Epilogue
SIX MONTHS LATER
Thalia braced her hands on her hips as she looked around the table, which had been meticulously set for Lydia’s engagement dinner. Small cards labeled the seats, written in elegant script—Thalia’s own hand. Maxwell had been happy to leave the aesthetics to her.
In the center of the table stood the sculpture she had made for the new couple.
Lydia’s chosen partner in life was a viscount who had struck Thalia as being entirely unprepossessing upon first glance.
He was a scholarly gentleman who appeared to like his books more than social events.
But from the first moment he had seen Lydia, he had been so taken, he had been prepared to follow her everywhere.
Even to events.
Eventually, he had summoned the courage to approach Maxwell and gain his permission. Maxwell, recognizing the younger man’s devotion, had been more than happy to give it.
He came up behind her now, both hands coming to rest on the small bump on her stomach. At five months, she was really beginning to show, and although she had been nervous to tell him at first, he had thrown himself into fatherhood with an eagerness that had touched her.
“How are my two favorite people?” he asked, caressing her belly.
“I’m not entirely sure this little one quite counts as a person yet,” she said, lacing her fingers with his and leaning back into him. That was another thing no one had warned her about pregnancy: that her back would ache all the time. “But I think we’re good. The table looks nice.”
Maxwell kissed her neck. “The sculpture looks especially charming.”
The sculpture was of a kneeling man—she had fashioned him as Greek, but his spectacles gave him away—holding the hand of a shy lady, who gazed down at him with an expression of open adoration.
Thalia had spent weeks on it as soon as she saw where this was going, leaving it until the last minute to fashion the man’s face.
All this was done in her new art studio in the house. She had sacrificed a parlor for the endeavor and did not miss the loss at all.
“Do you think they’ll like it?”
“I think they will love it.” He drew her further into his body, letting her melt against him. “You should stop doing so much, Thal. You’re taking on too much.”
“And you are worrying too much.”
“I know you’re tired.”
“Everyone gets tired sometimes,” she said firmly. “I know when to stop, Max. I’m not going to harm myself.”
“Or Peanut.”
“Or Peanut,” she said, biting back a laugh.
Peanut was the name they had given to their so-far unnamed child, a term of endearment that had begun as a joke and now had become its unofficial name.
“I promise I will do nothing that will harm Peanut.” She turned in his arms, leaning up to kiss his lips. “If you had your way, you would have me locked in my room on bed rest,” she teased, “and I would have ripped the entire house apart searching for an escape.”
He stroked her hair back from her face. “And that is the only reason I have not done so.”
“You worry like an old woman.”
“I worry the correct amount. It’s you who doesn’t worry enough.”
“Women have been birthing children for millennia.”
“And things have been going wrong all that time, too.” His hands locked around her back, holding her against him.
His eyes, often hard and stern, softened with genuine concern. She knew he worried out of love rather than possessiveness, so she put a hand on his cheek, swiping her thumb across his skin.
“When I am uncomfortable and feel as though I can no longer do things, I will retire from the world, and I will let you tuck me up in a bed somewhere. Then, I will make do with books to entertain me. But Lydia needs both of us, and I want to be there for her to celebrate them. Once they marry, we can retire to the country.”
He nodded slowly and bent to kiss her lips.
If they had been somewhere else, she would have let herself sink into him, drowning in the taste of him, but they were not anywhere else, and all too soon, there was a commotion in the hallway.
Thalia broke back. “I think Joyce has arrived.”
Maxwell’s eyes were dark. When she had suggested that Joyce could join them for this dinner, he had not objected, but she knew he didn’t like it. He held a grudge, and a grudge against her, she knew, he would have held until the end of time.
But mistakes or not, Lydia still loved her mother. And Joyce had a right to meet the man Lydia intended to marry, even if she could have no influence over whether the match happened or not.
She stood in the middle of the hallway, looking as though the house was now too large for her. Thalia remembered when she had first arrived, and Joyce had felt like a cold part of it; now she seemed like an intruder in their space.
“Joyce,” Thalia said, holding out a hand as she forced herself to smile. “How are you?”
Lady Rivenhall glanced from Thalia’s face to behind her, where Maxwell no doubt loomed, but after a moment, she forced her own smile and accepted Thalia’s hand.
“I’m well, thank you.” She hesitated, as though unsure whether she ought to say anything else.
“I understand I have you to thank for the invitation. Thank you for inviting me.”
“Of course,” Thalia said. “I knew Lydia would want to see you. She will be delighted to know you have arrived.”
Joyce swallowed. Her gaze darted between Thalia and Maxwell. “I also have some apologies to make. I know the way I behaved was not as it should have been and may have had some undue effects. I never wanted…”
She cleared her throat, finally looking at the slight swell of Lydia’s stomach. They had not made any official announcements, but it was becoming too obvious to hide.
“I suppose I was afraid,” she said. “And I let my fear guide me into saying things I regret. Please accept my apologies.”
Thalia caressed her stomach. Perhaps it was the pregnancy, but she felt particularly magnanimous of late, as though she loved the world and it loved her, and nothing could ever go wrong again.
Of course, she knew that was unlikely; things went wrong all the time, and she couldn’t control them or the likelihood of that happening.
But she could control this.
“I understand,” she said, taking the other woman’s hand.
Her father would never come around to being sorry or ever wanting contact with her again—unless he came sniffing around for money.
But Joyce meant her apology. Her eyes were downcast, and her shoulders hunched.
Giving Joyce the benefit of the doubt and offering forgiveness was the least Thalia could do.
“I accept your apology. I can see you’re remorseful. And, as you can see, Maxwell and I are together, and I hope you have made your peace with our love.”
“Lydia writes to me,” Joyce said. “And she said that you are both very happy and treat her well.”
Maxwell came to stand behind Thalia, one gentle, supporting hand on the small of her back. “There was never any doubt about that,” he said.
Joyce looked again at Thalia’s bump. “I gather I have congratulations to offer.”
“This is Lydia’s event, so we aren’t going to make any formal announcements,” Thalia said, unable to hold back her smile. “But yes.”
Joyce’s smile was small, but it seemed genuine. “My congratulations. Lydia was the best thing to happen to me.”
“I have no doubt Peanut will be the best thing that happens to us, too,” Thalia said, glancing up into Maxwell’s face.
She adored the soft expression that came over him whenever he thought about their child. As much as she teased him over his devotion and his worry, she knew he would be the best kind of father, just as he was the best kind of husband.
“Dinner is at eight,” Thalia said to Joyce. “If you’ve been keeping country times, I’m sorry to make you wait.”
“No, no.” Joyce attempted to smile and stood up straighter. “I kept Town fashions in the hopes I might have a chance to see Lydia again before she married. Thank you for making that possible.”
To Thalia’s surprise, she dipped into a low curtsy before making her way upstairs to the room they had ready for her.
“I think we did the right thing,” Thalia said, following her upstairs with her gaze.
“We did,” Maxwell agreed, kissing her cheek. “Everything is prepared for the dinner. What would you like to do with the time we have left?”
Lydia was with Anna and Simon, out shopping for new gloves and stockings, leaving Thalia and Maxwell alone for the afternoon. She would be back in time for dinner, of course.
Thalia grinned up at Maxwell. “I know exactly what I want.”
Maxwell massaged his wife’s feet as she sank further into the bath. The strength of his protectiveness over her and the babe she carried had taken him by surprise. He thought he’d loved her before, but this was entirely new.
If he could have done so, he would have prevented her from doing anything that bore the risk of over-exertion, but even he could admit that hosting a dinner party, while requiring a lot from her, did not quite fit that bill.
Still, at least he could do this for her.
She sighed in relief, leaning back in the hot water.
If she had not insisted that she could still make love the same as always, he would have put a stop to that, as well, just in case it could harm the baby.
But either out of insatiability or certainty, she had insisted that he not stop until the babe was born.
And truly, the sight of her naked with the child growing inside her excited him beyond all reason.
Even now, lying back in the water, the rounded tip of her stomach just poking through the water, made him harder than iron.
He resisted the urge to climb into the tub with her, setting her atop him so she might ride him to both their completion. Her breasts had begun to swell larger than ever, and he loved to touch them, feeling their new heaviness and shape.
All these changes were to accommodate the child he had put there. The possessiveness in the thought made him slide his hands up her calves.
Her eyes fluttered open. “Max?”
“I love you.”