"Gabriel!" Clara protested, though she was laughing.
“Indeed! The grace of your form is beyond refute, and I should be quite content to expound upon its virtues this very hour, should you allow…”
"There are children present," Margaret interrupted, though she was smiling.
"The children don't care about discussions of bottoms. Look, Sophie's trying to eat a flower."
Indeed, Edmund's daughter had stuffed a rose in her mouth while her twin sister Louise appeared to be having a serious conversation with an ant.
"Your children are also feral," Gabriel observed.
"All children are feral. We just pretend otherwise for society's comfort," Edmund said, extracting the rose from Sophie's mouth.
They settled around the garden table, the children creating chaos at their feet, and Clara thought about how different this was from what she'd imagined her life would be. She'd thought she'd be a governess forever, or perhaps a spinster living in complete poverty. Instead, she was a duchess with a wild son, possibly another child on the way, a husband who still looked at her like she was water in the desert, and a chosen family of servants and friends who'd become essential to their happiness.
"What are you thinking about?" Gabriel asked quietly, his hand finding hers under the table.
"How impossible this all is."
“I used to think happiness was something other people had. Something I'd forfeited through scarring and bad temper and general unsuitability for human company."
"And now?"
"Now I think happiness is watching my son terrorize insects while my pregnant wife pretends she's not pregnant and my friend's children eat flowers."
"I might not be pregnant."
"You're definitely pregnant. You have that same look you had with James…slightly green but somehow radiant."
"If you two are quite finished being disgustingly wedded," Edmund interrupted, "I have news from London."
"If it's about Lady Agatha…" Gabriel started.
"It's about Lord Pemberton."
The table went quiet except for the children's babbling.
"What's he done now?" Clara asked, her hand tightening on Gabriel's.
"Been arrested for debt, apparently. Turns out his harassment of governesses extended to not paying them, and several have banded together to press charges. He's facing complete ruin."
"Splendid!" Gabriel said viciously.
"There's more. He's been trying to claim that Clara owes him money for her time in his household, saying she was given advances she never repaid."
"That's a lie," Clara said immediately.
"Of course it is, but lies can still cause trouble. However, Margaret has a solution."
Margaret smiled sweetly. "I've been corresponding with the governesses. We're forming a society…the Governesses' Mutual Aid Association. We protect each other from men such as Pemberton, share information about problematic households, and provide references for those unfairly dismissed."
"That's brilliant," Clara breathed.
"It's also probably illegal," Edmund added cheerfully. "But when has that stopped us?"
"We're not doing anything illegal," Margaret said primly. "We're simply sharing information and resources. If that information happens to prevent certain lords from ever hiring another governess again, well, that's just unfortunate coincidence."
"You're terrifying," Gabriel told her admiringly.
