by Ava Devlin
He had not expected staying awake through the night to be so difficult. After all, he had done longer stretches of sleeplessness over the years as a means of survival. He thought, somehow, that discovering little Caroline, speaking with her, had spent his energy more than any grueling march across rough terrain ever had. By the time the sun had begun to glimmer through the windows of the drawing room, he was struggling to keep his head up.
The dowager had silenced any objections and shuffled him up to a guest bedroom to sleep through his prolonged wait for Heloise's return. He hoped that it was her way of giving her blessing, when she easily could have turned him out or attempted to convince him that his assumptions were wrong.
"Go back to sleep," Heloise murmured, turning her face into his shirt so that her hair fell across her eyes. "Not enough sleep."
He chuckled, despite all the dire things that loomed between them, stroking her hair between his fingers. "Rest as long as you need," he whispered. "Your night was likely more trying than mine."
"Likely," she repeated, peeking up at him through her tresses of hair. "Abigail is well.”
"And the child?"
"A baby boy. William. He is whole, healthy, and soon to be legitimized."
Callum raised his eyebrows in genuine surprise. He had not heard the first whisper of speculation as to the father of Abigail's child.
"It was Dr. Garber," Heloise said impatiently. "I confronted him in the church and shamed him before the township. Gideon will be furious, of course, but the dear doctor will have no choice now but to do the honorable thing."
"He might flee," Callum said without thinking. He winced as soon as the words had left his mouth. That was what he had done, was it not?
"No," Heloise said, stretching out next to him and brushing the hair from her face. "Not if he wishes to continue to practice as a physician with any degree of success or be received in London. Now that I've made a scene, my brother will enforce propriety. He can be counted on for that."
"Yes, he can," Callum agreed.
She was quiet for a moment, staring at her hand over his heart. It was as though if neither of them mentioned the child they'd made for just a moment longer, things could be as they were.
"Heloise," he began, but she spoke over him in an urgent whisper.
"I will not tell Gideon—or anyone—should you wish to leave us," she finally said. "My mother would likewise keep our secret. You need never claim her, if it is not what you wish."
He thought, for a moment, that he was frozen in place, struck so blindly by her words that he'd turned to stone. She didn't move either, nor did she raise her eyes to look at him, instead keeping her gaze fixed on her hand, which rose and fell with his breath.
"I have always loved you," he finally said, reaching up to cup her hand with his own. "Since we were children, I have loved you. I have never wanted another woman the way I want you, and I never will. The only time I have felt anything even close was yesterday, when I saw her face and knew she was ours."
She did turn her face up at that, her eyes searching his own as he spoke.
"I should not have decided on my own what was best for our future," he whispered. "I convinced myself, somehow, that you could read my thoughts and that you would know I had gone to make my mark and build our fortune. I believed that you would be here, suspended in time, until I was able to return. You were right that day in the barn, that I was too proud to start our lives with your dowry money. I did not think I could find myself entirely worthy of you until I could match what Society expects for a lady's hand. I couldn't abide the thought that I would be seen by others as unworthy of you, or worse, that you would be looked down upon for having me."
"You have always been such a snob," she said, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "Worse than Gideon, even."
"A snob?" he echoed, genuinely surprised. "I was a stable boy!"
"Mm, with far more rigid beliefs about the rules of Society than many a member of the ton," she replied. "I hear you got your mother quite up in arms with assumptions about her misery in service shortly after arriving."
He frowned. He hadn't apologized for that, still. The fire had overshadowed everything else, cauterizing the wound in their relationship out of sheer necessity. Besides, part of him still felt justified in wishing to rescue her from a life of toil and subservience. It did not feel wrong to him. Was he truly a snob? Was she truly content with her lot in life, proud of it, even?
Heloise continued, unconcerned with the crisis in identity she'd just awoken within him. "In any event, you were not wrong to fear censure and ridicule. We would have been pelted with plenty of both, if Gideon hadn't put a stop to it entirely. He has changed much since the last time you saw him."
"Changed enough that he will not balk when you reveal who the father of your child truly is?"
She bit her lip, hesitating long enough in answering that he knew it was still a real possibility.
He groaned, dropping a hard kiss onto the top of her head. "So it seems our trials are not yet at an end," he said. "If you will have me, I would like for the three of us to be a true family."
“You, me, and that other woman you’re cradling?”
He glanced over at his other arm, his confusion dissolving into amusement at the sight of Caroline’s well-worn rag doll still nestled in the crook of his arm. “I will have to insist that she joins us,” he said somberly. “I’ve grown rather attached.”
Heloise giggled, swiping at the doll and tossing it on the bedside table. “I will not be displaced for your mistresses, Callum Laughlin.”
“Oh, making rules already, are we?” he teased. “What else?”
"Hm. I do not want to leave Yorkshire," she replied, her hand beginning to trace circles over his chest. "I should never feel at home anywhere far from here, and I do not wish to take Callie away from so much family."
"Done," he agreed. "I still wish to pursue a business in horses, which would mean we could not live directly in the township."
"Yes, a country house is my preference as well," she mused, "though I still would continue my services as they are required. I love my work."
"I would insist that our child takes my surname when you do, of course."
"And that she no longer calls me Auntie Hel?" Heloise replied dreamily. "It would usually be a complication that we were not wed at the time of her birth, but the reverend said something today that makes me think we might be able to accomplish what we wish, should he be sympathetic to our cause."
He smiled to hear her talk so. "So does that mean you will marry me, Heloise Somers?"
"I will," she decided, reaching up to cup his cheek as she raised her lips to his. "Pending further negotiations, of course."
He raised his brows, curious and perhaps a little concerned as to what this could mean, but as the heat of her kisses pulled him into their spell, and their bodies tangled beneath the sheets of this borrowed bed, he found he was willing to negotiate further after all.
21
In the aftermath of their morning together, they had decided upon two things: first, that Callie should be told the truth first, before anyone else, and second that revealing the news within a family group, all at once, would prevent any overly dramatic reactions.
"You mean one of your brothers attempting to strangle me, I presume?" Callum had asked, hair falling over his eyes as he pulled his boots on.
"Yes. Though I imagine your mother will be none too pleased with me either," Heloise responded, weaving a braid into her hair from her perch on the big blue bed. "At the very least, she's never seemed the type to resort to direct violence."
Callum scoffed. "Says you."
When they emerged from the room, the staff that observed it kept their eyes averted and heads down, though doubtless whispers were already brewing belowstairs. Callum went immediately to the dining room in the hopes of intercepting Ruthie Somers at luncheon, while Heloise went to her own chambers to change into a clean dress.
&nbs
p; She chose a loose gown of daisy yellow with her daughter in mind and tucked the little rag doll into the deep pocket fashioned into the skirts. Today was to be a very important day. She believed she was prepared for it, after the mental turmoil of the last few weeks had forged her into a keen sort of steel, but all the same, when she entered the dining room to find her mother and her fiancé in low conversation, her heart seemed to lodge itself right in the center of her throat.
Ruthie's eyes caught sight of her first, and far from the frown of disapproval Heloise had anticipated, her mother's face cracked into a joyous grin, eye wrinkles and all. "Good morning," she sang. "I am so pleased, my beautiful girl."
"With?" Heloise replied, still erring toward caution as she swept into the room to be seated at the foot of the table.
"Why, your impending nuptials, of course!" Ruthie beamed. "For so much, truly. I trust Miss Collins is well?”
"She is," Heloise confirmed, raising her eyebrows at Callum. "I thought we were going to announce to everyone at once?"
"We will," he told her. "But your mother has agreed to ensure everyone is gathered at the appropriate time so that we may do so. She already knew, after all."
"Only just," Ruthie added. "Caroline and Reggie are at the manor house today, so perhaps we should all make our way across the green now. If anyone is currently out or attending the township, it will give us time to call them back to the house."
Heloise nodded, another lurch of anxiety firing off in her stomach. This was it, then. The end of her secrets had arrived. A brand new life was over the horizon, somehow, when just yesterday it had seemed so far from her grasp.
She forced herself to eat, just some toast and a few slices of dried pear, and did not argue when Ruthie suggested they take a carriage over. She met Callum's eye several times, wondering if he was experiencing a turmoil on par with her own, but every time, those black eyes twinkled back at her with such unbridled happiness that she felt silly for having any worries at all.
In the carriage, he held her hand. That little gesture stirred all manner of emotions within her, particularly that it was happening within her mother's view. With Callum, every affection had come to feel forbidden, every touch by necessity clandestine. Allowing him this intimacy, so brazenly displayed, was both a luxurious indulgence and so alien as to fill her with unnecessary worry, as though somehow being too happy or too optimistic might horribly backfire.
She clung to his hand as though it were the only thing that kept this reality fixed in place.
He had asked her that morning to tell him of their daughter, even though he had met her himself and spent an entire night and morning asking every question he could think of from her grandmother. She had recounted the stories that first came to mind, of the way she seemed to always soothe Reggie in a way no one else could, of her fondness for food that made crumbs and sticky sweets, of the way Nero watched her but never got too close, as though she were his charge and he a consummate professional who did not cross the bounds of propriety with that which he must protect.
"There is something I've been wondering," he had said, nuzzling into the crown of her head as she'd clung to him in drowsy bliss. "The girl Alex married, the icy blonde. Could she be the girl you once told me of, from school? The one you hated?"
"She is," Heloise had confirmed. "I no longer hate her. Though to be honest, she is very little changed."
He had laughed, of course, at the way fate had toyed with them all.
When they reached the house, Ruthie had made ready to dispatch herself immediately in search of all required members of their family's meeting.
"Mama," Hel had said, catching her wrist before she could speed away. "Please invite the reverend too. He will be family soon enough, I think."
"Hm," Ruthie had replied, the pleasure apparent in her face. "We shall see."
The Somerton nursery was on the third floor of the house, in a large space overlooking a frozen pond and snow bank. It had once been a room for entertaining, with billiards and card tables rather than cribs and plush toys, but Heloise rather thought it had found its true calling under Rose's modifications.
The children were at play when they arrived, and rather than interrupt their fun, Heloise nodded toward a set of chairs so that they might simply sit together and enjoy watching their daughter at her happiest. Reggie, by contrast, also reminded them of how singularly lucky they had been, to create offspring that was so naturally well-behaved.
Callie caught sight of them over her tower of blocks and waved in the pure, unbridled expression of pleasure that could only be shown by children. She stood and made her way over to where they sat without beckoning nor encouragement, as though she knew something important awaited her other than stacking blocks today. The nursemaids did not follow, both presently occupied with preventing Master Reggie from vaulting himself directly through the window facing the grounds.
"Hi Callie," Callum said, easing out of the chair to kneel before her, rag doll in hand. "Thank you for lending me your doll. She kept all of the bad dreams away."
"She is good," Callie agreed, taking her back and holding her in a tight hug. "All better?" she asked him hopefully.
"All better," he confirmed with a smile.
"Callie," Heloise said softly, kneeling next to Callum and putting a hand out to hold the child's. "Do you know what a mama and a papa are?"
Callie bit her lip. "Yes," she said after a moment, "but I haven't any."
"You do," Heloise corrected, her voice gentle against the little crack in her heart. "Of course you do, darling. This is your papa. You see? His eyes are the same as yours."
She turned those big, dark eyes up to Callum's, blinking and curious. "You are my papa?"
"Yes." He nodded, his own voice sounding near to breaking. "I have been waiting a very long time to meet you."
She frowned, considering this. "And my mama?"
Hel and Callum exchanged a glance. He spoke first.
"Auntie Heloise is your mama."
"No." Callie shook her head, her auburn ringlets swaying over her cheeks. "She is my auntie."
"Callie," Hel murmured, touching her daughter's hair. "I am your mama, but we had to keep it a secret until your papa came back. Would you like it if you called me Mama from now on, instead of Auntie?"
"Mama," Callie repeated, testing the sound of the word on her tongue. She turned to Callum, extending her other hand for his. "Papa."
Heloise laughed, though it sounded for all the world like a sob.
"Yes," Callie decided. "Mama and Papa."
"We are going to be a family now," Heloise told her, squeezing her little hand. "We will have our own house with lots of horses to ride, little one. And maybe one day some brothers and sisters for you."
Callie simply smiled back at her parents.
Even if she was too small to understand the full weight of what was being said, she seemed to grasp that these things made everyone very happy, and so she was happy too. "Can I go play?" she asked.
"Of course, yes," Heloise replied, leaning forward to drop a cheek on Callie's head. "Have fun."
She smiled broadly, perching forward to kiss each of her parents on their cheeks. When she skipped away, back to her play with her cousin, Hel and Callum sat back and watched, both smiling through the tears on their cheeks.
House Somers was no stranger to secret family meetings, each of them centered around topics that the scandal sheets would have delighted to overhear. Perhaps that was why Gideon Somers looked so dour, before anything had been said at all.
They gathered at Ruthie's behest, sprinkled throughout the sitting room. Heloise suspected that they were anticipating a wedding announcement from their mother, and as such had not reacted with surprise when Reverend Halliwell arrived and took a seat next to the fire, striking up friendly conversation with Rose.
Sheldon Bywater had not been expressly invited, but was there anyhow, his pregnant dog snoozing with her head in his lap.
The Blakelys had returned from Leeds a few hours prior, so mercifully they were taking some rest and would not notice a conspicuous congregation of the family members. Gloriana sat placidly next to Alex. If she knew what was coming, her face did not show it.
The last to arrive were Callum himself and Mrs. Laughlin. This, of course, did raise some eyebrows, though Gideon's lowered and drew together, his disconcert apparent for all to see. Not for the first time, Heloise felt her heart give a queasy leap in anticipation of what she must say, finally, to everyone.
Mrs. Laughlin looked fairly green herself. Either Callum had told her some of the news prior to bringing her into the sitting room or she was concerned that this meeting was to dismiss her. Hel hoped it was the former.
Ruthie closed the door, shooing away hovering staff and turning a bright, unconcerned smile to the room. "That's everyone then!" she announced. "Shall we begin?"
Heloise took a steadying breath and pushed herself to her feet, drawing the eyes of the gathered family to her. She hoped she did not sway where she stood. The thick wool of her yellow dress anchored her a little with its weight.
"Everyone here, aside from Reverend Halliwell, knows that Caroline is my daughter," she began.
Rose immediately startled, her eyes cutting to Gloriana, who returned her gaze and gave a little shrug.
"Heloise!" Gideon gasped, only ceasing in whatever lecture he was about to deliver by the expression on her face as she turned to him.
The reverend did not move at all, his face still pleasantly blank as he listened to Heloise speak.
"Please, Gideon," she said. "I must say everything now or lose my gall completely. Caroline is my daughter. You know it to be true. She is my child and her father is here with us today."
Callum appeared at her shoulder, placing a steadying hand there. Her eyes flickered shut, battling off a wave of anxiety that rose in her. She did not like the way Alex had immediately straightened in his chair, nor the sudden furious cut of Gideon's eyes from herself to Callum. She could not drown out the shocked gasp that had emitted from Mrs. Laughlin, whose hands now covered her mouth.
