“I was thinking that you are a woman who has always achieved what she desired.”

She laughed. “This is the good life,” she said.

“And we are in our prime to enjoy it.”

“Well, Charles, I shall always be in my prime while you are beside me to love me.”

Then she embraced him, and laughing, talked of the baby which she was sure she would soon be holding in her arms. She was certain of her happiness; the only thing she was not sure of was the child’s sex; and that was a matter of indifference to her.

“Your thoughts run on too far,” Charles told her. “You are not even sure that you are pregnant.”

“And if I am not, I surely soon shall be,” she retorted. “And when I go to the country I want all my children there. Your two girls and my own little one. A large family you will admit, considering I have been married barely two months.”

“You can always be trusted to do everything on a grand scale.”

“And the girls will come to Westhorpe?”

“If that is what you wish.”

He then told her how he had rescued a child from the river and was bringing her up with his daughters.

She listened with shining eyes. “So I have three daughters already. I would that it were time for my own little one to be born.”

It was impossible, living with her, not to share her zest, her love of life.


HENRY CAME to the Suffolks’ London residence in Bath Place, and went at once to his sister’s bedchamber, where he found her lying back on her pillows, flushed and triumphant, looking as though the ordeal had meant little to her. Her blue eyes sparkled although there were lines of exhaustion about them and her golden hair fell in a tangle of curls about her shoulders.