EPILOGUE #2
"Upon my very soul," Edmund said, taking in the naked, dirt-covered James who had successfully escaped his chair and was now chasing Harold across the garden. "Your son looks like a feral creature."
"He's expressing his individuality," Gabriel said defensively.
"He's expressing his bottom to the entire county."
"It's a very nice bottom. It is, alas, inherited directly from his mother's side.”
"Gabriel!" Clara protested, though she was laughing.
“Indeed! The grace of your form is beyond refute, and I should be quite content to expound upon its virtues this very hour, should you allow…”
"There are children present," Margaret interrupted, though she was smiling.
"The children don't care about discussions of bottoms. Look, Sophie's trying to eat a flower."
Indeed, Edmund's daughter had stuffed a rose in her mouth while her twin sister Louise appeared to be having a serious conversation with an ant.
"Your children are also feral," Gabriel observed.
"All children are feral. We just pretend otherwise for society's comfort," Edmund said, extracting the rose from Sophie's mouth.
They settled around the garden table, the children creating chaos at their feet, and Clara thought about how different this was from what she'd imagined her life would be.
She'd thought she'd be a governess forever, or perhaps a spinster living in complete poverty.
Instead, she was a duchess with a wild son, possibly another child on the way, a husband who still looked at her like she was water in the desert, and a chosen family of servants and friends who'd become essential to their happiness.
"What are you thinking about?" Gabriel asked quietly, his hand finding hers under the table.
"How impossible this all is."
“I used to think happiness was something other people had. Something I'd forfeited through scarring and bad temper and general unsuitability for human company."
"And now?"
"Now I think happiness is watching my son terrorize insects while my pregnant wife pretends she's not pregnant and my friend's children eat flowers."
"I might not be pregnant."
"You're definitely pregnant. You have that same look you had with James…slightly green but somehow radiant."
"If you two are quite finished being disgustingly wedded," Edmund interrupted, "I have news from London."
"If it's about Lady Agatha…" Gabriel started.
"It's about Lord Pemberton."
The table went quiet except for the children's babbling.
"What's he done now?" Clara asked, her hand tightening on Gabriel's.
"Been arrested for debt, apparently. Turns out his harassment of governesses extended to not paying them, and several have banded together to press charges. He's facing complete ruin."
"Splendid!" Gabriel said viciously.
"There's more. He's been trying to claim that Clara owes him money for her time in his household, saying she was given advances she never repaid."
"That's a lie," Clara said immediately.
"Of course it is, but lies can still cause trouble. However, Margaret has a solution."
Margaret smiled sweetly. "I've been corresponding with the governesses. We're forming a society…the Governesses' Mutual Aid Association. We protect each other from men such as Pemberton, share information about problematic households, and provide references for those unfairly dismissed."
"That's brilliant," Clara breathed.
"It's also probably illegal," Edmund added cheerfully. "But when has that stopped us?"
"We're not doing anything illegal," Margaret said primly. "We're simply sharing information and resources. If that information happens to prevent certain lords from ever hiring another governess again, well, that's just unfortunate coincidence."
"You're terrifying," Gabriel told her admiringly.
"Thank you. I learned from watching Clara manage you."
"I don't manage Gabriel," Clara protested.
Everyone at the table looked at her with identical expressions of disbelief.
"I don't!"
"Yesterday you convinced him to attend a village assembly by strategically placing his brandy where he'd have to go through the ballroom to get it," Edmund pointed out.
"That was coincidence."
"Tuesday you got him to approve the new tenant farming agreements by discussing them while wearing that blue dress he particularly likes."
"The dress was comfortable!"
"Last month you managed to get him to host a dinner party by casually mentioning that Lord Pemberton had said he'd never dare show his face in society."
"That was... strategic motivation."
"That was management," Gabriel said, kissing her hand. "And I'm perfectly content being managed by you."
James chose that moment to return, still naked, now covered in mud as well as dirt, carrying what appeared to be a frog.
"Mama!" he declared, offering her the frog like a precious gift.
Clara accepted the frog with the dignity of a duchess receiving jewels. "Thank you, darling. It's a lovely frog."
"Only you could make that sound sincere," Gabriel said.
"I am sincere. It's an excellent frog. Good color, impressive size, relatively calm temperament."
"You're analyzing our son's frog like it's a horse at Tattersall's."
"Would you prefer I analyse it like a potential meal? Because Cook's French recipes probably include frog."
"Mama, no!" James said clearly, his first complete sentence, clutching the frog protectively.
Everyone stared at him.
"Did he just…" Edmund started.
"He did," Clara said, tears in her eyes. "His first sentence was defending a frog from culinary doom."
"That's the most Hale thing ever," Edmund observed.
"Mama, no!" James repeated, apparently pleased with his linguistic achievement.
"No one's eating your frog," Gabriel assured him. "Though you do need to put on clothes eventually."
"No!" James declared, and ran off again, frog in hand.
"His second word is no. Also very Hale," Margaret said.
"He's perfect," Clara said firmly.
"He's a naked, muddy tyrant with a frog."
"Exactly. Perfect."
As the afternoon wore on, Clara watched their unconventional family, Edmund and Gabriel arguing about politics while building increasingly unstable block towers for the children to destroy, Margaret teaching the twins to make flower crowns while discussing revolutionary ideas about women's education, Mrs. Potter arriving with tea and staying to share gossip, Peter and Mary sneaking glances at each other when they thought no one was looking ,there would be another wedding soon, Clara was certain.
He kissed her paying no heed to their company, and when they separated, both were smiling.
"Your Grace! My Lady!" Peter appeared, slightly out of breath. "You have a visitor."
"If it's Lord Pemberton, release the hounds," Gabriel said.
"We don't have hounds," Clara pointed out.
"Then release James. He's more terrifying than hounds."
"It's not Lord Pemberton," Peter said, his expression odd. "It's Lady Agatha."
Everyone went silent except for James, who chose that moment to shriek "FROG!" at the top of his lungs.
"Perfect timing, small destroyer," Gabriel muttered.
Lady Agatha appeared in the garden entrance, resplendent in purple silk that somehow managed to be even more purple than usual, like she'd concentrated all the purple in England into one dress.
She surveyed the scene with the half-naked muddy children, the adults in various states of dishevelment, the wild gardens and Clara waited for the condemning pronouncement.
Instead, Lady Agatha said, "So this is what happiness looks like. How terrifyingly informal."
"Aunt Agatha," Gabriel said, standing but keeping Clara on his lap in what was definitely a defensive position. "How unexpected."
"I wrote that I was coming."
"I thought that was a threat, not a promise."
"Must you be difficult?"
"Must you be purple?"
They glared at each other while James, sensing drama, toddled over to investigate the newcomer. He stood before Lady Agatha, still clutching his frog, with the tablecloth sliding off one shoulder, and declared, "No!"
"Is that his opinion of me or a general statement?" Lady Agatha asked dryly.
"Could be both," Gabriel suggested.
Lady Agatha studied James with the intensity of someone examining a potentially dangerous specimen. James studied her back with equal intensity, then, in a move no one expected, offered her his frog.
"For me?" Lady Agatha asked, seeming genuinely surprised.
"Frog!" James confirmed.
She accepted the frog with surprising dignity. "Thank you, young man. It's a very fine frog."
"It's the highest honor he can bestow," Clara said. "He doesn't share his frogs with just anyone."
"Clearly he has discerning taste," Lady Agatha said, then added, "Unlike his father, who wedded his housekeeper."
"His father wedded the woman he loved," Gabriel said coldly.
"Same thing, apparently." But there was less venom in it than Clara expected.
Lady Agatha sat down uninvited, still holding the frog with surprising comfort. "I suppose you're all waiting for me to say something cutting about this entire situation."
"The thought had occurred," Edmund said.
"Well, I'm not going to. I'm too old and tired to maintain feuds with people who are clearly too stubborn to be properly feuded with."
"Is this a reconciliation?" Gabriel asked suspiciously.
"This is an acknowledgment that you've won. You took her as your wife, her, produced an heir, and from what I hear, actually improved the estate's finances through some sort of unusual farming experiment."
"It's cooperative farming." Clara corrected.
“The point is, you've proven me wrong, which is irritating but not unprecedented."
"You've been wrong before?" Gabriel asked with exaggerated shock.
"Once many a year ago…I thought it would rain but it didn't."
Despite himself, Gabriel smiled. "Just once?"
"Just once. This makes twice, which is excessive but survivable."
James, apparently deciding Lady Agatha was acceptable, climbed into her lap, muddy feet and all, getting dirt all over her purple silk.