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There would never have been that magic – or that missing part of myself to make me whole." "Oh," she said. "Just /oh/?" He lifted one hand to set the backs of his fingers lightly against her cheek. "You /love/ me?" she asked him. "Truly love /me/? Love betrayed me once, Duncan, and then life and youth passed me by. I have wanted so desperately to gather the dregs of life and love to myself so that I could give contentment to someone else and draw contentment to myself.
Have I found love instead? A love that makes the other one pale in comparison?" "I ca
He kissed her, and when she pressed her lips back against his, he wrapped her in his arms and deepened the kiss as he turned her to lay her down on the grass beside the tree.
They made love at half past midnight on ground that was none too soft surrounded by air that was none too warm – and when they were both almost light-headed with exhaustion.
Life was not perfect.
Except when it was. "Duncan," she said when they were finished and she lay cradled in his arms while moonlight danced in patterns of light and shade over them as the branches of the tree swayed in the breeze. "I must tell you something, though I did not mean to do so until I could be more sure. It is not a day for secrets, though, is it? Or am I talking about yesterday? Today is not for secrets either. There is a chance – the merest chance – that I am with child." He pressed his face to her hair and inhaled slowly. Already? He had been a father for four and a half years, but was he now to be – a /father/? "I am only a few days late," she said softly. "Perhaps it is nothing." "I promised my grandfather when I was twenty," he said, "that I would be married by the time I was thirty and would have a child in the nursery by the time I was thirty-one. A son and heir. Is it to happen after all?
Or could this be a daughter? Oh, good Lord, Maggie, a daughter! Could life offer a greater miracle?" "I ca
Much later. Shall we go to bed now? And sleep?" "Sleep?" she said. "Oh, that does sound wonderful, Duncan. I could sleep for a week – but only if your arms are about me." "Where else would they be?" he asked her, his one arm closing more tightly about her waist as he led her up the steps to the house. "Nowhere, I suppose," she said. "Precisely." She yawned and tipped her head sideways to rest on his shoulder.
Being in love, he thought, was the most wonderful thing.
The best thing in the world, in fact.