“She will be,” Matthew said, picking up a cradle and heading out the door. “She’ll be in mine.”
30
“You shouldn’t have any problem with it now,” I told the young witch sitting before me. She had come at the suggestion of Linda Crosby to see if I could figure out why her protection spell was no longer effective.
Working out of Clairmont House, I had become London’s chief magical diagnostician, listening to accounts of failed exorcisms, spells gone bad, and elemental magic on the loose, and then helping the witches find solutions. As soon as Amanda cast her spell for me, I could see the problem: When she recited the words, the blue and green threads around her got tangled up with a single strand of red that pulled on the six-crossed knots at the core of the spell. The gramarye had become convoluted, the spell’s intentions murky, and now instead of protecting Amanda it was the magical equivalent of an angry Chihuahua, snarling and snapping at everything that came close.
“Hello, Amanda,” Sarah said, sticking her head in to see how we were faring. “Did you get what you needed?”
“Diana was brilliant, thanks,” Amanda said.
“Wonderful. Let me show you out,” Sarah said.
I leaned back on the cushions, sad to see Amanda go. Since the doctors from Harley Street had me on bed rest, my visitors were few.
The good news was that I didn’t have preeclampsia—at least not as it usually develops in warmbloods. I had no protein in my urine, and my blood pressure was actually below normal.
Nevertheless, swelling, nausea, and shoulder pain were not symptoms the jovial Dr. Garrett or his aptly named colleague, Dr. Sharp, wished to ignore—especially not after Ysabeau explained that I was Matthew Clairmont’s mate.
The bad news was that they put me on modified bed rest nonetheless, and so I would remain until the twins were born—which Dr. Sharp hoped would not be for another four weeks at least, although her worried look suggested that this was an optimistic projection. I was allowed to do some gentle stretching under Amira’s supervision and take two ten-minute walks around the garden per day. Stairs, standing, lifting were positively forbidden.
My phone buzzed on the side table. I picked it up, hoping for a text from Matthew.
A picture of the front door of Clairmont House was waiting for me.
It was then that I noticed how quiet it was, the only sound the ticking of the house’s many clocks.
The creak of the front-door hinges and the soft scrape of wood against marble broke the silence.
Without thinking I shot to my feet, teetering on legs that had grown weaker during my enforced inactivity.
And then Matthew was there.
All that either of us could do for the first long moments was to drink in the sight of the other.
Matthew’s hair was tousled and slightly wavy from the damp London air, and he was wearing a gray sweater and black jeans. Fine lines around his eyes showed the stress he’d been under.
He stalked toward me. I wanted to jump up and run at him, but something in his expression kept me glued to the spot.
When at last Matthew reached me, he cradled my neck with his fingertips and searched my eyes.
His thumb brushed across my lips, bringing the blood to the surface. I saw the small changes in him: the firm set of his jaw, the unusual tightness of his mouth, the hooded expression caused by the lowering of his eyelids.
My lips parted as his thumb made another pass over my tingling mouth.
“I missed you, mon coeur,” Matthew said, his voice rough. He leaned down with the same deliberation as he had crossed the room, and he kissed me. My head spun. He was here. My hands gripped his sweater as though that could keep him from disappearing. A raspy catch in the back of his throat that was almost a growl kept me quiet when I prepared to rise up and meet him in his embrace. Matthew’s free hand roamed over my back, my hip, and settled on my belly. One of the babies gave a sharp, reproachful kick. He smiled against my mouth, the thumb that had first stroked my lip now feather-light on my pulse. Then he registered the books, flowers, and fruit.
“I’m absolutely fine. I was a bit nauseated and had a pain in my shoulder, that’s all,” I said quickly.
His medical education would send his mind racing toward all sorts of terrible diagnoses. “My