Chapter Twenty
RICHARD DIDN’T BELIEVE Darcy when he kept insisting that the babes would be his. He didn’t think Elizabeth did either. She kept insisting that the babes would belong to all three of them, and Darcy kept saying, “Yes, but their father will be Richard.”
Richard still remembered that moment between them in the north, when Darcy was throwing rocks into the river and saying that he could not help but wish to see what a child would be that was made of him and his wife, that of course Darcy wished he could get Elizabeth with child.
Richard could not think that this desire had been entirely stifled or that Darcy would simply cede his only chance to be a father to Richard.
After all, even though—amongst themselves—they acknowledged their three-way marriage, it was hardly something they could tell other people. Even members of the family were not happy to hear it.
Georgiana had come to visit for Christmas, and she had made it clear when she arrived that she had heard a number of rumors, and that their absconding to the continent had essentially confirmed them, and that she wanted to live in blissful ignorance about all of it.
Richard didn’t hear from his father, not that he was surprised about that. He didn’t hear from his brother either. His mother sent him a letter to say that she would love him no matter what, but that it was probably a good thing if he stayed in Spain for the time being.
So, whatever the case, whatever little fantasy world they lived in here together, it would all change when the babe came, Richard was sure of it. Things would no longer be free and easy between himself and Darcy, he thought.
And then, the babe did come.
Richard remembered very little of the night when Elizabeth labored, truly. He’d been in a bit of a frenzy, worried at that point, even though they had spared no expense in bringing in a midwife and an accoucheur and a doctor besides. He and Darcy were not allowed in.
Well, there was no reason for him to be allowed in, none at all, and he knew this was the way it would be for the rest of their lives, and he told himself it did not matter. In that moment, it did not. What mattered, first and foremost, was for his darling wife to come through it safe and sound. Secondly, for the babe to be healthy. Beyond that, nothing was very important.
The night was long, and he and Darcy were stymied every time they tried to enter the birthing chamber to inquire about what was happening, people in the room shooing them off and saying that all was well, that first babes took time, and to go and try to rest.
Of course, they didn’t rest.
The babe came just before the dawn, and they called her Rose, for the rosy fingers of dawn that overtake the sky. She was tiny and red-faced and wrinkly and scowling as she bawled out her displeasure at seemingly everything, but Richard was overcome and quite taken with her.
When they entered the room, the midwife put the babe in Darcy’s arms and Darcy immediately transfered little Rose to Richard.
A look passed between them, and Richard wondered at it, but then, there she was, his perfectly-shaped, very small daughter, and he gaped at her face, at her features, at everything about her, and he was smitten.
He had heard the phrase before, but he hadn’t quite understood what it was to have love smite a person. It was like a pain, truly, a good pain, but an overwhelming one. He’d never felt love grow for another being so quickly, so intensely, so all-consumingly.
He looked into the little girl’s face and knew he’d die for her, that he’d kill for her. He felt all his alliances shifting within him, felt her rising to the pinnacle of it all.
It was humbling.
It didn’t seem to happen to Darcy, though it had already seemingly happened to Elizabeth. She had been carrying the babe inside her womb, after all, feeling each move and twitch and hiccup. She had fallen for the child long ago.
When Richard raised his gaze to Darcy’s again, he was a different man. He handed the child over to her other father, to the man who would give her his name, and he resolved to conceal it. It wasn’t fair, he thought, to Darcy, to be denied this. Richard no longer cared about any of the things he thought he would care about, about whether the little girl ever even knew he was her father.
Everything had shifted.
He told Darcy later, days later, when they were in the nursery, looking down on the sleeping babe—one of the few moments when the little one was sleeping on her own, for she had a tendency to wake if she was not lying in the warmth of someone’s arms—he told him that they must not do any of the things they’d said.
“She must be yours, and only you must claim her, and she must only know that,” said Richard.
“What?” Darcy was startled. “Richard… you think I don’t see this, but I do, you know. I am not blind. You are feeling something for her I don’t feel. It’s not as if I don’t love her. I love her, but it’s like the way I love Georgiana or the way I love my nieces and nephews. There’s some fire in it that you have I don’t.”
Richard sighed heavily, realizing he had done a dreadful job of concealing it. “I’m ever so sorry,” he murmured. “I wish things were different.”
“Well, I’m only saying, you’re her father, just as we said before. She must know that.”
“It’s not what’s best for her,” said Richard, shaking his head. “She should believe she has some kind of normal family structure, because we cannot stay here forever, and she certainly must rejoin society at some point. To raise her up as if this, whatever we are, is not seen as an abomination by all, is to do her a disservice. You must be her father, because legally, you are.”
“It is only that I thought—” Darcy sighed. “I see.”
“What do you see?”
“That you are her father, and that is all that is necessary. You don’t need concessions beyond that. You know it, inside you, somewhere in the way your blood rushes in your veins and the way she feels in your arms, and none of the rest of it matters.”
Richard shoved his hands into his pockets. “I suppose.”
It was quiet.
“It doesn’t seem fair to you,” Richard said finally.
“Life isn’t that,” said Darcy with a shrug. “We don’t, each and every one of us, get to experience everything life offers. You will always be a second son. You will never have a title or property or riches, yes? And I shall not be a father.”
“I suppose,” Richard said again. Another pause. “You can’t simply accept that, though.”
“I think I must. What am I going to do otherwise?” Darcy peered down at Rose. “She’s so small and lovely, isn’t she?”
“She is,” said Richard, his voice thick.
“It’s not as if it isn’t painful sometimes,” said Darcy. “But I have so much, Richard, so much. There is more joy in my life than there is pain. And a large part of that is because of you, because I have loved you for so very long, and now…” He looked sidelong at the other man. “Now, you are mine.”
Richard’s mouth curved into a smile.
“And you have given our Lizzy this,” said Darcy. “And I am very taken with this small little girl, with our Rosie, you know? I love her very much, but I suppose it’s different than the way you love her. But who would want all things the same, however? Who wouldn’t want variety?”
“She’ll have two fathers,” said Richard. “She’ll be loved to the ends of the earth, across the oceans, and back again.”
“That she will,” said Darcy.
Richard put a hand on Darcy’s shoulder. “This is all so complicated between us.”
“No,” said Darcy. “No, it’s entirely simple, you see. Your worry is making it complicated, but we all belong together, and we are happy, easily happy, as long as we just let the happiness in.”
Richard smiled. “Yes, all right. I see that. I do.”
There was a long, long pause. Outside, Richard could hear the sounds of a calling bird, plaintively singing its song, the melody coming even through the window pane.
“You’ll have to get her with child again, of course,” said Darcy. “Because you must sire an heir on our pretty wife.”
“I suppose you find nothing to complain about in that prospect,” said Richard.
“Nothing at all,” said Darcy, leaning in to kiss his husband’s cheek. “We are a family, you see? We all have our roles to play.”
“Aye,” whispered Richard. “Aye.”
Outside, the bird was still singing its plaintive song, sitting in a tree that overlooked their villa, a tree with branches that reached for the blue sky overhead.
The sky was full of clouds, fluffy white serene things that peered down on the world beneath, peered down from Spain to England and everything in between.
Here, they had made their own safe cocoon, a home, a protected space for their family and their love.
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