Читать книгу The Historical Collection - Stephanie Laurens - Страница 42

Several years later

“I love you,” Penny said sweetly, as she did at least once an afternoon. “I love you.”

“Pretty girl.”

“I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“MRS. ROBBINS!”

Penny sighed and offered the bird a bit of crumbled biscuit. “Oh, Delilah. I’m not giving up, you know. One of these days, we’re going to get it right.”

Over the past few years, Delilah’s repertoire of phrases had indeed expanded, in many of the same ways that Penny’s life had grown.

In the first year of their marriage, Delilah had learned to mimic Bixby’s barking. She’d also mastered, “No, George! No!” which amused Gabriel no end.

By the following winter, Delilah had learned to imitate a newborn’s wail with such startling accuracy that she’d drawn both of them out of bed on many an early morning, after many a sleepless night. Gabriel found this significantly less amusing.

A few months more, and Delilah could hum the first strains of a lullaby. She’d learned to call out “Mummy!” mere weeks after little Jacob did.

For whatever reason, however, Penny could never coax Delilah into repeating those three little words. She’d dangled every flavor of biscuit in Nicola’s recipe book, to no avail. Surely the parrot was teasing her. She heard the phrase repeated often enough, and not only from Penny. This was a house full of love.

She decided to try one more time. “I love you. I l—”

“You’re still trying to teach that bird?” Gabriel entered the drawing room.

“Of course I am. I never give up.”

“Yes, about that.” He tugged off his gloves and threw them onto a side table. “Mind telling me why there’s a flock of sheep in the mews?”

“There are three sheep in the mews,” she said. “Three sheep are not a ‘flock.’”

“Flock or not, they are three more sheep than we had in the mews this morning.”

“They’re going to the farm, I promise.” Under her breath, she added, “Just as soon as they’re out of quarantine.”

The farm was the first purchase Penny had made with Mr. Lambert’s seized assets. They’d begun with a smallholding in Kent, but when a parcel of adjacent land had come available, she’d enlarged the place. They rebuilt the old farmhouse and added new barns.

The farm wasn’t only a home for unwanted animals. During the summer, it was their home, as well. Emma, Alex, and Nicola brought their families to visit. Last year, they’d even welcomed Bradford and his boys for a few weeks, just before the Michaelmas school term began—and Gabriel was actually civil to her brother, for the most part.

Gabriel sat down on a bench to remove his boots. “Where’s Jacob?”

“At the park, with Emma and Richmond.”

“The baby?”

“Sleeping.”

He dropped his boot to the floor and gave her a slow, wicked grin. “Is that so?”

“Yes, it is.” She walked toward the bench, moving with a coquettish sway in her hips. He caught her by the waist and hauled her into his lap for a slow, deep kiss.

“I love you,” he said. “You may never teach that damned parrot to say it, but you taught me. You’ll never hear the end of it now, pretty girl. I love you.” Kiss. “I love you.” Kiss. “I love you.”

Penny laced her arms about her husband’s neck. “Fancy a fuck, love?”