Epilogue

EPILOGUE

HUNSTANTON, NORFOLK, 1801

" U nbreakable." Jack smiled with satisfaction as he rapped his knuckles against the brick he held up for display. "Stands up to rain, frost, thunder, heat. We tested them all last summer and winter, and not a warp, not a fracture, not a bit of swelling. Sound as can be."

"Strong as a brick," Lady Plume said dryly. "How fascinating." She looked around the churchyard. "Where is that baby?"

Jack managed a smile, acknowledging that he had not impressed his great aunt. "Leda took him for a feed before the ceremony. It won't take long. He's a fast eater."

His aunt sniffed and rearranged the cape covering her shoulders. She sat, uncaring of the disrespect, on the headstone erected to an excise man slain in a skirmish with a smuggler more than a decade ago. The September air still held the summer's warmth, and clouds trailed like powder through the sky.

Jack scanned the churchyard for the sight of Leda. Just the thought of his wife brought him joy. So did the thought that his aunt had traveled all the way from Bath, though she hated travel, to be at St. Mary's for the babe's baptism. She had only remarked a dozen times on the oddness of the circumstance, that Jack should wait a whole two months for his child to be baptized, with Leda already churched, and furthermore to make a family party of it. His aunt had also remarked more than a dozen times that it was not the done thing for a baron's wife to nurse her own infant like a nanny goat.

"Here she is now." Leda came from the church porch, where she'd stepped for a bit of privacy, and his heart swelled at the sight of her. She wore a red satin robe over her shift, the bodice cut low to accommodate the demands of the baby, and a small lace veil drifted from the back of her head, crowned with flowers. She looked the very image of Madonna and child, cradling a puff of white lace and muslin in her arms. One of these days his heart would burst from the knowledge that this woman was his wife and he could have her always.

If he did not drive her away. He scanned her face, the old fear breathing on the back of his neck. She came to Lady Plume and held out her bundle so that her ladyship, who did not dandle babies, could complete her inspection. The baby lay with lips slightly puckered after his meal, one small fist pressed to his cheek. The dark hair tufting his head at birth had not fallen out but rather filled in, Leda's hair, but his blue eyes were lightening, and Jack suspected they would be gray.

Leda's eyes reflected the blue of the sky about her head, and while her smile was sleepy, due to interruptions at night, her aspect was calm contentment. She had not fallen into melancholy before the babe's birth or after. From what he understood, she had been as efficient and pragmatic about that experience as she was everything else. She had decided it was more practical to feed Jay herself, rather than arranging a wet nurse, and she carried him about wrapped to her like a peasant woman in the fields, when he was not in the hands of a doting servant or his admiring sisters.

Leda had joyed in every moment of her pregnancy, or most of them, quite astonished it had happened to her at all. He didn't see any signs of desperation or despair. On the whole she seemed quite pleased with the addition to their family, and satisfied that Jack now had an heir, which validated his position considerably. He was, less and less in the neighborhood, the upstart shoemaker's son who seized a set of peer's robes for himself. He was the lord of the carrstone hall perched upon the sea, with the clever wife and the handful of daughters. He was the progenitor of an heir to his empire.

"Did you see they used your bricks to repair the wall?" Leda gestured to the low barrier separating the church yard from the lane beyond and the pond, where the swans floated like notes of music on the water. Leda, thinking ahead as always, had brought day-old bread so the girls could feed the birds, and their daughters clustered near the wall in their white gowns and fresh tuckers like a bunch of meadow saxifrage in bloom.

His daughters. And now he had a son. And a wife who ran his house and their social circle, who took an interest in his brickworks, who presided over his table and was a source of endless pleasure in his bed. Sometimes Jack feared to look too hard at them, as if the transformation were a fairy spell and might dissolve if he breathed a harsh word.

"You named him John, of course." Lady Plume laid her hands atop one another on her walking stick, which she still pretended was an ornamental accessory rather than a necessity.

"Yes. We call him Little J for now, or just Jay," Leda answered, smiling at her son.

"And you'll have more, I imagine."

"We shall see what heaven sends us. I did not expect this one, frankly."

"Queen Charlotte gave birth to fifteen, and I don't see why you should aspire to anything less." Lady Plume, who would have nothing to do with the plain new fashions, fanned out her ornamented skirts. "Jack, is that your mother at last? She does like to make a spectacle of herself."

With surprise, Jack watched the carriage approaching. A line of coaches, actually. They had sent invitations, but he'd not heard a response.

"Jack! Yoo hoo! We made it, finally, though I didn't think we'd survive those ghastly ruts from Fakenham. Do you not believe in turnpikes in this outpost of the world?"

His sister waved at him from the window of the lead coach, which slowed to a stop on the gravel drive. Henry stepped forward to take the ribbons, but then looked in alarm at the several coaches behind, a parade of grandness the likes of which Hunstanton had not seen since the baron's marriage.

"They all came," Jack said in wonder as coaches began to dispense their contents. He glanced at his wife. "Did you know about this?"

Leda stared also, hitching the baby close to her chest. "Susan said she wanted to surprise you. Who are these others?"

His chest tightened as Jack realized that, while only his mother and sister had attended their quiet wedding last summer, the entire Burnham family had come in state for the christening of the heir. His sister, visibly pregnant, was helped down by her husband, who handled her as if she were a delicate fall bloom. Behind Susan came their mother, then his father's sister, now widowed, with her two sons, whom she always said should have gotten the barony. From the coach behind a troop of children poured out, his three nephews making a beeline for the water, their baby sister toddling behind with her nurse.

"Another one?" Lady Plume lifted her brows, regarding Susan's swelling middle.

"Yes, well, when Leda wrote that Jack was producing number four, I thought I must stay ahead of him." Susan came to Leda first and hugged her, then tugged back a fold of lace to stare at the baby. "Oh, dear, that's going to be the Burnham jaw. I fear it's the family curse."

"I adore that jaw." Leda glanced at Jack, her eyes merry.

"It's very telling, isn't it? You always know when you've provoked him. Hello, Jack." Susan moved to kiss him on both cheeks. "Well done. You've done very well for yourself."

"Everyone came?" Jack stared in disbelief as he watched the others assemble.

His Aunt Dinah had brought her friend, linking her arm with a lady her age with the same proprietary gentleness Susan's husband showed her. He saw the families of his other three aunts, the daughters whose families had been skipped over after his great-uncle died, due to the crime of being female. He had not received cards from any of them when he took up residence in Holme Hall or married Anne-Marie. He had over the past year received cards from all of them, congratulating him on his marriage to Leda, but he'd thought that only a hint of thaw, not a capitulation. Yet here they were.

Jack turned to his great-aunt, who regarded the growing mass of plumed hats, embroidered skirts, and noisy people with a look of satisfaction, but a betraying sheen in her eye. "You did this," he guessed.

"Did what? I wrote some letters. I might have suggested it is time the Burnhams show some solidarity, especially if they'd like to have some influence over the new government. It is certainly not your fault Seymour chose to never marry and cloud the family name with debt and disgrace."

"I'm the black sheep," Jack said. "The mad baron."

"The brick baron, now," Lady Plume said briskly, "and don't think every one of them won't be looking for a share of the profits, now that you are making a name for yourself. Give me the child so they must come to me to admire it."

Leda gave her old friend the infant, but remained nearby for swift extraction should the need arise. Jack stood with her, taking the moment to compose himself before he met the family who had once shunned him.

"You are gracious," Leda murmured to him. "You are the lord here, and this is your manor. You dispense favors to secure their loyalty. You are benevolent and wise."

He didn't feel wise, but he appreciated that she guessed his thoughts, as usual. He glanced down at her, letting his gaze linger on the soft curve of her neck where tiny curls fluttered. How he adored that firm curve of her jaw, those lips so often turned in a smile. Those changeable eyes that took in everything, and reflected adoration back at him.

As if he were worthy of all this. As if he deserved any shred of it.

"All this because I finally learned to make bricks?"

"The best bricks," Leda confirmed. "I may have mentioned, in my letters, how very much in demand your bricks are. And not just Norwich and King's Lynn. The Cathedral at Ely is using your bricks. Cambridge University is using your bricks. You have builders in London calling you up to build houses for dukes and seats for bishops."

"Then Aunt Plume is no doubt right, and they're hoping to rise by my seeming success. Surprising how growing profits can cover up the stink of trade."

All he cared was that he could keep a roof over the heads of the people he loved and, now, support a growing family. But it did lend satisfaction to know he'd succeeded in the work he'd apprenticed to all those years ago, in another life. As soon as Jay could travel, Jack would take them to Norwich to show them where the family bricks were being used to build grand things. Monuments that would last as long as the ruins of St. Edmund's chapel, or the bridge over the Avon where he had once thought of kissing Leda Wroth on a spring day not so long ago.

"We must take the children to Norwich when your next niece or nephew is born," Leda murmured, watching the crowds mill around Lady Plume, returning greetings with smiles and nods. "You can show us where you grew up. Where the brick baron had his beginnings."

He smiled, no longer astonished that she practically read his thoughts. It was very efficient, especially when she could read a lascivious thought from across the parlor and excused herself early to bed. On those nights Grace would gather the girls, who sat with them evenings when they weren't out or entertaining, and take them up to the nursery where her own little babe lay in cradle, unaware how his clever mother had procured much finer lodgings for him than an inn in Swindon, and much lighter work for herself.

The Burnham girls, finished with their bread and establishing hierarchies with the newcomers, drifted by with their new flocks of cousins.

"Is Nanette baptized?" Leda asked out of the blue.

Jack felt the old punch of alarm that had once attended him so often. Though much diminished, Anne-Marie was still haunting him, it seemed.

"I am very sorry to say I do not believe her birth is recorded. Anne-Marie did not want to pretend she was mine so simply decided to hide her upstairs."

"And what about Ellinore?"

"I am not sure of that either."

Leda called the girls over and had a quick discussion with them. She bent to put her face close to Nanette's.

"Do you want to be baptized with Baby J? The vicar will put a dot of oil on your head, here," Leda touched her. "It will tell everyone that you are God's child, and he is watching over you. Then the priest will write your name in a book, along with those of your parents."

"Me," Nanette said somberly, nodding in agreement. She still declined to speak much, but Leda was studying ways to work with those of little hearing, and they were making progress.

"And you, Nora? Were you baptized, you suppose?"

Ellinore shrugged. "I might take a splash if he's giving it out. If you are sure you want my parents known." Her eyes sparkled at the thought of being the center of attention. Jack knew Leda could not bear to part with the girl quite yet, but she'd said the other day it was growing time to send Ellinore to school. Leda knew just the place, back in Bath, and Jack was content to trust her judgment.

"I am sure I could bear the weight of one more scandal," Jack said. "It will be a ripple on the Wash compared to the tidal waves before."

"But who will you put for Nanette's parents?" Muriel asks anxiously.

Leda glanced at Jack. "The same, dear. Baptism is a sacrament. It is best, I think, to be truthful in the eyes of God."

"Then you won't put you? But you are our belle-mère now."

"Belle," Nanette said fondly, stroking the silk of Leda's skirt.

Leda had hit on using the French term when the girls wondered what to call her, and Jack thought it a fine solution. Leda crouched to be level with Muriel, whose doll had also gotten a new dress for the occasion, the lace stitched by Muriel herself. Leda had made sure Jack noticed and admired.

"I have the great privilege of looking out for you, Muriel," Leda said. "But I am not, and will never replace, the mother who gave birth to you. We will respect her name, and her life, by putting the proper names on the register. Alright, me kiddie?"

"But you will put Papa's and your names on the paper for Jay Jay," Muriel said, glancing anxiously at her father.

"Yes, because I have the honor of being his mother by blood, which is almost as good as being your belle-mère ."

"Producing the son and heir? Given the crowd of folk here, thas quite an accomplishment, that is," Ellinore said with amusement. "Greater jollificearshuns here than the harvest fair in Snettisham."

"No speaking Norfolk in the church, dear. Proper English."

Muriel fastened her doll to her chest and regarded Leda solemnly. "I don't mind, you know," she said, her tone anxious still.

"Mind what, dear?" Leda murmured, half an eye on Aunt Plume, who was doling out views of Baby Jay as if he were peeks at the Crown jewels.

"That you are my belle-mère . I am very glad Papa persuaded you to marry him."

Leda looked at her and smiled, that beautiful, all-encompassing smile that made Jack feel, every time, as if the sun had slipped out from a cloud. "I am glad to hear that, sweetling."

Muriel slipped her hand into Jack's, and a lump closed his throat. She hadn't done that since before her mother died.

He felt the last brick in the wall between him and his daughter give way.

"Glad you approve, Mere," he said gruffly.

"She's all right," Muriel conceded. "Much better than a grumpy governess."

Jack merely nodded. Leda was the sun and moon and all the lesser stars, the entire firmament of his life. He almost feared it, how much he loved and needed her. He had never thought he would find what Susan had with her architect, that kind of open love, riddled with laughter. Nor yet the quiet communion between his aunt Dinah and her companion, a secret they kept from the world.

Yet this. This churchyard full of colorful people, chatting and milling and waiting impatiently for the vicar to finish his preparations. This had all come to him because of the woman at his side.

Muriel drifted away to play with the others, and Jack stood for a moment alone in the crowd with Leda. He slid his fingers through hers.

She glanced at him, reading the emotion in his face, and squeezed his hand lightly.

"For me as well, you know," she murmured.

"Impossible." He could not have brought her nearly as much as she did him.

She shook her head lightly. "Ask your aunt. I had my room in her garret, and I had her company, and it was more than what I'd had in the madhouse, and more freedom than I'd had before. I never guessed…never dreamed …" Her words trailed off.

"Missus," said a new voice. "I hear you're to be congratulated."

Jack looked around and saw the peddler he'd seen Leda speaking to in Snettisham. For a moment his heart seized, then relaxed. It wasn't his rival, the man Anne-Marie had loved instead of him. Silver threaded the man's hair, and a red scarf knotted at his neck kept the dust of the road from his face.

"Her ladyship now," Jack said, though not in reprimand.

The man nodded. "It is good, the chavo. The child. Extending the family. It is good."

"They are well," Leda said to the man as he leaned on the wall, watching the crowd of people. "The girls. Did—did Bohamos know of them?"

The man blinked and looked at her, taken aback. "That is his Roma name."

"Anne-Marie called him that, in her diary," Leda said. "What is—was—his, er, English name?"

"John."

Jack suppressed a groan. Of course.

"Did he know of them?" Leda asked again. "Did he ever wonder?"

"He wondered." The peddler glanced at Jack. "But he could not give them the red string. That is how a father acknowledges a child, in our clan. It was not permitted."

"His wife? Does he—have other children?"

"They are well also."

Leda nodded. "May they so remain."

The man focused on Jack, his dark eyes wary. "I brought something."

Jack stiffened. "This is not the time, but if you come to the house, my lady?—"

"She gave this to him." He withdrew a small pouch of lace tied with a ribbon.

Jack's hands were too numb to lift them. Leda took the pouch and delicately unwrapped it, then showed him the contents.

A thick lock of hair, growing brittle with passing time but still the hue of ripe wheat, lay curled like vegetable peelings in her palm, catching the light of the overhead sun.

"She gave him her hair?" Jack swallowed.

She'd never given Jack a lock of her hair. She'd never given him any keepsakes, come to think of it. And he'd not thought to cut locks from the remains of her when she was brought up, broken, from the beach. He'd kept scraps of her clothing, some bits of jewelry for Muriel, whatever Anne-Marie's mother had not taken when she came for her things.

Leda touched the golden strands with a fingertip. "I'll braid these into a brooch for the girls," she said. "One for each of them. Thank you."

She tied the pouch and slipped it into her pocket. "You are welcome to join us in the church, if you wish. Or come to the hall after. Mrs. Leech has been cooking for days."

He nodded in acknowledgement. "I'm for Holme-next-the-Sea, but I'll knock on your door on returning, should you need any pins or baubles."

He moved away as the vicar opened the church door, and people started streaming in. Lady Plume handed the baby back to Leda, who rearranged the swaddling and touched the tiny cheek. He had slept through everything.

"She truly loved him, didn't she?" Jack said as he and Leda stood another moment alone, watching his family assemble—hers too, now—and the crowd poured through the church doors. Something long knotted about his heart eased, the final tangle cut clean through.

Leda, guessing his thoughts again, met his eyes. She nodded. "The kind of love the poets write of, I think. Juliet for her Romeo, and all that."

"I would never have won her," Jack realized. "I never even came close. Nothing I could have done would have made her content to settle for me."

Leda squeezed his hand and brought it briefly to her cheek. Her skin was smooth as whipped cream and the smell of her steadied him. She added almond extract to her toilet water. He knew her secrets, now.

"I pity Anne-Marie. That poor dear. Her melancholy, her despair overcame her. She couldn't fight it. But Jack…" She hesitated. "I would wish nothing otherwise. Because she left you for me ."

He studied her face. Her eyes had gone violet, deep and pure and clear, the shade of the night sky just turning to dawn. "I didn't drive her to her death." He felt a great load shift to finally say it.

She leaned her cheek into his palm, shaking her head. "You did not."

"And you're not going to leave me."

"Never."

He believed her. He would not drive her away. He would have Leda in his life, could depend on that as he could depend on the sun rising over the North Sea and setting on the Wash, the only place in England one could see the sun rise and set on the water. This woman loved him with her whole heart. He felt the depth, the steadfastness of it, of her. She had made a promise and she would keep it unto death. And she would not hasten her death, either, because she wanted to spend every moment she could with him. Like this.

He leaned down and lightly kissed her forehead, then that of their child's. This gift she had brought him, the crowning triumph of his world made right.

"Then all the ghosts are laid to rest at last," he said, and she smiled.