EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER
"Your son has eaten approximately half a pound of dirt this morning, which I'm told is perfectly normal behavior for a young boy his age, though I suspect all inhabitants of the underground may be offended that young Master James has been excavating their carefully constructed abodes.”
Gabriel looked up from where he was attempting to build what could generously be called a tower from wooden blocks, though their son seemed more interested in destroying architectural achievements than creating them.
James Gabriel Edmund Hale, future Duke of Ashbourne and current destroyer of all things stackable, had his father's dark hair, his mother's blue-green eyes, and both parents' talent for chaos.
"Only half a pound?" Gabriel asked. "Yesterday he managed nearly a full pound according to Mrs. Potter's calculations, and she's been keeping a chart."
"Of course she has," Clara said, entering the conservatory with a tea tray that she set down well out of reach of grabbing hands.
"Between Mrs. Potter's charts, Peter's statistical analysis of James's sleeping patterns, and Cook's detailed documentation of what foods he'll actually eat versus throw at the walls, our son is the most thoroughly documented child in England. "
"Our son is also currently trying to eat one of the blocks," Gabriel observed, extracting the wooden cube from James's mouth with practiced ease. "No, small destroyer. Wood is not food, despite your evident belief that everything is edible."
James responded by shrieking with laughter and knocking over the tower Gabriel had spent ten minutes building, which seemed to be his primary joy in life along with pulling his father's hair and trying to catch any living insect.
"He has excellent destructive timing," Clara said, sitting down beside them on the blanket they'd spread on the conservatory floor. "Just like his father."
"I have never destroyed anything with such gleeful abandon."
"You destroyed my entire life plan with gleeful abandon."
"Your life plan was terrible. Leaving in spring, finding employment elsewhere, pretending we weren't desperately in love, and absolutely awful planning."
"My planning was practical."
"Your planning was pessimistic."
"Not mutually exclusive," they said in unison, then laughed.
James, deciding his parents weren't paying him sufficient attention, crawled over to Clara with surprising speed for someone who'd only figured out locomotion a month ago, and pulled himself up using her skirts, babbling something that might have been "mama" or might have been a declaration of war against all vertical surfaces.
"He's determined to walk before his first birthday," Clara said, steadying him as he swayed on unsteady legs.
"He's determined to give us both heart failure before his first birthday," Gabriel corrected, remembering yesterday's incident where James had somehow managed to climb halfway up a bookshelf in the thirty seconds Gabriel had looked away.
"Like father, like son."
"I never climbed bookshelves."
"You fell off the roof trying to retrieve a kite."
"That was different. I was young and foolish."
Now you are old and practically decrepit and still foolish.”
Gabriel pulled her against him, careful not to dislodge James who was now trying to eat Clara's necklace. "Decrepit enough to have given you a son and possibly another, if your morning indisposition is what I suspect it is."
Clara's hand went unconsciously to her still-flat stomach. "It might be nothing. I might have simply eaten something that disagreed with me."
"For the past week?"
"It's been a disagreeable week."
"Clara, the only thing disagreeable this week was Lord Pemberton's attempt to visit, which Edmund handled with his usual diplomatic violence."
"Diplomatic violence?"
"He diplomatically suggested Pemberton leave before he violently removed him from the property."
"That's not diplomacy."
"It's Edmund's version of diplomacy, which is the only kind that works on Pemberton."
James, having given up on the necklace as a food source, plopped down on his bottom and began examining his own foot with the intensity of a scholar discovering an ancient text.
"He's going to be brilliant," Clara said fondly.
"He's going to be a handful."
"Your Grace, My Lady, luncheon is served, and I've made those lemon cakes Master James throws with less violence than other foods," the Cook who had just showed up said.
"Less violence is the best we can hope for," Gabriel said, scooping up James who immediately grabbed his father's cravat and tried to strangle him with it. "No, small tyrant. We shall, however tempting the notion, refrain from doing any injury to Papa.”
"Baba!" James declared, which might have been his version of Papa or might have been more war cries.
They made their way to the dining room, which bore the scars of James's food experiments, faint stains on the wallpaper that even Mary's aggressive cleaning couldn't entirely remove, scratches on the table from when he'd discovered spoons could be weapons, and what Gabriel swore was a permanent dent in the ceiling from the great porridge incident of last month.
"We should eat in the garden," Clara suggested. "It's beautiful today, and there's less to destroy outside."
"You underestimate our son's destructive capabilities."
"I never underestimate a Hale's capacity for chaos. I wedded you, didn't I?"
They settled at the garden table, James in his high chair that had been reinforced after he'd figured out how to dismantle the original, and Clara couldn't help but notice how different the garden looked from two years ago.
It wasn't formal, would never be formal again, but it was alive, vibrant, overflowing with the kind of wild beauty that came from letting things grow as they wished rather than forcing them into rigid patterns.
Their rose had indeed taken over the entire west wall and was making aggressive forays toward the east, but neither of them had the heart to trim it back.
It had become something of a local landmark—the Ashbourne Rose, people called it, coming to see the unusual pink and gold blooms that shouldn't exist but did anyway.
"Lady Agatha's written again," Gabriel said, pulling a letter from his pocket while trying to prevent James from wearing his luncheon as a hat.
"What does the purple menace want now?"
"To meet her great-nephew, apparently. She's decided that producing an heir means I'm not entirely hopeless."
"How generous of her."
"She also mentions that she's heard about our 'agricultural innovations' and wants to discuss them, which I suspect means she wants to criticise our decision to let the tenants farm cooperatively."
"It's working though," Clara pointed out. "The yields have improved, the tenants are happier, and the estate is more profitable than it's been in years."
"Yes, but it's unconventional, and you know how Aunt Agatha feels about unconventional things."
"She feels about them the way James feels about vegetables, violent opposition followed by grudging acceptance if no other options are available."
As if to demonstrate, James picked up a piece of carrot, examined it suspiciously, then threw it .
"James Gabriel Edmund Hale," Clara said sternly. "We do not throw food .”
James looked at her with Gabriel's exact expression of 'I regret nothing' and reached for another carrot.
"He's going to be a terror," Gabriel said proudly.
"He already is a terror."
"Yes, but he'll be a magnificent terror. Look at that throwing arm. He could play cricket."
"He could, if he doesn't get expelled from school for throwing things at his instructors."
"We'll homeschool him."
"You want to attempt teaching our son, who has your attention span and my stubbornness?"
“A sound argument, indeed. We shall therefore dispatch him to a suitable academy without delay.”
"Not Eton," Clara said firmly. "I won't have him turned into a proper little aristocrat who thinks emotions are weakness."
"Goodness no. Somewhere progressive. Somewhere that won't try to beat the wildness out of him."
"Does such a place exist?"
"We'll found one if necessary. The Ashbourne School for Ungovernable Children."
Clara laughed. "We'd only have one student."
"Two, if my suspicions about your condition are correct."
Mrs. Potter appeared, as she always did when they were being particularly domestic, like she had a sixth sense for moments that needed interrupting.
"Your Grace, the Hartleys have arrived for tea, and Lord Hartley says to tell you that Miss Ashworth, excuse me, Mrs. Thomas Ashworth has sent a letter with news you'll find amusing."
"Penelope's always amusing," Clara said. "Last month she wrote that she'd convinced Thomas to present a paper on the romantic habits of roses at the Royal Botanical Society."
"The what?" Gabriel asked.
"Apparently she's been documenting how our rose grows toward certain other plants and away from others, and she's convinced it's displaying preference based on compatibility."
"The rose has romantic preferences?"
"According to Penelope, yes."
"That girl is either brilliant or mad."
"Both," Clara and Mrs. Potter said in unison.
"Speaking of mad," Mrs. Potter continued, "Master James has managed to remove his clothing while you were discussing roses."
They turned to find James had indeed divested himself of every stitch of his attire and was now attempting to climb out of his high chair, apparently offended by the restriction of garments.
"He's your son," Clara told Gabriel.
"When he's naked and escaping, he's definitely my son. When he's charming and adorable, he's yours."
"He's always naked and escaping."
"Then he's always mine, which I'm perfectly content with."
Edmund and Margaret arrived, along with their twin daughters who were six months older than James and significantly more civilized, which meant they only threw food on special occasions rather than as a general practice.