Epilogue

DECEMBER 1912

Never in her life had Rowena believed she would scowl at Annie, but if the girl didn’t stop laughing . . . “I’ll send you back to your room. I will—dinna doubt me.”

Her sister fell back on Rowena’s bed in a fit of giggles. “But, Wena, ye just burst into tears over napkins.”

Aye, and now she was as likely to burst into laughter—she couldn’t, it seemed, stick to one emotion for more than five minutes at a clip these days. Wagging a finger at Annie, she shook her head. “Ye’re to have patience with me in my state. Not make fun.”

“I canna help it, Wena. Napkins?”

Her lips twitched, but Rowena didn’t let the laughter out. If she did, it might just turn back to more crying. And she hadn’t time to get the puffiness from her eyes as it was. Turning back to the mirror, she patted at her face with a handkerchief and adjusted her gown. Her stomach was beyond hiding, but it earned her smiles and stories about their pregnancies from all the other ladies. Common ground. Comradery. New friends.

And Brice, every night, would set his hand upon the growing flesh and try to feel the wee one move. They ought to be able to soon, the doctor said. It would be a grand day—as grand as the one when she’d woken up without having to rush to the lavatory.

Annie’s giggles subsided, and she rolled onto her stomach, resting her chin on her hands. “I like that dress. So festive, especially with your plaid brooch.”

Rowena smiled and touched a finger to it, then smoothed her hand over the evergreen satin. The exact shade of the wreaths upon the doors, the garlands on every rail and mantel. “Well, I want to look my best tonight. Brice’s first birthday as a married man.” She had been planning this fête with his mother for two months—and had done equal amounts of crying and laughing over it.

But it would go off without a hitch. All Brice’s friends had come for the occasion, even the Staffords from the Cotswolds . . . and Mr. Abbott had promised to attend, though he’d warned them he might not make it through the meal. He still suffered from headaches most every evening—but he was alive, walking, talking, and still determined to accept his post in Bristol in a few short weeks. And to speak on miracles and believing in the unseen in his first sermon.

“Ye’ll be the most beautiful woman there.” Annie gave a happy little sigh and bent her legs, letting her feet dangle over her back. “I wish I could go.”

Rowena chuckled. “Sorry, a leanbh. Eight is a bit young for a coming out, even in this enlightened age.”

Annie grinned. “Perhaps I’ll sneak down during the dancing. Just to see the gowns.”

“And perhaps, if I see you doing so . . .” Rowena moved to the bed and bent down to put her nose on a level with her sister’s. And grinned. “I’d nod my head to the most beautiful dress to be found.”

“But that’s yours! Or perhaps,” she added with a thoughtful purse of her lips, “the Duchess of Stafford’s. Did you see what she wore to dinner last night?”

How was she to help but chuckle? “Aye, I did—though how you managed to when you were supposed to have been dining up here . . .”

Annie was saved the need to respond by a quick rap on the door connecting her room to Brice’s. He entered without awaiting a response, flashing a grin as he did so. “There are two of my four favorite ladies. About ready, darling?”

“Almost.”

“Good, I . . . Have you been crying again?”

He’d long ago given up being concerned over her tears. Rowena waved the question away and turned back to her dressing table. “It was only that the napkins weren’t folded in the shape I’d wanted them to be and . . .” Seeing the way he pressed his lips against laughter, she swatted at him as she passed. “Dinna laugh at me, Brice.”

“No, no. Never. Wouldn’t dream of it.” But he winked at Annie.

Which she pretended not to see. “What necklace, do ye think, mo muirnín? Emeralds?”

“Emeralds? Nonsense. Let’s be fully festive.” He appeared beside her and drew out the ornate wooden box. “Rubies.”

“Perfect.” She presented her back to him so he could drape the beloved necklace around her throat and fasten it for her. As she had each of the three times she’d donned it since September, she touched a finger to the gold and jewels and said a prayer for Catherine. Remembered the glee in little Byron’s eyes when he’d shoved it into his mouth.

Poor baby. Poor mother. Catherine and Rushworth had gone back to Yorkshire as quickly as they could after the wee one’s passing, and no one had heard a peep from them since. Not Rowena or the Staffords or, so far as she could tell, any of Catherine’s friends. But everyone knew that Catherine had lost Delmore, what with no heir to keep it for. She’d moved back to her childhood home with her brother, and the crown had reabsorbed the Pratt estate, the title. Everything but the few funds unattached to it.

“There.” Necklace fastened, Brice rested his hands on her shoulders and pressed a kiss to her neck . . . which lingered a second too long, given their company. She gave him a soft elbow to the stomach, and he chuckled into her ear. “Don’t I have a wager to settle with you, Duchess? Something about a holiday, just the two of us? A delayed honeymoon, as it were?”

She grinned at their reflection in the mirror. He so handsome and looking at her with such longing. She so content to have his heart, and his arms about her every night. “Technically, mo muirnín, the wager was that ye’d fall in love before I did. And if memory serves, we were rather equally matched in that.”

“Mm.” He slid his arms around her waist, resting his palm against her stomach. “In that case, you owe me a holiday in the destination of my choice. I hear Monaco is pleasant this time of year.”

“You know,” Annie said too loudly, “if you need to kiss you can just ask me to go to my room.”

It wouldn’t have done any good, given the frantic knocking now upon her door to the hall, and the redhead who let herself in with panic in her eyes. “I can’t find my garnet earbobs! Have you seen them, Rowena?”

“Ella.” Brice pulled away with a laugh. “Can you not keep track of anything?”

“It’s the fairies Annie was telling me about, it must be. Thieving little beasties.” She tousled the girl’s curls but then joined them at the dressing table. “Didn’t I take them off in here the other night? I did, I put them right here.” She tapped the marble top. “I remember.”

“Aye, and Lilias ran them back over to yer room the next morning.”

“Drat.” Screwing up her mouth, Ella glanced around the room. “Is she here? Perhaps she remembers what I did with them when she handed them back.”

“I sent her off to help Mr. Child with last-minute preparations.”

Brice snorted. “Brilliant. They’ll just stare with moon-eyes at each other and get in the way of everyone else.”

Rowena treated him to another elbow . . . but had to laugh. “They willna. And it’s adorable that they’re courting. Lil deserves happiness.”

“As does Mr. Child. Even so.”

“Yes, yes, it’s wonderful. But let’s focus.” Ella tapped a finger to her bare earlobes. “Jewelry. I beg you. Or perhaps I should go and beg Mother. Surely someone has another pair of garnets I can borrow, or rubies, or—”

“Oh! I have rubies.” Rowena spun back to the tabletop and the carved wooden box. “I canna wear them, so you might as well. Here.” She pulled out the lovely dangling earrings that had nearly tempted her to let Lilias come at her with a needle.

Nearly.

“Ah . . .” Brice reached as if to snatch them before Ella could.

Rowena lifted a brow.

Ella pouted. “I won’t lose them, Brice, I promise. I’ll not even touch them. Lewis will be the one to take them out.”

Brice looked from one of them to the other. “They’re the Nottingham rubies.”

Ella rolled her eyes. “They are not. They’re the ones you commissioned to look like part of the set, you dolt. You’re not believing your own stories now, are you?”

“Ye had them made?” Rowena held them up next to the bracelet she still needed to put on. “But they’re a perfect match. And yer mother’s wedding portrait . . .”

“Yes, the originals were lost or stolen when I was a girl. Macnab made the replacements for him while we were up in Lochaber in August.” Ella batted her lashes. “And it’s a shame to keep his creation locked away in a box all the time, isn’t it?”

Sighing, Brice shoved his hands in his pockets. “Fine. But if you lose them, Ella . . .”

With a squeal, she snatched them from Rowena’s palm and made quick work of putting them in her ears—and then made a show of peering into the mirror. “Oh, they’re gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous.”

They were, at that, the way they dangled against the ivory column of her throat, nearly matching the deep red curls she’d had piled high tonight. The light caught them, dancing round the gold, toying with the rubies, setting them alight with a fire that almost . . .

Sucking in a breath, Rowena spun to face Brice, who still stood with his hands in his pockets, innocent as could be. At her open mouth, he grinned. Shrugged.

Blasted man. She’d had the Fire Eyes the whole time, right there in her dressing table. And oh, how he must have had a fit when his mother gave them to her on their wedding day, when they scarcely knew each other.

Laughter bubbled up, spilled out. She slid over to him and wrapped her arms around him. “Happy birthday, mo muirnín. May this year coming be filled with blessings—even more than the last.”

He held her close, a chuckle rumbling in his chest beneath her ear. “A difficult task, given that this past year gave me you.”

“Aye.” She tipped up her face to gaze at his, which she knew so well. Loved even better.

And wondered how love did it. How could it take two people, unite them . . . and somehow make each one more? More than they’d ever been on their own.