wife’s megrims, had collected his family from the country accordingly.

Having rested for all of one night, nothing would do but that Gladys would muster the troops for an outing to the park, regardless of the cold, regardless of anything.

“I haven’t bounced back from the upheaval,” Esther replied slowly. She could be honest because the boys were in the next coach back, with the maids and Gladys’s eldest daughter.

Gladys glanced over at her sharply. “From the move? You haven’t bounced back from the move up here?”

“Not from that either.” Dawning truth was not always a comfortable thing, but there was relief in it. “From Valentine’s birth, I think.”

The coach clattered along past the dormant trees and dead grass of Grosvenor Square. Gladys peered out the window then huffed a sigh.

“It was worse for me with Elizabeth. I thought I’d never stop weeping. Her Grace, of all people, was a comfort.”

The idea that Her Grace could have been a comfort to anybody was intriguing. “How?”

“She’d lost Eustace, you’ll recall, when he was only five. She said a mother must not give in to the melancholy, that your children will always be with you in some regard, despite that you must send them out into the world. I think she also cornered Tony and told him to cosset me within an inch of his life.”

“As if he doesn’t anyway?”

They shared a smile, though as conversation again lapsed, Esther marveled that she and Gladys hadn’t had this discussion before. Perhaps, with six children between them under the age of six, they’d been too busy.

Melancholy was a serious word, a potentially dangerous word. “I don’t weep, much. Hardly at all, but there’s a sense…”

Gladys barged into the silence. “Your heart aches abominably after the baby arrives. When I was a girl, we used to go to Lyme in the summer. I’d stand on the beach in my bare feet and let the water swirl about my ankles. After Elizabeth was born, I felt like something was dragging at my ankles the same way, taking all my happiness and pulling it out to sea. I’d cry at anything and nothing.”

In for a penny… “Did you faint?”

“Not until Charlotte came along.”

Another shared smile, nowhere near as merry.

“I don’t think I’m carrying again.” Though after last night… Last night had been a mistake in some senses, and much needed in others. Esther hadn’t completely sorted the whole business out, but she’d slept well, and she had not made arrangements to consult any physicians.

Nor had Percival brought it up again at breakfast.

“Esther, lower the shade.” Gladys reached over and unrolled the leather that covered the window.

“Why are we shutting out the last sunshine we might see for days?”

“Because that beastly O’Donnell woman was sitting in her open carriage, flirting right there in the street with some poor man.

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