They held each other for long, peaceful moments. And then he said, “Damn it all.”
“What is it?” she asked.
He was frowning down at her in obvious bemusement, his forehead puckered with consternation. “There was something I wanted to tell you. I am always forgetting, it seems. What was it? Ah, yes, I remember.” His forehead cleared, and his eyes were softly ablaze. “I love you, Eliza.”
She caught his face in her hands, bringing him closer for her kiss. “Then it is a very good thing I love you, as well, Sebastian.”
Epilogue
Four Years Later
Sebastian was proved correct. No precaution was a guarantee. Their methods worked well, until the moment they didn’t.
“Sebastian, if you do not stop hovering about me, I will throw my shoe at you,” Eliza said in a tone that brooked no opposition. “The baby will be here any day now, and I want this book finished before it arrives.”
She did not say in case I die, but she thought it, as she had every day since the unpleasant discovery that the French letter had failed. The words were ever-present yet unspoken. By Sebastian, as well. As her belly expanded, he had grown increasingly gaunt. She, meanwhile, was the picture of health. Once the weeks of nausea and sickness had passed, she’d had a surprising amount of vigor, which she had channeled into preparing for her death.
And though he was the cause of her impending doom, her love for her husband had increased tenfold knowing she might soon be forced to leave him. He was dear, so very dear.
But just now he was the most irritating man she had ever known and deserved a dozen shoes thrown at his head and organs. The muscles of her belly constricted with viselike intensity, increasing her annoyance, and she rubbed at her stomach distractedly.
“Go to White’s. Take Abingdon with you and make an evening of it.”
“I don’t want to. Don’t send me away, Sigrid.”
Drat the man. She threw her pen aside and stood, ready to wage war.
She was stopped by a sudden, violent gush of water between her legs. She stared at the wet carpet, stricken, then looked at her husband.
“My book is not finished, and I love you. I am not ready.”
“It will be all right, darling.”
She might have believed him had he not looked so worried. But he turned away, calling for a footman to get the midwife and sending another to fetch Alice.
She grabbed his arm. “Sebastian, you promised.”
“Did you think I had forgotten, Sigrid?” He cupped her cheek gently, and she leaned her face into his touch. “I won’t leave your side for even a moment.”
…
Nine Hours Later
Eliza groaned, an animallike sound of misery that Sebastian had never heard before. Her hand tightened on his, nails digging in, as she bore down. Sweat beaded her brow, bathed her neck, ran in rivers down her chest. He allowed her to do as she would with her nails and used his free hand to rub soothing—he hoped—circles on her back. He was helpless to do aught else.
It was too much. How could any person, man or woman, bear this much pain? Surely, it was not natural.
This, he realized, was what death looked like.
…
An hour later, or an eternity, who is to say?
A girl.
Eliza stared down at the small bundle pressed against her breast. A red, wrinkly creature with a squashed nose and hands like an old woman’s claws, topped by an untidy mop of sable hair.
She was the most beautiful thing Eliza had ever seen.
Eliza smiled at Sebastian, who returned it with a blurry, slightly drunken smile of his own. When the midwife had pronounced the babe to be a healthy girl, he had grabbed the woman by the shoulders and growled, “And my wife?”
Which had confused the midwife a great deal, but she had nonetheless answered with conviction, “Also a healthy girl.”
Sebastian had promptly dropped to his knees and sobbed, his cries nearly drowning out the hungry wails of Georgina Grace. For that was what they had named her. Georgina after Eliza’s mother, and Grace after Sebastian’s.
The midwife had then sent Sebastian from the room, demanding he not return until he had consumed an appropriate amount of whiskey.
“She has your hair,” Eliza murmured, touching the dark tuft with awe. Georgina’s eyelashes fluttered, her lids lifted, and Eliza found herself staring into a mirror image of her own eyes. She looked at Sebastian, her vision slightly clouded from tears. “Oh, I love her. I love her. Let’s have another.”
Sebastian turned several shades paler.
“No,” he said.
Eliza laughed. “We shall see,” she said softly to Georgina. “Your father would never deny a woman her pleasure.”
…
Calcutta, India
September 3, 1823
Dearest Eliza,
How happy we were to receive your last letter and the wonderful news of Lady Georgina! Ram thinks very strongly of sending Amar to university in England; I am not yet convinced, but perchance in fifteen years when he is of the age to go I will change my mind. At least he would have a friend there in Lady Georgina.
The monsoons have made me yearn for the dry sands of Egypt. Of course, last May I was missing the cool dampness of England. Yet I was terribly homesick in England and dreamed often of the white walls of my family’s home, the smell of jira at dinner, and the sounds of my own language.
It is a different feeling that I experience now. I did not return to an India exactly the same as I had left. Calcutta is very different from the town I grew up in. I miss the places I have been, the people I have known, both here in India and abroad. But it is not homesickness I feel now.
I have come to think of home not as a place, which shifts so easily with the passage of time. Home is a person, the one with whom you belong.
And I am finally home.
All my love,
Riya
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Acknowledgments
Stories become books only through the hard work of many people. Thanks so much to my editor, Nina Bruhns, and the whole Entangled Publishing team.
I’m especially thankful for Samaira Acharya and Denise Bhatt, for telling where I was wrong, and your patience while I tried to make it right.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Margrethe Martin. Your insight and kindness rejuvenated my creativity when I needed it the most.
Lily and Evelyn—thanks for being you.
About the Author
Elizabeth Bright is a writer, attorney, and mother. After spending ten years in New Orleans (yes, she survived Hurricane Katrina), she relocated to Washington, D.C. to be closer to family. When she’s not writing, arguing, or mothering, she can be found hiking in the Shenandoah or rock climbing at Great Falls.
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