“He is.”
“Good, then he can never try to claim the babe.” She put a hand to her belly.
“Is that an acceptance?”
“It is,” she said.
They simply regarded each other.
He let out a breath, and he scratched at the side of his chin, at the growth there.
She put her other hand to her belly.
It was quiet.
He cleared his throat. “It seems to me there are a number of things I need to say to you. I know that I wished to say them before I left, but I can no longer remember them. I feel a bit wrung out.”
“Do you regret it?” It came out sharper than she might have intended. She felt a bit like Lady Macbeth, breathing in a man’s ear that he must stir to violence. Did he wish her to tell him that it was the thing a man should do? That if he were truly a man, it was what he durst undertake? She would say it, if that was what he needed.
“I…” He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t regret his being gone. I don’t feel as if he deserved something else. But before I met you, I used to think of myself as a man who strove to do what was right, and I feel now as if I have no idea what is right anymore. I feel as if I am pulled in all manner of directions, and they are powerful and intense, like the pull of the earth towards the sun itself, but I cannot say what the right thing is.”
“It was entirely the right thing,” she said to him, lifting her chin.
His expression changed. He took a step towards her.
She reached for him. “I hear the regiment is in Newcastle. You have been there and back in six days? No wonder you look as you do.”
He took another step towards her. “It is my doing, you see? This. What befell you. I let him go after what he did to my sister.”
She closed the distance between them. She reached up to run her fingertips against the dark growth on his jaw. “You have put it all to rights,” she said. “Thank you.”
He met her gaze, and the look on his face was one a scolded boy gives a nurse who assures him all is forgiven.
She brushed her fingers through his stubble. “You did it for me. For us, for the babe and me. For…” She let out a breath. “Forourbabe.”
He visibly shuddered, and then he put his hand on her belly. “Yes,” he said. “It is mine now.”
She guided his face down to hers. “It is your babe, Fitz,” she whispered.
He kissed her, and it was a desperate kiss. “Mine,” he said, his hand warm against her. His mouth was wet and hot.
She pressed into him.
He gathered her into his arms and he kissed her and kissed her.
She gasped against him.
“We shall leave at once,” he managed between kisses. “This instant. To Gretna Green.”
“You are in no shape for it,” she said, pulling away, but only inches away. Their faces hovered close to each other still. “You need to rest.”
He put his forehead against hers. “Were they wretched to you while I was gone? Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst? My sister?”
“No, no. Your sister and I spoke, but she was not remotely wretched. And the Bingley sisters seem mostly frightened of your retribution, I think.”
“Georgiana, she seems quite displeased with me. If she took that out on you—”
“She did not,” she assured him.