A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)

She gasped. “How did you know? Even I’m not certain yet.”


“I’m certain. And I knew it the moment I saw you. I’ve three older sisters, with ten nieces and nephews between them. I can just tell.”

She buried her face in his coat. “I’m frightened. I’m not sure I know how to be a good mother.”

“You will be the most loving, patient mother who ever lived.” He held her tight. “Except on the rare days you aren’t. On those days, I’ll take the children to the park.”

She laughed into his chest. “How do you do it?” She raised her face to his. “How do you always know exactly what it is I most need to hear?”

“That’s easy.” He bent to whisper in her ear. “Here I divulge a great secret, darling. I just say what ever it is I’d most like to hear back.” His breath warmed her cheek as he murmured hopefully, “I love you.”

“Oh, Toby.” She melted inside. If there were a better man on this earth—she would still want this one. Forever. “I love you, too.”

EPILOGUE

FIVE YEARS LATER

“Well? Did you manage to kill anything today?”

Toby stretched out on the grassy riverbank, reclining on one elbow. “Bagged one partridge. Henry has himself a fine brace of pheasants.”

“That’s all? I knew I should have gone with you.” Lucy looked up at him, the faint gleam of bloodlust in her eye. It was an expression completely at odds with her otherwise maternal appearance. She sat on a quilted picnic blanket, resting her weight on one outstretched hand while the fingers of the other combed her infant’s dark curls.

Beside her, Sophia shaded a charcoal sketch of the slumbering baby boy. “Eventually,” she said without looking up, “we’ll have to stop calling this our annual hunting party. You men so rarely bring anything back.”

“True enough,” Toby said, watching the play of sunshine and brisk autumn breeze on the stream’s dappled surface. “But then, our annual ‘tromping-through-the-woods-to-prove-ourmanliness party’ lacks that certain ring.”

“And where are these other exemplars of manliness?” Lucy asked, drawing a thin blanket over her child.

“Felix went up to the manor, I think. Henry took Jem and Gray by the kennels to see his new foxhounds. They’ll be around shortly.”

“I’m not even sure why Gray goes along with you,” Sophia said. “He doesn’t like violence.”

“Neither does Jeremy,” Lucy replied. “He never could bring himself to shoot a single bird. And then there’s Felix, whose aim has always been hopeless. Soon Tommy will start begging to go along, and that may put a stop to the hunting excursions completely.” She cast a glance toward her older son, who was entertaining a trio of little girls downstream: two fair, one dark. Lucy continued, “Jeremy’s determined that no child of his will ever touch a gun.”

“That’s not wise,” Toby said. He could understand his friend’s protectiveness, considering how Jem’s brother—Tommy’s namesake—had been tragically killed. But he didn’t agree with it. “The boys will only grow more curious, if he forbids them, and it’s curiosity that breeds accidents. In fact, I once knew a girl who secretly followed a hunting party and very nearly got herself killed.”

“Oh, really?” Lucy asked, feigning innocence. They both knew he referred to the day they’d met, when young Lucy startled a covey and Toby’s shot missed her by inches. They’d been close ever since.

“What an incorrigible child,” she continued. “I suppose she came to a very bad end indeed.”

“Not at all. She grew into a lovely, elegant countess.” He smiled. “Don’t worry about the boys. I’ll talk to Jem.”

A chorus of squeals broke out as young Tommy plucked a grass snake from the rushes and held his wriggling prize aloft. Shrieking, the two blond girls went scurrying up the bank. The third, darker girl held her ground, however, shouting not at the snake, but at Tommy—adjuring him to set the poor creature free.

Toby smiled. That was his Lyddie. She’d inherited her mother’s keen sense of justice, along with that dark, glossy hair.

“Drat,” Sophia muttered, putting aside her sketch to chase after her two daughters. “They’ll run crying all the way to their papa now.”

“So sorry,” Lucy called after her. She shook her head and grinned at Toby. “I wouldn’t know what to do in her place. It’s a good thing I give birth to boys, while she has the girls.”

“So far.” He flicked a meaningful glance toward Sophia. “We’ll see if the pattern holds true in six months.”

“Truly? She hasn’t said a thing.” Lucy’s cheeks dimpled with a wide grin. “But I suspected she’d brought home a little memento from Italy.”

“And,” Toby said cannily, “Sophia’s baby won’t even be the next.”

She gasped. “Surely Isabel isn’t—”

“No, no. It’s far too soon.”