Catherine listened with half an ear as her friend rambled on. When they reached the small tea ship with its cheerfully decorated windows and cozy fire crackling away in the corner she followed Grace inside, pausing only to stamp her feet to get the excess snow off her boots and circulation back into her toes.
The shop was filled nearly to the brim with people who had also wanted to escape the cold, but they managed to find a small table near the fireplace that was unoccupied. Grace rushed around the side of the table to take Catherine’s cloak and hovered over her like an anxious mother hen as Catherine gripped the arms of the chair and readied herself to sit down.
“Do you need help?” Grace asked, fluttering her hands anxiously in the air.
“No, no, I am fine. It just… takes a bit… there.” Catherine sighed in relief as she plopped rather unceremoniously into her chair. Automatically her gloved hands curved around her burgeoning belly and a smile bloomed across her face as she felt a small answering kick. “The cold weather makes her feisty,” she murmured, more to herself than to Grace, but her friend possessed the ears of a fox and did not hesitate to respond.
“You should be lying in bed eating scones, not walking about in the snow,” she scolded, wagging her finger.
“I am healthy as a horse,” Catherine replied succinctly. “And only five months along. I refuse to lock myself away simply because I am expecting a child.”
“You needn’t be so dramatic,” said Grace with a quick roll of her eyes. “It is called confinement, and it is practiced by every pregnant woman in England and beyond.”
“Except by those who have to work for their living, yet they somehow manage to have perfectly healthy babies without spending weeks inside their bedrooms.”
“A somewhat valid point,” Grace said grudgingly, but there was a fond light in her eyes as her gaze dropped to Catherine’s stomach, now faintly outlined beneath the empire waistline of her walking dress.
Catherine had discovered she was pregnant shortly after returning to London. She had thought about writing Marcus a letter for weeks, but had eventually discarded the idea as folly. She had never in her wildest dreams imagined a baby would come from their one intimate night together and she was terrified of what Marcus might do if he found out she was carrying what could be his heir, if it was a boy. She had already lost her husband; she could not live with herself if she lost her child as well.
When the sky began to darken outside the tea shop the two women stood and said their goodbyes. Grace lived with her parents only a short half block away, in the opposite direction of Catherine’s townhouse. She offered to accompany her friend, but Catherine gently pushed her along, and struck out on her own.
The wind had picked up and snow blew in the air as Catherine fought through London’s foot traffic. She was jostled and pushed as she walked briskly forward, but she kept a firm grip on her purse and managed to reach her townhouse without incident.
A tidy brownstone set back from the street behind a wrought iron fence, it had been Marcus’ wedding present to her. Neither of them ever imagined it would one day come to serve as her primary residence.
Exhausted by the rapid pace she had set for herself, Catherine collapsed into the first chair she came to after her butler took her cloak, scarf, and muff before disappearing into the kitchen to ready a pot of tea. Closing her eyes, she began to rub her belly in soothing rhythmic circles.
“A bit late to be out walking by yourself, isn’t it?” A painfully familiar voice drawled from the shadows.
With a loud gasp Catherine jolted upright. Her hands flew to her mouth in silent dismay as Marcus unfolded himself from where he had been leaning against the far wall and stalked across the parlor to stand in front of her, his jaw clenched tight and his gray eyes dark as the clouds outside.
“Is there something you would like to tell me, Catherine?” he asked quietly. His gaze swept down her body, lingered briefly on the soft swell of her belly, and jerked back up to her flushed face.
Catherine’s mouth opened and closed, but she couldn’t force any words out. Belatedly she realized nearly every candle in the house had been dimmed and no servants were in sight. Clues that would have alerted her to Marcus’ presence if she had not been so tired.
“I… I do not… when… what are you doing here?” she finally managed to croak out. Inside her chest her heart beat rapidly. She drew in a deep, unsteady breath and curled her arms around her stomach in a protective gesture that brought an immediate scowl to Marcus’ face.
“There is no reason for you to be afraid of me,” he snapped. “I did not come here to hurt you. I simply want to know why you have kept your pregnancy from me. Is the child mine?”
The bluntness of his question was the spark she needed to find her voice. “Yes,” she said and then, because she had nothing else to hide, continued in a voice raw with emotion and barely restrained tears. “The baby could no one else’s but yours, Marcus. I have never been with another man.”