Love Me Again Read Free

the child lay on his tummy, his body tangled in three feet of netting. Then came his excited cry from amid the twisted netting. “I've got him, sir! I've got him!”
    “Jolly good, Eddie, m'boy, we shall dine hardy tonight, by Jove!”
    Christina couldn't help but join in the laughter as her son began to wriggle backward, until he finally shucked free of his cocoon and raced toward the duke, a wad of netting held carefully in his hands, the frame of the net bouncing along behind him. Proudly, he held out his offering to the duke. He squealed in delight when his uncle grabbed him up and placed him soundly on his blanketed lap. Christina leaned down to pet the newest addition to the family, a cocker spaniel, which Eddie had immediately christened Pal. The puppy only added to the din surrounding the impromptu picnic.
    She handed her basket of blooms to one of the hovering footmen and made her way over to her brother-in-law and her son.
    “Mama, look, see what I got!” A wide, brilliant smile was turned up to her.
    Obediently, she leaned down and admired the day's catch. “Oh, my, now that is a pretty one. I don't believe I've seen that one before.”
    Eddie shook his head. “No. Uncle said this one is the bestest one yet. Tell Mama that's what you said, sir!” the child entreated, looking up at his idol.
    “Indeed, it is, madam. Lord Edward has found the rarest specie of", and he coughed over some exaggerated term, causing her to bite her lip, while trying to maintain a studiously interested look, “...I have yet to see. You must name it, young man, and we shall submit it to the Royal Butterfly Academy.”
    Eddie's little brow wrinkled in thought.
    Edward cast Christina a sideways glance and winked.
    Fondly, she smiled back. Edward St. Pole, Duke of Kerkston, was possibly the kindest, most generous man she had ever met, and every day she blessed the fates for her good luck in sharing his life. Even the freak hunting accident that had left him crippled and in constant debilitating pain had not altered his generous spirit.
    When the flicker of a grimace crossed his grace's gaunt face, she immediately lifted the energetic toddler off his lap and bounced him on her hip. Sweet heaven, but he was getting big!
    “Oh, here, madam, let me take him!” entreated his young nurse, Katie. “His lordship is getting too big a handful for you.”
    Laughing, Christina gave her son a smacking kiss on his flushed cheek and handed him gratefully over, her back straining. “He is, indeed. Goodness, in a few days he will be able to carry me about.”
    “Aye, my lady, that he will.” The girl set Eddie on his feet, and soon both heads were bent over his prize, still captured in the wad of netting.
    With a sigh, Christina sank down on the cool grass beside the duke's chair and accepted the glass of lemonade handed to her by a footman. “How are you feeling today, Edward?” she asked as she squinted against the sun, searching his pale features.
    He shrugged, offering her a faint smile. Biting her lip, Christina looked down at her glass and traced a drop of condensation down its side.
    It was so hard for her at times to look into his ravaged face. Once he had been such a handsome man, but the unending pain was taking its toll on his body. Over the last three years he had steadily lost weight till now he was only a shadow of what he had been. She finally had to admit to herself that he was getting worse. At this rate he would die of starvation and lack of sleep, for he denied himself the crutch of laudanum, preferring clearheaded pain to the hazy, heavy lethargy of the drug. The doctors had all been wrong in their protestations that there was nothing wrong with his legs, that it was all in his mind. God, how she hated them all! What did doctors know anyway? What good were they? Bitterly, she thought of all the years she had sought their help during her failed pregnancies. Again, none of them had any answers for her. They had probably