Page 144 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

‘Why not? That is what honeymoons are for. Did not Giles visit your bed? That is how it happens, foolish. Let me see … August.’ She counted on her fingers. ‘Three months. A May baby. You have timed it very well. Best to get it over before the hot months. You would not wish to be carrying through July and August.’

‘I’m going to have a baby?’ Kitty said in wonder.

‘You are being very slow. Yes, a baby. And what should you do, then? Nothing! Go home, tell Giles, be happy. Do not let them treat you like an invalid. Walk every day, eat enough but not too much. And hope it is a boy. It is always best to have a boy first.’

‘Thank you,’ Kitty said, her face transformed. ‘Oh, thank you!’

‘You are thanking entirely the wrong person.’ But she smiled. ‘Do not be afraid. The world is full of women who have given birth. I shall come and stay from time to time to make sure they aren’t ruining you with neglect – or indulgence. Be at peace, dear child. You are doing your duty, and that is a good thing.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

It was hard to tell Giles. He was busy, as always, and it wasn’t something she wanted to say in front of other people, at the dinner table or in the drawing-room. It was something, she felt, that belonged to him especially. He must be told first and privately.

In the bedroom, then. But he didn’t always come to her room, and after that day in London, not for several nights. The secret grew inside her as she imagined the baby growing. She was not tempted to tell Hatto, but once when she went into her room and found Rose there, replacing the jade figures she had just washed, she almost told her.

‘My lady?’ Rose said, turning and seeing the eager face and parted lips. ‘Was there something?’ she pressed, when nothing was forthcoming.

But no: Giles must know first. ‘Oh, nothing,’ Kitty said.

‘You’re looking a bit flushed, my lady,’ Rose said. ‘Are you quite well?’

‘Oh, quite well,’ Kitty said.

Rose went downstairs thoughtfully, and cast her mind back over the weeks she had been lady’s maid, and realised what had not happened. And then she smiled to herself. Obviously it was a secret for now, but it could not remain a secret for ever, because Hatto would start to wonder for herself sooner or later. A lady’s personal maid was always the first to know.

*

Kitty lay wakeful, too racked with indigestion to sleep. She thought about Giles, wondered how he would take the news, what it would be like to have a baby, whether it would hurt, how Nina would fare marrying that funny old man (she had only the vaguest memory of him – perhaps he was much nicer than she remembered). She sat up and drank a little water, and the heartburn eased a little. And then she felt lonely. It had been so nice seeing Nina again. She wished she had someone like that to talk to. She loved Giles wildly, consumingly, with utter devotion, but he was not company in the same way Nina had been.

But perhaps when she had his baby, things would change. It must make them closer, mustn’t it? Suddenly, she couldn’t wait to tell him. That was what the communicating door was for, wasn’t it? She went and put her ear to it, but there was no sound, so either he had not come up yet or he was already in bed. Cautiously she opened it, and saw across its darkness a hair-fine filament of light below the further door. She crossed, listened, heard no murmur of voices or rustle of movement. James (she always thought of him as ‘that horrid James’) must have gone.

She went in. Giles was sitting up in bed reading, and looked up, frowning. ‘Kitty? What are you doing here?’

It was rather a silly question, and it dispelled her nervousness and made her want to giggle. She scudded across the room and climbed in beside him. It was not etiquette for the countess to visit the earl rather than vice versa. His room smelt different from hers, his mattress was harder and a bit lumpy. She felt instant concern for him – he should have a new mattress, she would order it for him if he was too careless of his own comfort to do it. Hadn’t he married her so that her money could make Ashmore what it ought to be? He was looking at her with such a puzzled expression that she did actually laugh.

‘I missed you,’ she said. ‘You didn’t come and see me last night, or the night before, or—’

‘I was tired,’ he interrupted, and heard as the words hit the air how churlish it sounded. But she shouldn’t be here. Suppose James – Hook, rather – came back in for some reason. Still, he must be gentle with Kitty. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I have so much work to do.’

‘I know,’ she said, ‘but you needn’t do it all at once. You shouldn’t make yourself so tired every night.’

This was a different Kitty, he thought – not the shy daytime girl, or the little night-time pagan, but an oddly wifely Kitty he hadn’t seen before.

‘What’s got into you?’ he asked. ‘I’ve never seen you like this before.’

‘Put those silly old papers away,’ she said. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

He put them aside, on his bedside table, and said, ‘What, then?’

She was looking at him as though she had never seen him before, tracing his features with her eyes. And then she traced them with a finger, running it over his eyebrows, down his nose, then over his lips. He bore it patiently.

I hope it’s a boy, and he looks like you, she was thinking. The focus of her eyes changed, her breath grew heavier. She whispered. ‘Oh, Giles!’

It lit him like a match to a bonfire, and entirely forgetting that he had not locked the door, he rolled her over and engulfed her, kissing her, excited by her readiness, entering her with relief and desire, the tensions of the last few days spending themselves – as had become the satisfying pattern – and leaving him breathless, warm, relaxed, content.

Kitty lay in his arms, her face against his neck, breathing in that special scent of him that was behind his ear and nowhere else, that made her feel she knew something about him no-one else knew. That he belonged to her, almost as much as she belonged to him.

‘What was it you came to tell me?’ he murmured.