Page 10 of The Earl’s Gamble (The Lovers’ Arch: Later in Life)

10

Griff

D reading the answer he was going to receive, Griff swallowed away his nerves. “I have a question to ask you.”

Nightcap in hand, Mama sat down on her preferred chair in the music room, letting out a long, steady exhale after a busy night of hosting guests. Out of the window, a distant set of headlights was visible, gradually making its way down the driveway to the main road. “Yes, darling?” she said, a hopeful look in her eye.

The last of their guests. Thank Christ .

He leant forward, until his elbows dug into his knees. It was not a gentlemanly position, but the night had gone on far too long for him to care. “What would your reaction be if I never had children?”

Her rapt attention lingered on him, her hope turning to confusion. “What?”

“Children, Mama. Small humans.”

Her lips pressed together in bemusement. “Yes, I know what they are. But why ? Did Lady Jilly say something to you to suggest that she was… unable ? I saw you talking to her and her father after dinner.”

Griff scrubbed a hand over his weary face. “Just answer the sodding question.” Put me out of my misery, woman .

He needed to know her reaction. Not because it had any bearing on his decision—no, his decision was already made. But he wanted to understand how difficult she was going to make this.

“Well, it depends,” Mama said, taking a sip of her madeira. “If you are capable of having children but choose not to, then I would certainly be disappointed. But if you are incapable, then…” She gave a sad shrug. “There’s not much you can do about that, is there? Marriage will always be a gamble.”

“And if I wished to gamble with a woman I knew—or suspected—to be infertile, but chose to marry her anyway?”

Mama’s frown vanished as understanding swept over her features. “Oh,” she whispered, stroking Flutter as the little dog curled up in her lap. “So that’s what this is all about. You want to marry Rose.” Griff’s heart pounded in his chest, but Mama flicked a hand over to the window, and the driveway behind it. “But Lady Jilly looked so happy. I thought you must have asked for her hand.”

He cleared his throat. “Not…not quite. I merely explained that I had changed my mind about the marriage.”

“Then why did she look like all her Christmases had come at once?”

“I may have given her the grandfather clock in the hallway as a gesture of apology,” he said quickly. Mama tried to interrupt, but he raised his hand. “I have more important things to discuss. I’m going to ask Rose to marry me, Mama. I want to know now if you’re going to have any issues with that.”

She absent-mindedly stroked Flutter as the little dog looked up at her adoringly. “Why? It’s not like you’ve ever listened to me before.”

A smirk curved his lips. “Because I want her to be welcomed with open arms.”

“I have welcomed her with open arms!”

“As my wife , not just my guest. I don’t want you to blame her for things out of her control.”

Mama put her madeira down on the table next to her, letting out a decisive sigh. “Do you not think your father and I wished for more children after you? I know what it is to want a child that never arrives. Blame has no place when it comes to conception. You either can or you cannot. It is a difficult thing to accept, and an even harder one to live with. All I have ever asked is that you are happy. Will you be happy with Rose?”

Relief settled over him like a heavy cloak, easing the aches in his chest and the worries in his gut. “Yes,” he said simply.

Letting her fingers comb through Flutter’s soft ear hair, Mama’s eyes crinkled with fondness. “Then that is all that matters.”

Griff sprung from his seat, pausing only to kiss his mother’s cheek and the top of Flutter’s tiny head before striding out into the entrance hall. After making a brief stop in his office for the ring, he took the stairs two at a time, eager to reach the top. Anticipation bled into his excitement as he neared Rose’s bedroom.

Although he wanted to hammer on the door, he settled for a gentlemanly knock. “Rose?”

There was no answer. Again. Had she fallen asleep like last night?

And will I have the willpower to leave my proposal to the morning?

Just like yesterday, he quietly opened the door to peek in, expecting to see her curled up on the bed.

A glacial shard of horror stabbed through his heart when he realised she wasn’t there. There was nothing on the bed. Or the settee, or any of the furniture. The room was utterly, totally, bewilderingly, devastatingly empty.