Page 48 of Miss Devon’s Choice

Christian bowed. “Enjoy your visit, carina.” He spoke the endearment softly but added a wink to punctuate his sentence. The silliness of the other men must’ve inspired his own light-hearted behavior.

A wink is certainly new. Heat raced up Rebecca’s neck and flowed into her cheeks as he took himself off after Nathaniel and Thomas. After the door clicked shut behind the men Rebecca realized her sisters were silent. The blush grew warmer and she turned to see them staring at her with completely different expressions.

Julia’s eyebrows had arched nearly into her hairline, and she bit her lip in an obvious attempt to quell a large smile. Christine, on the other hand, had her brows furrowed so harshly that fine wrinkles had appeared on her forehead.

“Carina?” Julia asked, her smile escaping fully at last.

“Indeed,” Christine said, sounding disapproving. “That is excessively familiar.”

Julia dismissed Christine’s comment with a wave of her hand. “They are to be married in a matter of weeks. Would you prefer he call her Miss Devon and nothing more?” She turned back to take Rebecca’s arm and pulled her along to a comfortable couch. “Sit and tell us everything about him.”

“Everything?” Rebecca squeaked. Her immediate thought was of their time in the tree house just the day before. The intimacy of that moment made her entire body burst into an embarrassed flame. What would her sisters think of that interlude? “Hasn’t Christine told you about him? She met Christian—”

“Yes, but she made him sound rather severe and somber,” Julia answered, casting Christine a puzzled glance. “I was quite worried for you, actually. But he appears to be easy enough in company.”

“That was not at all how he behaved at the card party,” Christine said, still standing. She started to pace, as was her habit when she had things to think over. “Was it, Rebecca?”

Rebecca sat further back into the cushion, clasping her hands together in her lap. “Not precisely. I believe I have come to know him better since then.”

“It’s only been a matter of days.” Christine closed her eyes in a show of long-suffering but kept pacing.

“People cannot always be at ease, dear,” Julia said, watching Christine’s progress from one end of the room to the other with amusement.

“I am always at ease.” Christine sniffed.

Julia’s eyebrows raised. “Are you? I am certain I saw evidence to the contrary this very morning. You were most uncomfortable when you asked to speak to Nathaniel as a doctor. I do not think I’ve ever seen you blush so much.”

“Are you ill, Christine?” Rebecca asked, concerned, though also more than happy to escape as the subject of conversation.

Christine stopped her pacing and sat, rather abruptly, in the chair facing her sisters’ couch. “I am not. At least, I don’t think I am. I may as well tell you both. I know Julia’s been curious all morning.” Christine rubbed at her temples for a moment. “Thomas and I have been married for more than two years and I have yet to fall in the family way.”

Rebecca had never stopped to think about Christine and Thomas having children, or the lack of an announcement that they should. But Julia and Virginia, who had been married near the same time as Christine, had both been blessed with babies.

“What did Nathaniel say?” Julia asked, her voice soft and soothing as it had been when both her younger sisters suffered through their scrapes as children.

Christine let her hands fall into her lap where she then proceeded to twist a ring around her finger. “He said the apothecary’s advice wasn’t wise, but little else. Mr. Leeson told me last year, when I was foolish enough to ask, to take a whole list of herbs and to give up riding. He said a woman who rode as frequently as I did had no hope of having a child.”

“Dear me. Christine, did you stop riding?” Julia’s wide-eyed shock was genuine enough.

“You couldn’t have. You love it too much.” Rebecca couldn’t imagine her sister giving way to such a suggestion; Christine was more at home on horseback than in a drawing room.

Christine’s sorrowful expression accompanied her words. “I did give it up. I haven’t ridden in a year.”

Julia appeared wounded by the admission and Rebecca bit her lip.

“Nathaniel—he told you that was ridiculous, didn’t he?” Julia’s tone was indignant and hopeful all at once. “I know for a fact that Lady Crenshaw rides every day the weather allows for it, and she’s had five children.”

“That’s what Nathaniel said.” Christine’s smile was as tired as it was forced. “He said he’d only recommend a woman stop riding if she experienced pain while doing so, but that one could have such exercise safely until after the pregnancy was discovered. Especially one who is used to riding as I am—was.” Christine put her elbow on the arm of her chair and dropped her chin into her hand. “I admit, when Mr. Leeson said it was my fault I hadn’t had a child, I believed him.”

“But-but—” Rebecca leaned forward, gripping the edge of her cushioned seat. “What did Nathaniel say you ought to do? Did he have advice?”

“He did.” Christine’s forehead puckered. “He said I ought to do the things that make me happy and wait for nature to take its course.”

Julia rose and went to Christine, leaning down to wrap her younger sister in an embrace. For a moment, Rebecca saw Christine resist the hug, but then she reached up and held onto Julia for several long moments.

When Julia stepped away, Christine withdrew a handkerchief and wiped at her eyes. “I am sorry. The whole ordeal, the waiting and doing everything the apothecary suggested, the horrid concoctions he made me drink, has left me out of sorts for some time now.”

“I am sorry, Christine. I didn’t know.” Julia’s voice trembling with her own tears.