Chapter Twenty-Five #2
Rosalind shrieked, there was no other word for the sound she made, and threw her arms around her sister with such force that they both nearly toppled from the fitting platform.
“A baby! You are having a baby! Helena, this is, I cannot believe this wonderful news.”
“Shh.” Helena was laughing even as she tried to quiet her sister. “The entire household will hear you.”
“Let them hear! Let everyone hear!” But Rosalind lowered her voice, though her eyes remained bright with excitement. “When did you find out? Does Edmund know? Is he happy? Of course he is happy, he is besotted with you, and he must be positively elated.”
“He knows. And yes, he is happy.” Helena extricated herself from her sister’s embrace, smoothing her hair back into place. “We both are. Happier than I ever imagined possible.”
“I am going to be an aunt.” Rosalind’s voice was full of wonder. “Me. An aunt. I shall spoil the child terribly. I shall teach it to be charming and sociable and completely unlike its bookish parents.”
“The child will be fortunate to have you.” Helena took her sister’s hands. “As I have been fortunate to have you. Through everything, Roz. I could not have survived without you.”
“Yes, you could have.” Rosalind’s expression softened.
“You would have found a way. You always find a way, Helena. It is one of your most infuriating and admirable qualities.” She paused.
“But I am glad you did not have to survive alone. And I am glad you will not have to raise this child alone either.”
“I will not be alone.” Helena’s voice was quiet but certain. “I have Edmund. I have you and Mama. I have the Dowager, who has become almost a second mother to me. I have friends I never expected and a home I never imagined.” She smiled. “I have everything I could ever want.”
“Almost everything.” Rosalind’s eyes sparkled. “You do not have a niece or nephew yet. But give it a few months and that will be remedied as well.”
They laughed together, sisters who had weathered storms and emerged into sunlight, who had started with nothing but each other and ended with more than they had ever dared to dream.
***
Rosalind’s wedding day dawned clear and golden.
The ceremony took place in the chapel at Westmere Park, a small, ancient building that had been part of the estate since its founding.
Helena had insisted on hosting the wedding, and Rosalind had gratefully accepted.
The guest list was larger than Helena’s own hasty ceremony had allowed, friends and family and the inevitable society observers who wanted to witness the matrimony of the Duke of Westmere’s sister-in-law.
But the scale did not diminish the intimacy of the moment.
As Helena watched Rosalind walk down the aisle toward William Hartley, she felt the same swelling of emotion she had experienced at her own wedding, the sense of something momentous happening, of lives joining together in ways that would echo through years to come.
Rosalind was radiant. Her gown was simple but elegant, white silk overlaid with delicate lace, the same pattern their mother had worn years ago when she wedded their father.
Helena had arranged for the fabric to be retrieved from storage, had supervised its careful incorporation into a design that honoured the past while celebrating the future.
“She is beautiful,” Edmund murmured beside her.
“She is happy.” Helena blinked back tears. “That is what makes her beautiful.”
“Like her sister.”
Helena glanced at him, finding his eyes warm with affection. “Are you suggesting that I am beautiful when I am happy?”
“I am stating a fact.” He took her hand, threading his fingers through hers. “Though I confess I find you beautiful under all circumstances. It is one of my many weaknesses.”
“You have very few weaknesses.”
“I have one.” His voice was soft. “You.”
The ceremony proceeded, the ancient words binding Rosalind and William together as Helena and Edmund had been bound.
When the moment came for the exchange of rings, Helena watched her sister’s face, the joy there, the certainty, and the complete absence of the fear that had characterised Helena’s own wedding day.
Rosalind had entered her matrimony with open eyes and an open heart. She had been given the luxury of choosing affection, of being courted and proposed to and cherished in all the ways that Helena had only discovered after her wedding was already complete.
Helena did not begrudge her sister this difference.
The paths to happiness were varied, and what mattered was not how one arrived but the destination itself.
Helena had found her way through darkness and doubt.
Rosalind had found hers through sunshine and certainty.
Both paths had led to the same place: affection, freely given and freely received.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
The words echoed through the chapel, followed by applause and cheers as William kissed his bride. Helena felt Edmund’s arm slip around her waist, drawing her close, and she leaned into him without thinking.
“One year ago,” she murmured, “I stood in a church in Somerset, entering into matrimony with a stranger to save my family.”
“And now?”
“Now I am standing in a chapel at Westmere, watching my sister wed the man she has devoted her heart to, carrying our child, and being surrounded by family and friends.” She looked up at him. “It does not seem real sometimes. It is too perfect to be real.”
“It is real.” Edmund pressed a kiss to her temple. “All of it. And it is only the beginning.”
***
The wedding breakfast was a triumph.
The Dowager had supervised the arrangements, emerging fully into her role as matriarch of the household with an authority that had been dormant for years.
She directed servants, greeted guests, and presided over the celebrations with a grace that reminded Helena of the woman she must have been before grief claimed her.
“She is remarkable,” Helena said to Edmund as they watched the Dowager engage Lady Worthington in animated conversation. “I would not have believed it possible, months ago.”
“She needed purpose.” Edmund’s voice was thoughtful. “She needed to feel useful again. The wedding gave her that, a reason to emerge, a task to accomplish, a way to contribute.”
“And now?”
“Now she has the baby to anticipate.” He smiled. “She has already begun making plans. The nursery, the christening, the education the child will receive. She has opinions about everything.”
“That sounds terrifying.”
“It is somewhat terrifying.” He laughed. “But also wonderful. She is my mother again, Helena. The woman I remember from before everything went wrong. You gave me that.”
“I gave you nothing. She found her own way back.”
“Perhaps.” He took her hand. “But you lit the path. You showed her what affection could look like, what family could look like, what life could look like when you stopped hiding from it.” He paused. “You showed me the same thing.”
Helena did not argue. She had learned, over the months of their matrimony, to accept compliments without deflection.
It was one of the many small changes Edmund had wrought in her, the gradual erosion of the armour she had worn for so long, the slow acceptance that she deserved kindness as much as anyone else.
The celebration continued around them, music and laughter and the clinking of glasses raised in toast after toast. Helena moved through it all with a sense of dreamlike wonder.
A year ago, she had been a desperate woman facing impossible choices.
Now she was a Duchess, a wife, a sister, a daughter, and soon, a mother.
The transformation was almost too vast to comprehend.
“I want to show you something,” Edmund said quietly, appearing at her elbow as the afternoon light began to soften toward evening.
“Now? In the middle of the celebration?”
“It will only take a moment.” He offered his arm. “Come with me.”
Helena let herself be led away from the gathering, through the familiar corridors of Westmere Park, toward a destination she could not guess. They walked in comfortable silence, their steps synchronised from long practice, until Edmund stopped before a closed door.
“The nursery,” Helena realised. “You are taking me to the nursery.”
“I am.” He opened the door and gestured for her to enter.
The room beyond had been transformed.
Helena had not visited the nursery since her first weeks at Westmere, when she had toured the house with Mrs Prescott.
Then, it had been a dim, dusty space, sheets covering the furniture, the air thick with disuse and old memories.
Henry and Edmund had been raised here, decades ago, and nothing had changed since their childhood.
But now it was alive again.
The sheets were gone, revealing furniture that had been cleaned and polished until it gleamed.
The curtains had been replaced, soft blue fabric that caught the evening light and transformed it into something gentle and warm.
A cradle stood near the window, draped in white linen, ready to receive its occupant.
And on the walls, painted in delicate detail, were roses.
Climbing roses, blooming roses, roses in every colour Edmund had ever cultivated. They covered the walls in a riot of beauty, transforming the room into a garden that would never fade.
“Edmund.” Helena’s voice was barely a whisper. “When did you prepare all this?”
“I have been working on it for weeks.” He came to stand beside her, his hand finding hers. “Since you told me about the baby. I wanted to create something special, something that would be ours, and that would welcome our child into a room filled with affection.”
“The roses are from your garden.”
“The real ones were the inspiration. But these will bloom forever. Our child will grow up surrounded by them, always reminded of where they came from. Of the garden their father tended. Of the mother who taught him that sharing beauty was not weakness, but strength.”