August 16th, 1889 — Devine Wellingtonshire Home, Breakfast Room

Roberto was glad to have things back to a sense of normalcy. He had encouraged his wife to participate in the opportunities presented to her as a woman of society including her status as being a former Pendergast Rose. But this event had seen his wife having much more of an adventure than she had probably bargained for. He was distraught when she had been missing and sometimes he had felt the need to ensure she was really back. At times sleeping in her bed with her when she would permit it.

Clad in his robe and enjoying breakfast with his wife, this too had simmered down to relative normalcy. Presented with the paper, he opened it up. "Apparently, the ghost Herbert Fudge is remarrying his still living wife. How curious," talk about undying love, right? His eyes drifted over the more uninteresting bits until he found himself reading his own wifes name.

Mrs. Ophelia Devine is with child, the page read. Roberto stared at it for a long moment before looking over to his wife. She had been a little off but he had marked that up to her misadventure. "My darling, was there something you needed to tell me?" Roberto asked.

Ophelia Devine

  

Ophelia's head had been in a whirl ever since the healer had rather awkwardly broken the news to her that what she had suspected to be a persistent case of food-poisoning was in fact something else entirely. They had been anticipating a child ever since their wedding day, but Ophelia had refused to take any concrete planning steps towards preparing for one's arrival until she was actually pregnant. Her entire life had been plagued by bad luck, and she didn't want to invite any more in by seeming too confident in her future happiness. Now, however, there was simply too much to be done and not enough hours in the day. She'd written to a select few friends for their advice — namely November and Lucinda, who had both had babies already. Porphyria was unlikely to be much help.

Based on the rough timeline she'd been able to sketch out, it seemed most likely that the baby would arrive in January or February. The timing was ideal, really, since it meant that she would be recovered enough to participate in the social season again next year. The fact that it aligned with the Quidditch off-season meant Roberto would be home most of the time and would have plenty of leisure to get to know their new child. It did probably mean postponing travel plans again, but Ophelia didn't think she minded — Mongolia had been quite enough of an adventure for the moment.

When her husband spoke she was flipping through a magazine which listed instructions for knitting baby blankets, and wondering if it was acceptable to delegate that sort of task to a maid. There was something quite lovely about having home-made baby things, instead of store-bought, but Ophelia herself was rubbish at knitting. Would anyone know if she had the staff do it? Would it still have that home-made feeling?

"Curious indeed," she agreed, flipping the page of her magazine idly. "Do you suppose we'll be invited to the wedding? I don't know either of them very well personally, but I was thinking of asking Mrs. Fudge to come to one of our club parties. She owns a line of beauty products, but I've heard some mixed things about the quality. In any case, though, the resort is quite lovely this time of year. I suppose that's where they'll have the ceremony?"

His question caught her off guard, and she looked over at him blankly. "Tell you something?"

  

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Roberto's lips twitched into a bit of a fond smile as his wife flipped through her magazine. Ah, domestic bliss. It suited him rather well, he felt. "I am not quite sure. I do not know either very well, either," Roberto said but Merlin, it was bound to be quite the ... spectacle. "All those that are staying there are invited to attend so I assume so." Plus Roberto was personally a little clueless about how Ghosts worked.

"Yes, there's a bit here about you. Stated as an observation," Roberto said before repeating the articles words to her. "After careful attention at various functions and correspondance from trusted friends, this reporter is pleased to be the first to announce that Mrs. Ophelia Devine is with child. Is it really true?"

  

Ophelia took a little more interest in what he was reading when he mentioned something about her. She had been in the news plenty of times over the course of her relatively short life, and had experienced both the best and the worst of it, she felt. Both extremes were typically found in Witch Weekly, however, not the standard paper, which was what her husband was reading. Surely nothing too off-base or scandalous could be printed up as news? The Daily Prophet was unlikely to speculate about supposed premarital affairs with Quidditch players from her teenage years, for instance.

What he read out was perfectly true, as it turned out, but that didn't make her less peevish about its inclusion. "Why, yes, of course," she said in an off-hand way, not realizing in the slightest that this would be news to her husband. "But how inconvenient of them to put it in the paper already. I'd thought we'd hold off on announcing until the end of the season — and do it properly, you know." Ophelia herself had only the vaguest notions about what a proper announcement would look like; she had no relatives who had been through this, in her memory, and her only friend who had gone through pregnancy and childbirth was Nova, whose family did things quite differently anyway. In any case, however, they ought to at least have had the chance to write their own announcement for the newspaper!

"And what does she mean, attention at various parties?" Ophelia said, setting down her own magazine in open irritation. "It's not as though you can see, yet. I haven't even transitioned out of my normal corsets. Honestly," she said in exasperation. She was resigned to blowing up to the size of the Fat Friar eventually, but where did they get off making comments about her appearance now? And in the newspaper, of all places! "Someone ought to write that reporter up," she commented, with half a mind already to write to the editor herself to demand exactly that. "Simply rubbish."

  

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Roberto blinked at his wife as she confirmed the truth of the article. Though she seemed to be of the assumption that this was news he had known already. "Of course," he managed to say as she spoke about how she had hoped to make a proepr announcement at the end of the season and do it all up proper. He would not expected any less had he known of the pregnancy beforehand.

"Indeed," he said in agreement, his usual good humour being encouraged by the sheer joy he felt at knowing his wife was carrying his child. "Why, not even your husband had been informed of the news." There was a teasing tone to his words and he wondered if she would catch on that she had neglected to do or continue to speak against the hapless reporter that had written up the article.

  

Ophelia could do little more than blink at his comment. She heard the words, but the meaning of them failed to really sink in. Was he, perhaps, making some sort of joke? If so, she wasn't really following along, but that wouldn't be the first time in her life she had missed the intention behind someone's joke.

"Don't be silly," she responded distantly. "What do you mean by that, anyway?"

  

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It became quite clear that Ophelia had no idea what Roberto was getting at. He could only assume that Ophelia truly thought that she had already informed him. "Well, my love. You had not yet told me that we were expecting. I have only learned of this now. Is it really truth?" He could not help but ask once more, his joy having no bounds .

  

If this was a joke, he was quite dedicated to it, but she still didn't understand. Ophelia's brow furrowed slightly. "Well, of course I did. I told you —" right after I returned from the hospital, she had been intending to say, but in a sudden flash of clarity she realized that wasn't true. She'd meant to, but he hadn't been home — she couldn't recall now where he had been. So she'd sat down and written a letter to Nova, instead, and then written three different drafts to Phyri before she'd found one she felt she could actually post. Then, she'd been so tired she'd laid down for a nap, and then when she'd woken up it had been time to dress for dinner — and she couldn't have even thought of telling him over dinner, because they'd had a cousin of his over that night.

"Oh, no," she said, face growing pale as she realized that he wasn't joking at all. He actually hadn't heard about it. "Oh, my darling, I'm so sorry, I could have sworn I said..."

  

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Roberto simply watched his wife as she processed his words. He then had to laugh a little when she finally realized what he had been getting at. "Well, I know now and I couldn't be more thrilled. Be prepared though, my mother is bound to descend on you as soon as the news crosses her own eyes." His mother had taken to trying to be the motherly figure she felt any young lady should have to his wife which he personally appreciated but knew could be a bit much.

  

The fact that he wasn't cross with her was a relief. She wondered briefly what she would have to do to actually get him cross with her, since she couldn't recall it ever happening in the past and this incident seemed... particularly egregious. Not that she was going to go out looking for ways to upset him, but — sometimes it surprised her, still, how good he was.

Ophelia nestled in closer to his chest, enjoying the warmth of his embrace. "I think I can handle your mother," she joked lightly.

  

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"We should celebrate - perhaps a small trip before you're too far along to be able to safely go anywhere?" Roberto suggested. They could travel by carriage like the muggles often did. Even if they just stayed home, there was nothing that could extinguish Robertos joy, of that much he was certain.

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Roberto certainly knew her well; travel was the way to her heart every time. Well, after her little summer adventure in Mongolia perhaps slightly less so, but provided she was with him and they weren't taking any dubious portkeys, nothing could possibly go wrong.

"Oh, yes, let's!" she agreed eagerly. "Maybe in September or October, once the season has properly wound down?" She wouldn't want to miss out on anything interesting, as far as social events were concerned — not with the looming prospect of being socially isolated for months in the near future.

  

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"Sounds like perfection," Roberto said. "Do you want us to have an itinerary or just see what comes as we go places?" He was not totally bothered which style of travel they did aside from picking places that would have decent access to medical care should they need it but he doubted Ophelia relished the idea of hiking through dense rainforests that not even hardened adventurers would dare tread.

  

"Oh, an itinerary!" she answered immediately, thinking back on her unexpected voyage to Mongolia when she'd just been planning to be out for tea. "I've had quite enough of unplanned holidays for the year!"

  

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