The Bridgertons Happily Ever After (3 page)

Ah well. She was sentimental. This was nothing new.

“How old are you now, Georgie?” she asked, thinking that maybe she
could
do this again. Not that she had much choice, but still, she felt reassured, standing here with this little boy in her arms.

Agatha tugged on her sleeve and whispered, “He doesn’t talk.”

Daphne blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

Agatha glanced over at her parents, as if she wasn’t sure she should be saying anything. They were busy chatting with Belinda and Caroline and took no notice. “He doesn’t talk,” she said again. “Not a word.”

Daphne pulled back slightly so that she could look at Georgie’s face again. He smiled at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners exactly the same way Colin’s did.

Daphne looked back at Agatha. “Does he understand what people say?”

Agatha nodded. “Every word. I’m sure of it.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I think my mother and father are concerned.”

A child nearing his third birthday without a word? Daphne was
sure
they were concerned. Suddenly the reason for Colin and Penelope’s unexpected trip to town became clear. They were looking for guidance. Simon had been just the same way as child. He hadn’t spoken a word until he was four. And then he’d suffered a debilitating stutter for years. Even now, when he was particularly upset about something, it would creep back over him, and she’d hear it in his voice. A strange pause, a repeated sound, a halting catch. He was still self-conscious about it, although not nearly so much as he had been when they’d first met.

But she could see it in his eyes. A flash of pain. Or maybe anger. At himself, at his own weakness. Daphne supposed that there were some things people never got past, not completely.

Reluctantly, Daphne handed Georgie back to his nurse and urged Agatha toward the stairs. “Come along, darling,” she said. “The nursery is waiting. We took out all of the girls’ old toys.”

She watched with pride as Belinda took Agatha by the hand. “You may play with my favorite doll,” Belinda said with great gravity.

Agatha looked up at her cousin with an expression that could only be described as reverence and then followed her up the stairs.

Daphne waited until all the children were gone and then turned back to her brother and his wife. “Tea?” she asked. “Or do you wish to change out of your traveling clothes?”

“Tea,” Penelope said with the sigh of an exhausted mother. “Please.”

Colin nodded his agreement, and together they went into the drawing room. Once they were seated Daphne decided there was no point in being anything but direct. This was her brother, after all, and he knew he could talk to her about anything.

“You’re worried about Georgie,” she said. It was a statement, not a question.

“He hasn’t said a word,” Penelope said quietly. Her voice was even, but her throat caught in an uncomfortable swallow.

“He understands us,” Colin said. “I’m sure of it. Just the other day I asked him to pick up his toys, and he did so. Immediately.”

“Simon was the same way,” Daphne said. She looked from Colin to Penelope and back. “I assume that is why you came? To speak with Simon?”

“We hoped he might offer some insight,” Penelope said.

Daphne nodded slowly. “I’m sure he will. He was detained in the country, I’m afraid, but he is expected back before the week’s end.”

“There is no rush,” Colin said.

Out of the corner of her eye, Daphne saw Penelope’s shoulders slump. It was a tiny motion but one any mother would recognize. Penelope knew there was no rush. They had waited nearly three years for Georgie to talk; a few more days wouldn’t make a difference. And yet she wanted so desperately to do
some
thing. To take an action, to make her child whole.

To have come this far only to find that Simon was gone . . . It had to be discouraging.

“I think it is a very good sign that he understands you,” Daphne said. “I would be much more concerned if he did not.”

“Everything else about him is completely normal,” Penelope said passionately. “He runs, he jumps, he eats. He even reads, I think.”

Colin turned to her in surprise. “He does?”

“I believe so,” Penelope said. “I saw him with William’s primer last week.”

“He was probably just looking at the illustrations,” Colin said gently.

“That’s what I thought, but then I watched his eyes! They were moving back and forth, following the words.”

They both turned to Daphne, as if she might have all the answers.

“I suppose he might be reading,” Daphne said, feeling rather inadequate. She wanted to have all the answers. She wanted to say something to them other than
I suppose
or
Perhaps
. “He’s rather young, but there’s no reason he couldn’t be reading.”

“He’s very bright,” Penelope said.

Colin gave a look that was mostly indulgent. “Darling . . .”

“He is! And William read when he was four. Agatha, too.”

“Actually,” Colin admitted thoughtfully, “Agatha did start to read at three. Nothing terribly involved, but I know she was reading short words. I remember it quite well.”

“Georgie is reading,” Penelope said firmly. “I am sure of it.”

“Well, then, that means we have even less to be concerned about,” Daphne said with determined good cheer. “Any child who is reading before his third birthday will have no trouble speaking when he is ready to do so.”

She had no idea if this was actually the case. But she rather thought it ought to be. And it
seemed
reasonable. And if Georgie turned out to have a stutter, just like Simon, his family would still love him and adore him and give him all the support he needed to grow into the wonderful person she knew he would be.

He’d have everything Simon hadn’t had as a child.

“It will be all right,” Daphne said, leaning forward to take Penelope’s hand in hers. “You’ll see.”

Penelope’s lips pressed together, and Daphne saw her throat tighten. She turned away, wanting to give her sister-in-law a moment to compose herself. Colin was munching on his third biscuit and reaching for a cup of tea, so Daphne decided to direct her next question to him.

“Is everything well with the rest of the children?” she asked.

He swallowed his tea. “Quite well. And yours?”

“David has got into a bit of mischief at school, but he seems to be settling down.”

He picked up another biscuit. “And the girls aren’t giving you fits?”

Daphne blinked with surprise. “No, of course not. Why do you ask?”

“You look terrible,” he said.

“Colin!” Penelope interjected.

He shrugged. “She does. I asked about it when we first arrived.”

“But still,” his wife admonished, “you shouldn’t—”

“If I can’t say something to her, who can?” he said plainly. “Or more to the point, who
will
?”

Penelope dropped her voice to an urgent whisper. “It’s not the sort of thing one talks about.”

He stared at her for a moment. Then he looked at Daphne. Then he turned back to his wife. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

Penelope’s lips parted, and her cheeks went a bit pink. She looked over at Daphne, as if to say,
Well?

Daphne just sighed. Was her condition
that
obvious?

Penelope gave Colin an impatient look. “She’s—” She turned back to Daphne. “You are, aren’t you?”

Daphne gave a tiny nod of confirmation.

Penelope looked at her husband with a certain degree of smugness. “She’s pregnant.”

Colin froze for about one half a second before continuing on in his usual unflappable manner. “No, she’s not.”

“She is,” Penelope replied.

Daphne decided not to speak. She was feeling queasy, anyway.

“Her youngest is seventeen,” Colin pointed out. He glanced over at Daphne. “He is, isn’t he?”

“Sixteen,” Daphne murmured.

“Sixteen,” he repeated, directing this at Penelope. “Still.”

“Still?”

“Still.”

Daphne yawned. She couldn’t help it. She was just
exhausted
these days.

“Colin,” Penelope said, in that patient yet vaguely condescending tone that Daphne
loved
to hear directed at her brother, “David’s age hardly has anything to do with—”

“I realize that,” he cut in, giving her a vaguely annoyed look. “But don’t you think, if she were going to . . .” He waved a hand in Daphne’s general direction, leaving her to wonder if he could not bring himself to utter the word
pregnant
in relation to his own sister.

He cleared his throat. “Well, there wouldn’t have been a sixteen-year gap.”

Daphne closed her eyes for a moment, then let her head settle against the back of the sofa. She really
should
feel embarrassed. This was her brother. And even if he was using rather vague terms, he was talking about the most intimate aspects of her marriage.

She let out a tired little noise, something between a sigh and a hum. She was too sleepy to be embarrassed. And maybe too old, too. Women ought to be able to dispense with maidenly fits of modesty when they passed forty.

Besides, Colin and Penelope were bickering, and that was a good thing. It took their minds off Georgie.

Daphne found it rather entertaining, really. It was lovely to watch any of her brothers stuck in a stalemate with his wife.

Forty-one definitely wasn’t too old to feel just a little bit of pleasure at the discomfort of one’s brothers. Although—she yawned again—it would be more entertaining if she were a bit more alert to enjoy it. Still . . .

“Did she fall asleep?”

Colin stared at his sister in disbelief.

“I think she did,” Penelope replied.

He stretched toward her, craning his neck for a better view. “There are so many things I could do to her right now,” he mused. “Frogs, locusts, rivers turning to blood.”

“Colin!”

“It’s so tempting.”

“It’s also proof,” Penelope said with a hint of a smirk.

“Proof ?”

“She’s pregnant! Just like I said.” When he did not agree with her quickly enough, she added, “Have you ever known her to fall asleep in the middle of a conversation?”

“Not since—” He cut himself off.

Penelope’s smirk grew significantly less subtle. “Exactly.”

“I hate when you’re right,” he grumbled.

“I know. Pity for you I so often am.”

He glanced back over at Daphne, who was starting to snore. “I suppose we should stay with her,” he said, somewhat reluctantly.

“I’ll ring for her maid,” Penelope said.

“Do you think Simon knows?”

Penelope glanced over her shoulder once she reached the bellpull. “I have no idea.”

Colin just shook his head. “Poor bloke is in for the surprise of his life.”

When Simon finally returned to London, fully one week delayed, he was exhausted. He had always been a more involved landowner than most of his peers—even as he found himself approaching the age of fifty. And so when several of his fields flooded, including one that provided the sole income for a tenant family, he rolled up his sleeves and got to work alongside his men.

Figuratively, of course. All sleeves had most definitely been down. It had been bloody cold in Sussex. Worse when one was wet. Which of course they all had been, what with the flood and all.

So he was tired, and he was still cold—he wasn’t sure his fingers would ever regain their previous temperature—and he missed his family. He would have asked them to join him in the country, but the girls were preparing for the season, and Daphne had looked a bit peaked when he left.

He hoped she wasn’t coming down with a cold. When she got sick, the entire household felt it.

She thought she was a stoic. He had once tried to point out that a true stoic wouldn’t go about the house repeatedly saying, “No, no, I’m fine,” as she sagged into a chair.

Actually, he had tried to point this out twice. The first time he said something she had not responded. At the time, he’d thought she hadn’t heard him. In retrospect, however, it was far more likely that she had
chosen
not to hear him, because the second time he said something about the true nature of a stoic, her response had been such that . . .

Well, let it be said that when it came to his wife and the common cold, his lips would never again form words other than “You poor, poor dear” and “May I fetch you some tea?”

There were some things a man learned after two decades of marriage.

When he stepped into the front hall, the butler was waiting, his face in its usual mode—that is to say, completely devoid of expression.

“Thank you, Jeffries,” Simon murmured, handing him his hat.

“Your brother-in-law is here,” Jeffries told him.

Simon paused. “Which one?” He had seven.

“Mr. Colin Bridgerton, Your Grace. With his family.”

Simon cocked his head. “Really?” He didn’t hear chaos and commotion.

“They are out, Your Grace.”

“And the duchess?”

“She is resting.”

Simon could not suppress a groan. “She’s not ill, is she?”

Jeffries, in a most un-Jeffries-like manner, blushed. “I could not say, Your Grace.”

Simon regarded Jeffries with a curious eye. “Is she ill, or isn’t she?”

Jeffries swallowed, cleared his throat, and then said, “I believe she is tired, Your Grace.”

“Tired,” Simon repeated, mostly to himself since it was clear that Jeffries would expire of inexplicable embarrassment if he pursued the conversation further. Shaking his head, he headed upstairs, adding, “Of course, she’s tired. Colin’s got four children under the age of ten, and she probably thinks she’s got to mother the lot while they’re here.”

Maybe he’d have a lie-down next to her. He was exhausted, too, and he always slept better when she was near.

The door to their room was shut when he got to it, and he almost knocked—it was a habit to do so at a closed door, even if it did lead to his own bedchamber—but at the last moment he instead gripped the doorknob and gave a soft push. She could be sleeping. If she truly was tired, he ought to let her rest.