Epilogue #2
“Never.”
A fierce pain stole her breath, but retreat was impossible now—the carriage door was opening, footmen were standing ready, and all of society was watching to see if the merchant duchess had finally overreached.
Adrian stepped down first, then turned to assist her, needing Timothy’s support as well. The moment her feet touched the pavement, something shifted—dropped—settled with startling finality.
“Oh,” she breathed.
“What?” Adrian’s voice sharpened to a blade. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Merely… the baby sitting low.”
“We are going home.”
“We are going inside.” She tightened her grip on both men and began the ascent of the opera steps. Whispered exclamations rose around them:
“The duchess!”
“In her state!”
“Shocking!”
“Merchant blood—what can one expect?”
That last comment made Adrian stiffen, his free hand moving toward where his sword would have been in an earlier era. Marianne squeezed his arm in warning.
“Let them whisper,” she murmured. “We have faced worse.”
They had just reached the foyer when the first familiar face appeared—Lady Weatherby, resplendent in purple silk and ostrich feathers, her expression a mixture of delight and horror.
“Your Grace! I could scarcely believe you meant to attend. In your—ah—delicate condition.”
“I find the opera soothing,” Marianne said, smiling through another tightening.
“Soothing!” Lady Weatherby repeated faintly. “My dear, you look ready to—well! Surely your time must be—”
“Not for three weeks yet,” Marianne lied smoothly. By her calculations, it was closer to one week, but admitting that would only fuel Adrian’s panic.
“Besides,” Catherine said, arriving at her side, “we could not possibly miss Don Giovanni. It is practically symbolic.”
“Symbolic—oh!” Lady Weatherby’s eyes widened. “Of course—this is where you and His Grace first—how very romantic.”
A cool voice drifted from behind them. “Romantic. Yes. One word for it.”
They turned. Venetia, Duchess of Worthington, stood gleaming in cloth-of-gold, beauty as polished as ever—but something hollow lurked beneath the sheen.
“Your Grace,” Adrian said in a tone that could freeze a river.
“Your Grace,” Venetia echoed smoothly. Then her eyes moved over Marianne. “How… robust you look.”
“How gracious of you to notice,” Marianne replied, though speaking grew harder with each pain. “And you look… well-preserved.”
The insult was subtle but effective. Venetia’s eyes flashed, but before she could respond, the Duke of Worthington appeared at her elbow. At seventy-four, he looked remarkably vital, his eyes sharp with intelligence and something that might have been amusement.
“Harrowmere! And the lovely duchess. Shouldn’t you be confined, my dear? In my day, ladies in your condition didn’t appear in public past their sixth month.”
“Times change, Your Grace,” Marianne managed, though she could feel perspiration gathering at her temples.
“Indeed they do. Sometimes for the better.” His gaze moved to his own wife with an expression that was difficult to read. “Come, my dear. Our box awaits.”
As they departed, Venetia glanced back, and for a moment, her mask slipped. The expression revealed was one of such profound unhappiness that Marianne almost pitied her. Almost.
“Vulgar woman,” Adrian muttered.
“She is miserable,” Marianne observed.
“Good.”
“Adrian—”
“She tried to ruin you. Misery is a mild outcome.”
They reached their box—the very place where he had first trained his opera glasses on her. As they carefully lowered her into her chair—eliciting gasps from nearby boxes—the ache of memory softened the increasing pains.
“This brings back memories,” she said.
“You refused to look away,” Adrian murmured, his hand covering hers. “You were magnificent. I knew you would either save me or destroy me.”
“And which did I do?”
“Both. Destroyed who I was. Saved who I might be.” His other hand caressed her stomach, where their child executed another ambitious revolution.
The orchestra began its tuning—strings whining, horns muttering, the familiar chaos somehow oddly soothing. But as the lights dimmed and the curtain rose, Marianne knew with sudden, crystalline certainty that she had made a grave miscalculation.
The pains were no longer ten minutes apart. They were perhaps five, and growing stronger with each occurrence. She gripped Adrian’s hand as the performance began its familiar dance—noise, light, and motion blurring together while her attention tightened on the rhythm of her own breath.
“You’re crushing my fingers,” he murmured.
“Sorry,” she whispered—but another pain struck, and along with it a sudden, unmistakable wet warmth.
Oh no.
“Adrian,” she whispered.
“Shh, the aria is beginning.”
“Adrian, I think—”
Her words vanished as her waters broke in a spectacular rush.
“Adrian,” she said urgently.
He turned—and whatever he saw drained all colour from his face.
“No.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Here? Now?”
“The child appears to favour theatricality.”
“This is not happening.” He shot to his feet. “We are leaving. Immediately.”
“Adrian, I cannot walk.”
Another contraction tore through her, forcing a small involuntary sound from her throat.
“Catherine!” Adrian barked. “Fetch Mr Peterson. He’s in Colonel Morrison’s box.”
“What—oh! Oh dear!” Catherine paled, then fled.
Timothy turned green. “Should I—er—fetch something?”
“Hot water,” Adrian said wildly. “Linens. A midwife. My sanity.”
“Adrian,” Marianne gasped, gripping his sleeve. “We will not reach home in time.”
“We will make time.”
“The baby will not.”
“The baby must!”
“That,” she gritted out as another contraction seized her, “is not how childbirth works.”
Their argument broke off at Mr Peterson’s arrival. One glance at Marianne’s face and he shifted at once into professional command.
“How far apart are the pains?”
“Two minutes? Perhaps less?”
“And your waters?”
“Broken. Just now.”
“Then we must get Her Grace to a private room immediately. This child is coming now.”
“Now?” Adrian’s voice cracked. “Here? At the opera?”
“Unless you prefer the event take place in your box before half of London, yes.”
That galvanised Adrian into action. He swept Marianne into his arms despite her protests and strode for the door with grim purpose. Heads turned; fans fluttered; whispers rose in waves as the Duke of Harrowmere carried his very pregnant duchess through the corridor.
“Is she—?”
“Goodness gracious!”
“At the opera?”
“How shocking!”
“Someone fetch a midwife!”
The passage to the retiring room—one of the few spaces with any privacy and a decent chaise—felt endless. Adrian’s jaw was set with barely contained panic while Marianne breathed through contractions that were now nearly continuous.
“This is not how I planned it,” she panted.
“You planned this?” he demanded, scandalised.
“I planned to be at home. In our bed. With you safely banished to your study with brandy.”
“Instead, you are having our child at Covent Garden!”
“It seemed appropriate—full circle!”
“Full insanity!”
They burst into the retiring room, which was swiftly cleared of fainting debutantes and curious matrons. Catherine took command with tidy ferocity, dispatching Timothy for supplies, ordering screens for privacy, and conjuring hot water and clean linens as if by sorcery.
“This is really happening,” Adrian said faintly.
“Yes,” Marianne managed, another pain building. “And you are staying.”
“Of course I am staying.”
“Good. I intend to hold your hand. Possibly break it.”
“Break away.”
Mr Peterson examined her with bracing efficiency. “The head is crowning. Your Grace, with the next pain, you must push.”
“Already? It is too fast—”
“Your child is impatient. Like its parents.”
“This is your fault,” Marianne informed Adrian as the contraction seized her.
“My fault?”
“You and your… intensity. The child has inherited it.”
“You insisted upon attending the opera!”
“You are the one who got me with child in the first place!”
“That was mutual!”
“Your Grace,” Mr Peterson interposed smoothly, “reserve the quarrel for later. Push now.”
What followed was the most intense experience of Marianne’s life.
The pain was overwhelming, all-consuming; but Adrian’s voice anchored her—steady, reverent, calling her brave, magnificent, his warrior duchess.
Beyond the screen, the music went on; the opera unfolding in all its drama while, in the retiring room, Marianne laboured to deliver new life.
“One more, Your Grace,” urged Mr Peterson. “One more.”
She bore down with everything in her, loosing a sound entirely un-duchess-like and exactly right for the moment—then the pressure broke, and a thin, indignant cry split the air.
“A daughter,” Mr Peterson announced, lifting the wailing infant. “Perfect and healthy.”
“A daughter?” Wonder cracked Adrian’s voice. “We have a daughter?”
“A very dramatic daughter,” Marianne corrected, exhausted and exultant. “Born at the opera. During Don Giovanni.”
Mr Peterson cleaned the baby with efficiency and wrapped her in what appeared to be someone’s very expensive evening cloak before placing her in Marianne’s arms.
She was tiny, perfect, with a shock of dark hair like her father’s and, when she briefly opened them, eyes that promised to be just as intense. Her small fists waved in indignation at the brightness and cold of the world she’d been thrust into.
“Hello, little one,” Marianne whispered. “You do love an entrance.”
Adrian’s hand trembled as he touched his daughter’s cheek. “She is so small. What if I break her?”
“You will not.”
“What if I am dreadful at this?”
“You will not be.”
“How can you know?”
“Because you are already weeping merely to look at her.”
It was true; tears ran unhindered over his scarred cheek as he gazed at the child with unguarded adoration.
“What shall we name her?” Marianne asked softly.
“Elisabeth,” he said at once. “For your mother. Elisabeth Blackwell.”
“That is such a grand name for so small a person.”
“She’ll grow into it. Our little opera baby.”