Epilogue
En route to Lady Joy’s annual Yule celebration at Winterstone Estate
England’s Lake District
“We must turn around and return home. Immediately.” Drake held Felicity steady as she cast up her accounts in the snow beside the carriage. “You are not well at all.”
“The festive season will not be complete if we miss Joy’s Yule celebration.” Felicity sagged against him, breathing as hard as if she had run alongside the carriage rather than ridden inside it. “Oh dear. Hold fast.” She doubled over and retched again with such force that Drake flinched.
“I forbid it,” he said. “You are unwell and should be home in bed, allowing Mrs. Pepperhill, Mrs. Bean, and me to care for you. We are turning the carriage around.”
“We are not!” Felicity burst into tears and vomited some more.
Gads alive. Not more tears. She had been so weepy of late. Drake felt the worst sort of lout for making his beloved angel so unhappy. “Felicity, please. I am so concerned for you. Please do not cry. It will only make you worse.”
“I cannot help it!” She stamped her foot and glared at him. “All of this is because I am with child.” She poked him in the chest. “But I didn’t wish to tell you until Christmas Eve, and now, you have ruined my surprise for you!”
He stared at her, uncertain he had heard her correctly.
“Well?” She covered her mouth with her handkerchief, her glare sharpening with a distinct glimmer of murder in her eyes. “Say something.”
“Our child?”
“Yes. Our child.”
“I am going to be a father?”
“If you live long enough,” she muttered, then burst into tears again. “Oh, do forgive me for being such a sharp-tongued wretch. I cannot seem to control it.”
He eased her into his arms, held her close, and tenderly shushed her. “You have every right to be a sharp-tongued wretch. Your husband is a bloody fool.”
“So you do think I am a sharp-tongued wretch?” She keened with a louder, high-pitched cry, making the horses flatten their ears and prance in place.
“I think you are my beautiful angel,” he hurried to tell her as he took her by the shoulders and forced her to look him in the eyes. “And I am awestruck and giddy beyond compare that you carry our child.”
“Mrs. Pepperhill promised my temperament would improve.” Felicity slowly shook her head. “But I hold little hope for your survival. Blessing was an absolute beast when she was expecting little Rorie. The devil himself couldn’t get along with her.”
Drake grinned. “All that matters is that you are not suffering from some deadly malady that is going to steal you away from me. I couldn’t bear it, my love.
You are my heart, and without you, I would have no reason to live.
” He wanted to roar to the world that this wonderful woman carried his child.
His child. She was blessing him with a child.
But he didn’t wish to startle the horses any more than she already had.
“We shall take the rest of the journey slowly and keep the carriage windows uncovered so you might breathe the fresh air. Will that help you make it to your sister’s? ”
She gave him a forlorn look and shrugged. “I do not know. There is neither rhyme nor reason for when it chooses to hit me.”
“What do you wish to do?” He hoped that was safe enough to ask.
He also made a mental note to speak with Blessing’s husband at his first opportunity for suggestions on surviving future fits of anger and tears brought on by this wondrous condition.
Blessing’s husband, Thorne, had successfully survived the fathering of two children.
Drake considered the man an expert. He would also speak to Matthew, Wolfe, and Jansen for any advice they might have to offer, since they had fathered children with Broadmere sisters as well.
Felicity didn’t answer, just stared downward, occasionally dabbing at the corners of her eyes with her handkerchief.
Ever so gently, he tipped her face up to his. “My love? What do you wish to do?”
She gave a heavy sigh. “Might we just walk for a little while?”
Rather than argue that it was cold and snowing, and the wind was picking up, Drake took her by the hand and wrapped his other arm around her, enfolding her in the depths of his cloak. “We shall walk alongside the carriage until you are ready to ride inside it.”
“Are you sure?” The hopefulness in her eyes was his undoing.
“I am positive, my love.” He kissed her forehead, then turned to John, where the man sat huddled deep in his coat. “We are going to walk for a little while, John. Be a good fellow and follow along.”
John first puckered with a look of disbelief, then tipped an obedient nod. “As you wish, my lord.”
“He thinks we are mad.” Felicity blew out another heavy sigh that clouded in the frosty air.
“Perhaps we are, but what of it?” Drake pressed a kiss to her temple, unable to resist. “Everyone is a little mad about one thing or another, and I am so proud about the thought of becoming a father, I might just howl at the moon.” Her color was improving, and her faint smile urged him on.
“You have made me the happiest man in the world—yet again.”
“Yet again?”
He nodded in time with their plodding steps, unable to feel his toes, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was Felicity and their child. “When you married me, and now that you carry our first child. I had no idea we would be blessed so soon.”
She cut a sideways glance his way and snorted. “You turned me into a greedy wanton, my lord. What did you expect would happen?”
“We are newlyweds,” he said, adopting a lofty tone. “It should be no other way.” He leaned in and whispered against her ear, “And I can never get enough of you, my love, not ever.”
Her cheeks reddened even more, and she shyly ducked her head. “Drake,” she softly scolded him, but her voice had lost the sting from earlier. “Shh…John might hear.”
Drake chuckled. “John and his wife raised five children. I feel sure he would understand.” They continued in contented silence, the surrounding countryside hushed with its blanket of newly fallen snow and the delicate curtain of fluffy white flakes still falling.
The holiday bells on the horses’ tack softly jingled a merry tune as they followed along.
“It is so peaceful.” Felicity lifted her face, smiling up into the gentle wintry storm. “I love this time of year.” She snuggled closer, tightening her arm around him. “And I love you.”
“I love you, my darling. More than you will ever know.” He noticed the tip of her nose had gone quite red. “Are you warm enough?”
“I am lovely, other than my toes. I fear they have gone quite numb.”
“Shall we walk a bit farther, or are you ready to attempt another jaunt in the carriage?”
“I feel I can ride now.” She cast an uncertain look back at the conveyance. “At present, anyway. Hopefully, your son will allow it.”
“And how do you know it is not my daughter causing you to be ill?” He didn’t care what they had as long as the babe and Felicity remained healthy and hale.
“It is a boy. I just know it.”
Far be it from him to argue. “And when will our son be making his arrival?”
“Late spring, I believe. Mrs. Bean assured me her method of counting is ever accurate, and Mrs. Pepperhill seemed to agree.” She wrinkled her nose. “They mentioned something to do with the phases of the moon and our tenant farmers’ late lambing season.”
Drake signaled for John to stop the carriage, escorted Felicity to its door, and helped her inside. Before joining her, he winked at the driver. “Fast as you can in this weather, John. My wife and our unborn child are getting cold.”
John grinned and doffed his hat. “Congratulations to you and her ladyship, my lord, and ne’er you worry. I’ll get you there posthaste.”
Drake climbed into the carriage and tucked the heavy lap blankets around them, taking care to keep Felicity’s feet well covered.
She snuggled into his embrace. “Just think, next Yule we shall have a child ready to meet all the cousins.”
Remembering how loud the small church in Binnocksbourne had gotten with all the children, Drake smiled. “Another voice for the Broadmere sisters’ choir.”
“Merry is next, you know.” Felicity yawned and shifted more comfortably against him.
“Next for what?”
“The next little Broadmere goose to take center stage in the Marriage Mart window, and then it will finally be Seri’s turn to experience Chance’s mad dash to get us all happily married.” Her voice trailed off, and soft snoring followed.
A sense of completeness, of utter contentment, overtook Drake as he cradled her so her head wouldn’t bob forward while she slept. He brushed a tender kiss to her forehead and whispered, “Thank you for loving me.”
“Forever and a day,” she sleepily muttered. “Will love you forever and a day.”
The End