Chapter Sixteen
Dearest Owen,
I do wish at times that you could see what I’ve made of your little cottage, because it is everything I’ve dreamed of.
With my friend Catrin and her husband’s help, we have built a kiln outside that is the perfect place to fire my work.
I’ve decorated the inside of the cottage in a way that feels comfortable and homey.
I adore this place and I’m grateful that you gave me permission to furnish it as I desired, because I think it might be my favorite place.
But I miss you. I think about you constantly.
I feel your presence everywhere in Caer Newydd.
I hear your voice in the accents of your neighbors.
I loved your last letter dearly, loved hearing stories about your friends and what you are up to at Parliament, and I could almost imagine that you were sitting with me at our dining table and regaling me with these tales yourself.
I know you’re busy with everything in London, and that is where you should be.
I do miss you, but I want to reassure you that I am as happy as can be here.
Catrin has made a fine apprentice and a dear friend.
Morfudd makes me laugh whenever she comes for a meal.
Gwen and Carys Williams and I get together regularly for meals—Gwen is an excellent cook.
I have found the people here to be lovely and friendly and eager to teach me Welsh words.
You asked me recently to tell you I think of you, and I do, daily, hourly, perhaps every minute some days. I do like hearing about what you are up to in London and sometimes I wish I could be there with you to support you, because it sounds like you are quite troubled by what you must do.
I miss you, but I imagine I will see you soon. When your Parliament session ends, I hope you will consider coming to see me and the rest of your family….
P.S. We’ve worked out that you and Catrin’s husband had the same great-grandfather! Catrin and I joke that, in point of fact, we are cousins.
Owen felt a pang as he finished reading the letter.
He missed Grace, of course, but he missed Wales as well.
Her last few letters had been full of stories about the people she’d been meeting.
Some of them were ones Owen knew well and missed, too, some of them were new friends of Grace’s, but if her letters were anything to go by, she was thriving there, and Owen was sad to be missing it.
His gut told him to go to Wales, with all possible haste. He’d ride through the night if he had to. But his duties and obligations kept him in London.
So, at the end of the day, as a waiter at the club poured him a generous serving of gin—might as well cut to the chase—Owen felt like he was losing on all fronts.
He missed his wife, he missed his homeland, and he’d failed to get any of his bills through Parliament, which was the main reason he’d chosen to be here instead of where he wanted to be.
“Clear liquor,” Fletcher said, joining Owen by the fireplace in the club. “Has everything truly gone horribly wrong?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“Maybe I should have some of that, too, except I am meeting Lady Louisa for the opera in an hour.”
“Which opera?” Owen asked, mostly as a formality. Fletcher attended the opera about once a month, and Owen rarely did, if he could help it.
“The Magic Flute. It’s her favorite. The tenor is some chap from Italy who is drawing attention on the Continent. And…you do not give a whit about opera.”
“I don’t, no, but I appreciate that you do.”
“Mostly for Louisa. She needed someone to accompany her and I had no other engagements this evening. Unless you wish me to cancel so that I can help you?”
“No, that’s all right. Enjoy the opera.”
“But you are determined to be in your cups.”
“My bill got laughed out of Lords today.”
“The one about the roads or the one about the Luddites?”
Owen was taken aback that Fletcher actually listened to him and knew the bills he was pursuing. He sighed. “Well, both, but more crucially, the Luddites. Why take an approach that could help the people when you could instead just send Wellington’s army to shoot them all.”
“Wait, is that true?”
Owen sighed. “I do not know if the intent is for the troops to shoot the rebels. They may just seek to capture them. But yes, tomorrow we shall be voting on whether to send troops, and most of my colleagues support the idea.”
“Seems like a tragedy to send the army Wellington won with at Waterloo to suppress a few angry artisans.”
“My feelings exactly, but my feelings do not matter. So I’ve just spent several months that I could have spent getting to know my new wife pursuing bills here that are doomed to fail. I’ve wasted my time, and I’m frustrated by it. Thus I am drinking.”
“Well deserved,” said Fletcher. He lifted his glass of wine and gestured at Owen with it.
Beresford, of all people, walked in then. He dropped into one of the chairs and said, “Lord save me from meddlesome women.”
“You could…just not get married,” Fletcher said, probably recognizing that whatever meddlesome woman Beresford was mad about was trying to get him into a church to troth to a potential wife.
“I certainly am trying.”
“Can we…be of assistance to you?” Owen asked. “Because my plan for this evening is to get rip-roaring drunk.”
“That’s an excellent plan.” Beresford snapped his fingers at a waiter. “Whiskey.” When the waiter left to fetch Beresford’s drink, he asked, “Why are you getting drunk?”
“Government business and a wife miles away.”
Beresford nodded. “I heard your bill got scuttled. I suppose now that we’ve run Napoleon out of Europe, the army needed something to do.”
“That’s one way to put it,” said Fletcher.
“Listen, I’m sorry,” said Beresford. “For what it’s worth, I agree with you that sending troops is excessive and that we should probably do something to help the rebels, but the rich folk in Lords will never see the world that way. You’re too much of a do-gooder.”
“Well, look who’s here…”
Hugh and Lark arrived together. Lark was wearing something fashionable and slightly ridiculous. His waistcoat was bright green, though obscured by his dark blue coat, and his breeches were tight enough to look painted on.
Owen opened his mouth to ask what he was wearing, but thought it would be rude.
Apparently everyone else was staring, though.
“The waistcoat is too much, isn’t it?” Lark said, fingering the edge of it.
“That color is quite becoming on you,” said Beresford. “Did you dress up for me?”
“Perish the thought. Hugh and I just came from a garden party. The less said about it, the better.”
“Profoundly dull,” Hugh agreed. “A fundraiser for parks in London, so a good cause, but the crowd left something to be desired.”
“The gray-haired set?” asked Beresford.
Lark tapped his nose.
“So we’re all having a terrible day,” said Fletcher.
“Well, I’m not, actually. I spent a perfectly pleasant afternoon working with my father on some plans to extend our estate in Cornwall.
And now that the rest of you are here, I must be off.
But please keep an eye on Owen, who has dived right into the clear liquor. ”
“Gin is a poor man’s drink,” said Beresford with disgust. “How can you stand the taste of it?”
“I prefer it to whiskey, in fact,” Owen said, “but I only indulge when my day seems especially disastrous.”
“Parliament?” Hugh asked.
“Indeed.”
Fletcher left, and Hugh and Lark took the two empty chairs. Once they had drinks in hand, and after Owen recounted what had happened in Parliament that day, they toasted to a terrible day.
“All those months wasted,” Owen said, his brain swimming in gin. “I never expected to miss her this much, but I do, and it’s my own damn fault because I was idealistic enough to think I could affect change in this godforsaken country.”
“Your wife?” asked Lark.
“Aye. I’m fed up with London. You gents are my dearest friends, but I’d toss you all in the Thames if it would get me home faster.”
“I can’t imagine being separated from Adele for that long,” said Hugh.
“Should I leave for Wales straight from the vote tomorrow or what?”
“No,” said Lark. “You promised you would attend the charity ball my mother is hosting next week. I need reinforcements.”
Owen let out a breath. “Right. Of course I will be there. I am in no condition to leave for Wales right now anyway.”
This was true. He needed to get his servants and his belongings in order.
It would take him at least a week to pack up his London house for a long-term vacancy.
Not to mention, he should write to Grace to warn her he was coming before he left.
He’d love to be able to leave immediately, but there was a lot to arrange.
So he was stuck in London for at least another fortnight.
He leaned back into his chair. “Another round?” he asked.
*
In Owen’s latest letter, he’d asked about Gerard Makepeace, because apparently the Marquess of Beresford had seen the vase she’d made for Owen and remarked that it looked like Makepeace’s work.
It was probably time to come clean. Grace almost wondered if Owen was fishing for information. Had Beresford said something that made him suspect?
She wanted to tell him everything, but then she received a newspaper from London—they often arrived a few days late, but she liked keeping abreast of the news in England—and there was an article about the rebellion Owen had written to her about.
It mentioned the bill he was pushing in Parliament.
She admired Owen’s kindness and desire to find a solution that did not involve the rebels being treated harshly.
Things had changed—Grace knew that. She knew that the original arrangement had been a product of her ignorance of Owen and of marriage, and now that she knew and understood him better, she wanted him here with her.
But she was reluctant to ask him to do that, not sure if his own feelings mirrored hers.
She’d wanted independence, but now she regretted asking for it.
She’d lucked into marrying a handsome, kind, considerate man, one who made her feel things she’d never felt before, and that had changed everything. She didn’t want her independence anymore. She wanted her husband. And she knew she should write him and tell him to come home with all possible haste.
In fact, she even wrote such a letter. She wrote out all of it—the baby, her nom de sculpture—in a missive, telling Owen to come home at once because he was about to be a father.
She weighed whether or not to mail it, nervous suddenly that such a plea would be unwelcome.
She reasoned she still had a few more weeks to decide.
However, the choice to do so was swiftly taken out of her hands.
Catrin had explained the basics of childbirth, but Grace was still not prepared.
When she felt the first pang, she dismissed it, assuming it was like a flutter or a kick, the sorts of things she’d been feeling for months now.
But then came another. And another. And soon, Grace was anxiously pacing up and down the hall outside her bedroom, trying to decide if it was time to summon a doctor.
Then her maid, Mary, found her with a puddle at her feet, and said, “Aye, my lady, you should be in bed.”
The doctor arrived within the hour.
Grace felt like she was in good hands, between the doctor, the midwife who arrived with him, and Mary—who had a brood of her own children she worked to support.
But as the pain increased, so did her panic.
She’d thought about what it would be like to give birth constantly for the last six weeks, but now that she had to push this baby out of her body, it seemed like an impossible task.
She wouldn’t remember much after the fact. The pain became so intense, she felt herself floating out of her body. It would have been easy to let go, but she was determined to do this, and to be a good mother, so she fought to stay present and follow the doctor’s instructions.
It was a struggle. The doctor speculated that the baby was big and healthy, which was a good thing, of course, but made labor more of a challenge.
Catrin had told Grace that birthing a baby would hurt, so she assumed this pain was part of that, but she couldn’t help wailing, “It hurts too much. I don’t think I can do this. ”
“You can, my lady. Stay with me. Hold Mary’s hand if you need to.”
She wanted Owen. He would hold her and encourage her. Instead, because of her own blasted decisions, she was quite alone.
But just when the pain became more than she could bear, the doctor yelled, “Push, my lady. Push.”
She screamed as she pushed. She couldn’t shake the mental image—something that had appeared her nightmares for weeks—of this baby tearing her body apart. The pain was acute, more than anything she’d ever borne before.
Then she heard it. It started softly, but then it became a full-on wail. The baby was here—and he was crying.
“It’s a boy!” the midwife said. “Ten fingers and ten toes!”
The doctor did some things Grace couldn’t see, and the baby continued to wail. Grace strained to see the child, but the edges of her vision started to go blurry and dark.
“Doctor…” she murmured. “Something is…”
But before she could say anything more, everything went black.