"Is this a reconciliation?" Gabriel asked suspiciously.
"This is an acknowledgment that you've won. You took her as your wife, her, produced an heir, and from what I hear, actually improved the estate's finances through some sort of unusual farming experiment."
"It's cooperative farming." Clara corrected.
“The point is, you've proven me wrong, which is irritating but not unprecedented."
"You've been wrong before?" Gabriel asked with exaggerated shock.
"Once many a year ago…I thought it would rain but it didn't."
Despite himself, Gabriel smiled. "Just once?"
"Just once. This makes twice, which is excessive but survivable."
James, apparently deciding Lady Agatha was acceptable, climbed into her lap, muddy feet and all, getting dirt all over her purple silk.
"He's destroying your dress," Clara said, moving to retrieve him.
"Let him. I have other dresses. I don't have other great-nephews."
"You don't like children," Gabriel pointed out.
"I don't like badly behaved children. This one is interestingly behaved, which is different."
"He's feral," Edmund supplied helpfully.
"All the best people are," Lady Agatha said, which made everyone stare at her. "What? You think I was born this proper? I once put a frog in my governess's bed."
"You did not," Gabriel said.
"I did. She was insufferable and needed humbling."
"What happened?"
"She screamed, quit, and I got a better governess who appreciated amphibian-based rebellion."
James, as if understanding he'd found a kindred spirit, settled more firmly in her lap and began playing with her massive amethyst brooch.
"Don't eat that," Lady Agatha told him. "It's worth more than a small estate."
"No!" James agreed cheerfully.
"His vocabulary is extensive," she observed dryly.
"He knows other words," Clara defended. "He just prefers efficiency."
"Like his mother, who efficiently conquered a dukedom through strategic wall-climbing."
"I didn't conquer anything."
"You conquered my nephew's well-maintained defenses, which multiple London beauties failed to breach."
"They didn't have stolen boots and desperation."
"Borrowed boots," Gabriel corrected automatically.
"Still on about that, are we?" Lady Agatha asked. "It's been two years."
