“What are you doing here?” Maris heard Arthur’s question from behind her.
Before she turned from the bed, Maris pulled up the covers Bertie had kicked off. She put her finger to her lips and gave Arthur a feigned frown. When he put his hands up in a pose of surrender, she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing as she went with him down the stairs to the empty day nursery.
When they stepped into the light from the lone lamp, she watched him shrug off his soaked greatcoat. He tossed it on the window bench.
“Did the delivery go well?” she asked. Since Arthur had told her about his secret life as a government courier and how the letters from the new Mrs. Otis Miller were instructions, Maris had tried not to worry about the danger he faced each time he took a message to where the next courier could retrieve it.
“Excellent.” He yawned. “But why are you up here?”
“Irene needs my help. She is learning quickly, but seems overwhelmed by the boys at times.”
“She is on her own after tomorrow.”
With a laugh, Maris gave a playful shove on his chest. “It is nearly midnight. The groom should not see his bride on their wedding day before they meet at the altar.”
He gave her the boyish grin that always reminded her of Bertie’s before he got into trouble. She wanted to sink into Arthur’s arms and praise God for the blessings He had brought both of them.
Her uncertainty about how Arthur’s family would feel about him marrying the woman who had served as Cothaire’s nurse had faded as one Trelawney after another welcomed her into the family. The earl was especially effusive, and when she saw his twinkling eyes, she wondered if he had known before she had that his son was falling in love with her. Or it might be, as Arthur told her, that his father was thrilled with a wedding before Christmas and the chance of his heir’s heir bouncing on his knee by next Christmas. Either way, the earl and the rest of his family were making her transition from nurse to the heir’s wife easy.
“Give me a kiss then, sweetheart,” Arthur said, “and I will be gone like Cinderella before the clock strikes twelve.”
With a laugh, she slipped into his arms. The place, at last, where she truly belonged.
* * * * *