Some hours later, when he finally retired, he found Jilly already abed, tangled in the blankets as though she had been twisting restlessly.
“James?” she murmured as he climbed in beside her, stretching out on the mattress and sliding his arm beneath her to pull her close to his chest.
“Had you been expecting someone else?” he chided, smoothing aside her rumpled curls to drop a soft kiss on her cheek, which was sleep-flushed and warm beneath his lips.
She gave a soft huff, burrowing deeper into his embrace. “I expected you hours ago,” she said on a yawn. “What’s kept you?”
“Just some correspondence,” he said evasively, dropping his head onto the pillow beside hers and breathing in the sweet lilac scent of her tousled hair. “I couldn’t wait to inform Nick of our happy news.” Not a lie, he reassured himself. Nick had needed to know, to understand why it was imperative to redouble his efforts with the Archbishop.
For a moment she was silent, and her small hand slipped into his, her fingers cool and soft. “Is it happy?” she inquired, her voice just the tiniest bit strained, and he knew at once that he had not fooled her with his protestations of joy.
James swallowed hard, willing the lump in his throat to descend. “Of course it is,” he said. “How can you think it would not be?”
He heard her sigh, felt the catch of her breath in her throat as she said in a dull voice, “Because it’s gone past three in the morning and you smell like you’ve been stewed in liquor.”
He stifled a wince, appalled at what impression he must have given her. And he could never explain to her that it wasn’t horror for the child she carried, but for the possibility that he might lose her. That unless a good number of things went precisely in his favor, she would slip from his grasp forever.
“I’m not unhappy, Jilly. I suppose I simply don’t know how to be a father. My own father was not precisely what anyone would call a model of paternal devotion.” He felt her relax minutely—not all the way, but enough that he could tell that she wanted to believe he’d only been suffering from an ill-timed case of nerves. With deliberate slowness he eased his free hand over her hip, settling his palm over her stomach, where she had pressed it earlier.
“James—”
“I’m sorry I worried you,” he interrupted, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. “I love you, Jilly. I’ll love the both of you for the rest of my life.” Not a lie at all, that.
She relaxed at last, settling her head beneath his chin, tucking herself firmly against him. To her, the words had sounded open and honest—to him they had sounded like the desperate plea of a man who suspected that his time with her had begun to run out, each precious moment slipping away from him like sand in an hourglass.