Untamable Rogue (Formerly: A Christmas Baby) (27 page)

“I had no idea you were this nervous about receiving them.”

“It does not help that my new clothes did not arrive in time and that this must be the hottest summer in history. The heat alone is enough to sour one’s stomach. Whatever will I wear?”

“The day is not that warm and you will wear the cream and burgundy day dress, which is my favorite.”

“The morning feels excessively warm to me, and that dress will simply make me warmer.”

Ash tested her brow. “Do you have fever? Because if you do, I will send a messenger with a note for them not to come. Alex is in no condition—”

“I do not have fever.” Lark knocked her husband’s annoying hand away. “I am nervous, and hot, and you are making me feel more of both. Leave me in peace and I shall be ready to receive them in due course.”

“As you wish,” Ash said, but Lark thought he was upset when he left her, and though that bothered her a great deal, she was surprised to awaken some three hours later feeling refreshed, astonishingly wonderful, and looking forward to her first visitors.

“The Duke and Duchess of Hawksworth, dear God,” Lark said as the crested ebony coach stopped at the entrance of The Chase at two that afternoon. “I think I may need to vomit again.”

Ash started and Lark chuckled. “A figure of speech, my dear,” she assured him, amused by the look of horror on his face.

Hawksworth appeared aptly named, for he bore the look of a Hawk, Lark thought, enhanced as it was by the scars on his face. Yet she saw a magnificent beauty in his visage as well, especially when he looked upon his Duchess as he helped her emerge from the carriage.

Lark gasped, for the Duchess was so huge with child as to waddle a bit like a duck. “Oh my.”

Lark accompanied her husband down the front steps to greet them, feeling every muscle in her belly tighten in apprehension. But she needn’t have worried about formality because the Duchess opened her arms and embraced her, and the child within the woman kicked so hard, Lark laughed, and relaxed and embraced the Duchess in return. “Your Grace,” Lark said, with what she feared was a belated curtsy.

The Duchess shook her head, raised Lark to her feet, and placed an arm about her waist. “Alexandra is my name and Alex you will call me. None of this toadying to titles business between friends. Have you met the rest of the rogues?”

“I have met none of the rogues,” Lark said, dreading her imminent introduction to the man her husband called “Hawk.”

The Duchess—Alexandra—Alex—whirled them about as one, their arms still around each other. “Bryce, you will kiss Ash’s frightened bride, if you please, and place her at her ease. You have frightened her witless, you see.”

“Oh, oh no,” Lark said, “you have not.” She wanted to scold Alex for saying so, but she saw that in the teasing, something intimate passed between husband and wife, and the harsh planes about the Duke’s face relaxed. He smiled as he bent to kiss Lark’s cheek. “How are you managing this old reprobate? I heard he won you in a card game, is that true?”

“Bryce!” Alex scolded.

“Yes,” Ash replied.

“No,” Lark countered.

They entered the drawing room amused over the confusion of answers. Lark called for tea right away, because she was so nervous she would make an error as hostess, she wanted to get the formalities done with.

“Well,” Hawk said to Ash as they sat. “Which is it? You won her or you did not?”

“He
lost
the card game,” Lark said, wanting more than ever to confess her part in the deceit, “and I was his consolation.”

Ash gave her a look of censure and Lark felt as if he were chiding her for telling the truth, which was so unlike her forthright husband she must ask what he meant by it later. But Alex and Hawk had fallen into peels of laughter and her husband relaxed.

“I should have known Myles and Hunter were too drunk to get your wedding story straight,” Hawk said.

“Where is little Beatrix?” Ash asked. “I hoped you might bring her for Brian and Micah to play with.”

“We would have,” Alex said, “but she is spending the day with Claudia and the new baby. She will not be dragged from little Judson’s side for long.”

“I had heard that Chesterfield has an heir,” Ash said. “He must be pleased.”

“He is disgustingly pleased,” Hawk said, with little trace of the feud Ash said had once raged between the two men. Lark was not surprised, however, for Ash had also confided that Chesterfield married Hawk’s niece.

When the tea tray had been removed, Ash stood. “Ladies, you will excuse us. Hawk has experienced distinguished success with the Huntington Lodge estate and he has promised to ride the Chase property and offer some industrious suggestions, including the possible construction of a lavender distillery.”

Lark watched Hawk limp from the room. “Ash told me your husband was badly injured in the war.”

“And left for dead,” Alex said. “We received the miracle of his return to us and now we have another, for we are finally expecting our first child, though we have been reunited for more than two years.”

“Two years?” Lark cried with some distress. “Can it take that long to get with child?”

“It did for us, though not for want of trying, I can tell you. Do not be distressed. It will happen in time.”

“We do not have time. According to Ash’s grandfather, I must be with child before Christmas, or Ash will not inherit, which will cause him to lose the estate.”

Alex’s eyes twinkled. “Then you must be trying very hard to meet those requirements, which is no surprise, given the fact that Ashford is a rogue of the highest order.”

“
Very
hard,” Lark said pointedly.

“
Congratulations
.”

They giggled like schoolgirls, a new and heartwarming experience for Lark.

“It is wondrous to be in love and trying for a babe, is it not?” Alex said.

“Oh, we do not love each other,” Lark said, aware she feared believing different, wishing she could ask Alex to explain love’s meaning.

“I am sorry to hear it.”

“But I like the marriage bed very much, and I like Ash, which does make it pleasant to keep to our bargain to get Ash into his grandfather’s will.”

“You might be fooling yourself my girl,” Alex said.

“About liking Ash? Yes, well, there are times that I do
not
like him so much.”

Alex chuckled. “About him loving you, I mean. Men rarely confess such things, you know.”

Lark tilted her head, considering. “Perhaps, but I do not think he does.” She smiled, wishing Alex might be correct. “Have you met all the rogues?” Lark asked, changing the subject, for she was uncomfortable with the subject of her marriage and love.

“I have met every one, and you have now met three of them, did you not realize? Myles Quartermaine, Earl of Northclyffe, and Hunter Elijah Wylder, Marquess of Wyldborne, were both at your wedding.”

Lark made a face. “I did not like those two and thought them scoundrels, not aristocrats.”

“They are none of the rogues endearing when they have been drinking, especially when they are together, for then they go beyond what is prudent.”

“One wonders how they won the war.”

“True enough.”

“What are their wives like? How many children do they have? Oh I want to meet them all,” Lark said.

“Gideon is in mourning for his grandmother, so he and Sabrina will not be out in society until December, or I would suggest a house party.”

Lark sat straighter. “Do people have
Christmas
house parties?”

“Of course they do. Have you never attended a house party during the holidays? There are none so special as Christmas gatherings.”

Lark called for more tea and shared her background with Alex, as Alex shared a bit of her own amazing life with Hawksworth, and sometime during the course of the afternoon, the two became fast friends.

She took Alex to the nursery to meet Micah and Brian, who were, unfortunately, not on their best behavior. It seemed Micah had locked Brian in her bedchamber, and Brian did not like locks. So when she picked it and got herself out, she threw an inkwell, a full inkwell, at Micah’s head. It broke, of course, the inkwell, not Micah’s head, though he did have a bruise the size of an egg on his temple.

Even though Mim had basically cleaned them up, India ink stained Micah’s cheek and both children’s hands. Even so, they bowed, and curtseyed, and gave the incorrect impression of having manners.

Lark shut the door on the nursery and rolled her eyes. “I sometimes ask myself why we want another.”

“Because making babies is splendid fun?”

“I will come to see you when your own comes,” Lark told Alex as they descended the stairs. “I cannot wait to hold it.”

“The babe will be nearly three months by Christmas,” Alex said absentmindedly, as if doing sums in her head. “I would invite everyone to Christmas at the Lodge, but it is still a heap and we have not made rooms livable yet for so many.

“Lark, would you consider holding a Christmas house party here at Blackburne Chase? This will be Gideon and Sabrina’s first real Christmas without his grandmother so they will be happy for a place to go rather than remain home and feel sad. It would give you an opportunity to meet all the rogues and their families.”

Lark held her fluttering middle. “I do not know what to do to celebrate Christmas, nor anything about planning a house party. I would die of fright with such a task before me.”

“We could ask each family to bring the makings of their favorite family tradition. I will coordinate, so we do not duplicate efforts. We live near enough to each other, you and I, to consult on menus and preparations. Did you know that Huntington Lodge is barely twelve miles to the north?”

Lark caught Alex’s contagious excitement like a fever. “I have butterflies again. I swear I will be as sick on the day of my house party as I was this morning for knowing you were coming.”

“You were sick this morning? Has this happened before?”

“I suppose a lady should not speak of such things,” Lark said in response to Alex’s frown. “I will never learn.”

“Have you had your monthlies recently?”

“Oh yes,” Lark said. “Why do you ask?”

“I thought perhaps you had been ill because you are with child, but that cannot be.”

“Why can it not? Will I not know until I am as big as a prize sow—” Lark slapped a hand over her mouth. “I am so sorry.”

Alex laughed, and with so much merriment, Lark feared she would birth her babe there on the indigo damask settee.

“The easiest way to tell,” Alex said some minutes later, as she dabbed at her watering eyes, “is that your monthlies will stop.”

The men returned, and though Lark wanted to consult Alex further, she could not wait to give Ash the news. “Ash,” she said, approaching him, reminding herself to remain sedate, and not gallop, as her excitement warranted, “we are hosting a Christmas house party here at Blackburne Chase, and Alex is going to help.”

While both rogues regarded their wives with unspoken skepticism, neither commented further.

Lark had had the maids fasten a curtain across her small personal sitting room the day her dressmaker was due to deliver her new wardrobe.

Now Ash, Brian and Micah sat on the opposite side of said curtain waiting for Lark to come from behind it wearing one of her new outfits.