Page 42 of A Sporting Chance (The Chances #8)

T his was all too much, and it was ridiculous that she was nervous.

“Just think of it like archery,” said Leopold with a grin as they walked down the stairs and into the hall of the impressive Stamphrey Lacey, the country estate of the Chance family.

Kathleen snorted. “You always say that!”

“And I’m always right,” pointed out her husband with a wide smile. “Just breathe deeply and allow it to wash over you. Everything will be fine.”

Fine . Yes, Kathleen was certain it would be fine, but she didn’t want this visit to be fine. She wanted it to be wonderful. She wanted to feel comfortable, for the rest of the Chance family to welcome her as they had already done her sister, and she had gotten precisely what she had asked for.

In a way.

“There you are! I thought you would be down for breakfast quickly, but you’ve been an absolute age,” said one of Leopold’s cousins, who beamed and revealed a pair of dimples.

Kathleen tried to smile. She had absolutely no idea what the woman’s name was, or which part of the Chance family she belonged to…which was starting to become a habit.

“Oh, don’t hassle her, Frank,” said Maude with a laugh, coming out of the breakfast room too. “There are far more of us than there are of her!”

“We’re not frightening, though. Are we? Are we frightening?” Frank, who had to be Lady Francesca, turned to Kathleen and raised a quizzical eyebrow.

Kathleen could not help but laugh. “Only when you’re all together.”

“But we’re always all together when we come to Stamphrey Lacey,” said Francesca with a frown. “And so many family weddings this year! Do you think we’ve finished for the season?”

“Oh, I would imagine so,” said Maude airily, though she gave Leopold a look that was most odd. A sort of knowing look.

Kathleen looked at her husband, but Leopold appeared to have found a corner of the ceiling most interesting.

She would have to ask him about that.

“Anyway, the breakfast things have been tidied away, I’m afraid,” said Francesca with a sigh. “I don’t suppose you were that hungry, or you would have come down earlier.”

Leopold coughed and Kathleen colored, heat scalding her cheeks.

Well! What on earth was she supposed to say to that?

Evidently, Lady Francesca was ignorant of… Well, of marital relations. That or she had absolutely no shame, for she was fixing the pair of them with an open, curious stare.

Maude coughed. “Right, well, that’s enough of that. Come on, Frank.”

The two cousins left, arm in arm.

“She—She didn’t really say—”

“Frank is very caught up in her passion of engineering,” Leopold said with a grin as he gestured toward the front door. “Walk?”

Yes, a walk. That would help ease a few of the aches Kathleen was feeling. Honestly, bedsport was most enjoyable, but it did leave one a little sore in the hips department.

As they stepped out of the majestic manor that was the Chance family seat, Kathleen smiled at another Chance cousin with a long plait curled about her head like a coronet, walking across the drive. “Good morning!”

The greeting had been gentle enough, polite enough, simple enough—and yet the woman started, glaring at Kathleen as though she had suggested daggers at dawn. “What?”

“I—I said, good morning ,” said Kathleen, chastised by the unexpected response. She glanced at Leopold. “It is still morning, isn’t it?”

That is another trouble with bedsport , she could not help but think with a wry smile. One rather loses track of time.

“Yes,” said Leopold with a wink. Perhaps he was thinking along the same lines as her.

Kathleen turned back to the cousin, whose name had completely escaped her—there were so many!—and tried again. “Such a pleasant day.”

“No it isn’t. No, I’m not—no!” The woman did not exactly shout, but it was hardly a whisper emitting from her mouth.

Quite to the contrary, it was a panicked noise that was accompanied by a sudden flush of dark red across her cheeks.

Before any of them could say another word, the Chance cousin had turned around and started marching away from them.

“I…” Kathleen stared as the woman half walked, half ran across the lawn. “Was it something I said?”

“Absolutely not,” said Leopold firmly.

For a moment, she thought he was humoring her. It was far more pleasant, after all, not to think that one had terrified one’s new family member. Hardly the sort of start to a relationship she had hoped for.

“That’s just Jess,” said her husband with a shrug.

“Miss Jessica Chance, daughter of my Uncle Frederick, is perhaps the greatest wallflower who ever lived. Oh, no, I do not mean it in a bad way,” he added hastily with a wry smile.

“She’s always been shy, always been quiet, but the last few years—it was coming out into Society that did it. ”

“Did what?” Kathleen asked, looking at the woman who was slowly disappearing. “She seemed pleasant enough.”

“She just hates attention, and being out on Society means people constantly looking at her,” said Leopold, his arm snaking around her waist to pull her close as they started to walk slowly through the gardens.

“But once she gets to know you, I promise, she is the most delightful, pleasant woman. One of my favorite cousins, after Evelyn. You’ll get to know her in time. ”

Kathleen nodded. Time . That was something that they had: time, to love each other and get to know each other and their families over the following months and years.

Surely, her own family would accept her and Angela back soon enough.

Angela now being Lady Keystone, Kathleen Lady Leopold Chase especially.

Time. Time together. Time to share everything…

“Well, time is something that I have,” she said with a smile. “And though there are rather a lot of you, I am hopeful that I will get to befriend all you Chances.”

“There are a great deal of us, yes,” Leopold said with a laugh, his hand tightening at her waist. “But I do hope to keep you to myself mostly. There is so much I love about you, Kathleen Chance, and I want to be a little possessive of you.”

Affection flamed through Kathleen at his words. It was strange, being so adored. She could very much get used to it.

“And we’ll have ages, just the two of us, after the house party,” Leopold continued.

Her breath caught in Kathleen’s throat.

“And we’ll have ages, just the two of us…”

Well, yes. But also, no.

Kathleen looked up at her handsome husband and wondered whether this was the right time to mention it. She could not be sure, of course. There were signs, yes, but she was not certain. Her sister appeared certain, however.

Still, it would be perhaps unfair to raise hopes before certain knowledge, would it not?

“What are you thinking?”

Kathleen blinked. Leopold was gazing at her with that knowing look of his, which meant he had been studying her face for some time.

She shrugged. “Nothing of import.”

“Don’t give me that. I know that expression. What did I say?” he asked as they turned a corner into the sunken garden, a delightful dip of mossy trees and lilies.

Kathleen swallowed. “I… I cannot be certain.”

“You cannot be certain what you were thinking?” Leopold’s brow was furrowed, and it was all she could do not to laugh.

“You pride yourself on your archery, don’t you?” she asked quietly, pulling away from Leopold’s side and sitting upon a stone seat that was covered in lichen.

Her husband’s face was mystified—and a little rueful. “I would have said so, except a certain someone happened to beat me in the latest London Archery Club competition, and in front of a crowd, no less. Why?”

Perhaps this was the perfect time. It was just the two of them, and if she was wrong… Well, it would not be the end of the world. They would try again—if she were any judge, it was going to be difficult not trying.

“You… You consider yourself a good shot, is that true?” Kathleen asked, her pulse quickening as she grew closer to the topic at hand.

Leopold’s brow furrowed now as he sat beside her, angled toward her as his gaze captured her own. “What is all this about, Kathleen? Do you wish to cease learning archery?”

“Oh, no! No, it’s not that,” she said hastily, placing her hands on his and trying to control her breathing. “It’s just… Well. One of your shots in particular has most definitely…hit its mark.”

Her husband stared, evidently absolutely lost.

Kathleen stifled a smile. “I mean to say that the target of your, well, natural arrows has been well and truly hit.”

Leopold was still clearly none the wiser.

She swallowed. Once this was said, it could not be unsaid. “I mean that when you and I… When we first lay as one… Well.”

Silence hung in the air for several heartbeats.

Then Leopold’s eyes widened. “You mean—you mean we—”

“You,” Kathleen shot back with a laugh. “You, and your incredibly potent arrows.”

She looked down meaningfully at his trousers and tried not to laugh again as she watched the realization of what she was hinting at crease across her husband’s face.

“You’re with child?” Leopold whispered.

And it was reverential, and it was potent, and it was a moment she never would have imagined could ever happen.

“I am not definitively sure, but all the signs—”

“Oh, Kathleen!”

Leopold’s kiss was devoted and passionate, a heady mixture of need and desperation paired with adoration. Kathleen leaned into it, clutching his lapels to bring him closer, reveling in the abandon within which they lost themselves.

He was everything. They were everything, together, the two of them.

When they broke apart, Leopold’s eyes were glistening. “I can’t believe it—a child!”

“Almost certainly,” Kathleen hastened to add. The last thing she needed was disappointed hopes. “But if not now, then in the future.”

“And we haven’t even had a sporting chance at being husband and wife yet,” declared her husband, full of enthusiasm and with joy sparkling in his eyes.

Kathleen beamed and knew that no matter what lay ahead, they would face the target of their hopes together, side by side. “All the more reason to enjoy our time together now, then. Shall we retire?”

“It’s only half past ten in the morn—”

“Leopold,” she said with a laugh, rising and offering her hand. “Do not miss this target. I’m going to our bedchamber. Will you accompany me?”

Understanding, and desire, bloomed in her husband’s eyes as he rose and pulled her into a tight embrace. “You know, I think I will.”