Page 80 of Scandalous Nights With the Earl

‘I love you, too, Phillip. I knew I did when we slept together that last time but I was frightened to tell you, and in Winchelsea without you I wanted to die because my heart was broken.’

She led him over to the bed and asked him to sit down. Then she stood back and unbuttoned her gown, pulling it off over her head with her petticoat before taking his hand again and placing it on her stomach.

‘I’ll love you always but you need to know things are different now. For us. I am three months pregnant and that is why I have been so sick.’

His mouth fell open, his other hand coming up to cradle her stomach, and she saw him swallow twice before tears formed in his eyes.

‘How can this be true? I thought…’

‘Neither of us is infertile, Phillip. It was all a lie told to us by others.’

He could barely find his voice, this moment so very unexpected, all the beliefs he’d always held about himself beginning to unravel. They would have a child, an heir for Elmsworth and maybe by God’s grace other children as well.The lineage would continue, the house and its land would be safe. A future beckoned that he had never considered or thought possible before. A miracle.

‘When…will it come?’

‘I think it will be March. I think he or she must have been conceived that night after the Kelland ball.’

‘Our first night of delight?’

She laughed and he did too, recovering from the shock now and full of excitement.

‘You are the only person I have ever been truly honest with, Willa, and the only one I trust completely. For the first time I can see a future here for me, for us, at Elmsworth, making our life.’

He then knelt before her and his hand sought hers, his radiant wife in her underclothes and sheer gartered stockings, the smell of gardenias in a cloud all around her.

‘Would you marry me, Wilhelmina St Claire? Would you do me the honour of being my wife?’

‘Yes.’

And then they were in each other’s arms in the bed, his mouth tipping down to hers as he kissed her, deeply, completely and honestly. He held nothing back and neither did she.

His manhood rose but he was not certain if this would be safe.

‘I want you.’ Willa solved the dilemma for him, opening her legs and inviting him in.

‘It will not hurt the baby…?’

She kissed any more words away and then the old magic between them was back, the passion and the desperation. And finally, again, the delight.

Epilogue

25th December 1820, Elmsworth Manor.

It was Christmas Day and they had spent the last five weeks readying Elmsworth Manor for all the glory of the upcoming Season.

Wilhelmina had never celebrated Christmas before, certainly not at Belton Park and not even in London. It had always been a day that others loved and one that she dreaded, but this December she and Phillip had made their plans early and carefully.

They had watched the cook make her Christmas puddings on Stir-Up Sunday and had handed out gold coins on the 21st December to those who were down on their luck in the parish.

The house was bedecked inside with gold and silver paper twisted into long running bands. Interspersed with this were small branches of pungent pine, ivy, laurel, hawthorn and bay all tied with shiny red ribbons. On the mantels there were pine cones, apples, oranges and holly berries on display.

‘It looks most festive,’ Phillip said beside her as they stood receiving their many guests in the front salon. ‘But I think you need to look up, my love.’

When she did he swooped down and kissed her thoroughly and with purpose, the mistletoe ball hung most strategically at the open door they were under.

Oliver whooped in delight as he came to stand beside them with Esther.

‘Who would have ever thought that my brother would have a love nest of his own to live in before he had been back in England for even a year?’