for herself. Not now, not ever. Her sole concern was making the best possible future for the baby.
Oh, God. A baby . Would she ever be ready for such responsibility?
The back of her head slumped against the sofa as she closed her eyes and ran a hand over her belly. It would happen soon. Terrifyingly soon. Instead of just being Sarah, she would be Sarah and Baby.
And Edmund.
Joy washed over her at the thought. He was back home. Home and alive! She smiled with her eyes still closed, hugging herself with happiness. She could scarcely credit it. ’Twas a true miracle.
But if she had been unprepared to be a mother… What about Edmund? He was back from the dead, and this was what awaited him?
She had changed just as much as he had. Her body was distorted and ungainly. It would take more than a maid and a bit of soap to make her look like the girl he’d proposed to, the girl he thought he’d come home to. She wasn’t that girl any longer. Could never be her again. She was a mother now, with the bulging belly and swollen feet to prove it. She sighed.
At least she’d finally stopped vomiting in the mornings.
Her lips curved. That would’ve been all the ceremony would have needed. She could’ve jilted the Duke of Ravenwood and then cast up her accounts all over his cravat. She was already infamous. Why not ensure she was never invited back?
She opened her tired eyes and stared up at the cracked ceiling. Everything was unraveling faster than she could stitch it back together. What she needed most was the one thing she couldn’t have: time. Time to reacquaint with Edmund and reinforce their love. Time for him to rejoin normal life before having fatherhood thrust upon him. Time to figure out what on earth she was going to do with a baby.
Perhaps the Duke of Ravenwood could gift them a small sum to keep poverty at bay. She drew a shaky breath. Most people had too much pride to accept the charity of others. Sarah had none. Edmund, on the other hand, would want to solve things himself. He wasn’t even speaking to Ravenwood. There was no chance of Edmund begging for help or handouts. It might be years before the two men could be friends again. If friendship were still possible.
A knock sounded upon the front door, followed immediately by the creak of its hinges.
Sarah shook her head. Her brother had left with such haste, he hadn’t bothered to secure the door. Whoever was outside was already halfway in.
She pushed heavily to her feet and waddled over to greet the caller. No one else was likely to. Her father wasn’t packing his books simply because there were no footmen to do so—he didn’t trust non-Fairfax hands with the family heirlooms. Likewise, her mother wouldn’t hesitate to drop to the floor to ensure no stray coin or jewel was being left behind—but “maid” and “butler” were not among her duties.
The sole maid-of-all-work they still did have was little more than an exhausted child, and was currently out behind the townhouse, cleaning the chamber pots.
Which left Sarah to start the kettle a-boil or heave logs onto the waning fire or leap up to answer doors.
As much as one could leap whilst enormously pregnant. Inglorious at best.
Out duchessing , her brother had said. Sarah’s feet slowed. What would that have been like?
She reached around her belly and pushed the door the rest of the way open. Her breath caught.
Edmund stood there.
Not the dirty, unkempt street-beggar Edmund who had disrupted her clandestine wedding. Her heart raced. The old Edmund. The real Edmund.
The white flash of his teeth in his slow, familiar smile nearly brought her to her knees.
His thick brown hair had been trimmed and coiffed into the mirror image of his fashionable brother’s. The beard was gone, leaving Edmund’s chiseled jaw smooth and eminently touchable. His sun-browned skin was still unfashionably dark, but the bronze tone only made his white teeth and crystalline blue eyes