Love Stories

7

Victoria perched on a large rock by the water, parasol tilted to protect her face from the sun. The river was narrow and shallow here, sheltered by trees. It was the first truly warm day they'd had this season. Such clear-skied, warm days were few, and they'd decided to enjoy it.

As a girl she'd never spent much time out of doors. As a young lady she'd spent even less. But Victor knew all the paths and quiet spots and glades within a mile of the village in any direction. Once he'd become interested in butterflies, he'd spent a lot of time in the forest. She hadn't realized there were so many lovely places so close to home until he'd begun to show her.

She sat back and arranged herself a bit more comfortably on her rock. The remains of their picnic were stowed in the hamper on the bank. The air smelled of river water and sun-warmed leaves, and the sunshine was hot on her back. She watched Victor wade about in the stream, his trousers rolled up nearly to his knees. He'd left his shoes and his jacket on the rock near where she sat.

He looked so boyish out in the water, just in his shirtsleeves and with his rolled-up trousers. She studied his profile, the way his dark hair flopped forward as he looked down at the stream. In the sunshine he didn't look nearly so pale as he usually did. When he was outside, she'd noticed, he looked positively hale and hearty. It pleased her to see him so.

Just then he turned back to look at her, and when their eyes met her heart fluttered. Just like that first time he'd met her gaze at the piano. He was grinning, hands on his hips.

"Lots of fish out here!" he called.

"Must be the trout your father stocked," she called back. It was a shame they'd all wind up in cans.

"They swim right around your ankles, it's remarkable!"

With that, he looked down again at the fish, still with that little boyish grin on his face. The stream was gentle here, shallow and slow. It was unlikely she'd be swept away. She'd never waded in her life. Victor was plainly enjoying himself so much that she wanted to share it. And she'd like to see the fish. She glanced at Victor again, then quickly around to be sure no one else was there. Satisfied they were alone, she set aside her parasol and bent to unbutton her shoes.

8

"You don't suppose there's something wrong, do you?" Victoria asked, pulling the last pin from her hair and beginning to brush it out.

"With?" Victor asked in return.

Victoria bit her lip, unsure of how to put it. They'd just retired to their rooms after another of Nell's lavish dinner parties. She'd endured yet another hour in the drawing room filled with women who wondered why she wasn't yet expecting a baby after nearly a year of marriage.

Truthfully, she was beginning to wonder the same thing.

"Well," she said. "With...with me, I suppose."

"Don't be silly, there's nothing wrong with you," Victor said easily as he shrugged out of his dinner jacket and hung it on the valet. "You mustn't let my mother and her friends bother you."

Victoria turned to the mirror above the dresser and removed her heavy earrings one by one. Her reflection showed her how her mouth was turned down at the corners, her eyes troubled and heavy-lidded. She removed the matching and equally heavy necklace, glad to be free of it. She never liked the weight of the sort of jewelry her mother-in-law expected her to wear.

"Would you like me to ring the maid for you?" Victor asked, now in just his shirt and trousers, his good shoes in one hand. "Or can you manage?"

Usually one of the many housemaids helped Victoria extricate herself from her evening finery after an event. But tonight she wanted privacy. She couldn't have a delicate conversation about babies in front of a servant, and she was afraid the moment might be lost.

"Would you mind terribly?" she asked in return, gesturing toward the back of her dress.

"Not at all."

After stowing away his shoes, Victor came up behind her and began undoing the row of tiny buttons up her back. She watched him in the mirror.

"Do you think it's strange," she said, resisting the urge to bite her lip, "that we don't have a baby yet?"

Victor paused in his unbuttoning and met her eyes in the mirror. "Not...strange," he replied, back to work. "I suppose I hadn't thought much about it. When it happens, it happens. There, that's the last one."

Spoken just like someone who will not have to do the bulk of the work, Victoria thought, even as she thanked him. She stepped out of her dress and draped it carefully over a chair for the maid to collect in the morning.

"You do want children?" she asked as she removed her petticoats. It was a ridiculous question, somehow. People married and they had children, that was how the world worked. Was there even supposed to be a question of wanting them?

Victor was frowning a little, brow slightly creased in thought. "You know," he said eventually, as if coming to a realization, "I do. Yes. I really do." This last was said in a much lighter tone, and he was looking at her fondly. So fondly she almost wanted to blush.

Without being asked, he set about loosening her corset for her. Little sighs of relief escaped her every time a string was loosened enough for her to take a deeper breath.

"You do as well?" he asked, tugging at a particularly tight lace. "Want children? Though I suppose that's a silly question."

"No," she assured him. "It's not silly." But it wasn't something anyone had ever asked her before. She was meant to have them. Her entire duty in life was to have children. To want children. Everybody said that a woman couldn't really be happy without babies. Though her own mother had never seemed all that thrilled. And Victoria didn't consider herself unhappy at all.

She took a deep breath as she eased out of her corset, freed until morning. She smoothed and pulled at her combinations, wrinkly from confinement. Did she want babies? She assumed she did, if vaguely. Was that the problem with her? She didn't want them badly enough? Victoria frowned as she slid off her stockings and reached for a fresh nightgown to put on.

Across the room Victor was putting on his pajamas, his back to her. So she took off her combinations and pulled her nightdress over her head. When she glanced at him again she saw that he was watching her avidly. This time she did blush a little. She blew out the lamp on the dresser and climbed into bed, Victor getting in beside her.

In bed, in the dark, they were quiet. Both of them were on their backs, staring up at the ceiling, their sides touching. Victoria was still thinking. The baby she had wouldn't just be any baby. It would be hers and Victor's. Theirs to create and love and raise, a bit of each of them. She imagined showing off a blanketed bundle to a pleased and proud Victor. A pale, dark-haired daughter to teach how to knit. A boy with a heart-shaped face and his father's aptitude for music. Sitting in a rocking chair with a newborn in her arms, the parlor cozy and quiet. Family picnics and walks and dinners, all bright and cheerful and loving, so different from her own girlhood. At last, she smiled, and felt a rush of emotion.

"Yes," she whispered into the dark. "I do want children. Your children."

"That will really make a difference, won't it?" he said. "That they'll be ours."

The bedclothes rustled as Victor reached over and felt for her hand. When he found it, he squeezed her fingers.

"We'll have them," he told her. "Someday."

Someday. Near enough to daydream about, but not so near as to worry about. Victoria drifted off, imagining herself and Victor and their own little brood of children, somewhere in the hazy future.