“He’s teething again,” Hero said beside Megs. “Do you want me to take him? He’ll think nothing of ruining your dress.”
“No, let me hold him a bit longer,” Megs murmured. “He’s quite beautiful.”
“Yes, isn’t he?” Hero’s mouth curved in maternal love.
A pang of desperate longing went through Megs’s breast. This. This was what she wanted.
She looked up and met Godric’s watchful eyes. As if he’d heard her thoughts, he inclined his head almost like he was making a promise. Her breath caught. What other man would be so good to her? He was so protective, so kind. He’d spent the day escorting her and the St. John women about to shops, never once making a demure or seeming bored by frivolous feminine things. The day had been so enjoyable that she’d remembered only as she’d been dressing for dinner that he’d promised to look for Roger’s murderer. And she knew she ought to ask him what his plans were, to press him on the point and make sure he wasn’t going to conveniently forget his vow, but she simply wanted a small respite from the matter.
From death and grief and loss. If only—
“Ah, Mandeville,” the duke drawled.
Megs turned to see that her other brother, Thomas Reading, the Marquess of Mandeville, had arrived. Beside him was his vivacious wife, Lavinia, whose hair had grown if anything more brightly red since Megs had last seen her.
“You’ve got a spot on your waistcoat,” Thomas said to Griffin.
“Yes, I know,” Griffin replied through gritted teeth.
Megs sighed. Her brothers weren’t the best of friends, but at least they now spoke to each other. For several weeks after Griffin’s marriage, that hadn’t been the case.
The gentlemen converged, speaking in low tones about politics before the butler interrupted with the call for supper.
Hero took sweet William from Megs’s arms, bussing him on the cheek before giving him over to his nurse with a murmured word and a lingering look as they left the sitting room. She caught Megs’s eye and smiled ruefully. “I usually put him to sleep myself. It’s silly of me, I know, but I hate letting someone else do it.”
“You can look in on him later,” Griffin said tenderly, offering Hero his arm.
She took it, wrinkling her nose up at him. “You shouldn’t indulge my sentimental quirks.”
“But I like indulging you,” he whispered into the auburn curls at her temple, and Megs blushed, rather thinking she wasn’t meant to hear that last part.
“Shall we?” Godric was at her side.
“Of course.” She laid her fingers on his forearm, realizing that they trembled slightly. There was something about being this close to him, a warmth that transmitted itself from his body to hers, a kind of vibration almost, so that her body seemed to tune itself to his. And she realized with almost horror that even if he weren’t the means to give her a baby, she wanted him.
That isn’t right, she thought shakily as he led her into the dining room and pulled out her chair. She sank into the seat without thought, her mind full of a confused buzzing. Her body wasn’t supposed to long for his. She’d loved Roger, and although she was grateful to Godric and had come to know him a little more, had, perhaps, a kind of admiration for him, that wasn’t love.
Her body shouldn’t respond without love; it just shouldn’t.
She realized that Charlotte sat to her left—the gentlemen were overmatched by the ladies—and, oh dear, to her right was the duke. Megs mentally sighed. The Duke of Wakefield was a rather daunting gentleman to make dinner conversation with. The footmen brought out great platters of fish and began serving as Megs searched her mind for something to say to His Grace.
Instead it was he who turned to her. “I trust you enjoyed the play at Harte’s Folly last night, my lady?”
“Oh, yes, Your Grace,” she murmured, watching as he tore apart a crusty roll. “And you?”
“I confess that the theater doesn’t entertain me,” he replied, his voice bored, but then something softened about his eyes as he glanced at her. “But both Phoebe and Cousin Bathilda like it very much.”
For the first time, Megs felt a faint liking for the duke. “Do you take them there often?”
He shrugged. “There or other theaters in London. They also like the opera, particularly Phoebe. I think the music partially compensates for the fact that she can’t entirely see the stage.” He frowned down at his fish as if it had offended him.
Megs felt a pang. “It’s that bad, then?”
He merely nodded and seemed relieved when Thomas’s voice rose farther down the table.
“The act hasn’t been given enough time,” he was telling Griffin. “When the gin sellers all have been arrested, then the drink must perforce be reduced in the streets of London.”
“It’s been two years,” Griffin growled back, “and your gin act hasn’t done much more than line the pockets of a few crooked informers. I could still buy gin at every fourth house in St. Giles were I wont.”
Thomas’s eyes narrowed as the footmen brought in the next course—a roasted joint and various vegetables—and he opened his mouth to retort.
But the duke intervened. “Griffin is right.”
Both brothers turned to him, astonished. The duke was not a bosom-bow of Griffin’s—he’d been determinedly against the younger brother’s marrying his sister—and Megs knew Thomas considered him a friend and ally.
But the duke set his fork down and sat back. “The act has had two years to effect change and it hasn’t. The only real good it’s done is correct the faults of the ‘36 act, which”—the duke grimaced—“is faint praise indeed. We are at an impasse. London cannot continue with the loss of vigor and blood that gin sucks from it like some ungodly parasite.”
“What do you suggest?” Thomas asked slowly.
The duke pinned him with his cold eyes. “We need a new act.”
Griffin, Thomas, and the duke burst into furious political argument while Godric twirled his wineglass, his eyes intent as he followed the discussion. He wasn’t a peer, so he didn’t sit in Parliament, but every male seemed infected by the blight of gin these days and the discussion on what to do about it.
And, of course, the blight of gin affected everything in St. Giles.
Megs sighed and turned toward Charlotte on her other side. “Are you pleased with the gowns you selected today?”