Page 99 of Seducing a Stranger

Epilogue

Four Months Later

Morley lounged in bed with his cheek against his wife’s creamy shoulder, gazing down at the mountain of her belly. He was only half listening as she, stretched on her back and naked beneath the sheets, read a Knight of Shadows penny dreadful aloud, stopping to giggle at a particularly unbelievable passage.

This Knight of Shadows business was certainly getting out of hand, but luckily, he’d recruited a few promising men to take up the occasional mantle. It was interesting to hear the conflicting reports of criminals and civilians alike who’d a chance meeting. Sometimes he was average height, lean, fair-haired and agile. Other times, a dark-skinned mountain of a man, able to meld with the shadows. He was a youth, or mature. Spoke with an exotic accent, an Irish one, or his own on Tuesdays and every other Friday.

He’d kept his word and it hadn’t been difficult for a moment. Their quiet nights together soothed his soul and excited everything that made him a man.

They made ceaseless love in increasingly creative positions, as her stomach became an impediment. Then they’d talk, or laugh, or read until one of them, usually her, drifted to sleep.

Tonight, she seemed unusually restless and uncomfortable, so they’d mounted pillows beneath her knees and he’d promised to suffer while she amused herself with one of the new rash of novels written about his exploits.

Rain tapped on the windows, casting the shadows of rivulets upon the bed. The optical effect lulled him as did the lively rendition of his wife’s voice.

“Oh, dear,” she mocked. “The Knight of Shadows is about to sweep the damsel onto the rooftops and debauch her! Listen to this…”

He levered up, clasping his hands on both sides of her belly as if it had sprouted ears. “I beg you to spare innocent ears,” he teased. “That can hardly be appropriate!”

She threw the book at him, missing on purpose. “Neither are the things you say when you’re making love to me.”

He cast her a chastised, wretched look. “Touché.” Leaning down, he gathered the sheets away from her breast, and then swept them down her belly so he could lay his ear against it and close his eyes.

He loved to listen for the little one, and tonight a slight nudge pushed back against the pressure of his cheek.

His breath caught, and Pru’s did, as well, her hand reaching down to sift and stroke the strands of his hair.

“I was thinking…” she murmured dreamily. “If one of them is a girl…we could name her Caroline. Or does that cause you pain?”

He opened his eyes, an ache bloomed in his chest both bitter and exquisitely sweet. “It hurts to remember, but it would be worse to forget,” he told her honestly.

Honesty had become their default communication, and because of it, they flourished.

“Her loss has become a part of me. I’ll never forget her. But she is a part of the past I can reconcile. With this. With you. And I’d love to give her name to our child. To allow her the childhood she never had…”

“I’m glad you feel that way,” she gifted him a beatific smile, and his heart glowed.

Then stalled.

“Wait.” He sat up and looked down into her eyes with a frantically pulsating heart. “Did you just saythem…?”

Her face shone up at him, incandescent with maternal pride.

“I must have done,” she said, pulling him back to collapse against her in bewildered amazement. “Because we’re having twins.”