Heartless by Mary Balogh

Heartless by Mary Balogh

Author:Mary Balogh
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-06-14T16:00:00+00:00


16

ANNA had succumbed to temptation. When Luke had slid his arm from beneath her head and untangled his body from hers in order to get up for the usual early-morning ride, she had grumbled into wakefulness.

“Go back to sleep,” he had suggested as he did most mornings.

And this morning she had rolled over into the warmth his body had left behind on the bed and done just that. And so she had missed their ride together, always her favorite part of the day.

She stood at the bedroom window, looking absently out at gardens that were rapidly losing their color and at distant trees that were giving hints of the changing season. Someone had been in and built up the fire and lit it. She must have been sleeping like the dead not to have heard. But she was sleeping for two, she reminded herself as excuse for her laziness.

She spread a hand over her abdomen. Through the thin fabric of her nightgown, which she had put on after rising from bed, she could feel the satisfying swelling. Luke had touched her there last night, as he frequently did now, and commented that she must have lost her waist somewhere.

The months of her marriage had brought a measure of contentment. The child in her had become a real being, felt not only with her mind now but also with her body. There was the tiredness, the insatiable hunger, the movements, the swelling. She was enjoying her impending motherhood with the deep gratitude of a woman who had expected to be a spinster and barren all her life.

It had been longer than three months. They had been home for more than two. She was beginning to believe in freedom. She was beginning to believe in happiness.

The house was running smoothly. She had made herself busy carrying out her duties as Luke’s duchess and she believed that her husband’s dependents liked her. She had made friends of all their neighbors. She organized dinner parties and card parties with informal dancing for the young people. She eagerly accepted the invitations that came in return. And Luke, she felt, of whom his neighbors had appeared wary at first, was being accepted again.

Emily seemed happier here than she had ever been at home. Luke was unexpectedly kind to her, and Emmy had taken to him. And Emmy had found a hero in Ashley and followed him about whenever she had the opportunity. Anna had told him apologetically that he must not allow the girl to make a nuisance of herself but he had replied that he liked the child and enjoyed her company. It was often not necessary for Emmy to follow him about. Often he took her walking or even riding, always with her nurse’s knowledge and Anna’s permission. They made a strangely touching pair, the deaf child and the lonely, unhappy man. They seemed to find contentment in each other’s company.

Anna had been unable to spark any sort of romance between Agnes and Ashley even though she had tried subtly to bring them together.



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