She looked toward the double doorway leading into the hallway. Bryant was standing there, scowling at them. Her smile faded.
"I like this bridge. I like the way it blows in the cold wind when there is snow coming like tonight."
"You are a risk taker at heart, considering how many packages we are carrying. All right, we'll cross on the suspension bridge."
In the middle of it, Clara stopped.
"Brr," Wes said.
"We have another present, Wesley. One more than we opened at your mother's house."
"Hmmn."
Clara turned around, putting down her bag and circling his neck with her arms. "You have given it to me. In less than half a year, I will give it back to you."
She kissed him. "We are going to have a baby. I am sure of it, now. I have felt movement and also Kortney Pence said so, yesterday morning. So we will have all three of the purposes of marriage."
"What three purposes of marriage?"
"Oh, Wesley. I am not trying to convert you, like the up-time men who are going to class with Pastor Kastenmayer at St. Martin's now to be confirmed next spring, but I do wish you would at least read the small catechism. Every Lutheran knows that there are three purposes of marriage."
"Which are?"
"The procreation of children, of course. Which now we are doing."
"That's one."
"Mutual companionship and support, which we also have already. And I will need to bring a cradle to the consular affairs office after the baby is born."
Wes didn't blink. He could live with a cradle in the consular affairs office. And, obviously, would.
"That's two. What's three?"
She smiled up at him. "The third is that it is a remedy for lust."
"I can endorse that. We have been polite to a lot of people all evening. Shall we go home and remedy something?" This time, he kissed her.
Clara was quite relieved to discover that he would not expect them to forego the third purpose of marriage between the time he was notified of her pregnancy and the time she weaned the child. Some men thought that way. Apprehension about this possibility was one reason she had put off telling him about the baby as long as she reasonably could. So she happily kissed him back, for quite some time, in spite of the stiff wind that was blowing down Buffalo Creek.
"Is that actually your father and his Kraut woman making out on the suspension bridge, right in the middle of town?" Bryant Holloway asked.
"Looks like Dad and Clara to me."
"You weren't sucking up to her tonight, were you? Not a bit, of course. Insinuating yourself. Currying a little favor?"
"I like Clara. She's nice. She's nice to us. Really. She goes out of her way."
Bryant was looking at the couple on the bridge. "They should be ashamed of themselves."
"All they're doing is kissing each other." Lenore protested. "Wearing a batch of winter clothes. And they are married."
"Barely in time, if the gossip that Lola picked up is true."
"What gossip?"
"She went in to Leahy Medical to find out if she's pregnant."
"Pregnant?"
"What did you expect, the way they . . ."
"Act like married people in love? Clara turned thirty-eight a couple of weeks ago. We had a birthday party for her. You weren't back yet. If you really want to know, then—yeah, Chandra and I have been sort of expecting that a half-sister or half-brother would turn up one of these days. Or both. Or more, if they manage to squeeze them in."
She laughed. "I've got to grant that they've apparently been pretty efficient about it, though. I suppose we'll get the news officially in a day or so."
"I don't like that tone of voice. You're talking back. Again. You're getting to be more and more like your sister."
"What's Chandra ever done to you?"
"She spent at least an hour this evening trying to get me to talk about what Nathan has been doing in Frankfurt and quizzing me about why he decided not to come to Grantville for a visit. If he thought it was any of her business, he would tell her himself. And nagging me to tell her why he doesn't want her to go with him. He's given her his reasons, and that's actually more than she deserves. If he doesn't want her to come, then she should do as he wants and stay here without all this griping."
Lenore stopped walking. "Since when doesn't a wife deserve to know her husband's reasons for how he treats her?"
Bryant turned toward her.
She pushed the baby stroller so that it was between them. "We'd better get Weshelle home. I have her all covered up, but this wind is chilly."