Because she had no idea of your injuries, said a small, sharp voice in his mind.

Yet Gabby showed no particular concern once she knew. She didn’t blink an eye. She didn’t appear offended, and she didn’t threaten to annul the marriage.

Moreover, she was still peeking at him. Quill had taken to cataloging every time Gabby looked at him secretly from under her eyelashes. He reckoned those glances indicated that she was smoothly transferring her affections from Peter to him. He didn’t inquire why the transference was so important to him.

As he stood frozen in the library, his mind kept offering him an image of Gabby, holding a small scrap of baby in her arms and smiling at the babe the way she smiled at him—as if nothing he could do would ever shake her faith in him. The very idea gave him a strange sensation in his chest, an exultant flush of feeling, an unfamiliar, prideful joy.

Jennings cast one look at the new viscount and decided to approach him at a later date about a few of the more complex issues to do with settling his father’s estate. The man looked perturbed. Likely he took that little codicil of his father’s the wrong way. Not, Jennings thought to himself, that there was a right way to take it. Practically stated outright that the viscount was incapable.

The party separated at the stairs and retired to their various rooms until dinner. Gabby walked slowly toward the magnificent bedchamber designated for the viscountess. Kitty had gracefully relinquished it when they arrived at the manor, and when Gabby had protested, she pointed out that she had no reason to wish for a connecting door with her son. Gabby had blushed and ignored the door as best she could.

Now Gabby walked into the chamber, an airy room hung in sea-green silk, and stared at that same connecting entryway. It was just a door. But on the other side was Quill’s bedchamber. How did he feel, sleeping in his father’s bed? How did he feel, knowing that she was just on the other side of the wall? The door was a solid, imposing one made of mahogany. Gabby chewed her lip.

The funeral was over. The viscount was buried. But if they made love tonight and Quill succumbed to a three-day headache, how would he see his mother off to Southampton? And she had the strong sense that he wished to return to London immediately. Presumably he couldn’t travel while in the grip of illness.

For the first time Gabby began to grasp the parameters of Quill’s medical problems. Exactly when would Quill decide that he could afford to relinquish three days in a row? From what she had seen in London before their marriage, he worked every day. And he liked working. Would he ever be willing to give up three days?