Epilogue
Three years later, September 1822
Worthington Abbey, Essex
Screams of bloody murder filled the gardens at Worthington Abbey, making every last hair on Brandt’s body stand on end. Good Lord, half a dozen children could make a bloody racket. The Duke of Bradburne’s estate grounds had been awash with chaos the last week, ever since the house party had gotten under way. Five days, to be exact. Five long, strained days. Brandt sat back in his chair in the gardens and rubbed his temple, a snifter of whiskey gripped in his other hand as he caught sight of his son, Rabbie, and the Bradburne heir, Brandon—Brandt’s godson and namesake—toddling along on matching chubby legs while being chased by their hapless nannies.
It wasn’t that he was not overjoyed to be in Essex again. It was only his second time returning to his childhood home since he’d become the Montgomery laird and Duke of Glenross. The first had been to arrange for the transfer of his stables. Lockie, as he’d imagined, had made a fine addition, taking well to Rosefire, the mare he’d had in mind for breeding. He and Sorcha were well on their way with a third foal…a colt who had the makings of a champion.
His precious horses aside, he’d also had much to oversee the last few years in the Highlands, helping to turn the settlements and farms Rodric had long neglected into profitable livelihoods again and earning the respect and trust of his clansmen. Despite his true Scottish roots, he was still a Sassenach to many—mostly because of his clipped English accent—but he hadn’t made an enemy yet, and Sorcha assured him it would take only another decade or two before they started to admit they liked him.
It also wasn’t as though Briannon’s guest list had been filled with names he did not recognize. No, this wasn’t like the ostentatious ton house parties that the old Duke of Bradburne had been accustomed to holding when Brandt and Archer were lads. This was a reunion, with he and Sorcha, along with the Viscount and Viscountess Northridge, and the Earl and Countess Langlevit all in attendance for the next fortnight. People Brandt truly liked and cared for, and not one of them someone with whom Brandt felt the need to make hollow, pleasant talk.
His discomfort over the last five days had nothing at all to do with his surroundings and everything to do with his wife.
From his seat, he watched Sorcha and Lana, Lady Northridge, strolling through the arbor, one of his wife’s hands pressed against the curve of her lower back while another pushed a pram. Lana guided a second pram as they walked an idle pace. The cut of the dress Sorcha wore attempted to conceal the swell of her stomach, but the heavy afternoon breezes were not only rustling the rose shrubs and shaking the trellis, they were also gusting against the yellow fabric, shaping it around the full expanse of her rounded, very pregnant abdomen.
The doctor in Montgomery had been certain by his count that the babe would not come for another month or two at least, and so Sorcha had insisted on attending the reunion to celebrate the Duke of Bradburne’s birthday. Briannon had been planning it for so long, she’d argued, and who knew the next time all of them would be able to converge at the same time? He’d relented, unable to deny his lovely wife anything she wanted so desperately that she’d promise not to sit a horse or lift a bow or tax herself in any way.
But they had barely arrived in Essex when Brandt saw the faint frown etching her brow, and the heavy, shadowed look in her eyes. It had been a little over two years since she’d last entered labor, hours later delivering a dark-haired, hazel-eyed boy that Brandt had instantly fallen head over heels in love with. They’d named him Robert William—Rabbie for short—after both grandfathers, and since then he and Sorcha’s lives had revolved around him. But two years had not been long enough for Brandt to forget the way his wife had looked a day before she’d gripped her stomach and announced it was time. The frown etching her brow, the shadowed look in her eyes.
And now five days had passed, and every day she grew more reserved. Quieter.
“Just keep drinking,” came the advice of the earl sitting beside him. Langlevit smirked into his own snifter of whiskey. “I was in your very shoes months ago.”
Considering the earl’s twin sons—John and Gregory—currently nestled inside the prams Lana and Sorcha were pushing, were six months old, Brandt figured his concern was as transparent as water.
Langlevit’s wife, Irina—enjoying a well-needed respite in the chair beside her husband as her sister, Lana, took her nephews for a quick turn about the garden—chucked the earl lightly on the arm. “Nonsense, Henry. Lady Glenross will have an easy time of it when her babe decides to arrive. Don’t worry His Grace unnecessarily.”
The countess’s labor had been long and difficult, Brandt knew, and from what Sorcha had imparted in whispered confidence just the other night, Langlevit had admitted to Irina that he’d been afraid he’d lose her. But she had come through, and their infants had been hale and hearty. Though Brandt thought he saw a remnant of worry ghost across the earl’s eyes as he gazed at his wife.
Birthing was no easy or assured thing. Healthy in body and mind, Sorcha had done well with Rabbie, and Brandt couldn’t stand to consider any alternative with this second babe. Still, she looked exhausted. And ready. But it wasn’t time…and that was what scared him most of all. Because if the babe came early, it portended complications. Foretelling due dates wasn’t an exact science. Even Rabbie had come a few weeks after he’d been due, which had been another of Sorcha’s arguments to travel to Essex.
“I wonder only if we should have stayed put in Montgomery with her being so close to her time,” Brandt replied as a new burst of screeches erupted from the dogwood trees directly behind him.
“Your wife is healthy,” Gray, Viscount Northridge, said, catching his soft comment as he resumed his seat across from them and reached for his refilled snifter. He’d disappeared a quarter of an hour earlier to check on his youngest, eight-month-old Thomas, who was sleeping inside while his wife walked with Sorcha and the Radcliffe twins. Gray was followed by Archer and Briannon. “And the fresh air and walking will do her good.”
Langlevit snorted. “Is that your professional opinion, Doctor North?”
North was Gray’s nickname, just as Archer was known to his friends as Hawk, courtesy of one of his lesser titles, the Marquess of Hawksfield.
Gray grinned. “With four children of my own, I’m clearly the most virile of you lot, so yes, it is indeed my expert opinion.”
His sister Briannon’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline. “Gray! Such talk is entirely inappropriate. What will the servants think?”
“What they’ve always thought, Brynn dear,” he replied with a long draught from his glass. “That we’re shocking ton.”
“Speak for yourself,” Archer put in, sitting with a relaxed sigh and stretching his legs out in front of him. “I am the epitome of blue-blooded English decorum.”
Brandt couldn’t suppress his snort.
Archer had disdained those aristocratic roots of his…until Briannon. Each of the men here, in fact, had been changed in some integral way by the women they’d married. And Sorcha. God, she had changed him the most of all. He’d been rootless, wandering, and adrift in his own head until she had grounded him. Tethered him. He’d found peace because of her…peace in who he was as a son, father, brother, husband. He glanced at Archer, his oldest mate. Brandt had even become a worthier friend for it.
In a word, Sorcha made him better.
He was torn from his thoughts by a volley of delighted squealing as Rabbie and Brandon ran at full tilt toward the table looking for sweets left over from the afternoon tea they’d all enjoyed in the garden.
“Papa,” his son squealed and climbed up into his lap. “Pòg.”
Brandt smiled at the demand for a kiss. Catriona had been teaching him Gaelic and the boy was a quick study. Brandt looked into eyes that were mirrors of his own and kissed his son’s pudgy, dirt-smudged cheek with a loud smack, making Rabbie giggle. The young English nanny hovered, clearly rattled that her young charge had disturbed the adults, which was frowned upon in most aristocratic households. Brandt did not mind. In Scotland, Rabbie had the run of the keep and drove his doting grandmother, along with everyone else, to madness with his antics.
“Getting into trouble, are we, lad?” he said. “Best we listen, aye?”
“I ken, Papa,” Rabbie said.
Brandt would never get used to the feeling of wonder that overtook him whenever he looked at the miracle that he and Sorcha had created. Rabbie yawned and rubbed his eyes, clearly in need of an afternoon rest after all the excitement. Brandt kissed him again before handing him off to the waiting nanny.
“It’s time for your nap, too,” Briannon said to Brandon who had immediately gone to his mother. She kissed him, watching as the nannies took them back to the manse. “They grow up so fast,” she murmured. “Don’t they?” The duchess’s hand fluttered over her midriff and a secret smile crossed her face, one that Brandt was not the only one to notice.
“Brynn,” Irina shrieked, her mouth falling open. “You’re not…”
Briannon nodded, blushing, her hands grasping her husband’s. “Yes, though not very far along.”
“What wonderful news,” Langlevit said and lifted his glass. “Congratulations, both.”
Gray smirked at his sister’s announcement. “See? The Findlays are virile. Fertile, I mean.” He laughed, narrowly escaping one of Brandon’s wooden soldiers that Briannon launched at his head. “It seems that more celebrations are in order!” Grinning at Archer, he clapped his brother-in-law on the back. “If you need any advice, Hawk, on how not to lose your sanity with four children, you know where to find me.”
As if on cue, Gray and Lana’s nearly four-year-old son, Oliver, and his two-and-a-half-year-old sister, Kate, darted in front of the group, each of them screaming and laughing. A moment later, the reason why came roaring out of the dogwoods behind them. Their older sister, Sofia, now eight, had donned one of the masks her cousins had brought down from the Worthington Abbey attics in order to act out a play during tea that afternoon. The hairy beast mask was a ghoulish-looking thing, and she was clearly enjoying scaring the wits out of her younger siblings. Archer and Briannon’s daughters, Clara and Philippa, nearing four and five, followed on her heels, clearly frightened but determined to imitate their daring older cousin.
“Come now, girls, take pity on the young ones,” Briannon called out.
“Sofia!” Lana called from where she and Sorcha had stopped strolling. “You’ll give them nightmares for a week!”
“Have you heard the news?” Irina asked excitedly as her sister approached to hand over the sleeping twins to the unobtrusively waiting maids. She went to check on the babies, cooing over them gently. “Brynn’s expecting.”
“How lovely,” Lana said, taking Sorcha’s arm to help her into the chair beside Brandt.
“Lovely news indeed,” Sorcha said with a slightly discomfited smile. “Though I wish for the sake of all mothers that pregnancy was less…everything.”
The women laughed and nodded. Brandt wouldn’t know. He didn’t think he, or any man for that matter, had the strength to withstand such an ordeal. Archer, North, and Langlevit seemed to be of the same opinion as well. Anyone who said that women were the weaker sex was sadly misinformed.
“Less long, less painful, less swollen,” Irina said.
“Less hungry,” Lana added. “Less thirsty.”
Briannon grinned. “Less grumpy, less messy.”
Brandt leaned over to stroke his wife’s hand, threading her fingers through his. Tired blue eyes met his, and, though a reassuring smile touched her lips, he saw a quick spark of pain. Her teeth sunk into her lower lip as her hand gripped his with terrible force.
“Oh,” Sorcha breathed, her eyes going wide. Her expression alternated between agony and mortification. “Speaking of less messy,” she whispered, “it seems the latest Montgomery has decided to make an appearance.”
Everyone jumped into motion at once, and a flurry of servants appeared at Briannon’s decidedly unladylike shout. Discussion broke out as to the best way to get Sorcha back to the abbey and whether she should remain in the chair. Someone else gave an order in an authoritative voice to fetch Dr. Hargrove, the longtime physician who had already been summoned to Worthington Abbey by the duke in advance of their arrival as a precaution. He had delivered nearly all of the children in residence, with the exception of Sofia.
“But it’s not time,” Brandt heard someone say, and realized that it was his own baffled voice.
“Time or not, Your Grace,” Irina told him, her violet eyes sparkling, “your bairn—that is the proper Scottish term, is it not?—is coming. Now are you going to sit there all day or get up and do something?”
Brandt snapped out of his shock and stood. He leaned over and scooped his pale wife into his arms. He met the shocked gazes of the servants who had been about to lift the chair and the impressed stares of the other men. “I’m stronger than I look.”
Even fully pregnant, Sorcha weighed nothing in his arms. He would walk to the ends of the earth this way if he had to. By the time they reached the house, an airy room on the first floor had already been prepared. He deposited her into the wide bed, kissed her clammy forehead, and was instantly shooed from the room.
Bewildered, he stopped a rumpled-looking Dr. Hargrove on his way into the suite. “It’s too early, isn’t it? For the babe to come?”
“It will be fine, Your Grace,” the doctor said, but Brandt thought he detected an odd note of worry in his voice.
Brandt clutched the man’s arm, his nostrils flaring. “Don’t let…please, don’t let…” He trailed off, the awful words clogging his throat. There was no way he could articulate his fears. No way he wanted to. But the onset of Sorcha’s labor was way too early. “Please do whatever you can,” he finally said in a hoarse whisper.
Dr. Hargrove nodded. “Of course.”
Brandt sank to his knees on the plush rug and remained there long after the door closed. After a while, he felt strong hands helping him up and leading him down the corridor to a study. Archer’s study. A glass was placed into his hand, his body pushed into a chair. He sipped through the unnatural lethargy that had taken hold of his limbs. Felt the burn of whiskey sear a path to his roiling stomach.
“She’s in good hands, Brandt.” Archer’s voice, he registered dimly.
“The best,” Langlevit agreed.
“It’s too early,” Brandt whispered, staring into his drink for answers that weren’t there. He set the glass on the table. “I have to be with her.”
A firm but gentle hand rested on his shoulder. “Sit.”
Brandt looked up into the eyes of his most trusted friend. A friend who he wouldn’t hesitate to smash to bits if he kept restraining him.
“You won’t do anyone any good going in there,” Archer said. “She’ll be in labor a while yet.”
Brandt shook his head. Rabbie had come right away once the pains had started. Chances were this one would as well…if there were no complications. His heart lurched. “She’s my wife.” He swallowed convulsively, his eyes stinging. “You don’t understand, I can’t lose her.”
The hand on his shoulder squeezed. “I do understand. We all do. We’ve all been there. She’ll come through it, Brandt, she and your babe. I had every confidence in Dr. Hargrove with Brynn and her weak lungs through three deliveries. He delivered Langlevit’s twins and most of North’s brood. He is the best doctor in England, do you understand? Nod if you do.”
With a shuddering breath, Brandt nodded.
Archer released him, but pulled an armchair close and sat. “Now drink up and tell me about your sister Aisla’s wedding.”
Brandt blinked, his desperate mind grasping at the suggestion with the ferocity of a starving pauper given a crust of bread.
Aisla had recently married Sorcha’s youngest brother Niall. The two eighteen-year-olds had eloped. Though the pair had clearly been interested in each other over the last handful of years, the union had come as a surprise. Mostly due to Aisla becoming pregnant out of wedlock. Niall had escaped from being thrashed to within an inch of his worthless life by Sorcha, who had also been four months pregnant at the time. And then Niall had disappeared, taking Aisla with him. They’d gone to Inverness whereupon they’d gotten married.
And all hell had broken loose.
Especially after the rushed nuptials that no family member on either side had witnessed. Both his and Sorcha’s mother had been devastated to learn of the wedding after the fact. Niall had copped a well-deserved thrashing off his own older brother, Ronan, for getting Aisla with child in the first place. And Aisla had not escaped scot-free. The tongue-lashing she’d received from Catriona had echoed all over the Highlands and would be remembered for years. A proper wedding celebration had been planned at Maclaren on Brandt and Sorcha’s way back to Montgomery from this visit to Essex.
By the time Brandt had finished recounting that tale, plus a few more about Sorcha’s brothers and his own half brothers, Callan and Patrick, his mind had calmed somewhat. To his surprise, more than a couple hours had passed. And he felt pleasantly numb. Though he suspected that that had to do with the bottomless glass of whiskey resting in his fingers.
“Aisla is headstrong,” he said, swirling the amber liquid. “But she’ll make a good mother. And Niall will make her a good husband if he can get his head out of his arse.” He sat back and chuckled. “I don’t remember any of us being so stupid at his age.”
Archer laughed. “You have a selective memory.”
They were all laughing when a knock came at the open door. Brandt leaped to his feet. “Beggin’ yer pardon, milords,” a maid said with a curtsy. “But Dr. Hargrove sent me to summon the duke.”
“Which one?” North joked, but Brandt was already off and running.
Brandt took the fact that the maid was smiling as a good sign, but he still ran pell-mell down the hallway. He pushed open the door and stood on the threshold. His glorious, beautiful warrior of a wife sat propped against a mound of pillows in the bed. The room had been cleared to give them some privacy. Sorcha’s face was glowing, and she held a small bundle in her arms.
“Come meet your wee daughter, leannan,” she told him.
His heart exploded in his chest when he approached and kissed his wife. A daughter. A tuft of bronze hair covered her crown, and her face was perfect, though she was indeed wee. He frowned. “Is she supposed to be that small?”
“For her claymore, yes,” his wife said with a smile. “But she’ll grow. Would you like to hold her?”
Sitting beside her on the edge of the bed, he took his daughter gingerly, her fragile body tiny in his big palms. Her eyes fluttered open, and they were a brilliant blue…just like her mother’s. She studied him so alertly, so fiercely, that Brandt couldn’t breathe. A laugh bubbled up in his throat. He shouldn’t be so shocked—after all, warrior goddesses gave birth to only miniature warrior goddesses. She settled in his arms as if determining him to be of no threat she couldn’t handle and went back to sleep.
A shriek cut through the moment as Rabbie burst into the room like a whirlwind. “Piuthar,” he shouted. “Papa, piuthar.”
Brandt smiled at the Gaelic for “sister” Catriona must have taught him. “Aye, mo gràidh, your sister has arrived.”
Rabbie climbed up onto the bed and snuggled into Sorcha’s side, his hazel eyes wide at the infant cradled in his father’s arms. Brandt felt his wife’s hand fall upon his arm. He glanced at her holding his son, so much happiness brimming in her beautiful blue eyes that it made him speechless. Brandt felt full. He was surrounded by love and laughter, and so much hope for the future. He had no words, only action. He leaned over to take Sorcha’s lips in an achingly tender kiss.
“Pòg, pòg,” Rabbie chanted, leaning in to plant his own wet kisses on their cheeks. Laughing, Brandt nuzzled Rabbie’s neck to his son’s chortling delight, and his heart swelled impossibly as his son placed the gentlest of kisses on his baby sister’s head. Brandt gathered his family close, kissing both his children, and then his wife again, slowly, sweetly. He had an endless supply of pògan, it seemed, enough to last for forever.
“I adore you, my fierce Highland lass,” he whispered.
Sorcha grinned. “Not as much as I adore you, my handsome, stalwart Scot.”
Did you love this book from Entangled’s Amara imprint? Check out more of our titles !
Don’t miss Amalie Howard and Angie Morgan’s next book! Sign up for our newsletter !