“That’s ridiculous I’m fine.” She argued with him, coughing horribly, once he told her he had called the doctor.

“I want him to give you something for that cough, before you wind up with pneumonia,” William said sternly.

“You know I hate medicine,” she said querulously. But the doctor came anyway, a sweet old man from another village. He had retired there after the war, and he was very nice, but she was still annoyed that he had come, and she repeated to him that she didn’t need a doctor.

“Bien sur, Madame … but Monsieur le Duc … it is not good for him to worry,” he told her diplomatically, and she relented as William left the room to get another cup of tea for her, and when he came back Sarah looked very subdued, and a little startled.

“Well, will she live?” William asked the doctor jovially, and the old man smiled and patted Sarah’s knee as he stood up to leave them.

“Most definitely, and for a very long time, I hope.” He smiled down at her and pretended to grow stern. “You will stay in bed, though, until you feel better, n’est-ce pas?”

“Yes, sir,” she said obediently, and William wondered what he had done to make her so docile. All the fight had suddenly gone out of her and she looked very calm and very quiet.

The doctor hadn’t given her any medicine, for all the reasons he’d explained to her while William was out of the room, but he urged her to drink hot soup, and hot tea, and continue just what she was doing. And after he left, William wondered if he was too old and didn’t know his business. There were a lot of medications one could take these days so one didn’t wind up with pneumonia, or TB, and he wasn’t sure soup was enough. It almost made him wonder if he should take her to Paris.

She was lying in bed, looking out the window pensively as he came back upstairs, and he moved his wheelchair close to her, and touched her cheek. But the fever was gone, all she had was that ghastly cough, and he was still worried.

“I want to take you to Paris tomorrow if you’re not better by then,” he said quietly. She was too important to him, to ever risk losing her.

“I’m fine,” she said quietly, an odd look in her eyes as she smiled at him. “I’m perfectly fine … only very stupid.” She hadn’t figured it out herself. For the past month she had been so busy, all she could think of was Christmas and Whitfield’s. And jewels, and nothing else. And now …

“What does that mean?” He frowned as he looked at her, and she rolled over on her back with a grin.

She sat up in bed and leaned close to him, kissing him gently in spite of the cold, but she had never loved him as much as at this moment. “I’m pregnant.”

Nothing registered on his face for an instant, and then he stared at her in amazement. “You’re what? Now?”

“Yup.” She beamed at him, and then lay back against her pillows again. “I think it’s about two months, I’ve been so completely absorbed by the shop that I forgot everything.”

“Good Lord.” He slumped back into his wheelchair with a grin, and took her fingers in his own, and then leaned forward again to kiss them. “You are amazing!”

“I didn’t do this by myself, you know. You must have given it a bit of help sometime too.”

“Oh, darling …” He leaned close to her again, knowing full well how much she had wanted another baby. And so had he. But they had both given up after the last three years when nothing happened. “I hope it’s a girl,” he said softly, and he knew she did, too, not to take Lizzie’s place, but to be a balance to Phillip. And William had never even seen his little girl, never known her before she died, and he longed to have one. Sarah secretly hoped, too, that in some way, the birth of the baby might heal Phillip. He had loved Lizzie so much, and been so different, and so angry, and so distant once they lost her.

William pulled himself out of his wheelchair, and laid down beside Sarah. “Oh, darling, how I love you.”

“I love you too,” she whispered, holding tightly to him, and they lay there together for a long time, thinking how blessed they were, and looking forward to the future.






Chapter 19





’M not sure.” Sarah frowned as she looked at the new pieces with Emanuelle. They had just been delivered from the same workshop Chaumet used, and Sarah wasn’t sure if she liked them. “What do you think?”