Elizabeth fondly watched her and Isabella’s older children playing with one of Thunder’s offspring, and her heart clenched as she remembered him affectionately.
“Why the sad face, wife?” Colin asked.
She hadn’t even heard him come in.
“I’m thinking of Starlight’s father,” she said as she tilted her head towards the window.
“Ah, our good old Thunder,” her husband said and started rubbing her shoulders and back soothingly. “There wasn’t a hunting dog like him in all of England.”
Elizabeth leaned into his touch.
“I think this summer might be my favourite,” she said after a while.
“You say that every summer,” Colin responded with a raised eyebrow.
“And it’s true every time I say it,” Elizabeth replied.
Having done this countless times, Colin was extremely skilled in finding and providing relief for the sorest spots on her body. Lizzie hadn’t even been aware of how much she’d needed it.
“Thank you,” she said when he finished the massage. “You know how difficult it is to rest comfortably towards the end.”
“I still say we shouldn’t have invited all these people,” he said somewhat childishly.
“It’s just Charlotte and Isabella, and it’s not like I’m doing anything. I’m grateful for the company,” Elizabeth retorted.
“It’s Charlotte, and Sinclair, and William, and James, and it’s Isabella, and Frederick, and Josephine, and Aurelia, and John,” he listed with his eyebrows raised.
“Oh, that reminds me, you know what Nathaniel told me yesterday?” Elizabeth said as she turned her entire body towards him. “He said he cannot wait to marry Aurelia,” she whispered, although they were alone.
Her smile faltered when she saw her husband’s face.
“What is it?”
“Well,” Colin said as he ran a hand through his hair. “Aurelia has been following Sinclair’s younger boy around since the day he got here, so I don’t think she’d be too keen on that marriage. Let’s hope our Nathaniel is not his father’s son.”
Elizabeth turned back to the window to look at her children again and observed, not for the first time, how intensely her oldest, Edward, was staring at the bench where Beth was sitting and reading.
“Let’s hope he is,” she replied with a smile.
