coastal patrol. Having an estate that needed him would put an end to his patrol work and to any ambitions he held beyond that. He wasn’t ready for bucolic and all it entailed. He pushed the thoughts away and focused on Beatrice.
‘Are you truly not going to speak to me for an entire week?’ Preston crossed his long legs, attempting to stretch a bit in the cramped space without kicking the baby’s basket.
Beatrice gave him a cool glance. ‘A week? That’s quite optimistic. I intend to not speak to you far longer than that.’
Preston nudged the toe of her shoe, unable to resist the boyish response. ‘You just did. Guess you’ll have to start over.’
Beatrice put down her book in exasperation. ‘You’re acting like a thirteen-year-old.’
Preston grinned. ‘It takes one to know one. I figured giving someone the silent treatment deserved an equal and appropriate response.’ He managed to tease a smile from her with the remark. ‘We both know you aren’t going to hate me for ever.’ At least he hoped not. ‘Why don’t you forgive me now and get it over with? This trip will be a lot more interesting with someone to talk to, especially if that someone is you.’
He gave her a boyish smile before he turned serious. ‘If it’s any consolation, I didn’t want to do it, Bea. May told me how happy you were here. But if it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else.’ Preston shook his head, letting the gesture say what he could not put into words. ‘I just couldn’t let someone else come. That’s not what a friend does, even when there’s bad news to deliver.’ Would she understand it was one of the hardest things he’d ever done? He who had faced gun runners and arms dealers in dark alleys, taken knives to the gut rather like she was taking the proverbial blade now.
Beatrice relented. He saw it in her eyes first, the dark depths softening as she began to see this journey from his perspective. She reached out a hand and squeezed his. ‘Thank you for being the one. I doubt I could have borne it otherwise.’ It was settled. They could be friends once more for a few weeks at least until he needed to beg her forgiveness again.
‘Good.’ Preston settled back against the squabs with satisfaction. ‘Now that’s out of the way, I can tell you about the latest letter from Jonathon and Claire.’
She tossed him a teasingly accusing glare. ‘You were holding out on me yesterday.’ Bea gave his knee a playful swat and just like that they were the people he remembered them to be.
‘Ouch! A good negotiator always holds something back.’ Preston feigned injury with a laugh. ‘Do you want to hear or not?’
‘Of course I want to hear.’ Beatrice bent down to pick up her son, awakened by their banter. She put the baby to her breast with consummate ease, unbothered by the loudness of the baby’s waking squall or the confines of the carriage that put them in such close proximity—a proximity, which to his mind, made the act of nursing seem more personal than it had yesterday.
Quite frankly, yesterday had been fairly intimate in his opinion. He had thought himself a worldly man, and maybe he was by masculine standards: well-travelled, well-educated. But this world of women was beyond his experience. Was there even etiquette for such a situation? He should look away, yet he could not bring himself to avert his eyes. Watching her with the child was new, fascinating, and it did queer things to his stomach, to his mind, filling it with reminders that while they were the same people they’d been growing up, they were different now, too, each having gone their own way for years. Beatrice was a woman now, the angular, thin girl turned into a lush woman made pretty by the contours of motherhood, a woman who knew the capabilities of a man’s body. And he was a man now who had no small experience in that regard when it came to a woman’s. It was an intriguing but uncomfortable lens through which to view an old friend.
* * *
Her eyes met his over the child’s head. For a moment Preston thought she might scold him for his prurience, but while the act of watching her stirred him deeply, it was not prurient in the least, only beautiful, like a Raphael painting of the Madonna and Child. Beatrice arched her eyebrow in query. ‘Well? Are you going to tell me your news or do I have to guess?’
He slanted her a teasing look. ‘You haven’t grown any more patient over the years, Bea. Jonathon wrote to say he and Claire are expecting a child in the autumn.’ Preston cleared his throat. His voice had caught most unexpectedly at the last. He’d been excited for his friend when he’d read the news. He knew how important family was to Jonathon. It was a value the two of them shared.
‘Oh!’ Beatrice’s face shone with pure happiness for her friend. ‘They must be over the moon. They will be good parents. There is so much love between them and now there will be a child to lavish it on.’ Preston did not miss the wistfulness in her tone. He’d felt that same wistfulness, too, when he’d first heard the news. Jonathon had moved on. Jonathon would have a family while he was still where he’d always been. Working for the government, conducting business for his family and their friends.
Preston’s eyes went to the baby in the ensuing silence. Would he ever have what Jonathon had? What Liam had found? He felt a twinge of envy at the thought of his two best friends, Jonathon Lashley and Liam Casek, both happily married and both his own age, both with careers of their own. Jonathon was a diplomat in Vienna. Liam was about to be knighted and looking forward to establishing himself in Parliament as an MP. Both of them proved careers didn’t exclude a family life with a woman he loved beside him. They proved a man could have both. And yet, Preston didn’t. That hole had never felt quite as gaping as it did now.
‘Would you like to hold him?’ Beatrice offered, passing him the baby before he could refuse.
Preston took the bundle gently in his arms. ‘He’s so light. I guess I thought because babies look like a sack of potatoes, they felt like one, too.’
‘He’s sturdy enough. He won’t break,’ Beatrice assured him. ‘You don’t have to treat him as if he’s glass.’
Preston adjusted his hold on the infant, starting to feel more confident. He looked down at the little face looking back at him and grinned. ‘I think he smiled at me. I think he likes me.’ It was such a small thing and yet it pleased him extraordinarily and ridiculously.
‘Mistress Maddox told me babies often smile when they pass gas,’ Beatrice said slyly, laughing and adding as consolation, ‘but I’m sure he likes you.’ She hesitated a moment before asking quietly. ‘Are you jealous? Of Jonathon, I mean?’
‘I shouldn’t be. He’s endured hardship over the last years. He deserves happiness,’ Preston answered truthfully. Why should he be jealous? He could marry whenever he chose, within the Season since his inheritance had been established. It would be ideal and frankly preferred now that he had a home to look after. If he wasn’t married already with an heir in the nursery next spring it was his own fault. His mother had ten willing debutantes to hand at any given time. Any girl would be glad to do her duty and marry him. Wasn’t that part of the problem? Part of his resistance? He wanted a family, but not like that. Not with a girl like that. Bea was watching him with an odd look on her face as he rocked the baby and he couldn’t help but ask her the same. ‘Are you, Bea? Jealous?’
* * *
‘Of Claire? No, of course not.’ Bea shook her head hastily to dispel such an unworthy thought. No true friend would begrudge another friend happiness. ‘I was just thinking about the child.’ Two loving parents and the benefits of a well-born birth. By a random act of fate, the child was poised for success simply by the nature of its birth. Her throat thickened. All the
