“Is that all?” she inquired regretfully. “I’d have thought a king at the least. Well, come, there’s no helping it—’tis not all of us get our deserts in this wicked world.”
“Biddy,” he begged. “Laugh at this, too, will you? Try, try, dear, before it hurts us. I have three sons, Biddy. I’ve been married before.”
She put her other hand to her heart at that, but she kept her lips curved.
“It’s small wonder,” she said. “Why wouldn’t you have been? I’m the shameless one to say it, but if I’d been ten girls instead of one, it’s ten times you’d have been married.”
He put his arms about her then, and something broke in his heart—something cold and hard and bitter. He wanted to tell her that, but he could find no words, because he was only a duke, and not a very articulate one at that. But the small shining creature in his arms had words enough for two.
“Were you thinking of wedding again, maybe?”
“Oh, Biddy,” he cried, “let’s hurry!”
“If you’re asking me,” she said, “I’d say we were hurrying fast and free. I can hear the air whistlin’ in my ears, I can that. Was she a fine lady, darling?”
“Who?” he asked—and remembered—and forgot her for all time. “Oh, she was a very fine lady, and good, and gentle, too. She died long ago.”
“Did she, poor thing?” whispered the future Duchess of Bolingham softly, the cloud in the blue, blue eyes gone for ever. “And me no good at all. I wonder at you! Are they little young things, your sons?”