He’d known it would be awful, of course; it was always awful. But somehow his ears managed to forget just how awful it was. Or maybe they were even worse than usual this year. Harriet dropped her bow twice. That couldn’t be good.

He glanced over at Honoria, certain he’d see an expression of empathy on her face. She’d been there, after all. She knew exactly how it felt to be on that stage, creating that noise.

But Honoria didn’t look the least bit upset for her cousins. Instead, she gazed upon them with a radiant smile, almost like a proud mama basking in the glow of her magnificent charges.

He had to look twice to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

“Aren’t they wonderful?” she murmured, tilting her head toward his.

His lips parted with shock. He had no idea how to answer.

“They’ve improved so much,” she whispered.

That might very well have been true. If so, he was ferociously glad that he had not sat in on any of their rehearsals.

He spent the rest of the concert watching Honoria. She beamed, she sighed; once she put a hand over her heart. And when her cousins set down their instruments (or in the case of Sarah, rolled her eyes as she lifted her fingers from the keys), Honoria was the first on her feet, clapping wildly.

“Won’t it be wonderful when we have daughters who can play in the quartet?” she said to him, giving him an impulsive kiss on the cheek.

He opened his mouth to speak, and in all honesty, he had no idea what he planned to say. But it certainly wasn’t what he did say, which was, “I cannot wait.”

But as he stood there, his hand resting gently at the small of his wife’s back, listening to her chatter with her cousins, his eyes drifted down to her belly, where a new life was taking shape. And he realized it was true. He couldn’t wait. For any of it.

He leaned down and whispered, “I love you,” in Honoria’s ear. Just because he wanted to.

She didn’t look up, but she smiled.

And he smiled, too.

About the Author

About the Author

JULIA QUINN started writing her first book one month after finishing college and has been tapping away at her keyboard ever since.

The New York Times bestselling author of twenty-one novels for Avon Books, she is a graduate of Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges and lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest.

By Julia Quinn

By Julia Quinn

Just Like Heaven

Ten Things I Love About You

What Happens in London

Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

The Lost Duke of Wyndham

The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever

On the Way to the Wedding

It’s In His Kiss

When He Was Wicked

To Sir Phillip, With Love

Romancing Mister Bridgerton

An Offer From a Gentleman