He was so lucky to have her. He leaned over her, running his fingers through her dark tresses and arranging them artistically on the pillows. Criminy, she was beautiful. He smiled down at his handiwork. “Ahh,” he said with a long, drawn-out sigh of contentment, running his hands down her sides to span her waist. “I haven’t been able to touch you properly since morning.”
“Improperly, you mean.” Amy giggled, feeling light-hearted for the first time since she’d realized she was pregnant.
He smiled, that mischievous grin that made her heart flip-flop. “It’s deucedly inconvenient having the family around.” His stern voice didn’t fool her. “I warned you.”
She lifted her head for a kiss, but he seemed to have other plans. His hands were skimming over her hips now. “It has its compensations,” she said, watching the firelight play over his perfect features.
“Such as?”
“Such as…” She felt him inching her skirts up, making concentration difficult. “They’re quite helpful with practical joke arrangements.”
“I see.”
He inched them up more. “They…make interesting supper conversation,” she managed to say.
“Is that so?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
With sudden impatience, he hurried her out of her dress, and their inane discussion came to an abrupt end.
When his lips finally met hers, her heart swelled with emotion. But not as much as when he glided down, until his scratchy chin and cheek grazed against her smooth belly.
“Are you in there, little one?” His voice vibrated into her body. “It’s your father.” His lips moved against her stomach, his breath warm.
Her hands reached down to tug insistently at his shoulders.
“Your mother wants me now,” Colin gloated, throwing Amy a roguish look. “But first I want to say…we love you.”
“Colin…”
“Good-bye for now,” Colin murmured, pressing a final kiss to her stomach. “We’ll talk again soon.”
He lifted his head, and she knew right then that they wouldn’t be joining his family for games that night. The eyes that blazed into hers were a deep, fathomless green, overflowing with more love than words could ever convey. Everything between Colin and herself seemed incredibly perfect, as though they belonged together, each and every minute particle of their bodies and souls.
No matter that her head sometimes told her otherwise, her heart had always known they were meant to be.
SEVENTY
Six months later
June 1667
COLIN SLID his knife under the red seal and scanned the brief missive.
A pox on him.
Rubbing his temples, he dropped the vellum letter atop the ledgers and journals that covered the scarred wooden surface of his desk—ledgers and journals he’d be forced to abandon for the next few days. Beyond the castle walls, he imagined the rolling land, freshly green with the first new shoots from spring planting. Although it was all too far away to hear, he’d swear he could make out the bleat of distant sheep, the dull thud of a log being felled, the vague bangs and scrapes of quarrying—all work he was loath to let continue without his supervision.
The estate needed his attention too, curse it.
The year was halfway over, and he’d saved nowhere near half of his debt to Hobbs.
THE DOOR cracked open. “Are you napping, my lady?”
“Hah.” Amy looked up from her book as her buxom blond maid stepped inside. “I wish. I’m so big and itchy, I cannot find a good position no matter how many I try.”
As though he’d heard her complaint, her son swished in her womb, poking out fists, knees, elbows, and feet all at once, it seemed.
Lydia’s kittenish blue eyes narrowed as she contemplated the rolling lumps on her mistress’s abdomen. “Lud, that looks uncomfortable.”
Amy laughed and set the book aside. “Sometimes I’m convinced I’m carrying a human octopus, or at the very least an accomplished acrobat.” She pushed herself to stand. “Did you need me for something?”
“The lord said he has a matter to discuss. He waits in the study.” Frowning, Lydia flipped through the gowns in Amy’s wardrobe. “Cuds bobs, milady, you’ve got nothing decent to wear that will fit over your belly.”
“I needn’t dress up to visit with my husband!” Giggling, Amy went next door to see him in the study.
She quieted as she drew near. The door was ajar, and she could hear Benchley’s voice. “Fernew was asking when the new thresher will arrive.”
“I canceled delivery.”
At Colin’s grim words, Amy froze, her hand on the latch.
“You—”
“Canceled it. Fernew will have to get along without it. Tell him it’s only till next year.”
The defeat in his voice gnawed at Amy’s insides.
“And the mill?”
She grimaced at Colin’s heavy sigh. “That will have to be repaired; there’s no way around it. Have Jenner order the parts; I should be back to help well before their delivery. No sense paying for more labor when it isn’t necessary. Anything else, Benchley?”
“No. No, my lord.”
Amy jumped back when Benchley opened the door. He nodded to her and headed toward the entrance hall.
As his footsteps receded down the corridor, she stepped into the room. Colin was bent over a sheet of vellum, shaking his head. She bit her lip.
Another financial problem he couldn’t solve, thanks to wedding her?
“Amy.” He glanced up with a distracted smile. “Come here, love.”
She went to him, smiling in return when he ran a hand over the swell of their child, feeling for signs of movement.
“Charles wants to see us,” he said, looking up from her middle with thinly veiled disgust. “Tomorrow night.”
“Charles?” Amy eyed the paper in his other hand. A large red seal was attached, broken but impressive nonetheless. “Charles who?”
“Charles. The king.”
Her heart paused before continuing at an unsteady gallop. Of course she’d known that Colin was intimate with the king, that she was now a countess and expected to move in court circles. But here at Greystone, in their own little crumbling
