The Ugly Duchess

Page 67

“You won’t,” she whispered, pulling his head down to hers.
One of the moments that Theo—or Daisy, as her husband persisted in calling her—remembered throughout her entire life came later that night.
They were sprawled on the bed. As usual, one of the sheets trailed on the floor. The duchess’s hair was standing up on one side. The duke was complaining that he’d pulled a muscle in his left hip and it was her fault, because “no man was meant to bend in that fashion.”
Theo gave her husband a kiss, and told him a secret that she had kept nestled in her heart, waiting until she was absolutely certain. “And you,” she stated, “will be the most wonderful father this baby could possibly have had.”
James couldn’t seem to find any words. He stared at her for a moment, then sat back against the headboard and gently eased her between his legs, spreading his huge hands on her belly.
As she relaxed happily against his shoulder, to her utter astonishment, he began to sing. His voice was nothing like the clear tenor he’d once had. It was the voice of a man who’d been to sea; it sounded like brandy and sin.
“Dance with me,” he sang, “to the end of life.”
He paused after that line and whispered in her ear. “That means that you and I will dance down the days of this life together, and perhaps even beyond.” He dropped a kiss on her nose and sang on, his hands tenderly resting on her still-flat stomach. “Dance me to our children, who are waiting to be born.”
Theo swallowed her tears and raised her voice to sing with him, her clear soprano entwining with his imperfect—but oh, so beautiful—bass.
“Dance with me,” they sang together, “to the end of life.”
It was the first of many songs that James sang for their firstborn, and their second born, and for the third and fourth, who came as a matched set. The children knew that their father didn’t like to sing. But they also knew that if their mother asked him . . . well, Papa never could say no to her.
So together the family danced and sang—a pirate and a duchess, a duke and an artist, a man and a woman—down the many days and byways of a long and happy life.