“I’m not sure,” Charlotte said with a small smile. “You see, I thought my monthly had started and that I wasn’t with child, but then it stopped. And my mama told me this morning that a little blood was quite common. So I could be as far as four months along, I suppose.” She looked down at her waist a little dubiously. “I feel just the same.”

Sophie smiled at her gaily. “Well, why shouldn’t you? Did you tell Alex?”

“No, because I didn’t know. I didn’t understand what was happening, and so he thinks I am definitely not pregnant, and here I am, three or four months pregnant. When he gets back, I’ll probably look like a cow.”

“A very beloved cow,” Sophie said with an affectionate grin. “Alex will be ecstatic. One evening he and I were sitting next to each other—was it a musicale? I’m not sure where you were—and he told me that he wanted a large family, four or five children.”

“Really?” Charlotte asked, fascinated.

“Oh, yes,” Sophie said. “He’s besotted. Only besotted men want children.”

Charlotte blushed and just stopped herself from asking if Sophie really thought Alex was besotted. She had to keep a little bit of dignity. Pippa stretched and yawned; Sophie rang the bell.

“Do you want to take Pippa with us?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Sophie gave her friend an understanding smile. Pippa looked so much like Alex.

“You’d better change your dress first,” Sophie observed. “There’s a wet spot where Pippa was sleeping.”

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

That night Charlotte circled the bed that she and Alex usually shared, staring at the slightly crumpled, fine linen sheets. The night seemed to stretch endlessly before her—night after night alone. Six weeks, Alex had said. Or two months at the most. Two months! Charlotte wanted to scream at the unfairness of it. By the time he got back she would look like a melon, and he wouldn’t want to make love to her. One tear slid coldly down her nose. But Charlotte stopped herself. She couldn’t spend the next two months weeping. She would have to organize such a busy life that she fell into bed exhausted every night, so tired that she couldn’t dwell on her memories.

Finally Charlotte crept under the cool sheets. She was wearing one of her long white nightdresses, the kind that Alex hated. Thinking about nightdresses made her remember Alex’s impatient hands running up her body, pulling her clothes out of the way with a muffled oath. Charlotte smiled a little. Bed with Alex had become the focus of her days. He could be frowning at the morning papers, totally absorbed in the report of activities in the House of Lords, and she would suddenly remember the dusky intensity that overtook his eyes as he watched her undress at night. Or Alex would come back from fencing, his hair ruffled, body glowing with exercise, and Charlotte would remember how his chest heaved, after … He used to roll over with a moan of simulated exhaustion and growl that he would never recover. Charlotte bit back more tears. Two months wasn’t very long. She would finish the portrait of Mall.