Sarah gave Daisy one final glare before returning Harriet’s bow. “I’m not doing this again,” she warned. “I don’t care if you have to shrink to a trio. The only reason I’m playing this year is—”

“Because you felt guilty,” Iris said. “Well, you do,” she added when her comment was met with nothing but silence. “You still feel guilty about abandoning us last year.”

Sarah opened her mouth. It was her natural inclination to argue when accused of something, wrongfully or not. (And in this case, not.) But then she saw her husband, standing in the doorway with a smile on his face and a rose in his hand, and instead she said, “Yes. Yes, I do.”

“You do?” Iris asked.

“I do. I’m sorry to you, and you”—she nodded toward Daisy—“and probably to you, too, Harriet.”

“She didn’t even play last year,” Daisy said.

“I’m her older sister. I’m sure I owe her an apology for something. And if you’ll all excuse me, I’m leaving with Hugh.”

“But we’re practicing!” Daisy protested.

Sarah gave her a jolly wave. “Ta-ta!”

“ ‘Ta-ta?’ ” Hugh murmured in her ear as they made their way out of the music room. “You say ‘ta-ta’?”

“Only to Daisy.”

“You really are a good egg,” he said. “You didn’t have to play this year.”

“No, I think I did.” She would never admit it aloud, but when she realized that she was the only person capable of saving the annual musicale . . . Well, she couldn’t let it die. “Tradition is important,” she said, hardly able to believe the words that were coming from her mouth. But she had changed since falling in love. And besides . . .

She took Hugh’s hand and placed it on her abdomen. “It could be a girl.”

It took him a moment. And then: “Sarah?”

She nodded.

“A baby?”

She nodded again.

“When?”

“November, I should think.”

“A baby,” he said again, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.

“You shouldn’t be so surprised,” she teased. “After all—”

“She’ll need to play an instrument,” he interrupted.

“She might be a boy.”

Hugh looked down at her with dry humor. “That would be most unusual.”

She laughed. Only Hugh would make such a joke. “I love you, Hugh Prentice.”

“And I love you, Sarah Prentice.”

They resumed their walk toward the front door, but after only two steps, Hugh leaned down and murmured in her ear, “Two thousand.”

And Sarah, because she was Sarah, chuckled and said, “Is that all?”

About the Author

About the Author

The author of twenty-three previous novels for Avon Books, JULIA QUINN is a graduate of Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges and lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family. Please visit her on the web at www.juliaquinn.com.

By Julia Quinn

By Julia Quinn

The Bridgerton Series

THE DUKE AND I

THE VISCOUNT WHO LOVED ME