She nodded. “I did not do it on my own.”
He grinned, but the shock of the news had caught him unprepared for such a momentous announcement. “Are you sure?”
She waggled her hand. “Fairly certain. My breasts have become sore, and my waistline has expanded an inch.”
He winced. “You might have merely gained weight?”
She gave him a long look. “I cast up my accounts this morning.”
“There could have been something wrong with what you were served?”
“Before I’d eaten a single mouthful? Before the tray even arrived in my chambers? And it’s not the first time. I don’t think I am imagining this,” she said with a raised brow. “I am with child.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth, trying not to shout out with glee.
“Don’t be afraid,” she begged, misunderstanding his gesture. “I know how much you wish Pip had lived.”
“It wasn’t to be,” he murmured, touched by her concern for him. Pip hadn’t survived his birth, along with his mother. He’d told Aurora how much that had hurt.
He’d looked forward to being a father, but his dream of a family had been ripped away in one night. He doubted he’d ever recover, doubted he could ever love again. And then he’d met Aurora and fallen in love with her. He considered himself very lucky indeed that she loved him back. He didn’t like to think of what his life might have been like without her.
He glanced at Aurora now, and fear for her welfare ripped through his entire being. What if he lost her, too, in childbirth?
Aurora covered his mouth with her hands before he could voice any doubts out loud. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m not going anywhere, and our child will live. You are stuck with me, with us, forever and a day, my dear husband.”
He forced himself to push the fear aside for now and her hands slowly lowered from his face. But he would always worry. Privately, though, when Aurora couldn’t read his mind with just one glance. “I’m so glad to have you in my life, and so happy with your news.”
“I feel the same way.” She kissed his cheek and stood, putting her hands on her hips. “Now I have much to do if I am to be ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“Well, obviously the Duke of Northport will be joining us tonight. I want everything to be perfect for when we sit down together for our first family dinner.”
She summoned a servant and issued a stream of orders for Cook and for the evening to come. Drew caught her hand when the servant was gone off to do her bidding. “How do you know Juliette will forgive him?”
“She already has, but we cannot let him know that yet. She’s as much in love still as you were with me.”
“No one could be that besotted,” he joked.
“People should be.” Aurora stood and drew him to his feet. She smoothed her hands up and down his chest. “You do want to be on better terms with the head of your family, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do,” he promised.
“Good then, I’ll leave it to you to announce my condition after the dinner, and our mutual wish that they marry before he or she is born. I want you to turn to him and Juliette for support during my pregnancy when you begin to panic.”
He dropped his head to rest against hers. “I gather you’ve given this some thought already.”
“It is my fault the estrangement between you happened in the first place. It is essential that you make up well before our child comes. You miss him and I don’t like arguments.”
Drew wrapped Aurora in his arms. “I have missed him sometimes. He’s impossible, but…”
“He is your family.” She snuggled against him. “And you are mine. I want everything to go as smoothly as possible for the birth of our child, that includes making him marry Juliette. I need to know things are going well in the family, so you won’t worry yourself sick.”
Drew slowly slipped his hand between them and gingerly spread his fingers over her belly. There was no hint of a child quickening beneath his fingers, although Aurora claimed the signs were there. “When did you say dinner would be?”
“Oh, the usual time, I imagine. Why?”
“Just a thought. When is your next client to arrive?”
“At four. We’ll give your father and Juliette some time to thrash things out before we tell him he must go, so I can use the drawing room for dance practice. He can return, resplendent, to propose, and tomorrow he can make arrangements to marry her by special license at the end of the week.”
“You think of everything,” Drew promised before he swung Aurora up into his arms and carried her toward the base of the staircase. “I want to see your naked belly.”
“I somehow expected you might, so I had already planned to give you an hour to celebrate with me. But no more than that. I’m a very busy matchmaker, you know,” Aurora said, and laughed as he hurried upstairs. She snuggled in his arms until they reached their bedchamber doorway.
She wriggled and he set her down on her feet. Aurora smiled up at him, eyes dancing with wickedness as she loosened her gown and stepped out of it right there in the hallway. “As ever, I’m yours to love, husband.”
She backed into the room and Drew followed, fighting to be free of his clothing. Once naked, he caught her up again and held her tight against his skin. “You’re forever mine, too, Aurora, and don’t you ever forget I’m keeping you.”
She offered him a saucy smile. “Always and forever.”