“No, Papa, Owen is too small. The other boys will trample him.”
“Do you think so, Angela?” He raised the boy over his head and Owen laughed with delight.
“Papa, that will make him spit up on you,” the little girl said with alarm.
At which point Lynette joined them and took Owen from his father’s grasp. “He is excited enough already, Gabriel. I am going to take him to the nursery now.”
“Before you go, Lynette,” the duke intervened. “Have you had time for a thorough discussion of art with Beatrice?”
“There is not enough time in the world to do that, Duke, but they will be coming south on their wedding trip and I plan to let Gabriel and Jess go fishing with the boys. Then Beatrice and I can discuss art all day long. I gave them a cut-paper transparency of Havenhall as a wedding gift. They seemed delighted with it.”
The three watched her walk away with the children. “Do you think she will ever relax enough to call me by name?” the duke asked diffidently.
“You are Lynford and she is Lynette. She says two Lyns in the family are one too many. I think she considers ‘Duke’ your given name. At least she has abandoned the curtsy and ‘Your Grace.’ Besides,” Gabriel finished with a smile, “she has many names for you whenever you tell us that you are not going to support her latest charity.”
The duke raised his eyebrows but did not ask for more.
“Look at Olivia,” Elena said. “She would so much rather be in the kitchen.”
It was as though Olivia had heard them. She came back from whatever interior thought had held her and walked over to them. “Do you think the apples at breakfast were sufficiently sweet or did they need more sugar?”
“Apples? Those were apples?” Gabriel said, trying for a straight face.
Olivia punched her brother in the arm and went on. “I am determined to come up with a way to prepare salmon that Beatrice will like.”
“An admirable goal, my dear,” the duke said, just as Annie Blackwood came over.
“Lollie,” she began, “I am going to take the boys upstairs to the nursery. The night is awful and the wedding is first thing in the morning. They can stay here tonight. All right?”
“What a good idea. I’ll help you. Where is Michael? He promised to show Gabriel’s children some magic tricks if they behaved.”
“And you call that behaving?” Annie asked, just as two boys nearly toppled a bust on a stand.
“I do indeed,” Olivia said without pause. “The statue did not fall and no one was injured.”
Olivia and Annie went to collect the children, leaving the duke and his duchess alone again.
Elena leaned close to her husband and whispered, “Look at Mia. She is saying something for David alone. You know he is going to give her one of those chastening looks and she is going to do nothing but laugh at him, which will make him laugh in turn. I have never known a couple who could make bickering seem romantic.”
“When will she tell everyone she is increasing?” the duke asked, wishing his wife would whisper something shocking to him.
“She does not want to take away from Jess and Beatrice’s day but I do believe most have guessed. Fashion is not so forgiving these days. The more natural waist makes any weight gain obvious.”
Indeed, the duke noticed a delicate little bump at Mia’s waist when she turned to respond to something the Marquis Destry said.
“You know, Lynford, you and I could—” The duchess stopped and whispered her suggestion, which convinced the duke that the gods did sometimes listen.
“Did you mean now or later, Elena?”
BEATRICE WATCHED THE duchess laugh at something her husband said and smiled along with them. Her father and the countess were standing next to her, talking with the Earl of Belmont and Nora Kendrick, leaving her free to observe the others.
Jess had left to collect a glass of sherry for her, but William had stopped him and the two of them were now in an animated conversation with David Pennistan and his wife, Mia. Jess found her with his eyes and held up the glass, so she began to move across the room toward him.
Cecilia caught her before she had taken three steps. She hugged her sister for the fifth time that evening.
Beatrice beamed at her. “I am so excited, Ceci. Twelve hours from now I will be married to the most wonderful man in the world.”