Epilogue
“Absolutely not. I forbid it. Categorically, completely, and with the full weight of my ducal authority.”
Adrian’s voice carried through the morning room with enough force to rattle the delicate Sèvres teacups, though whether from sheer volume or aristocratic indignation was difficult to say.
He stood before the fireplace like judgment embodied: impeccably dressed, scarred features set in lines promising imminent destruction to anyone foolish enough to oppose him.
“You do not get to forbid me anything,” Marianne replied with perfect equanimity, though maintaining such composure while her lower back throbbed with what Sarah had delicately termed “preparatory pains” required no small effort.
“I’m your wife, not your property, however the law may interpret matters. ”
“You’re nine months with child!”
“Eight months and three weeks,” she corrected. “If we are being precise.”
“Marianne, you can scarcely walk unaided. Your ankles have swollen to the size of melons—”
“How poetically phrased, my love.”
“—you are winded after three stairs—”
“Five. I counted.”
“—and you still insist on attending the opera? In public? Where all society will gawk at you like some sort of… of…”
“Breeding mare?” she supplied sweetly, shifting on the settee in a futile attempt at comfort. The child currently within her had developed a profound enthusiasm for kicking directly beneath her ribs, particularly during disputes with its father.
Adrian flushed. “That is not— I do not— you know I don’t view you as—”
“I know precisely what you think.” She extended her hand; despite his outrage, he took it instantly, thumb settling over her pulse in the way it always did. “You think I am risking our child’s safety. And my dignity.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Perhaps. But Adrian—consider the poetry of it.” She guided his hand to the great curve of her stomach, where their child performed a decisive somersault. “We met at the opera. Don Giovanni, specifically. Tonight they are performing it again, and I have an overwhelming feeling that—”
“No.” His voice snapped with panic. “Do not even suggest it. Our child is not making its entrance at the opera house.”
“Children arrive when they choose, not when or where we command.”
“Then we shall ensure you are safely at home when it chooses!”
From the doorway, Catherine’s voice floated in. “Are you still quarrelling about the opera? You’ve been having this same discussion for three days.”
She entered with the particular glow of a woman four months married and still besotted with her husband. Her morning dress of pomona-green silk whispered against the floor as she moved to kiss Marianne’s cheek, then Adrian’s, completely ignoring his scowl.
“We are not quarrelling,” Adrian insisted stiffly. “We are engaged in a civilised discussion about the appropriate activities for women in advanced stages of confinement.”
“You are quarrelling,” Catherine corrected, settling with the ease of long practice. “And Marianne is winning, as ever.”
“I am not winning,” Marianne protested. “Adrian is immovable.”
“You are attending, are you not?”
“Well… yes.”
“Then you are winning.”
Timothy entered, cheerful as ever. “Someone must ensure Adrian does not expire from sheer worry. I could hear him threatening the physician from the pavement.”
“I did not threaten Peterson. I merely suggested that if he failed to talk sense into my wife, I might be obliged to seek additional opinions.” Adrian lifted his chin. “Possibly several.”
“You threatened to have him transported to the Colonies.”
“That was hyperbole.”
“You drafted the letter to the Home Secretary.”
Adrian had the grace to look slightly abashed. “I may have been… somewhat overwrought.”
Another pain rippled through Marianne’s back. She focused carefully on keeping her expression serene. These “preparatory” pains had been occurring for two days—though she had no intention of informing Adrian, who would doubtless barricade her in their chamber.
“The fact remains,” she said once it subsided, “that I have been confined for nearly two months. Two months, Adrian. I have reorganised the library twice, terrified the staff with improvements, and read every novel in London. If I do not leave this house soon, I shall lose my mind.”
“Better that than—” He stopped, but they all knew the end of that sentence. Better mad than dead. His mother’s death from childbirth haunted him like a spectre, colouring every moment of Marianne’s pregnancy with terror he could barely contain.
“I am not your mother,” Marianne said gently—for the hundredth time. “I am healthy. I have excellent care.”
“My mother had excellent care.”
“And your mother had three stillbirths after Catherine,” she reminded him softly. “I am carrying my first child. And a very determined one, judging by the amount of kicking.”
As though in illustration, the baby delivered a blow that made her catch her breath.
“You’re in pain.” Adrian was at her side instantly, hands hovering helplessly. “That’s it. We’re not going. I’m sending our regrets at once.”
“You will do no such thing.” Marianne captured his hands and placed them deliberately on her stomach. “Feel that? Your child is dancing. Clearly, it wishes to attend the opera.”
“Our child has no opinion on cultural outings!”
“It has inherited your flair for drama and my obstinacy. It definitely has opinions.”
To rescue the moment, Catherine offered, “Speaking of drama—did you hear Lady Harrison’s daughter eloped with a dancing master? They’re halfway to Gretna Green by now.”
The distraction worked. Adrian instantly redirected his outrage, allowing Marianne to breathe through another contraction unnoticed. Every ten minutes now? Perhaps. But first babies were slow—she had hours yet. Possibly days.
The conversation meandered through society news until Timothy mentioned, “The Worthingtons are attending tonight as well. Their box faces yours.”
“Let them attend,” Adrian said darkly. “We have nothing to fear from Venetia any longer.”
“No,” Marianne echoed, though a flicker of old unease stirred beneath her ribs. “She is entirely defanged.”
But as another pain gripped her—sharper now—she wondered whether the evening might prove more dramatic than any of them anticipated.
***
The afternoon passed in a blur of preparation.
Sarah, Marianne’s loyal maid, fussed over gowns with determined purpose before finally settling on a midnight-blue silk that had been cleverly altered to accommodate Marianne’s expanded figure.
The silk whispered against her skin, stirring memories of that first night at the opera—when she had worn green and Adrian had stared at her with such consuming intensity she had felt it like a physical touch.
“You’re wool-gathering, Your Grace,” Sarah observed, deft fingers managing the buttons despite Marianne’s altered shape. “Thinking of His Grace?”
“When am I not?” Marianne adjusted the neckline—more modest than that first daring gown. Pregnancy had rendered certain aspects of her figure far too pronounced for fashionable scandal. “Sarah, do you think I’m being foolish? Attending in my condition?”
Sarah’s hands paused. “If I may speak freely, Your Grace?”
“Always.”
“You’ve been cooped up like a hen for two months—begging your pardon.
His Grace means well, but no woman thrives within the same four walls forever, however fine those walls may be.
” Her eyes twinkled. “And you’ve a look about you tonight.
My mama had that look the day she birthed my youngest brother. ”
“What look?”
“Like you’re preparing for battle, Your Grace. Question is, what sort of battle?”
Before Marianne could answer, another pain struck—sharp, insistent, and accompanied by a new pressure low in her frame. She gripped the bedpost, breathing through it.
“Your Grace?” Sarah’s voice wavered. “Shall I fetch His Grace?”
“No!” The word emerged more sharply than she intended. “I’m perfectly well. The baby is merely… assertive.”
Sarah did not look convinced but resumed her work. When she finished, Marianne looked every inch the duchess—elegant, composed, and only marginally green about the edges from discomfort.
Adrian’s reaction as she descended the stairs—very slowly, gripping both the bannister and Timothy’s offered arm—was gratifying enough to justify the entire ordeal.
“You look…” he began, and then seemed to lose language entirely.
“Enormous?” she suggested.
“Magnificent,” he corrected at once. Then, with reluctant honesty: “And enormous. Magnificently enormous.”
“Such poetry,” Catherine teased, radiant in rose-coloured silk. “No wonder Marianne succumbed to you.”
“She succumbed because I threatened her enemies and compromised her in conservatories,” Adrian replied. “Poetry played no part.”
“The threats were romantic—in context,” Marianne said, then halted as another pain gathered. She hid it by smoothing her gloves, but Adrian’s sharp gaze caught the flicker.
“You’re unwell.”
“I’m perfectly well.”
“You’re pale.”
“It’s the fashion.”
“Marianne—”
“Adrian, if you tell me to stay home one more time, I shall return to my father’s house until the baby arrives.”
The threat was empty—she could barely walk to the carriage, let alone orchestrate a household move—but it had the desired effect. Adrian subsided into worried silence, though his hand remained firmly at her back, ready to support her at the slightest sign of distress.
The carriage ride to Covent Garden was both endless and far too brief.
Each bump in the road sent new sensations through her body, each one stronger than the last. She found herself gripping Adrian’s hand hard enough to leave marks, though she tried to disguise it as affection rather than desperation.
The opera house loomed before them, ablaze with gaslight, already buzzing with the little Season’s audience. And every one of them was eager to gawk at the Duchess of Harrowmere—heavy with child and unashamedly in public.
“Last chance to retreat,” Adrian murmured.