‘Plenty of men could,’ she pointed out, a strange expression flitting across her face. ‘My own relatives didn’t think twice about turning me away.’
‘You’ve been on the receiving end of such shabby behaviour, you’ve come to expect nothing else. Even from me.’
‘Oh, please, please don’t take what I wrote so...seriously. I was angry when I wrote it. I didn’t mean the half of it.’
‘Yes. Well...’ He looked down at the scrap of paper in his hand. ‘I wrote mine when I was drunk. And before I met you, at that.’
His heart was beating so hard now, because what he said next, how Mary responded, was going to shape his whole future.
‘Tell you what I’d like to do,’ he said, fishing in his pocket for the list he’d written, before he’d known there could be a woman anywhere in the world like Mary. ‘I’d like to tear these lists up, scrap our original agreement altogether and make a fresh start.’
‘What do you mean? Scrap our agreement? Don’t you want,’ she said in a small, scared voice, ‘to be married to me any more?’
‘Mary. I want to be married to you more than anything. But not in the way we said. When we were both so convinced marriage couldn’t work we gave ourselves permission to walk away from it without even trying to smooth things out when we hit our first bumpy patch. Now, if you will just bear with me a minute, I have something I’d like you to consider.’
He reached into his pocket yet again.
‘I’ve written another list,’ he said, feeling his cheeks heating and his collar growing tight. ‘Setting down what I want from marriage, now that I understand a bit more what it’s really about.’
He cleared his throat.
‘“My perfect wife,”’ he said and glanced at Mary. She was sitting stock-still, her hands clasped on her knees, her dark eyes staring up at him with trepidation.
‘“My wife needs to be as tall as my shoulder. She will have straight dark hair that feels like bathing in silk at midnight.”’
He heard her gasp. Glanced up. Her hands were still clasped together, but they were at chest height now, not on her lap. And her eyes...
‘Brown eyes,’ he said, because he’d got this part off by heart. ‘That look right to the heart of me and accept me just as I am, because her own heart is so generous,’ he said, hoping it was true right now. But just in case it wasn’t, he lowered his gaze to the paper again, unwilling to say the rest in the face of any direct opposition.
‘“She won’t be afraid to work hard. She won’t be afraid of being poor. She will be a little shy and uncertain, but so responsive to my kisses that after a bit she will forget where she is and surrender to the waves of passion that break over us, drowning us both. She won’t care about my title. She would feel just the same about me if I never had one. She will judge everyone by a yardstick of kindness and generosity. She won’t care so much about her appearance that she would rebuff a child.” Oh, and one last thing,’ he finished, lowering the sheet, and making himself look her steadily in the eye, no matter what.
‘Her name must be Mary.’
A little sob escaped her throat. ‘I never knew you had it in you to be so...poetical.’
‘If I could write poetry,’ he scoffed, ‘I would have done. Setting all this down so it made any kind of sense took me hours and hours. But the thing is, you’re worth it, Mary. I want to court you. Woo you, if you like. Make this marriage one that’s full of romance, and...’ he gulped ‘...and love.’
‘Love?’
‘Yes, love. Don’t look so shocked. I don’t expect you to fall in love with me, the way I’ve fallen in love with you. Don’t suppose it’s possible. But I can stand that,’ he said, drawing himself up to his full height. ‘I can bear anything, so long as you don’t forbid me to love you.’
‘Of course it’s possible,’ she cried. ‘I’ve loved you practically from the very first night I saw you!’
‘From the...’ He shook his head. ‘No. You couldn’t have. You didn’t give me the slightest bit of encouragement. I had to get your cousins twisting your arm to even get you to come out sightseeing with me.’
‘That’s because I was afraid.’
‘Afraid of me?’
‘Not of you. But the way you made me feel. I’d never thought of any man in...that way before. I thought those sorts of feelings made a woman weak and vulnerable. It shocked me. Scared me. So I fought it. Tried to deny it.’
‘Right up to the altar.’ He nodded.
‘And after. I didn’t admit to myself that I loved you for a while. And even then, I tried to hide it....’
‘You did that extremely well. You always kept me at arm’s length. You wouldn’t even call me by my given name.’
‘I didn’t know I was allowed to,’ she put in, a touch indignantly, he thought. ‘You never said.’
‘It never occurred to me I had to. But I want you to. It would make me feel so much closer to you.’
‘Gregory,’ she said shyly. ‘I am so sorry.’ She got to her feet and closed the distance between them. ‘Sorry that I never showed you any sign of my growing affection for you.’ She took hold of his hands.
‘But then, I had told you not to expect, or request, affection from me,’ he groaned.
‘But if you do want it to be part of our...our fresh start,’ she said hesitantly, ‘then...’
He was about to crush her to his chest and shower her face with kisses. But before he could do anything of the sort, she’d stretched up on tiptoe, put her arms round his neck and kissed him.
Kissed him.
For the first time, she’d been the one to initiate an embrace.
‘My God, Mary, Mary,’ he gasped. ‘This feels like a miracle. Can it really be true? Can you love me?’
‘How could I not love you?’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘I am only sorry I was so miserly with my heart before. If I’d been as generous as you said, I would have shown you how I felt, rather than hiding it all, to try to save face. And speaking of hiding things...’
* * *
She’d known it was wrong to keep the news of her pregnancy from him. Even when she’d feared it would mean the end of any chance of a reconciliation. But now, after he’d professed his love and his hope they could have a fresh start, it would be tantamount to saying she didn’t trust him.
And how could she say she loved him, if she didn’t trust him, completely?
She did trust him. He’d never lied to her, not even when the truth had hurt. So if he said he loved her and wanted a different sort of marriage from the one they’d agreed on at first, then he meant it.
‘I’m...’
The words stuck in her throat. It felt as though she was about to fling herself off a cliff into his arms, hoping he really would be there to catch her.
‘What is it, Mary? Whatever it is, I swear I won’t be angry with you.’
It had never been his anger she’d feared. And wasn’t now.
Taking a deep breath, she flung herself over the edge.
‘I’m increasing.’
His eyes widened. He glanced down at her stomach.
Then laughed with