About a month after their wedding, Luke decided to take on a two-year expeditionary assignment.
He was already working as a knight amid days so busy they made him feel sick, yet advancing his rank through such piecemeal duties would take far too long. When a call for an expedition went out, Luke seized the chance without hesitation.
The mission would be anything but easy, and for that reason few volunteers had come forward. But the higher the difficulty, the greater the achievements to be earned. Becoming a count might still be out of reach, but this would surely be the shortest path toward a viscountcy.
When he told Camilla, she was surprised, yet she accepted his resolve.
The thought of not seeing her for two whole years was painful, and imagining some other man approaching her in his absence made Luke want to tear apart an enemy who did not even exist. He gave the servants strict instructions regarding Camilla and threw himself into preparing for the expedition.
…Even so, the idea of being apart from her for two years gnawed at him relentlessly.
Luke was young, and his desire to share a bed with his wife was no less than any other man’s. Realizing that he would be denied that closeness for so long became unbearable.
On the night before his departure, he gathered his courage and invited Camilla to the marital bed. She looked hesitant, yet nodded obediently and offered her hand, asking him to guide her to the bedroom.
From that moment, Luke struggled desperately to calm the fire igniting within him, doing his utmost to behave like a gentleman as he led her inside. But once there, even when Camilla said she could take no more, he could not bring himself to let her go, and in the end he held her until dawn.
Camilla was utterly exhausted afterward, and taking advantage of that, Luke quietly prepared himself and left the estate.
Even in the midst of their intimacy, he had not taken her lips. Losing himself to passion like a beast, he could not bear to steal her first kiss in such a state. He would receive her kiss only after returning safely, or so he told himself, harboring a sentiment almost girlish in its restraint.
The next time he saw Camilla, he would have grown once more, twice over.
Swearing to become a man worthy of her, Luke departed the capital.
Luke and Camilla agreed to correspond by letter.
Yet Luke was poor at writing. Aside from reports, he had never composed anything resembling proper prose, and he had no idea what to write to his wife.
Thus he worked at his post, the year turned, and spring arrived.
When Luke read the first letter that came from Camilla, his consciousness nearly slipped away as he sat in his chair.
“Camilla… is with child?”
Her beautiful handwriting spoke of her pregnancy, and of an expected birth later that year.
Luke nearly crushed the letter in his grip, hurriedly spreading it flat upon the table instead. Then he buried his face in his hands.
He had never imagined that she would conceive from that single night.
Yet the timing left no doubt it was his child, and the accompanying report from the servants confirmed it. Above all, knowing Camilla’s virtuous nature, there was no possibility of infidelity.
“My… child.”
Luke murmured the words in a tone he would never use before Camilla.
That goddess-like woman was carrying his child. Within the year she would give birth to a precious little one, the only blood relative Luke would ever have.
He was happy.
Stunned, yes, but overwhelmingly happy.
“I need to reply.”
Snapping back to himself, Luke picked up his pen, only to find that not a single word would come to mind. When he forced himself to write, nothing satisfied him. He wrote, crumpled the page, and discarded it again and again.
It was much later before he finally managed a letter he could accept, and he hurried to have it sent.
After that, Luke made a concerted effort to write to Camilla.
In response to his stiff, report-like letters, Camilla replied on fine stationery, her flowing script describing daily happenings, the condition of the child she carried, and her exchanges with the servants.
Luke kept every one of her letters in a locked box. Under no circumstances would he allow his comrades to touch them.
Then, in autumn, a letter arrived with an especially difficult request.
She wanted him to choose their child’s name.
From that day on, Luke worked earnestly while his thoughts were consumed entirely by names. It was not until late autumn that he finally reached a conclusion.
Ernest, and Deidre.
He had done his best, despite his lack of learning, carefully considering names and their meanings.
By the time the letter reached the capital it would be winter, and Camilla might already have chosen a name herself. Luke hoped she would think of his suggestion as no more than one possible option.
Since the birth was expected before the year’s end, Luke spent the winter doing nothing but praying for the safety of his wife and child.
Then, as the year drew to a close, the letter he had been waiting for finally arrived.
With trembling hands, he opened it. Inside was written the news that a lovely daughter had been born, and that she had been named Deidre Beresford.
“Deidre…”
Murmuring his daughter’s name, Luke clenched his fist.
His daughter had been born.
Camilla had given her the name he had chosen.
The letters on the page shook ever so slightly more than usual. She must have still been unwell after childbirth, yet she had insisted on writing in her own hand rather than asking for a scribe. Imagining her like that filled his chest with tenderness.
Camilla, and Deidre.
They were the precious people Luke would devote his entire life to protecting and loving.
