Page 56 of Tamed By a Duke

"Do you mean?" Penrith looked at her with wide-eyed wonder, his handsome face a charming mix of masculine pride and boyish nerves.

"Yes," Charlotte nodded, unable to keep the news to herself any longer, "Before the end of the summer, according to the doctor. Are you pleased?"

"Pleased?" Penrith grinned, "I am ecstatic my dear. You have made me the happiest man in the world."

A gentle embrace followed, which turned—as it always did—into one more flustered and passionate. They might have upended the chaise lounge completely in their ardour, had the clock upon the mantelpiece not struck the hour.

"Gemini," Charlotte startled, hastily pulling herself together and buttoning up what had been unbuttoned, "Julia and Violet will arrive shortly. What would they say if they found us like this?"

"I could lock the door," Penrith offered, with a wicked smile, but Charlotte hushed him. There would be plenty of time for love-making—they had the rest of their lives, in fact.

"I wonder if they have bothered to read this month's book," Charlotte wondered aloud, as her husband straightened his appearance and prepared to leave.

"Have you?" Penrith asked, with a raise of his eyebrow.

"Well, I have been rather busy..." Charlotte began, before dissolving into a smile.

If she had been too busy to read this month's proscribed text, then there was no hope that her friends had. For the Wallflowers had all blossomed and their lives were now very different to what they once had been.