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“Daddy, Don’t Marry Her!” — Three Triplets Crashed the Duke’s Wedding, and He Recognized Them

“Daddy, Don’t Marry Her!” — Three Triplets Crashed the Duke’s Wedding, and He Recognized Them

Chapter 5

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Rowan's stomach went cold. "Whose?""Lord Cedric Vale."His cousin. The cousin who had told him Evelyn married a surgeon in Brussels. The cousin who had managed wartime dispatches when Rowan returned injured. The cousin now living at Rowan's expense in the West Lodge. Rowan's hand curled at his side."Cedric told me you married."Evelyn laughed once. It was a terrible sound. "He told me you had resumed your engagement to Lady Clarabel three months after leaving France.""No.""I know that now. Evelyn, do not sound wounded as if I was not the one carrying three children in a rented room while people told me dukes did not misplace women by accident."He took the blow because it was earned. "You should have come to me."Her eyes flashed. "I tried again! With what money? Whose protection? Which carriage? I was unmarried, pregnant, and told your family would deny me. I sold my mother's watch to pay the midwife. After the babies came, I could not cross the street without planning like a military campaign." Rowan could not speak. She continued, quiet now: "When they were two, Kit had a fever. When they were four, Milo broke his arm falling from a cart he had no business climbing. When they were five, Pippa tried to sell my scissors to buy me oranges. I had life in both hands every hour. I could not spend all of it chasing a man who had not answered.""I did not know.""I know."Those two words held no forgiveness, only fact.He looked toward the open door. Pippa's voice came from the breakfast room: "That is not how jam works."Kit replied, "It works if you push."Clarabel said, "Jam is not mortar."Rowan closed his eyes. His children were discussing jam with the woman he nearly married. The world had become a drawer dumped on the floor: everything important was visible and impossible to sort quickly.He opened his eyes. "What do you want from me?"Evelyn looked surprised. "That is the first sensible question today.""I am improving slowly.""I want legal protection for them. Not because I intend to hand them to you, but because if today's scandal reaches London without structure, people will chew their names before supper. They are mine."Her face shut."They are mine, too.""I know. No, you do not. You recognize them. That is not the same as knowing whose nightmares require the left side of the bed. Who hides peas in cuffs. Who lies badly, but only about biscuits. Who counts steps when frightened."He stood still. Each word stripped him."Good. Let it teach me," he said.She stared. "What?""Teach me. Not today, all at once. Not because I deserve it. Because they deserve a father who knows which peas are missing."Her eyes filled. She turned away before tears could become visible. "Do not make noble promises before luncheon.""Practical promises, then.""Those are worse. They require calendars.""I own several."She looked back despite herself. For half a second, he saw the woman from Calais, the one who could laugh in mud and order officers twice her size to hold bandages properly. Then the mother returned: stronger, harder, more beautiful because life had not asked permission before carving her."First," Evelyn said, "the children remain with me.""Yes.""Second, no one questions them without me present."
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“Daddy, Don’t Marry Her!” — Three Triplets Crashed the Duke’s Wedding, and He Recognized Them

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