“You are?” Adelaide’s perplexed look was utterly adorable. “You hate when I am flocked.”

“True. Which is why I intend to storm the place and push aside all the dandies to claim a dance with my wife that someone else has asked for.” He grinned rather smugly. “It has such a heroic tone to it.”

Adelaide coughed an incredulous laugh. “Whatever happened to your reserve in public and wishing for a lack of demonstration?”

“I need no reserve with my wife,” he shot back. “Not where she is concerned. It is my task to adore her all the days of my life, especially in public, so that others may envy the marriage she has and the love she enjoys.”

“There is a fine line between adoration and obsession,” Adelaide murmured in amusement. “And I think you found it.”

Harrison shrugged. “I will not apologize for it. We are so rarely in London, I thought I might remind the world where I stand with you.”

“Impossible man.”

“Yes, so you’ve said.”

“I love you.”

He smiled at that, just as he always did when she said it. “I love you. And I will not storm, you know. Just push people aside.”

“Oh no, storm away,by all means,” she insisted. “The more spectacle, the better. Besides, I’ve a better reason than most to dance with my husband.”

“Oh?”

She nodded and crossed back over to his side of the carriage. “Yes. I do.” She took his hand, removed his glove, and placed it on her stomach. “In the autumn, my lord, we will have an arrival.”

Harrison gaped, staring at his hand as though he somehow might feel the baby that was growing therein. “Truly?”

“Truly,” Adelaide laughed, her fingers lacing with his on her stomach. “I waited longer than usual to make certain, and it is certain.”

“How have you kept this from me?” he wondered aloud, looking into her smiling face. “I’ve always known when you were carrying the others.”

“I’ve been very careful this time,” she quipped. “And I have better ways of distracting you from astuteness now. It was really quite simple.”

Harrison shook his head and kissed his wife again, fervently but without insistence, keeping his hands away from her hair. “I love you, Addie. So much.”

She laid a hand alongside his cheek, smiling in a way he was certain he did not deserve. “I love you, too, Harrison.” Her eyes moved to the window, and her smile turned impish. “Well, well.”

“What?”

“There’s a fog out.”

He glanced behind him, where, sure enough, a low fog was making itself known in the late hour. “So there is.” He looked back at his wife, flashing her a crooked smile. “What are you thinking, Lady Basset?”

“A waltz out of doors, Lord Basset. Do you think our hosts would approve?”