“Did you think I was unconscious of this?” He smiled and hugged her tight, his pain easing a bit.

“Think about it, Richard. Access that wonderful brain above your waist for a moment. We’ve been meeting together for a whole month, actually, a little more than a month.”

He still looked at her questioningly.

“Richard, all women have a certain time when they cannot engage in this…” she leaned in toward him, whispering as if others were listening, “activity. When they…”

“Oh, for goodness sake, Amanda, I am a grown man. I have lived in both Copenhagen and Paris, so I do have a rudimentary knowledge of the female. What does that…?” He stopped suddenly.

She nodded.

“Oh, dear God, you haven’t bled, have you?”

“Finally”—she smiled, nodding her head—“give this man a cheroot. No, I have not for seven weeks, and you would not know it, but this is the one area in which I am never late.”

He stared at her blankly, and they both exhaled. The future moment they had discussed, the moment God would decide their destiny, had already arrived.

“I wasn’t going to say anything yet. In truth, I should wait until another cycle is missed, but I believe I am. The brutal fact is that my breasts are very swollen and sore, and I vomit each morning like a drunken marine.”

An amazingly strong emotion surged through him. The enormity of the joy and exaltation filling him, alongside the fear, was a complete surprise. His eyes began to swim with tears, unmanly tears if they were before anyone but her. He pulled her tightly into his arms and kissed her passionately.

“I take it that you would be pleased, then, if this is true?”

“Yes,” he answered, trying to compose this rampaging emotion, his voice catching a little. “Forgive me if I find your tale of breast pain and nausea to be absolutely wonderful.” He had rarely thought about being a father before and found himself taken aback at the thrill it had brought him.

Amanda pulled from his embrace. “What about Harry, Richard? We still have the problem of my mother-in-law. This is the scandal for which she’s waited.”

He inhaled sharply, his soldier’s brain snapping into position. The war had finally begun, the enemy engaged. Calm settled over him. “Then we leave,” he said simply. “We will seize him and leave immediately, head for the Continent. Later we can discuss heading to America, possibly. I will find out about passages and timetables and then purchase a coach to drive us to a safe area. I want you settled in a location with the best of doctors well before your confinement. First and foremost is a secure house for you and Harry.”

Amanda patted her stomach. “You make it sound so simple,” she whispered anxiously. “What about your inquiries? Have you had any response from your solicitors about our regaining custody?”

Fitzwilliam shook his head. “But never fear, Amanda. I have hired new investigators and have browbeaten my solicitors. We are very close.”

“Richard, if we run, it will be too late; we cannot come back. You do realize that, don’t you? Are you willing to leave England, leave your family?” Her heart was heavy with the guilt of all that he would be sacrificing for her, all he had already sacrificed—a normal home life, his career, and now his beloved family. It was too much to ask of anyone.

He smoothed the hair from her face. “I have every faith that it will turn out well for us. Better than that, even, because now we have a child of our own on the way. If you’ve taught me anything, Amanda, it is that God has decided we are ready, He probably had this all planned long before we met. If He believes in us, who am I to argue? Get your cloak now, and I’ll call for our coach.”

***

It was nearly seven-thirty that evening when an exhausted Richard returned to the inn. He had sent a message to his father, contacted his solicitors, set into motion the purchase of a sturdy travel coach and horses, but he still had arrangements to make and needed to speak to the War Office, then have a long talk with O’Malley and see what he could set up for his old friend. He nodded his quick hello to the concierge who anxiously motioned him over.

“You’ve had a visitor, Colonel— a Grand Gentleman,” he said with feeling and pointed toward the overly crowded public dining room. “And might I say his is the finest Weston superfine with which I have ever had the honor to converse. He has been waiting for you, there at the table to the left of the fireplace, for several hours now.” As Richard looked in that general direction, he thought he saw a figure, a man relaxing casually in the corner. He thanked the concierge and cautiously entered the room.

His direct sight line was initially hampered by smoky candles flickering, by waiters running about and diners rising and sitting, by the numerous people milling about between the entranceway and the dining area. The overwhelming racket of chatter, laughing, and dining sounds distracted him while he bobbed his head around one person then the next as he moved forward.

About halfway into the room, the crowd finally parted, and he beheld the tall, dark, and exceptionally handsome English gentleman, his long legs crossed, his champagne-buffed black riding boots brilliantly reflecting the flames from the hearth. The dark green superfine coat (it really was magnificent) and subdued checkered waistcoat set off his brilliantly white shirt and cravat. One elbow was draped casually across the back of his chair while the other hand sensuously stroked the stem of a wine glass resting on the table before him. His eyes never left Fitzwilliam’s face.

He was the very essence of stylish nonchalance.

Except for his eyes. His eyes were the very black depths of hell.

“Why, hello, brat, fancy meeting you in this godforsaken place. Are you slumming with friends?” The colonel’s greeting for his cousin was accompanied by a cold smile, feeling as he was the wash of displeasure being directed back at him. “You’re looking well. Are those new boots?” God how he hated Darcy when he looked so pompous. He had an irrational desire to smack the back of his little cousin’s head. As he reached down to finger the magnificent, lapelled satin waistcoat, Richard shook his head. “By God, Darcy, you look nearly as fashionable as your butler. Well, aspire to greatness, boy. Who knows, one day you may equal the man.”

Darcy sensed his cousin’s belligerence, knew the man as well as he knew himself, and by the position of his jutting chin, realized they were dancing very near the battlefield at the moment. “Nice of you to say I am in good looks this evening. You, on the other hand, look like shit.”

Fitzwilliam’s gaze narrowed dangerously.

Darcy indicated the chair across from him. “Sit.”

His cousin yanked the chair back and settled heavily into it, crossing his ankle over his knee. “How terribly remiss of me to so offend you with my appearance. Apparently, however, my looks improve with frequency of contact, something to do with my famously charismatic personality.” Fitzwilliam’s counterfeit smile dissolved almost immediately. “Not to mention my heavenly blue eyes.”

Darcy never broke his stare.

“Are you drunk?” Fitzwilliam asked pleasantly.

“No, although I have been sitting here for hours, drinking and waiting, watching the time slowly tick on by.”

Darcy could outstare a corpse.

Fitzwilliam could not, and his color began to rise. He turned as a waiter passed behind him, unapologetically grabbing a tankard of someone else’s ale from the tray, enjoyed at least two large swallows, and then slammed it onto the table. A nearby woman screeched in alarm and threw her napkin over her head.

“Have you been enjoying your little holiday here?” The gentlemanly manner was ice cold.

“Oh, one cannot complain, really. The bathwater can be slightly tepid; however…” He was stopped in midsentence by Darcy’s incredulous bellow.

“Damn it, do you realize that the whole family is worried sick about you? Everyone has been frantic—your father, friends, even Wellington was alarmed!” Darcy’s fury had nearly pulled him from his chair, and he desperately attempted to regain his composure.

Fitzwilliam managed to control his temper by counting to twenty. Then he exploded. “Forgive me, brat; however, I am a grown man, answerable to no one, and I prefer not to speak of this!” His voice rose with every word until he was shouting. “Where I have been and what I have done is no one’s concern but my own!”

Darcy kept watching him, his ire growing more impossible to squelch with every silent moment that passed. Of all the inconsiderate baboons! Of all the self-centered, egomaniacal…! Fitzwilliam’s expression remained stoic as he tossed back another swallow.

“Has it something to do with Amanda?”

It was an insightful shot in the dark that showed immediate results. The comment snapped Fitzwilliam’s attention back to his cousin. “Tell me what it is in the phrase ‘I prefer not to speak about this’ that is escaping you?” Fitzwilliam’s eyes were dark and furious.

The tension between them was suffocating, intense enough to begin alarming surrounding tables, but Darcy was not going to retreat this time. For all of their lives, it had been the older and livelier Fitzwilliam leading the younger and more reserved Darcy, guiding him through life’s adventures. Darcy had always idolized his cousin, never crossing him or trying to harness his free spirit. However, now he realized Aunt Catherine was correct. Perhaps they had all let his cousin drift unchecked for far too long.

“Who was that veiled woman you left with earlier?” Darcy’s question was contemptuous.