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Phillipa felt the smile spreading across her own face before she had quite decided to let it. “There is, rather.”

“Well?” Augusta, never one to miss the scent of news in a room, had gone entirely still, her glass forgotten halfway to her lips. “Well, do not simply stand there looking at each other. What is it?”

Phillipa laughed, and reached for Gregory’s hand, and held it, for a moment, against her own middle, where no change at all could yet be seen, but where something new and entirely theirs had already, quietly, begun.

“I am to have a child,” she said. “In the spring.”

The room erupted.

Augusta shrieked, entirely undignified, and flung both arms around her Phillipa hard enough to knock the breath from her. Theodore, startled by all the noise, began to laugh his wide, delighted baby laugh.

Gregory found her eyes across the happy clamor of it, and in them was everything he had once been too frightened to say plainly.

That he had been given, against every expectation life had set out for him, a second chance at a family, and that he did not intend, this time, to let a single piece of it slip past him unnoticed.

“When did you find out?” Ronan asked him, nudging him teasingly. “I have little doubt that you’ll do a really good job. After all, you’ve already been looking after two children before yours has even arrived in this world.”

“Some weeks ago,” Gregory admitted. “She was showing some strange symptoms, and we decided to get them checked by a physician. It was a great surprise.”

“So you had not been planning for it?”

“I think we both wanted this,” he admitted. “So I wouldn’t say that we were surprised. If so, only pleasantly.”

“Ah. I cannot wait,” Ronan laughed.

It was some months later, Phillipa round now with the child or children, the physician had lately begun to suspect it might well be two, that Joan overheard something she was not meant to overhear.

She had gone down to the kitchen for bread and found Martha and Mrs. Glenn deep in the linen count, counting out what would be wanted for "when the baby comes," and Mrs. Glenn had said, not unkindly, only practically, "and we shall want the small room repainted besides, now there will be a proper nursery to fill," and Joan had stood in the doorway a moment too long before anyone noticed her.

All this, Phillipa had found out later through the house-staff. That night, Joan did not come down for dinner either.

“Is she feeling ill?” Phillipa asked Martha. “Why isn’t she here?”

“I’m not sure, Your Grace. Lady Joan didn’t tell me much, and she didn’t seem to be in much of a mood to talk either.”

By the time the plates had been cleared, Phillipa had gone up herself and found her sitting on the window seat in her own room with a book open on her lap.

"You missed dinner, darling."

"I was not hungry," the reply was short.

Phillipa came and sat at the end of the seat, leaving space between them, close enough to matter, far enough not to crowd. "Mrs. Glenn tells me there is to be a proper nursery, you know. We are all so excited."

Joan’s jaw set. "I heard."

"And?"

"You will want the room for the baby." She turned a page she had not read. "Or babies."

It was then that Phillipa suspected that something more had been going on. For the most part, Phillipa had done a good job at making sure that Joan fits into the house.

She had been accepted warmly by everyone, and she had no doubt that she had begun to see herself as daughter. Phillipa made sure to always tell her that she loves her, and cares for her.

So now, what was the matter? If she had to piece together the information she had, Phillipa suspected that it might have to do something with what the young girl had overheard.

"Joan, look at me."

She did not at first, but after a moment, grudgingly, she did. Her eyes were bright.