The Marquis and the Mother-To-Be by Valerie Parv

Author:Valerie Parv
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

She spun away, not stopping until she came to the herb bed she’d been putting to rights. Mindlessly she dropped to her knees and began to pull a few remaining weeds from around a clump of oregano that had somehow managed to thrive amid the overgrowth. As she intended to thrive, no matter how Eduard reacted to her admission.

She was aware of him following her, but kept at her task. Only when he gently lifted her to her feet was she unable to avoid facing him.

He was looking at her as if seeing her for the first time. Would she always think of him like this, standing with his estate at his back, a lord in the figurative as well as the literal sense? He had released her as soon as she regained her feet. Now he stood with his feet apart, hands braced on his hips, a man in a class by himself. “Did you just say what I thought you said?”

This wasn’t how she had wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t take the declaration back. She had never wanted a man more, nor expected to touch him less.

As if she could escape the yearnings that now could never become reality, she stood up and paced to the edge of the kitchen garden, to where a wishing well was emerging as the undergrowth was cleared away. The well was a bit of whimsy someone had built there years before. Even Eduard had said he didn’t remember seeing it, so perhaps it had been overgrown for decades.

She picked up a pebble and dropped it into the well, hearing a splash far below. “I said I’m expecting a baby.”

“When?” he demanded, sounding thunderstruck.

She turned back to him. “I’m in the first trimester, when all the fun stuff like morning sickness is at its worst.”

“Which explains your symptoms.” He raked a hand through his hair, leaving trails. “Why did you let me think you had the flu?”

She scuffed the cobblestones with the toe of her shoe. “I didn’t want you to think any less of me.”

“Is my opinion so important to you?”

“So it would seem.”

“Why, Cris?”

Because his kisses had inflamed the remnants of her teenage crush, and if she wasn’t careful, she feared they could explode into something far more adult. The prospect scared the life out of her. Even if Eduard’s royal position hadn’t made a future with him impossible, she wasn’t ready to risk her heart so soon after her experience with Mark. “I guess one rejection is enough for me at the moment.” One admission, too.

Eduard planted one foot on the stone wall surrounding the terrace, and rested his forearm on his knee. “You’re referring to the baby’s father?”

She nodded. “My brother introduced us. Mark worked with Jeff in the money market. The first few times Mark asked me out, I turned him down. I’m not sure why. An instinct for self-preservation, most likely.” Well-founded as it had turned out, she thought. “He kept asking until I agreed, and we saw one another for some months before my father died.

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