morning. She looked like a wild fairy creature of the woods-but in a pensive mood.
'We will have to stay betrothed, sweetheart,' he said. 'And I will show you so many interesting ways of using winter that you will want summer never to come.'
She turned her head and half smiled at him.
'Don't worry,' she said. 'I will have decided long before winter arrives in earnest that you have repaid the debt you owe me. Tomorrow will be tedious.'
'Tomorrow?' he said, and then remembered that they were to go to a christening party for the neighbor's new baby. 'Redfield and his family are a dull lot?'
'I was engaged to the eldest son once,' she said. 'I was supposed to be the Viscountess Ravensberg. The first son-the first heir of the next generation-was to have been mine. But Jerome died.'
'Ah, yes,' he said. 'Pardon me, I knew that. You loved him?' She had said not when she had told him about the betrothal at the white rock above Bath.
She looked slightly disdainful. 'We grew up to expect the marriage,' she said. 'We did not dislike each other. We were even fond of each other. But love is not a requisite for such matches.'
Nevertheless, today she was feeling understandably low-spirited about the whole thing. Tomorrow might be somewhat difficult for her, he supposed. She would see another woman in the place that should have been hers with a child that should also have been hers-though with a different father.
'Do you swim, Josh?' she asked.
'Of course I swim,' he said. 'You are not about to propose a race, are you, Free? If so, I give you fair warning-I grew up by the ocean. I would race to win. You have severely dented my self-esteem, first by winning our horse race in Bath, and then by hitting one of my best balls this morning during your first over-for a six, no less.'
'To the far bank and back,' she said.
He turned his head to look down and could see that the men and children were already in the water. Now that he was paying attention, he could hear their shouts and the children's laughter. Eve and Judith were sitting decorously on the bank. Morgan was on the swing, propelling herself almost dangerously high and looking very pretty indeed. That young lady, he thought, was going to be mobbed by prospective suitors when she made her come-out next spring, regardless of the fact that she was a duke's daughter.
'What do you intend to wear?' he asked.
'My shift,' she said. 'If you believe you will be just too embarrassed, you may make your way back to the house and find a good book.'
'Embarrassed?' He started down the tree without offering her a hand-that might be provocation enough for one of her famous punches in the nose. 'I can hardly wait. I'll give you a head start for our race, shall I? I'll count slowly to ten before coming after you.'
He chuckled as she sputtered and fumed and came down after him.
CHAPTER XII
The christening of the Honorable Andrew Jerome Christopher Butler was indeed a grand occasion, as Freyja realized as soon as the Bedwyns arrived at the church and were shown to their pews. The church was filled with neighbors and with both Kit's relatives and the viscountess's. Her cousin, the young Viscount Whitleaf, was there and her grandfather, Baron Galton. Then there were all her illustrious relatives by her mother's second marriage-the Duke and Duchess of Portfrey, the Duke and Duchess of Anburey, the Marquess of Attingsborough, the Earl and Countess of Kilbourne, the dowager countess, and her widowed daughter, Lady Muir.
Such a fuss, Freyja thought, for a baby who was supremely indifferent to all that was going on around him in his honor. He was dressed gorgeously in a long lace christening robe, a family heirloom, but he slept through the whole service, waking only once to squawk with indignation when the baptismal water was poured over his head. He soon fell asleep again, rocked in Kit's arms.
Freyja tried not to pay too much attention to the central group, but how could she avoid seeing Kit, fairly bursting with pride and happiness, and his viscountess-Freyja had never been able to think of her as Lauren-glowing with her new motherhood.
The viscountess had a certain beauty, Freyja conceded. She had dark, lustrous hair and a flawless complexion and eyes that were startlingly violet. But she was always dignified, always the proper lady, with never a word or a hair out of place. It seemed to Freyja that she lacked all spirit and charisma. She hated the woman-if only because everyone else admired and loved her.
Freyja was looking at her gloved hands in her lap when Joshua took one of them, squeezed it tightly, and drew it through his arm. She looked up at him with her is-this-not-a-dead-bore look. He smiled at her, his eyes softer, less merry, less mocking than usual, and covered her hand with his free one.
She could cheerfully have gone at him with both fists then. She knew very well what this was all about. He pitied her. Just before he had handed her into one of the carriages this morning, when she had been feeling out of sorts and irritated with everyone, he had bent his head to hers and spoken for her ears only.
'Courage,' he had said. 'Your Jerome is gone. But there will be someone else for you one day.' He had grinned then. 'And in the meanwhile, maybe I can be of some service, sweetheart.'
He thought she was depressed because of Jerome. And so she was-or so she ought to be. He had died so young and so foolishly-of a fever contracted when he rescued several of his neighbors' laboring families from a flood. And she had been fond of him. He had been one of her playmates all through her growing years. But she had dragged her heels about marrying him, and he had not seemed overeager for the event either. Whenever she had made some excuse not to make the betrothal formal just yet or-after their betrothal-not to set a wedding date just yet, he had offered no objection.
The interminable service was over at last, and Kit and the viscountess left in the first carriage, it being close to the time when the baby would need to be fed. It would appear that the viscountess was nursing her child herself. She certainly was not perfect in that, Freyja thought with a moment's satisfaction. Many ladies of good ton would frown and even call her vulgar for not hiring a wet nurse.
It was an enormous blessing having Joshua with her after they arrived at Alvesley. Introducing him to everyone as her betrothed occupied both her time and her attention and deflected any embarrassment or pity any of those people who knew about last year might have been feeling. And there was an appallingly large number who did know that last summer's celebrations for the birthday of Kit's grandmother-she had died suddenly earlier this year-were
