Page 100 of Wed By Proxy

“No one you need worry about. How long do you suppose it will take before my hair grows back?” she asked. “Mother said I look more like a pageboy these days than a maid.”

“I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work,” he growled, rolling onto his side and looming over her. “Distracting me,” he elaborated in answer to her raised eyebrows.

“Tristan said it,” she admitted softly. She looked away from Guy’s intent stare. “I think he rather liked me, despite everything.” She looked up sharply at Guy’s muffled exclamation. “I daresay I’ll always feel guilty over what happened. I wish it could have been resolved differently.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Mathilde,” he said tightly.

“I know that really, but I can’t help feeling badly about it.”

“I’ll fill your belly with babies to stop you getting such foolish ideas.”

Mathilde considered this. “How many?”

“Dozens,” he replied without pause. “One after another. ’Til you’re past bearing age. But I’ll plough you even then.”

“I want you to grow your beard back longer,” she replied, supremely unconcerned by this glimpse of a future filled with incessant childbearing. She tugged on the short black bristles. “It was longer on that first night I met you.” He grunted. “Will you?”

“Aye. Anything. Whatever it takes.”

“To what?”

“Keep you contented with me.”

“You do and you always will,” she assured him confidently. “Now, let us think about names for all these children.”

Guy groaned.

Epilogue

“Guy!” Mathilde lowered her letter from her friend Fenella, her face flushed. “Only fancy! Twin boys!”

Guy lowered the cloth he was scrubbing at his neck with. “Twins?” he repeated and frowned.

Mathilde nodded eagerly, returning to her letter. “They have called them Nathan and Stephen Vawdrey. Is that not terribly exciting?”

If anything, Guy was silent a moment. “And she is well?” he asked in a low voice. “After birthing them?”

He cast down the cloth and made his way over to the bed where his wife was reclined having an afternoon rest. He edged his way up onto the mattress next to her, resting a palm on her pregnant belly.

“Oh yes,” Mathilde assured him quickly. Just lately, Guy seemed to have fallen prey to anxiety around any accounts of labor or pregnancy. “Fenella writes she is very well and enjoying a period of rest at their new town residence.” She read aloud from the letter. “The boys are healthy and hearty. Nathan is the elder by a quarter of an hour.” She lowered her letter again. “I suppose that means he will bear his father’s lesser title for now — Baron Vawdrey. It’s funny to think of a baby being a baron, is it not?” She thought briefly of all the barons she had known, who had mostly been bluff old men with booming voices. “I think perhaps we should have Heloise now,” she said resting her hand on top of his. “And have Leander as our second child.”

Guy looked startled at the postponement of his son and heir. “And why is that?” he asked in bewilderment, raising his head from the pillow to squint at her.

“Because then Heloise can marry Nathan or Stephen and ally our two families,” she pointed out reasonably.

A slight frown passed over Guy’s face and Mathilde wondered if he had entirely accepted Oswald Vawdrey as an ally. He had been wholly impressed with his countess, Fenella, when they had met and had told Mathilde that she was free to visit Acton March whenever she pleased, but he still seemed to have a few reservations about Earl Vawdrey.

“If our daughter marries a Vawdrey she’ll marry the future Earl, not the younger son,” he said with feeling.

“Nathan then,” nodded Mathilde. “I shall write back to Fenella.”

“I don’t think we should be overly hasty to enter into any betrothals for our children,” Guy said, He shot her a sidelong look.

“Oh, but I think it is quite important that there is not too much disparity in age, Guy,” she said earnestly.

Immediately, he was contrite and she realized he knew she had been thinking of her own previous marriages. “Of course,” he muttered soothingly. “But Strethneal has an infant son, don’t forget. Heloise will have more than one opportunity to be a countess. And if she marries Strethneal’s heir, then she would live very close to us after marriage.”

Mathilde’s eyes widened. “That is a good point,” she conceded. “I had not thought of that.”