"Let me show you."
And he did, thoroughly and repeatedly, until the fire died completely and dawn crept through the windows, finding them finally asleep, wrapped around each other like they'd been trying to merge into one person.
EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER
"Your son has eaten approximately half a pound of dirt this morning, which I'm told is perfectly normal behavior for a young boy his age, though I suspect all inhabitants of the underground may be offended that young Master James has been excavating their carefully constructed abodes.”
Gabriel looked up from where he was attempting to build what could generously be called a tower from wooden blocks, though their son seemed more interested in destroying architectural achievements than creating them. James Gabriel Edmund Hale, future Duke of Ashbourne and current destroyer of all things stackable, had his father's dark hair, his mother's blue-green eyes, and both parents' talent for chaos.
"Only half a pound?" Gabriel asked. "Yesterday he managed nearly a full pound according to Mrs. Potter's calculations, and she's been keeping a chart."
"Of course she has," Clara said, entering the conservatory with a tea tray that she set down well out of reach of grabbing hands. "Between Mrs. Potter's charts, Peter's statistical analysis of James's sleeping patterns, and Cook's detailed documentation of what foods he'll actually eat versus throw at the walls, our son is the most thoroughly documented child in England."
"Our son is also currently trying to eat one of the blocks," Gabriel observed, extracting the wooden cube from James'smouth with practiced ease. "No, small destroyer. Wood is not food, despite your evident belief that everything is edible."
James responded by shrieking with laughter and knocking over the tower Gabriel had spent ten minutes building, which seemed to be his primary joy in life along with pulling his father's hair and trying to catch any living insect.
"He has excellent destructive timing," Clara said, sitting down beside them on the blanket they'd spread on the conservatory floor. "Just like his father."
"I have never destroyed anything with such gleeful abandon."
"You destroyed my entire life plan with gleeful abandon."
"Your life plan was terrible. Leaving in spring, finding employment elsewhere, pretending we weren't desperately in love, and absolutely awful planning."
"My planning was practical."
"Your planning was pessimistic."
"Not mutually exclusive," they said in unison, then laughed.
James, deciding his parents weren't paying him sufficient attention, crawled over to Clara with surprising speed for someone who'd only figured out locomotion a month ago, and pulled himself up using her skirts, babbling something that might have been "mama" or might have been a declaration of war against all vertical surfaces.
"He's determined to walk before his first birthday," Clara said, steadying him as he swayed on unsteady legs.
"He's determined to give us both heart failure before his first birthday," Gabriel corrected, remembering yesterday's incident where James had somehow managed to climb halfway up a bookshelf in the thirty seconds Gabriel had looked away.
"Like father, like son."
"I never climbed bookshelves."
"You fell off the roof trying to retrieve a kite."
"That was different. I was young and foolish."
Now you are old and practically decrepit and still foolish.”
Gabriel pulled her against him, careful not to dislodge James who was now trying to eat Clara's necklace. "Decrepit enough to have given you a son and possibly another, if your morning indisposition is what I suspect it is."
Clara's hand went unconsciously to her still-flat stomach. "It might be nothing. I might have simply eaten something that disagreed with me."
"For the past week?"
"It's been a disagreeable week."
"Clara, the only thing disagreeable this week was Lord Pemberton's attempt to visit, which Edmund handled with his usual diplomatic violence."
