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Extended Epilogue
Percy lay upon the bed in the small bedchamber of the country house, the sheets damp at the edge of her gown, and the window open to admit the cool, pleasant air of the early morning. The room smelled of lavender and hot iron where the midwife had smoothed cloths. A bowl of water on the stand held a thin film of soap and a sprig of rosemary that the housekeeper had placed to steady nerves. Her nightgown clung in places and the linen of her shift folded about her shoulders. She had not known labor to be so loud with thought and memory. Each contraction narrowed her world to sensation, and the small practical details of being kept alive.
Callista sat close by, her own condition evident in the gentle round of her belly beneath a loose morning gown of lemon muslin. Her face was pale but steadfast. She had insisted upon being near in part for loyalty and in part because she could not bear to be absent for such a momentous event.
“You must breathe,” Callista said, squeezing Percy’s hand between her own. “Slow in, slow out. Think of a bird and the sky. You can do this.”
Percy tried to smile through the ache.
“You would have me imagine the sky when I am convinced the roof is falling in,” she said. The joke was small and immediate, and it made Callista laugh, which did them both a world of good.
“Lady Granby has instructed that lemon water be placed at the bedside,” the midwife said, moving about with steady fingers. “Do not refuse it. A sip when you may will keep the wind from gathering.”
Her mother flitted about the room like a woman for whom motion was a remedy. She wore a morning gown of sober gray with sleeves rolled to the elbow. Her face was composed in that way a mother learns when a household must not be undone by anxiety.
“Have the towels ready on the chair by the footstool,” she said to the maid. “And a fresh nightcap for her when the baby comes. Sarah, see to it that the kettle is kept at a near boil.”
Sarah, promoted in title though not yet in the breadth of her duties, hovered with dutiful energy. She had a new composure since the seasons had shifted. Her apron was tied with decisive knots and her hand moved with the quickness of one who had learned how to soothe a child and a woman in equal measure.
“Do not strain your voice, my lady,” she said, the tenderness in the command making it more than a direction. “Save yourself. I shall ring when you are near the end.”
Percy closed her eyes between waves and let the room be a chorus of practical kindness. The midwife’s hands were sure and unjudging. Callista’s presence was steady as a fact. Her mother’s orders held the edges of catastrophe at bay. In that arrangement of small mercies the pain, for all its truth, was bearable.
Minutes stretched like the slow opening of a flower. Percy felt exhausted and hollow in a manner she had never before known, yet more alive in another sense than she had been at any party or parade. She had her hand clasped in Callista’s and she measured time by the honest squeeze of another human touch.
“Percy,” Callista said suddenly, voice warm and oddly teasing at such a moment. “Once you choose a name, I will cross the garden twice in bare feet and sing to the geese.”
Percy laughed in a way that was a small burst of light.
“I will not ask for such sufferings,” she said. “Name suggestions will be taken only under the most civilized of conditions.”
Their mother allowed herself a small smile.
“We will have a book of names brought,” she said. “Cook shall prepare broth and a small posset for recovery. We need to think of small comforts rather than speeches.”
The midwife’s face grew intent and the room gathered around the business of forms and breath. A sudden wave of pain doubled Percy over and she gripped Callista’s hand like an anchor.
“Hold,” Sarah said quietly and then pointed briskly to the doors. “Give them space.”
The maid opened the door with decisive clarity and one by one the house eased away. The housekeeper, a page, and the extra hands who might otherwise have made themselves useful took their places just beyond earshot. They formed a ring of respectful distance. Sarah remained at the doorway for a single moment and then crossed the room and shut the door softly. The sound was the settling of a hinge upon a small world put in order.
“Percy,” Sarah said, fierce in the way of one charged to protect, “this is your moment. Breathe and gather and save your strength. I will call when you are near the end. No one else need remain close.”
Percy drew a long, measured breath and nodded. The command had the mercy of discipline, and she welcomed it as she welcomed the cool cloth pressed against her forehead.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
She had hardly settled when the door eased open and Damien stepped in as if he had arrived by quiet gravity. He wore a riding coat loosened at the collar and his cravat was untied just enough to make him look like a man who had forsaken formality for purpose. He did not make a show of entrance. He moved like someone invited by urgency rather than ceremony.
“My bird,” he said, using the nickname that had, thanks to Callista and Alexander’s influence, over time become the smallest and truest of endearments.
Percy’s breath found another rhythm at the sound of his voice.
“You are late,” she said, jesting though her voice trembled.
Damien smiled, reaching for her to move a sweat-soaked strand of hair from her forehead.
“I was late to everything at one time,” he said and settled into the chair that Sarah indicated with a direct look. “Now I am here where I must be.” He covered her hand with his. The calluses of a man who had once hauled sails now held a woman pressed between contractions.
He spoke softly in the small pauses.
“You remember the story of Theo’s misadventure in Seville?” he asked. “He writes as though he had been pursued by a woman and a donkey. He says Catalina climbed into a carriage and declared that Spanish roads are the test of character not of patience. She demands an apology from the innkeeper and the innkeeper supposedly obliged by providing a parrot that never shuts its beak.”
Percy managed a laugh that dropped a measure of fear from her.
“A parrot,” she said. “Do tell me he did not bring it home.”
Damien chuckled.
“He considered it,” he said. “He considered everything during their travels. He writes that he had never been calmer in his life. He says it is as if he has settled into himself.”
Percy let the idea of Theo settling like agreeable weather settle around her.
“And Catalina?” she asked. The name of the woman he had mentioned made a bright smile lift in her.
Damien grinned.
“I suspect Catalina is with child,” he said, as if the matter were new common sense. “They will make their home very soon, it seems. He writes that his heart is inclined toward that steadiness. Why else would he suddenly seek a settled environment?”
Percy allowed herself the pleasure of picturing her brother-in-law writing with a steadier hand and with a woman at his side. It lightened her in a way she had not expected. She leaned into the comfort of familiar laughter as another contraction made the room close upon itself.
“Do not let me go,” she said to Damien when the pain ebbed and breath returned.
He kissed the back of her hand.
“I am here,” he said. “And I will remain.”
He paused, and as if to shape the quiet, he spoke of small gossip and the sort of news that makes a country house feel like a living thing.
“I heard that Selena has married a wealthy widower,” he said. “She will settle close by. They have taken a small house outside of Bath. The widower has more money than sense and that suits Selena in the way that a new mantle suits an apprentice.”
Percy’s face constricted at the mention. The word flickered like a small hot stone.
“She married for money?” she asked, suddenly sharp.
Damien nodded.
“She did,” he said plainly. “Perhaps she seeks security. It is not the noblest path, but if it keeps her from want—”
“Then she should have thought better of her actions here,” Percy said in a voice steadier than she felt. “She traded small coin for another’s ruin. The thought rankles still.”
Damien took her other hand and squeezed it.
“She did,” he said. “Yet the worst sometimes possess less malice than one supposes. Perhaps, she thought only of her family’s need. It does not excuse her, but it may explain. It is small comfort to the wound it left. Besides, despite our troubles with her, we are still happy and in love, and about to be parents. We could not ask for more happiness than the universe has bestowed. We should be grateful, and resentment gets in the way of that gratitude.”
Percy felt the truth of that and let it in. The midwife shifted and gave a small urgent instruction. The room composed itself once again to the business of birth. Percy drew breath and let the world be what it must be in that moment.
There came a point when the midwife’s voice rose, and the sound of a small body crying burst out first like a wasp and then like a sound that demanded air and attention. Percy was pulled through that slit of pain and into light as the baby took its first wailing breath. The midwife’s voice softened into a laugh and an announcement that made the small room unsteady.
“It is a girl,” the midwife said. “A fine child. Healthy and with lungs enough for a choir.”
Callista sobbed in a way that made Percy laugh and cry at once. “A girl,” she said. “Oh Percy, look how perfect she is.”
Damien’s face broke open in a smile that made him look too young by years he had never had. He leaned forward to see and the baby was placed against Percy’s breast in a manner that settled the world into a new order. The baby’s skin held the small shade of dawn. She nuzzled with an immediate ferocity that filled the room with a sound so simple and complete it seemed to make the roof itself thankful.
Percy felt exhausted and luminous.
“She is small and fierce,” she said. “She is very small and fierce.”
Damien laughed, and Percy saw the dawning of tears in his eyes.
“She is beautiful,” he said, staring at her in awe. “She is perfect, in fact. What shall we name her?”
Percy thought for a breath, staring at her newborn daughter.
“What do you think of Lillian?” she asked.
Damien answered with a soft laugh.
“Lady Lillian Loxley,” he said, testing the name upon his tongue. “That shall suit her nobly.”
They sat together in a circle that was as private as any room in the house could be. Voices came from beyond the door. Footsteps slowed in the hall, and Percy looked at her husband, offering their daughter to him.
“I believe everyone is ready to meet her,” she said.
Damien took her so gently that Percy thought he might fear breaking her.
“We shall return,” he said, turning just as he reached the door with their daughter. “Mama.”
Percy shivered with delight, despite her fatigue. I am a mama now, she thought as the midwife moved about cleaning up her and the bed. I am a mother.
From inside her room, she could hear her father laugh with a relief that was almost tears. Her mother’s voice was proud and projected in a way that made Percy’s heart swell. Callista squealed loudly, and Percy guessed that Damien had told everyone her name. A moment later, when the linen and Percy’s nightdress had been changed, Sarah opened the door proudly, and everyone flooded in. Everyone including Agatha.
As Damien let everyone take turns holding little Lillian, Percy watched her mother and Agatha. The women spoke softly, but she could see the warmth in her mother’s expression. She was grateful that her family had eventually been able to forgive Agatha. What she had almost caused was terrible, indeed. But grief was a terrible beast, and Percy knew it could make good people do awful things. News came a little later that Sir Miles had been moved to a jail where the company of creditors seemed safer for him than the freedoms of the road. Damien held Lillian close as the afternoon passed in a pleasant drift. He spoke little, content to let the baby’s soft squeal and the joyful noise of a household provide conversation. They had a child now and in that one fact, the season of scandal had been made into a story with a kinder end. The future would require labor and the patient mending of things. They would care for that work as they had learned to keep a house in order. For Percy, the knowledge was enough. There would be laughter that was not forced, and a child’s breath in the night that would make all small complaints worth living.
OFFER: A BRAND NEW SERIES AND 2 FREEBIES FOR YOU!
Grab my new series, "Love and Yearning in the Ton ", and get 2 FREE novels as a gift! Have a look here!
Hello there, my dear readers. I hope you enjoyed the book and this Extended Epilogue! I will be waiting for your comments. Thank you! 🙂