Epilogue
“You are solely to blame for being in this situation, Plum.”
“Push, madam.”
“Oh! I am not! What a thing to say to me!”
“The blame lies completely on your head,” Harry said, scowling down at her. “I declaim all responsibility. You insisted, if you recall. I said no, I won’t risk your health, but you insisted.”
“And another one, madam.”
“Ha! I like that! I never insisted, and you are responsible. If your seed was so potent that it could impregnate me after just a few incidences of spillage, it’s most certainly your fault, not mine.”
“Perhaps you might put a bit more effort into the next push?” the gentleman lurking at the end of the bed asked her.
“I’m trying,” Plum snarled to the physician. She had a difficult time seeing him because of the bedclothes heaped on her massive belly. She struggled to sit up so she could give the man a really good glare, a quality glare, one that he would remember for the rest of his life. Harry, supporting her from behind, immediately came to her assistance, adjusting himself so that she could lean against his chest and level her glare at the physician. “It’s not easy, you know!”
“I am aware of that fact, Lady Rosse. I am also aware that the babe’s head is about to crown, and in order for it to do so, you need to push. Now, if you have gathered your strength, I believe another contraction is coming. Please oblige me by pushing at the peak.”
“No one ever told me about this,” Plum gasped, her gasp turning to a shriek as she bore down. Behind her, Harry murmured soft words of love and encouragement as she struggled to keep from shredding the skin on the arms he wrapped around her in support. She thought she was going to be sick from the pain, or swoon, or start shrieking and never be able to stop, but just as the pain grew so great she knew she was going to die from it, she pushed again, bearing down with every last bit of strength she had to rid her body of the invader, as she had taken to thinking of it. She pushed and pushed and pushed until there was nothing but a red well of allconsuming pain.
“Excellent, madam. A fine job. You may relax for a moment.” The physician turned to his assistant and asked for a cloth.
Plum collapsed backwards against Harry, her body aching and still screaming with the echoes of agony. “No one told me about the pain,” she gasped, “not the real pain, not what it really feels like, not Delia, not Old Mag, none of the ladies ever told me it was going to be so very bad. All they talked about was the joy of holding their baby in their arms, but did anyone think to tell me that there would be so much pain involved? No, they did not. I am going to have a few words with them, on that you can—”
The sound of a baby’s squall cut her words off. A tingle swept her body, a wave of joy and love and pride so great it brought tears to her eyes. Harry nuzzled her temple moist with perspiration, his hands warm and comforting beneath her breasts. “I love you, Plum. I love you more than anything I can think of—”
His words dried up too as the physician presented her with a bundle. “My lord, my lady, your daughter.”
“A daughter,” Plum said, tears of happiness spilling over her lashes as she took the baby, pulling back the cloth to admire the red-faced, pointy headed, splotchy skinned baby who yelled her opinion of the world she’d been pushed into, the volume of her protests indicating she would one day make a very fine opera singer. “She’s beautiful. She’s the most beautiful baby in the world, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is.” Harry kissed her temple again, reaching forward to stroke the baby’s clenched fists. “The most beautiful baby there ever was.”
“I think so too. Harry, look! She has toes!”
“Ten of them, I’ll wager. Shall we count?”
Delightedly, the new parents counted the baby’s toes, then feeling giddy with delight, counted her fingers as well.
“Promise me something, Harry,” Plum said some time later when she had been cleaned, and the babe tucked in beside her. He leaned across their daughter to kiss her.
“Anything, my darling,” he said against her lips.
“It’s about the baby.”
“Whatever you want, my love. Ponies, toys, the best education, frocks galore — it’s all hers.”
Plum’s eyes were alight with love as she nipped his lower lip, soothing the sting by sucking it into her mouth for a moment before releasing it. “Promise me she’ll never have children. It’s the most ghastly experience I’ve ever lived through! No woman should have to go through it. You can’t imagine the sort of pain you feel in labor. It’s indescribable, it’s absolutely indescribable, it’s so bad you want to set your hair on fire just to distract yourself from the consuming, absolute horribleness of it all. I will never, ever forget it, it’s bound to haunt me to the end of my days, giving me nightmares with the memory of the torturous, never-ending horror of it all. I think I’d rather be stomped on by a herd of elephants than go through another birth. Truly, the elephants would be nothing compared with the searing, burning, ripping, tearing, soul-rending sort of pain felt during the birth—”
“As you wish, my darling.”
The couple was silent for a moment, watching the child they’d made together until Plum felt the burden of the things she’d said to her beloved husband.
“Harry?”
“Hmm?”
Plum gave him her most winsome smile, which considering the nightmare she’d just been through, said much of her character. “I didn’t mean what I said earlier.”
“Ah. So you won’t really castrate me with two egg cups and a fish knife if I ever touch you again?” The devilish glint she loved so dearly was back in his eyes.
“A dull fish knife, and no, I won’t.”
“That’s reassuring to know.”
Her winsome smile faded as she adjusted her position, her body protesting the action. “Mind you, if you impregnate me again, I will take your scrotum, pull it over your head, and—”
“Thank you, my dear, you have made yourself quite clear.” Harry laughed and stopped Plum’s threats with the simple act of kissing her until she had no more breath, standing back when the door flew open and five children and Thom burst into the room, all chattering at once, all excited to see the new baby. Harry’s gaze met Plum’s as the children swarmed the baby, his heart filled with all the love and happiness she had brought him.
“What are you going to call the baby?” Thom asked, looking from Plum to him.
“We haven’t decided yet,” Plum said.
“I have,” Harry announced, a slow smile filling his eyes with laughter.
“You have? You said you didn’t have any preference. What name would you have the baby called by?” Plum asked him, her brow wrinkling in a puzzled frown.
He kissed her again, unable to keep from tasting the sweetness of her lips. His Plum, his delightful, entrancing, beguiling Plum.
“Vyvyan,” he said. “We’ll call her Vyvyan.”
And so they did.