“I’m not an invalid, Lizzie. Don’t worry. Enjoy your time with your new nephew.”
*
“Ah, finally back at our inn,” Colin said that evening when they stopped for the night.
“It is ours in a way, isn’t it?” Lizzie smiled at him.
“I shall buy it for you, then it will be ours in every way,” he offered.
“I would think you were joking if I didn’t know what a spendthrift you were,” Lizzie said reproachfully.
“Only for you, wife.”
“Don’t you know me by now?” She asked. “Try being frugal, that would impress me far more.”
When they arrived at Ashbury, Nicholas (to their great surprise) hugged them both.
“Thank you so much for coming, both of you,” he said fervently.
“Your eagerness is unbecoming, Hawkins,” Talbot said with a raised eyebrow, and Lizzie knew something between them had changed when Nicholas laughed at the remark.
“Shut up, Talbot. Let’s go inside.”
“Oh, Sophie, he is so precious! And he smells heavenly!” Elizabeth exclaimed as she held her new nephew for the first time. “Colin, look at him!” She held the child up so he could see better.
“Ah, yes,” Colin said awkwardly, “what a... fine boy.”
Lizzie burst out laughing, and the baby in her arms started crying. “Oh, no, I’m sorry. It’s the bad man’s fault, yes, not your aunt Lizzie’s, remember that!”
She looked up from the baby to see everyone in the room looking at them: Charlotte’s stare seemed wistful, Isabella and Frederick’s fond, Sophie’s surprised, and Nicholas’s amused. She blushed and looked back down at her nephew.
“Will someone please tell me my nephew’s name!” She implored them.
Sophie and Nicholas exchanged a glance, and Isabella put both her palms on her heart.
“We actually…” Nicholas started, then cleared his throat. “We were hoping you would name him and record his birth in the family prayer book.”
If she hadn’t been sitting, she would have definitely dropped the baby. Talbot laid a hand on her shoulder.
“You… Really?”
Both Sophie and Nicholas nodded with tears in their eyes.
“But I have no ideas!” She turned to Colin, who gave her a gentle smile.
“You don’t have to name him today, kitten,” he said as he bent down to pretend to look at the boy again.
Before dinner, Nicholas and Elizabeth went for a walk in the gardens. It was cold and wet, but Lizzie was grateful to be outside. She closed her eyes against the cold wind and envisioned it blowing away the last three days.
“Elizabeth, I…” Nicholas started saying at the same time as Elizabeth asked, “How is Charlotte?”
They smiled at each other.
“Charlotte is… having an intermission.”
“Have any of you spoken to Sinclair?”
“Yes, he came here a day after she did. We all talked, and they decided to spend some time apart in order to deal with the wounds they inflicted on one another.”
