Please excuse me for being blunt now. Oscar and his wife looked at each other. Before your dogs disappeared, you didn't know what it was like to lose something so precious to you that it hurts. No hurt is the wrong word, kills you is better. How painful it can be. And in your case we are only talking about dogs. Think how your son feels? He has lost a wife that was a thousand times more precious to him than any dog could ever be. Femke looked at Oscar and nodded in recognition of what Julia was saying. I implore you, please think of that, and try to understand Andrew's behavior over the last few months, was born out of nothing other than a real longing to have back what he lost, namely his beloved wife.
Andrew came back into the house with a grin on his face. Father has apologized to me, unreservedly. He told me he had no idea how hard it's been for me, and that he can now understand why I have been so lost. He looked at Julia, who was grinning and smiled. It was you wasn't it? It was you who made him see it.
Of course not. Your father came to that conclusion himself.
I don't believe you. Julia, I......
No, Andrew, me first. I have something important to tell you. I'm pregnant.
Andrew wasn't upset or shocked; he was delighted. I was hoping that's what you were going to say. He took her into his arms. Julia please stay here, with me and the children and our child. I have fallen in love with you.
I would like that very much. I'm in love with you too.
As they kissed, the children ran into the room.
****
THE END
The Devil and the Duke – A Regency Romance
Lady Catherine Dalton turned the small slip of paper over in her delicate hands for the hundredth time since she had received the note. She had recognized the writing right away, the slanting letters looking as they had been written hastily. But she knew Dominick never wrote quickly, his handwriting was simply woefully poor.
Catherine sat in her room, having just gotten dressed for her short journey. She was wearing a gown of blue with white baubles sewn into the skirt, which shimmered when they caught the light every time she took a step. The neck was low, enough to expose the top of her rounded breasts, shoved upwards by an uncomfortable corset that had been strapped to her by Bethany, the servant who she had known since she was just a baby, nineteen years ago.
She just managed to sit on the edge of her four-poster bed and pull on her shoes, ankle length boots of a sort, with small heels upon them. She stood then, and looked down, using her palms to smooth out the skirt of her dress.
“You look great,” a voice said from her doorway. Catherine looked up to see Rebecca, her oldest sister standing there. She had her arms folded across her chest.
“Thank you,” Catherine said in a voice she had hoped was pleasant.
“Where are you going? It’s almost dark,” Rebecca said.
And indeed, it was. Behind Catherine lay a window, and she turned her head to peer out of it. The sky was a brilliant orange, painted that way by a sun which was practically falling from the sky, aiming to hide itself behind the horizon. There were clouds, but they were nothing more than silvery wisps in the sky, few and far between.
“I won’t be long,” Catherine said.
“Mother wouldn’t want you to go out,” her sister said.
“Mother doesn’t know I’m going out,” Catherine replied, a little more heatedly than she should have. Sometimes, Rebecca simply had that way about her, a way which made Catherine respond quite negatively.
“I don’t want you going out,” Rebecca tried.
Catherine stepped forward, sweeping out of her room, the sides of her wide skirt brushing against the skirt of her older sister’s dress.
“And you aren’t mother,” Catherine said over her shoulder, and she moved down the hall towards the staircase. Rebecca didn’t bother following.
Outside, the air was growing chill, and Catherine mentally cursed herself for not thinking to grab a shawl to wrap around her mostly bare arms. There was a horse and carriage outside the front door, as father always liked from sun up to sun down, just in case anyone needed to get somewhere in a hurry. The driver was an older man named Samuel with a limp in his right arm.
“Evening, Lady Catherine,” the old man said, sweeping his hat from his head and bowing.
“Samuel,” Catherine replied.
“Need me?”
“Not this evening, it is just a short walk I am after,” Catherine replied, and she couldn’t help but notice the look of relief which swept over Samuel’s face. It was so close to evening, and she knew the old man was tired and his leg was aching from a day of mostly standing, and then being cramped up in his driver’s box as he chauffeured the family around town. It was so close to nightfall, and he would be pulling the carriage around to the back of the house, and handing the horse off to the stable boys there, and then going to his own home, a small one-room home of sorts built of wood that lay situated at the very back of her father’s land.