“Thank goodness,” Adam said, “for we did have a few ideas of our own.”
The woman left, and it was finally only the three of them.
“Sit, please,” Alice said.
He took the spot beside her on the mattress, and before he realized what she was doing, she handed him their boy.
“Now I can stretch.” Which she did, wincing before reaching over to take the glass of water from beside the bed. “Lady Beasley is correct. I am famishedandthirsty. Broth would be lovely, but also some bread and cheese, a cup of tea, and ... oddly, I would adore a cup of cocoa.”
Adam drew the swaddled baby up higher against his chest before leaning down and kissing his forehead.
“You be good,” he told the infant. “I am going to go make sure your mother has all she desires, and then I shall return directly.” He would run to the kitchen as fast as he could to place the order for his hungry wife.
She held her arms out, and he gave her back their son. Placing a kiss on her forehead, too, Adam went to the door.
“I will make sure to fend off any watercress Cook tries to give you.”
He heard Alice’s answering laugh as he left the room. A father now in his own right, Adam asked himself if he felt any different going out the door as to when he had entered the room.Was he more mature, perhaps, and responsible?
No,was his answer.But was it possible for his heart to have grown?For he felt impossibly full of love, choked on it, in fact, making him clear his throat while tears sprang to his eyes.
A brand-new Diamond had entered the world, and by God, the little gem was his!
Epilogue
Derby, May 1853
“You planned your life very well, my love,” Alice said to Adam. “Having four sisters, with two not yet married, has made it extremely easy for us to start our family. We never lack assistance.”
They were enjoying a Diamond gathering at Oak Grove Hall, celebrating his mother’s birthday and another child’s entrance to the family, belonging to Clarity.
“If only our boy would grow up a bit,” Adam said, flat on his back and idly putting his hands behind his head, staring at the sky through the branches of an apple tree. “I want to start teaching him to fish and ride.”
Under the tree, reclining out of the noon sun on a blanket, she looked over at young William, lying between them. He was thriving under the love of his parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. At least, those on the Diamond side.
Alice had received a brief note of congratulations upon writing to her parents when she’d married Adam. And when she sent them word of the birth of her first baby, in their usual fashion, their felicitations reached her months later. Her parentswelcomed their only grandchild, although they didn’t say when or if they would return to meet him.
If she were honest with herself, her parents’ absence didn’t impact her life at all, beyond being a little embarrassed to call them family. Adam assured her it wastheirloss. Moreover, she had become as much a daughter of the Earl and Countess Diamond as the other four females were by blood. Alice was entirely comfortable going to her mother-in-law or sisters-in-law with any questions, even of the most personal nature or anything to do with child-rearing.
And the two younger sisters behaved as loving, practiced nannies to their nephew, making it easy for her and Adam to have time alone occasionally.
She couldn’t imagine her life being any richer.
“Do not wish a minute of our boy’s life away,” she said. “Nor try to hurry him along. I adore Will at this age.” Their son was on his back, looking up into the tree branches like his father, while kicking his legs and stretching up his still-pudgy arms as if preparing to pick the apples that would appear in another few months.
“I was only speaking in jest,” Adam said. “Besides, I can strap him securely to a horse tomorrow.”
“Adam!” she warned.
He laughed, and she joined in. Life was ridiculously grand.
She’d been thrilled to know she could have children, even happier to continue making love to her husband, often and soundly in order to bring their young son a brother or a sister. Adam wanted a large family, and Alice was pleased to oblige for she could think of nothing more worthy for her to do than make more Diamonds. And hopefully, at least one would take up the violin, for she would dearly love to play a duet with her own child.
When she considered where she had been not that long ago, her present life seemed truly astonishing. She’d been given a Diamond which, as she’d once told Adam, was far more precious than the Koh-i-Noor given to the Queen.
Adam enjoyed teasinghis wife, although he did intend to at least mount up and have William on his lap. Not today, nor tomorrow, but soon. It wouldn’t hurt the boy to become used to sitting in a saddle.
Regardless, they couldn’t hold back the wheels of time. Nor did Adam want to. As they turned, so did their lives become increasingly improved. Alice thought she was the one who’d been blessed by the many miracles that had changed her life — from hiding out as a governess to being Lady Diamond, a wife, mother, and sister.
