Six years later

“Emilia, for goodness sake. Let your mother rest awhile!”

Sebastian called from terrace to the garden, where his four-year-old daughter ran rings around a heavily pregnant Clara. Six years had passed since their wedding day, and their small family was growing.

“Oh, she is all right,” Clara called back. Her cheeks—now filled out with happiness—flushed a dusky pink from the effort, but her eyes sparkled with love for their little family and her lips were filled with laughter.

“I am serious, Clarabelle Compton!” Sebastian reprimanded. “You are with child!”

“Really, son,” Beatrice said as she entered the garden. “You worry far too much. Clara knows when she had enough. Her body will tell her.”

“Your mother is right, Sebastian,” Clara said, gasping for breath as she walked up to greet her mother-in-law. “You are such a worrier.”

“And with good reason,” he said, exasperated. “Mother, my darling wife is a wild one at times.”

“Is that not why you fell in love with me?” Clara asked. Sebastian chuckled.

“Certainly one of the reasons, yes.”

“Well then,” Clara said with a satisfied grin. “Appreciate it a little more.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes but said nothing more.

“Where is Father?” he asked, turning to his mother.

“Oh, he is here somewhere. Got talking to the Duke of Calverton. I suspect they are lost to us for a good hour or so now.”

“But dinner will be served soon,” Clara said, turning to look at the banquet table laid out by the servants in the garden.

“I will send someone to fetch them,” Sebastian said.

They were having an intimate garden party that day, to celebrate young Emilia’s fourth birthday. The young girl’s eyes shone like emeralds, green like her mother’s and full of intelligence like her father’s. She had rich chocolate brown hair that hung in natural waves around her shoulders, and she had peppering of freckles across her nose.

The girl had been named Emilia, of course, after Clara’s Aunt Emilia. Clara had wanted it so but had not said anything, not until Sebastian himself suggested it as a name, and Clara had been overjoyed.

Now, four years on, Clara’s belly was heavy with her second child. She waddled as she walked, a protective hand over her bump, but she still somehow managed to find the energy to run around after Emilia.

Sebastian was in awe of her resilience and strength, continually impressed and surprised by his wife’s abilities. In the six years they had been married, their love had not faded nor softened. Instead, it became more passionate and fulfilling as time went by, each of them falling in love anew every day.

Emilia, the first product of their love, was a happy child, as wild and free as Clara always wanted to be, but as inquisitive and curious as her father. They hoped for a son and heir with their second child, and Sebastian had already chosen the name: Jonathan.

“Why Jonathan?” Clara had asked when he suggested it. Sebastian had shrugged.

“I do not really know. I just like the name. Does there have to be a meaning behind it?”

Clara smiled sweetly at him, then picked up his hand and placed it over her bump, letting Sebastian feel the kick of his second child.

“That you like it is meaning enough,” she said. “If it is a boy, we shall name him Jonathan.”

“There you are,” Beatrice cried as the two Dukes walked through the door, still talking non-stop, as they always did. Sebastian followed behind.

“I found them bickering by the front entrance,” he said, walking over to Clara and putting his arm around her. “My father seems to think your father should take a new wife.”

“And I said absolutely not,” Frank said firmly. “One wife and one daughter are quite enough for me.”

“But do you not find the castle terribly quiet now?” Clara asked.

“I do,” Frank said. “But it is a cross I shall have to bear, I am afraid. Besides, after all the stress and worry of the past twenty years, it is only natural for me to want a little peace.”

“I can relate to that,” Eric said, eyeing Beatrice. She scoffed and slapped his arm.

“I give you quite enough peace as it is!”

“Mama!”

They all turned to look at the young girl, already seated in pride in her place at the table, her seat higher than the others and in the middle.

“Mama!” she called again.

“What is it, darling?” Clara called back.

“I am ready for my party to start. Come on!”

Sebastian laughed, the sight of his daughter so furiously determined reminding him of his wife’s tenacity.

“She is a little minx, that one,” Eric said. “You shall have trouble with her when she is older.”

“You could always lock her up in a castle until some handsome young man comes to rescue her,” Frank suggested with a nonchalant shrug. “It worked for me.”

All but Beatrice laughed, but the Duchess glowered at Frank and Eric.

“Dukes you may be,” she said. “But you be careful what you say about my granddaughter. I will have you know that she is absolutely perfect in every single way.”

Sebastian kissed his mother on the forehead.

“Mother, you are undeniably correct,” he said. He reached over and took Clara’s hand, then spoke loud enough for Emilia to overhear. “Come on, let us join Princess Emilia for her birthday party.”

Emilia giggled loudly.

“That is me, Princess Emilia!”

It was after the party had finished and everyone had retired that Clara and Sebastian got to spend a little time alone. They had all given Emilia gifts, and the cook had made a special cake. They had laughed and talked, as they had done as a family so often since the wedding.

But it was the time after, when everyone else had gone home and Emilia had been put to bed, that Sebastian liked best. It was these quiet moments that he could truly share with Clara, in the way they had both craved before their marriage.

They sat on the terrace as the sun went down, the sky filled with warm oranges and reds. On the table between them sat a pot of tea and some cubes of leftover birthday cake. And they both sat, looking out over the garden, side-by-side but with a hand out, their fingers just touching, gripping one another.

“It has been a lovely day,” Clara said, not turning to face Sebastian.

“It has,” Sebastian agreed. “In fact, it has been a lovely year.”

“A lovely six years,” she said, turning to face him with a mischievous grin.

“Alright,” he chuckled, looking back at her and then out to the setting sun again. “You win. You know, I really do not know where I would be without you.”

“Probably solving some puzzle or other somewhere, wooing a maiden locked in a tower.”

“Never,” he said, shaking his head. “Well, perhaps you are right about the puzzle, but you were the only maiden I ever wanted to woo. There is no other like you, my darling.”

“Now that I am glad to hear,” she said. With her free hand, she smoothed her gown over her bump, wondering idly what their second child would be like. She knew he would be perfect though. How could he not be, when he was made up of her and Sebastian?

“Can you believe how close we came to none of this ever happening?” Sebastian said.

Clara turned sharply to look at him, surprised at his words and even more surprised to see his watery eyes.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean if Drew . . . what if you had lost your life, as your Aunt Emilia had? What then?”

“Oh, darling,” Clara said, looking softly over at Sebastian. This conversation was one they had had several times, and for Sebastian it never seemed to get any easier. Knowing how close he had been to losing her was just too much for him.

“I am serious,” he said, looking at her. “There would have been no marriage, no Emilia, no baby Jonathan.”

“Or Jemima,” Clara reminded. “It is not a foregone conclusion that we are having a son.”

“We are,” he said with a shrug. “I feel it in my bones.”

She laughed, clutching his fingertips even tighter.

“You really must stop thinking about what would have happened if I had lost my life. It is much more important to remember that I did not, that I am here and we are together. That is all that counts.”

“You are right,” he said. “As you always are, my darling. “And without all that sorry mess, I would never have met you in the first place.”

“Exactly. And our fathers would never have become friends again.”

Sebastian chuckled.

“That may have been for the best,” he said in jest. “I hear that they are nothing short of mischievous at the club.”

“As it should be,” Clara said. “Let them enjoy themselves, as we are enjoying ourselves.”

“Clara, you are so kindhearted and forgiving. You are perfect, you know that?”

“I am not perfect, Sebastian,” she said. “Not without you. It is your influence that makes me so.”

“Alright,” he nodded in agreement. “Then let us say this: together, we are perfect, and each of us is perfect because we are together.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling over at him. “I can certainly agree with that.”

And she really believed it, with all her heart.

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